Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 78

Race and intelligence
There is currently a discussion at No original research/Noticeboard regarding an issue that was discussed at this noticeboard last year in the RfC. At issue is the following sentence from Race and intelligence: The current scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups. More eyes welcome at WP:NOR/N. NightHeron (talk) 23:18, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It's amazing to think that the original race and intelligence arbitration case was in 2010, over a decade ago now, and yet PROFRINGE SPA's still regularly come out of the woodwork like beetle grubs emerging from deadwood. Only really been rivaled by the pro "lab leak" SPA's on the WIV article in the last 12 months. I noted that many people in the failed 2020 AfD noted that the article had major structural issues, can somebody give me a rundown of what these are? Given that the position idea that intelligence differences between "the races" (in reality this discussion is mostly about black and white people in the United States) was genetic in basis was affirmed to be fringe, can this structural issues be fixed? Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The biggest problem is the assumption that psychometrics is somehow measuring something innate about brain function rather than, say, social constructs. In certain properly controlled scenarios, for example in the examination of longitudinal data in the research surrounding iodine deficiency or lead poisoning, IQ differences in populations can be a proxy for other neurological and physiological conditions. The science surrounding these points is pretty secure. Beyond that, IQ is completely and utterly fraught and the mainstream psychometric researchers who are honest readily admit this. Of course, there are some, shall we say, motivated authors who would like to argue that Charles Murray should be taken seriously. But this is where the conversation grinds to a halt. "Surely, some amount of IQ is genetic" they say. This is rather like saying, "surely some amount of happiness is genetic" or "surely some amount of anxiety is genetic". Such generalized arguments are silly at best and racially motivated at worst. So.... jps (talk) 01:38, 23 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Permalink to the now-closed discussion thread for FTN archives, — Paleo Neonate  – 21:24, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

J. Bart Classen
Someone said something bad about, and an IP wants the article to say something bad about that someone although the article is not about that someone. I reverted and explained, but the IP seems to think "IDHT". --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:11, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Dybbuk box

 * Articles for deletion/The Dybbuk box
 * Articles for deletion/The Dybbuk box

Demons...Jewish mythology...rappers...Hollywood horror films. It’s the ideal fringe stew. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Biomass
The environmental impact of Biomass is depicted extremely positively on the biomass article. Reading that page, readers will literally learn that biomass is "the most important source of renewable energy." I find the page's portrayal of biomass startling given that the limited knowledge I have indicates that scientists see biomass far more skeptically (see for example this lengthy Politico piece and this shorter Guardian piece). I do not have substantive knowledge on the topic or the related scientific literature to contribute much to the page, however. Looking at the history of the page, it looks like a lot of content has been scrubbed and added in the last two years, primarily by one editor whose first edits on Wikipedia were to Bioenergy Europe, a lobbying group for the biomass industry. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:40, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The user in question,, has edited exclusively on this topic and the Second Coming, and has a suspected COI with the biomass industry. Miscanthus x giganteus, also heavily edited by this user, seems to be overly positive on its carbon-capture potential as well. I'd look at the other articles edited by this user, as they frequently add or remove large chunks of content. This is the last revision of the Biomass article before The Perennial Hugger started editing it in March 2019, and this is the last revision of Miscanthus x giganteus before their first edit in January 2019. Recommend that these revisions be restored, to the extent that information may have become outdated. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 03:07, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * N.b.: Forgot to mention that they frequently copy-paste content from external CC-licensed sources, and have two large revisions tagged for citing predatory open access journals. 03:11, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Hello and . My take is that the impact of bioenergy is depicted positively, but balanced, and with the objections portrayed in a fair manner, in the Wikipedia articles mentioned. The earlier versions of these articles were poorly written and dominated by low quality sources. The sources that dominate now are the highest quality you can get; official, highly respected reports from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), IEA (International Energy Agency), FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations), and IEA Bioenergy (bioenergy research group under the IEA.)


 * All the arguments mentioned in the two newspaper articles you linked to, are already covered in the Wikipedia biomass article, but in a more neutral tone (concepts like "tree killing" are not used, for instance), and also given more accuracy and authority than in the newspaper articles, since the opponents' actual scientific articles are quoted directly.


 * What you seem to be unaware of, is that the climate benefits of bioenergy has a large body of peer reviewed scientific research behind it. That is the real reason the IPCC supports it, and also the reason why they state that production forests (which include bioenergy) is a more powerful tool against global warming than forest protection. Read the article, it's all there.


 * Disagreement and discussion is inevitable of course, and it is included in the article, but as per Wikipedia guidelines, the mainstream view has been given the largest amount of space. It is actually rather paradoxical that you have started a thread under "Fringe theories" for the biomass page, as the arguments that dominates that page now is the put forth by the most respected authorities on the subject.


 * Regarding the Miscanthus x giganteus page, the sources here also come from mainstream scientific journals, and they indicate that miscanthus plants actually can work as carbon negative fuel, because of the large amounts of carbon that is stored below ground annually, and the small amount of carbon emitted during agriculture, processing and transport. Miscanthus growing is very rare however, and not mentioned by the IPCC and the other high-level research organizations (other than the plantations' positive impact on biodiversity and water quality, compared to annual crops.)


 * In my view I have removed many bad chunks of content and replaced them with chunks of better quality. So I have lifted the general quality of the affected pages, and hopefully helped a small amount in the fight against global warming. Reverting back to the poor, earlier versions, is to me simply a destructive proposal that runs counter to the established scientific view.


 * The quote from IEA that bioenergy is "the most important source of renewable energy" is relevant for the page i think. The reasoning behind it, I suspect, is that bioenergy contributes more energy than the other renewable energy options (this is a fact, see https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tables/?country=WORLD&energy=Balances).


 * PS - regarding copy-paste from CC-licensed content: I really believe that including direct quotes with actual page numbers from primary sources is a great way for the readers to easily dip their feet in the real science that backs up the articles. I was not aware that two of the many articles cited were on a black-list, but have been avoiding those since I learned about this fact.


 * Regarding Bioenergy Europe, I have no affiliation with them and have never received any compensation for my work on wikipedia from anyone. Can't even remember that edit.


 * I question the neutrality of Snooganssnoogans, who seem to have many accusations on the talk page about being biased.The Perennial Hugger (talk) 15:44, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * From my rudimentary understanding of the subject, there are different forms of biomass, and different processes that produce biomass for energy consumption. Your edits appear intended to gloss over these and obfuscate these differences. In particular, your original research that depicted scientists skeptical of thee environmental impact of certain forms of biomass as being against the "mainstream view" of reputable scientific bodies (your version of the lead said "However, the mainstream view is [against those scientists]"). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:01, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * You are correct that there are many types of biomass, with a very wide range of climate mitagation potential, ranging from really poor to really good. This fact is mentioned in the article, with relevant links to research about the subject. The focus on woody biomass is not because it is intended to obfuscate those differences, but because woody biomass is one of the most important renewable energy sources, and because someone started to post content on this, and I followed up. It is really frustrating to me that there are loud environmental activists active that don't see the potential, and seems to simply refuse conclusions coming from the top climate research organizations in the world.
 * What you refer to as "original research" in the lead section is just an un-referenced summary of the very well referenced content in the main body of the article. This is exactly how the lead section is supposed to work. An assertion that the IPCCs, IEAs, EUs and FAOs view on bioenergy represent the "mainstream" view can hardly be labeled as "original research".The Perennial Hugger (talk) 17:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Robert Lanza
WP:PROFRINGE edit warring at Robert Lanza. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:55, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Weird stuff is going on there. I don't know what to make of it. Can anyone confirm he was an adjunct professor at Wake Forest University? jps (talk) 19:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It's also made it to WP:ANI, see Possible attempt to discredit Robert Lanza.  He  iro  21:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Update: apparently solved for now with suggestions at the article's talk page, — Paleo Neonate  – 02:09, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

John Ioannidis / COVID-19
Some new WP:SPA activity and disagreement about how to represent Ioannidis' outlier views. Probably could use more eyes. Alexbrn (talk) 06:16, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Jibin Joy and oxygen
So I recently came across an edit request wanting to add some material from someone called Jibin Joy, cited as an "Independent Translational Scientific Researcher" from Kochi, India who is "not affiliated" with any institution. Skimming through those sources:, it seems the main point he's trying to get across is that all diseases are caused by not having enough oxygen in your blood, and that thus all diseases can be cured by adding more oxygen in your blood. Some choice quotes: Universe is an unquestionable natural truth that identifies itself and us as 'unity'. Human consciousness cannot be considered locally storedin the nervous system. Genetic predispositions can be corrected byenhancing oxygenation since oxygen is the real time mediator of homeo-static regulation... Since the homeostatic regulation in the ecology of life is mediated by oxygen, an enhancement  in  oxygenation  thereby  results  in reestablishment  of  homeostatic  regulation. This reestablishment of homeostatic regulation can neutralize and negate disorder genesis, and will lead to restoration of health. And reestablishment of homeostatic regulation is the one and only requirement for healing. Plus some extra Ayurveda mixed in with all of that.

I've denied another one of those edit requests and removed some material cited to this person over at Homeostasis, but I'm not sure that this is all of it and frankly I'm not entirely sure of what's going on here with all this stuff. --Volteer1 (talk) 10:37, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Your assessment is right, for the time being I couldn't find other in-article instances. I sent the standard notices to the main account (I expect the two IP addresses that geolocate to the same area to also be the same user), — Paleo  Neonate  – 02:20, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I guess this "scientist" has never talked to a medical doctor, or they'd be aware of hyperoxia. We should be able to dismiss this person's opinion without second thought. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 17:11, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Big History
I noticed the Big History template while poking around cosmology articles. It and the article Big History seem ... well, grandiose would be one term. WP:SYNTH would be another. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:44, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * A bit promotional but I am opposed to deletion. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:34, 24 March 2021 (UTC).
 * It's more than a bit promotional; it's dreadful. In the same way that Fritjof Capra carried out an analysis of the parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism, the teaching of the Big History in universities of Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and Argentina is nourished by the worldview of their ancestor to analyze the parallels between the scientific discoveries and the original knowledge of the native and indigenous peoples. That's taking the fringe ball and running with it. Maybe there's a notable topic underneath all the dross, but the current article does few favors to the reader trying to find it (and the template looks to be pure synthetic cruft). XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:55, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Does seem pretty synthy, The article gets on average around 160 views per day. I think there is a decent rationale for deletion of the big history template, though I doubt one on the article itself would pass. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:09, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It is the kitschy nature of the presentation, rather than the topic itself, that is the problem. Maybe a new category is needed: kitsch science. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:50, 24 March 2021 (UTC).
 * As an aside, the similarities Capra found are there because Bohr, Pauli and Heisenberg had all read Eastern philosophy and arbitrarily inserted concepts from there into the Copenhagen interpretation - which is not the same as "modern physics" or even quantum physics. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:04, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, Schrödinger (who was not an advocate of any of the various views lumped together as "the" Copenhagen interpretation) had a real interest in Eastern philosophy, found some of it inspirational and wrote about it at some length. Very fascinating intellectual history, if you're into physicists being weird, but not really pertinent to the "similarities" that Capra made much of. Anyway, as regards "Big History", perhaps the template should go to TfD. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:29, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes I don't think anyone advocates to delete it. I remember reading about this after reading a few books about deep history last year and writing an article about one of the books (on deep history, not on big history).  Maybe one thing that should be clearer in the article is that it's a movement in education, versus more conventional scientific historical disciplines (this contrasts it with deep history, geological time, etc).  This movement also has a syncretic component trying to marry tradition and science.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 21:03, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * dross removed. My impression is that one over-enthusiastic instructor from UNA Ecuador inserted this material possibly as a self-promotion. Hallucinations and Frijtof Capra love-ins are really not what the most prominent proposals of Big History are about. jps (talk) 22:30, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Dross removal looks good. It may also be worth checking which of the people named in the article actually affiliated themselves with the "Big History" banner, and which were merely claimed in retrospect. Carl Sagan looks like an example of the latter, for instance. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:12, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Good point! Although I believe the enterprise takes a tremendous amount of inspiration from Cosmos (TV series). Sagan should be described as "original flavor" rather than an affiliate. jps (talk) 00:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Article may need improvement but Big History was all the rage, I remember when I was in high school it was being taught at one of the local high schools so I'm convinced it's notable. There are many sources on Google Scholar, they should be cited: (t &#183; c)  buidhe  19:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve the article, delete the template. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:04, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a neat way of approaching The First Three Minutes or Cosmic Calendar type considerations. I don't know that I like the branding all that much, but contextualizing history and archaeology and paleontology and geology and astrophysics and cosmology into one time-based connection is a nice pedagogical approach often. jps (talk) 22:11, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Is there something in the air? This has also landed at ANI. jps (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * For entertainment, adding a reference to David Bowie's "Something in the air" from album Hours, that was also a song included in the Omikron game, — Paleo Neonate  – 16:47, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Alexei Eryomin and noo-topics
There seems to be some synthesis and possibly COI editing going on with a cluster of articles involving I found my way into this via the AfD for "Noometry", which pointed to this thread at WikiProject Medicine. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 13:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I made Noogenesis into a redirect but was reverted; frankly, it's a garbage article and something needs to be done about it. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:48, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's basically that "Omega Point" nonsense again. The fatuous and illogical teleological argument redivivus as incomprehensible woo. What a mess! Other subjects mentioned in that discussion I have not looked at but are doubtless magnets for fringe of this kind. GPinkerton (talk) 00:52, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "Noometry" was deleted but the other articles still need attention. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Anyone feel like taking the editing machete to noogenesis? There's possibly some material of historical interest near the beginning, but everything that starts with "Recent developments" reads like Ray Kurzweil machine-translated into Russian and back and wikified under the influence of a righteous bong hit or three. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 05:44, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Articles for deletion/Noogenesis. jps (talk) 23:17, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for posting that; I have to mostly step away for a while (no time for content work, no energy for behind-the-scenes disputes), but I left a !vote. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 23:30, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/Information ecology jps (talk) 23:42, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/Alexei Eryomin jps (talk) 23:43, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * A number of sockpuppets have been blocked. I'm not sure whether their comments should be struck from the remaining open discussions or not. jps (talk) 14:50, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, notes were added to the Noogenesis AfD, if there are other open discussions I missed them, — Paleo Neonate  – 16:18, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Both Information ecology and Noogenesis were closed as kept, with remarks about needing cleanup. I've made an attempt at trimming them (I'd kind of figured this would be the outcome). XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Centre for Fortean Zoology
This CFZ "organization" is almost a one man backyard cryptozoology thing from a cottage in Devon. Jonathan Downes runs it from his cottage. Downes himself was using sock-puppets back around 2008 to edit this article and related ones. He even turned up on the talk-page


 * Jonathan Downes
 * Centre for Fortean Zoology
 * Richard Freeman (cryptozoologist)

I am not seeing any independent reliable references for these articles. The Centre for Fortean Zoology reads as self-promotion. Downes also created his friends Wikipedia article Richard Freeman (cryptozoologist). This is obviously a conflict of interest issue. The page says he is a "zoological director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology". However, Freeman is not a qualified in zoology or any related field of study. He does not appear to be notable.

The CFZ website claims to be the only scientific cryptozoological organization in the UK. On the same page it say it "is based in an old country house in rural Devonshire, parts of which are well over 200 years old. It is home to several ghosts". The article has 13 references, 8 of them were written by Downes. The rest is only passing mention. What should be done here? I believe these articles should be merged or deleted. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:26, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Starting a bundled AfD for all three pages together seems reasonable. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:20, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This article has now been nominated for deletion. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 22:50, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

More eyes needed at Space elevator.
See Talk:Space elevator. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems that you are the one perpetuating this dispute, along with one from December 2020–January 2021 on the same topic, but your opponent is problematic as well.  You both agree that currently available materials cannot be used to build a space elevator, but you disagree on whether carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could be strong enough. You,, believe that CNTs are not strong enough, while  argues that they are. mfb is correct that your secondary sources misrepresent the papers, such as by assuming that only a particular design is feasible, and that you attempted to add an unreliable blog supporting your conclusion. Aravind 2007, as cited in the article, calculates a taper ratio of 1.6 using a tensile strength of 130 GPa for possible future CNTs, and concludes that CNTs are theoretically feasible (confirming mfb's view), but may or may not be practical due to degradation by environmental factors. But mfb definitely violated WP:SYNTH by using calculations to draw conclusions not supported by the paper, and also committed a personal attack against an IP user who participated in the discussion, and both of you have run afoul of WP:NOTFORUM for discussing the topic instead of the article.  In conclusion, both of you may end up at ANI for continuing an unencyclopedic dispute. –LaundryPizza03 ( d  c̄ ) 16:39, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Himalayan salt

 * Earlier thread: Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive_63
 * Draft:Chinen Salt
 * Draft:Chinen Salt

Looks like an ad campign for this is just starting. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:16, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Draft tagged for G11; cause 'duh, that's what it is. The article might be a target for protection; alternatively the link could go to the spam blacklist. Or it might just be one UPE who needs a block. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:03, 2 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Chinen salt cannot be approved as an article in any case because it would be a POV fork of Himalayan salt. It even says in the lead that the two words mean the same thing. TFD (talk) 21:53, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I’m particularly impressed that it has a “high mineral content apart from being pure.” Brunton (talk) 22:09, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Obvious contradictions and other bollocks aside, the FRINGE issue is that it was making clear bio-medical claims without citing anything (much less anything resembling a MEDRS). But it's a candidate for CSD; and the editors who added the link to Himalayan salt should be investigated for UPE... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:12, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Tariq Nasheed and Hidden Colors
See WP:NPOVN Fringe films and fringe producer/commentator. Doug Weller talk 10:10, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Comparison of Japanese and Korean
I feel like there is something wrong with, it seems to contain some WP:PROFRINGE. I (from a different IP) added Template:Fringe theories to the article and started a discussion in the talk page, but the template was removed by another IP with the following edit sumary but without a message in the talk page: "even if a relationship between the two is still disputed, that does not make it a 'fringe' idea (which implies total scholarly rejection)"

I feel like the article try to convince the reader that there is a genetic relationship between the Japanese and Korean languages (which is against the current linguistic consensus). The beginning of the article is not as bad, there are some sentences informing the reader this is not the main theory, but they are counter-balanced by pro-fringe sentences.

Like I said the talk page: "I guess it's acceptable to make an article about every linguistic theory floating around, however the article should be clearer that this is not an accepted theory. It should give the arguments in favor of this theory from a neutral point of view instead of trying to convince the reader that this theory is true.

The content of the article is mostly bad linguistic, making a comparison table for numerals containing only supporting evidence (the numbers 3, 5, 7, 10) is so disingenuous, and it's followed by a random 'Also, Sillan language called 3 as 'Mil' too.' This is absurd.

The introduction ends with 'Any relation between the two languages remains controversial.' which is good, but it's prefixed by a sentence suggesting this is a political/cultural issue, while it's mainly a scientific one. The remaining of the article is written to convince the reader that there is a genetic connection between the Japanese and Korean languages, so I decided to add the WP:FRNG template."

Maybe I was wrong to put Template:Fringe theories on the whole article and should have added it only to some section? But I feel like all sections are guilty of WP:PROFRINGE there.

109.15.168.117 (talk) 09:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this up IP. The idea that Japanese and Korean have a genetic link is indeed fringe among linguists. Alexander Vovin wrote a lengthy takedown of it somewhere. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:39, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The book in question is Koreo-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:45, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I've removed the "vocabulary" section entirely; it appeared to be based only on a student thesis and was wildly WP:UNDUE weight. User:力 (power~enwiki, π,  ν ) 00:10, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Recent human evolution implied that Africans are less evolved
Recent human evolution has some issues that could use more attention, especially from editors who are knowledgeable about evolution and scientific racism.

The article stated that Humans living in humid tropical areas show the least sign of evolution... and As such, Europeans and East Asians appear to have undergone evolution at a faster rate than Africans, who are precisely where modern humans originated. In context, this isn't quite as extreme as it appears, but it's still indirectly implying that Africans are "less evolved" than non-Africans. It's possible to interpret this with more nuance, but the bland reading of this paragraph is a misrepresentation of evolution that closely aligns with historical scientific racism. I removed this content, but it was restored by with superficial changes as "Miscellaneous improvements".

Much of these claims come from Nicholas Wade, who is himself a bit controversial, but this isn't really conveyed in the article. Further, the article also claims that Contrary to popular belief, not only are humans still evolving, their evolution since the dawn of agriculture is faster than ever before. This is sourced pop-sci coverage of the work of John D. Hawks. Per the lead of his biography article, Contrary to the common view that cultural evolution has made human biological evolution insignificant, Hawks believes that biological evolution has sped up in recent history. In other words, one article is saying this is a contested viewpoint, while the main article for the topic is taking his position at face value and placing it in the lead without nuance or comment.

The article also cited Henry Harpending, who was a eugenicist, and Gregory Cochran who proposes that homosexuality is a disease. In other words, both have documented histories of promoting very fringe ideas regarding genetics, race, etc. Both of them also worked with Hawks, which suggests this is a walled garden.

These are all red flags, but since this is outside my area of expertise, it would be helpful to have some help from someone with more knowledge of these issues and the relevant literature. Grayfell (talk) 01:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * That whole article is a dumpster fire. Was the article any better before 's massive additions? Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:00, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * this revision from 2018 looks ok, though I don't see why it would warrant a separate article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:07, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * At a glance it looks better to me. The Wade, Harpending, and Hawk sources were already there, though. There's also a "see also" link to dysgenics and The 10,000 Year Explosion. Grayfell (talk) 02:10, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * John D. Hawks from what I can tell is a well respected paleoanthropologist, definitely not a fringe figure, though his views are not guaranteed to be a majority opinion. He published a paper in PNAS in 2007 on the topic, entitled, Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution which has been cited over 600 times. Might be worth seeing what the recent citations make of the paper. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:13, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * That paper is coauthored with Harpending and Cochran and others. It should be evaluated on its merits, but (as a reminder) the pair's studies on "Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence" were previously discussed at Articles for deletion/Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence (2nd nomination) and I think on this noticeboard as well. As I said, these names are a red flag, especially regarding race and genetics. Grayfell (talk)
 * Fair enough, I didn't put two and two together on the names, my apologies, that definitely makes the paper questionable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:27, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Isn't the claim that alcohol is safer to those who have trouble metabolizing it in relation to dehydrogenase fringe too? As for the claim that Europeans have more survival pressure, I read about it before, but it seems unlikely, considering the relative comfort and medical advancements in developed economies (i.e. people tend to survive to many conditions that used to be quite deadly, as shown by birth and other mortality rate statistics).  If we only consider cognitive factors, less successful individuals that are not subject to serious pathology are not necessarily eliminated although there's of course sexual selection...  Another is that with globalization humans are no longer isolated from eachother in small distant groups for millenia, are no longer in gradual geographic expansion situations where adaptive radiations matter, etc.  So another claim is made to account for this, that random mostly neutral mutations are more important.  Since Wikipedia doesn't really care about individual hypothetical papers, let's see what a textbook says when comparing punctuated equilibrium and phyletic gradualism: "Almost all researchers now accept that most of the morphological change involved in evolution occurs at the time of speciation."  It's about morphology more than intelligence though, something the book avoids to get into, except for the mention that the relationship between brain morphology and intelligence is difficult to assess (pages 99, 115).  — Paleo  Neonate  – 06:01, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Why is the alcohol claim fringe? As for the Hawks et al. paper, PNAS is very mainstream and I've seen this paper cited approvingly by other highly mainstream sources. One can check Google Scholar and find some. Recent human evolution in things like lactose tolerance, high altitude adaptations, and like matters which are very precisely measureable and traceable to certain genes, aren't like race and intelligence "speculations". I note that the "author contributions" bit states that "J.H. and R.K.M. wrote the paper", so Harpending and Cochran weren't involved in that part, for what it's worth. Crossroads -talk- 06:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned on the article's talk page, the article makes some comments that could be taken to imply that evolutionary pressure causes specific mutations, which is veering into Lysenkoism. The alcohol stuff was one example. A pop-sci NYT article probably isn't sufficient for any sort of causal relationship, regardless. Also, anything about the safety of alcohol is starting to verge into MEDRS a little bit.
 * The European pressure thing strongly reminds me of of the Cold winters theory. There are many, many reasons to be skeptical of claims like that, and debunking it is reinventing the wheel. Grayfell (talk) 07:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I find the claim that Europeans have undergone evolution at a faster rate than Africans and thus are more evolved interesting, seeing as I just recently read on a racist pseudoscience website (a post on a skeptics forum pointed me to it -- I have strange hobbies) that Africans have had a longer period to evolve than Europeans and thus are more evolved. Of course everybody knows [ Citation Needed ] that the pinnacle of evolution is echolocation ability, with humans the least evolved, dolphins the most evolved, and bats somewhere in between. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Human echolocation is possible, it's just that, as everyone knows, humans are somewhat more lazy than bats and significantly more lazy than dolphins. Grayfell (talk) 07:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I think you guys missed the point that being "evolved" here is with respect to a given environment, not "better" in the general sense. That's what biological evolution is all about, being well-adapted to one's environments. Nerd271 (talk) 15:17, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * You forgot that "modern medicine" did not exist for much of human existence. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that we started to have remarkably better medical treatments compared to our ancestors thanks in no small part to the germ theory of disease. Nerd271 (talk) 15:25, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Nah, we all got that just fine. It's not that complicated, after all. The problem is that the article utterly fails to make this distinction clear and even if it did, it would still be a problem. Obliquely implying that Africans are better adapted to Africa than Europe isn't better. Describing some populations of humans as "more" evolved in any way is subjective, incredibly loaded, and would need a lot of context. Presumably there are much better ways to explain this that don't involve superiority/inferiority. In an article about evolution, we cannot get sloppy with these ideas. It doesn't help that this misinterpretation about evolution also happens to align with scientific racism, but this would be a problem either way. Grayfell (talk) 21:02, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * No, you didn't. There is nothing subjective about saying one group of organisms is better adapted to certain conditions than other groups. As an example, chances are, you are not as good as the Sea Gypsies in free-diving because your living conditions and those of your ancestors did not require you to be able to dive for extended periods of time underwater. As an analogy, think of Darwin's finches, a beautifully clear example of living things adapting to their local environments, more precisely, their food sources. Some sets of traits are more suitable for a given environment than others. After all, this planet is not uniform. What works in one case does not necessarily work in another. Different peoples are differently talented, so to speak, because their ancestors evolved to adapt to different conditions.
 * That certain scientific ideas get abused by politically extreme factions needs not deter us from informing the public, which is the very purpose of Wikipedia. Why should we allow them to dictate what to discuss? Nerd271 (talk) 00:52, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You're comparing again Homo Sapiens with different species and situations like adaptive radiations in birds. Can you find a source that's not a theoretical paper that confirms there's a type of consensus that human abilities like intelligence are expected to vary today mostly because of group genetics?  Without such the discussion is not very helpful for the encyclopedia...  I would agree that there were adaptations like skin pigmentation, epicanthic fold, that happened from time to time, especially when groups were greatly isolated for millenia.  How can one conclude that any of those is "more evolved"?  — Paleo  Neonate  – 05:22, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll mention a few examples to show that apples and oranges are compared: viruses and bacteria have a very high generation rate and their evolution can be observed so well that many creationists accept that microevolution happens despite rejecting macroevolution that is the same at a much larger scale. Birds also have much shorter generations and although it takes more time, it too can be observed directly enough (i.e. ).  Here we could compare Neanderthals and Sapiens Sapiens as very close relatives like Gray warbler and Common cactus finches.  Still, humans like us (all extant humans) are considered to have been without serious great ape competition since at least 14-18k years ago, and behavioral modernity is considered to be at least 40k years ago, possibly even 150k...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 07:31, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned on the article's talk page, I think there is an even simpler problem. One of the underlying fringe assumptions here is that there is a single African population, and that this population is "more evolved" (better adapted) to Africa because they have spent longer in Africa. This makes them "differently talented" towards some skill that improves survival in Africa, but less so elsewhere. This superficially plausible assumption only makes sense if Africa is monolithic, unchanging, and totally isolated from the rest of the world. None of these assumptions are valid. This view also ignores the possibility that African people move within Africa, and also ignores the changes that would be caused by the population itself, since being "more evolved" would alter the environment these purely hypothetical, completely homogenized Africans lived in. Grayfell (talk) 08:40, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

COVID antivax
Seems to be an antivax problem brewing (e.g. ). More eyes needed. Alexbrn (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Since it's topic-related and current, also linking — Paleo  Neonate  – 23:02, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Geir Bjørklund
I'm not familiar with the person but the article came to my attention because it cites an article from the antivax World Mercury Project site (apparently related to Children's Health Defense). Research in exposure to heavy metals is legitimate and the article doesn't have any mention of vaccination. The cited problematic source indeed mentions Bjørklund but also adds a mention of ethylmercury as a preservative in some vaccines (true but considered of no concern except by the antivax), then adds the dubious claim that children with ASD are particularly more sensitive to heavy metal bioaccumulation (no idea if it's editorial or part of Bjørklund's claims). We've also seen dubious amalgam-exposition claims before and this seems to be related to Bjørklund's work (on the other hand, it mentions occupational exposure for dentists which may be more legitimate than concerns for patients with amalgams). Maybe the only issue is the use of this problematic source, but more eyes welcome. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate  – 04:59, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Ticks all the wooster boxes. Watchlisted. -Roxy the sycamore . wooF 09:15, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So I had some time to look at this closer today. My impression remains that the main issue is citing the unreliable source.  |The CONEM website's vaccine section seemed a bit concerning at first as it includes 2017 material related to a petition with mention of mercury in vaccines, then a 2015 "The connection between Thiomersal in Vaccines and Autism" although already known to be safe by 2004 (but that is by someone else also on CONEM):  .  There are unsubstantiated claims (that Thiomersal might be related to autism) the goal still seems to advocate for alternative preservatives not to blame vaccines in general (and it's known that despite no valid scientific concern the public perception matters for acceptance).  Then I found this paper where Bjørklund participated about vaccine hesitancy and see no indication of antivax pushing there.  It would not be surprising for sites like World Mercury Project to mention scientists while pushing for their own views and I'll simply remove that citation for now.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 23:13, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Also a note: has been suspected of COI promotional editing (1, 2 (this article now salted), 3). — Paleo Neonate  – 23:43, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Chinese herbology
I just reverted a series of edits at Chinese herbology which looked dubious to me. Review of the revert, and eyes on the page, would be welcome. Girth Summit  (blether) 14:37, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I wrote up a topic ban warning for the user, but then realized they haven't edited after your response here, Girth Summit. That's good, as I don't like to threaten new users (at least, not with new users who are trying to do the right thing), but they certainly need to slow down and take some cognizance of our policies. Hopefully they're reading up on them right now. You've certainly given them plenty of good advice. (Watchlisting.) Bishonen &#124; tålk 15:42, 8 April 2021 (UTC).

Candace Owens, COVID-conspiracy theories
There is a kerfuffle on the Candace Owens page about whether the article can contain (i) a "COVID conspiracy theorist" tag and (ii) whether it can mention Owens's ranting about how Bill Gates and the WHO are experimenting with vaccines on "tribal children". The argument for removing the first thing appears to be that Owens's main claim to notability is not as a COVID conspiracy theorist, and the argument for removing the second thing is that Owens doesn't specifically mention COVID vaccines in her remarks about Bill Gates experimenting on tribal children, although her remarks are clearly in the context of COVID-vaccines (and it's covered in that context by reliable sources). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This isn't really a useful question. If Owens is claiming vaccines in general are bad then that is a fringe idea.  The issues on the talk page have more to do with BLP and DUE questions.  You are presenting a misleading question here that isn't strictly related to the concerns on the talk page thus the answers here aren't really going to help clarify things.  Tagging a BLP subject as any type of conspiracy theorist is a BLPN question even if we all agree a specific claim the person promoted is fringe/misinformation etc.  Presenting things a BLP subject said at different times as if they were said at the same time is a NOR question.  Springee (talk) 18:57, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the general principle is that we should identify people as conspiracy theorists when that is their main notability. A title, "conspiracy theorist" is best used to identify someone who is known for that sort of advocacy (and there will be reliable sources that identify them mostly in that context). However, identifying ideas that a person supports as a "conspiracy theory" is appropriate when reliable sources identify this. I see some sources identify the ideas that Owens is arguing vis-a-vis Bill Gates as conspiracy theories. Since she is not known primarily for this claim right now, giving her the title "conspiracy theorist" is a kind of WP:Undue weight. jps (talk) 19:58, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Gary Taubes‎
Some disagreement on whether Taubes' unorthodox views on obesity science should be flagged-up in the lede. More eyes welcome. Alexbrn (talk) 17:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)


 * This article relates to the biography of a living person, which has special rules and considerations. Please handle it under that notice board. Thank you. Gsonnenf (talk) 21:05, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. WP:BLP applies to biographical information anywhere on Wikipedia, not to particular articles. Biographical articles contain a mix of types of content. This is a question of how biomedical views are characterized. Alexbrn (talk) 21:12, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Centre for Fortean Zoology and Jonathan Downes
An editor recently drew my attention to two fringe articles on Wikipedia that I hadn't noticed before: Jonathan Downes and Centre for Fortean Zoology, both focused on cryptozoology. Both appear to primarily have been authored by Downes and/or members of the Centre for Fortean Zoology. The first of the two is up for deletion and I've redirected the latter article to cryptozoology for now (I'm sure it'll simply be reverted), but it should likely be outright deleted, as it pretty clearly fails WP:RS and Notability. Whatever happens, both could certainly use more eyes from editors who work with fringe topics. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 03:21, 29 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Adding for FTN archive's sake: CFZ Press (now a redirect following AfD, old revision), The Weird Weekend (redirect since 2014, old revision), Richard Freeman (cryptozoologist). — Paleo  Neonate  – 16:38, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Current afd for Centre for Fortean Zoology Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:38, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The AfD for the Centre has been closed as delete. Anyone feel like nominating Richard Freeman (cryptozoologist)? The wiki-notability case looks very dubious to me. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:29, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Eric Weinstein
A brand new user wants to reshape the article on Eric Weinstein to reflect his pioneering contribution to physics, viz. Geometric Unity, and downplay his involvement in the [pseudo]intellectual dark web. Since there are basically no reliable sources on that (, it's resoundingly ignored as crank theories tend to be), this depends on primary-sourced crap like Weinstein's video exposition of his theory, blogs and the like.

I'm pretty sure we've been round this loop before, possibly even with the same user in a different guise, but I don't follow fringe physics much, so maybe regulars here will be more familiar. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:31, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The blog post by Nguyen is potentially usable per WP:SPS (subject-matter expert making non-biographical claims about ideas), but I can't for the life of me see why we should point to random YouTube videos and podcasts. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:36, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Are all Jews to be called "Middle Eastern" ?
There is a long history of editors (both IP and registered) at List of Middle Eastern superheroes claiming that all Jewish superheroes can be called "Middle Eastern superheroes" and should therefore be included in the list. E.g August 2020. They have always been reverted. On March 5, 2021 started the discussion
 * Talk:List_of_Middle_Eastern_superheroes, followed by
 * Talk:List_of_Middle_Eastern_superheroes and
 * Talk:List_of_Middle_Eastern_superheroes.

I repeatedly demanded they present reliable sources for their claim. They presented sources which - in my eyes - fall short of supporting their claim. Some hours ago, I posted uw-chat1 on their user's talk page with the explanation, "I am referring to your repeated promotion of the theory that all Jews should be called "Middle Eastern" which is not backed by any reliable sources." Afterwards, they changed the scope of the list, I reverted back to status quo and posted uw-ew on their talk page. They tagged the list with.

I know that the theory has been discussed before, e.g.
 * Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Judaism/Archive_32
 * Category_talk:People_of_Jewish_descent/Archive_1.

--Rsk6400 (talk) 18:47, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Would not being Middle eastern have to do with where that person is from, not their race?Slatersteven (talk) 18:49, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * This is not a fringe theory. There is long standing consensus on both the Middle East and Ethnic groups in the Middle East pages that Jews are indeed a native ethnic group for the Middle East.    It's supported by RS.
 * Rsk6400 is just trying to push through his own personal bias here.  If he feels he is correct, he should try to get consensus on those talk pages instead of using this page.  Until then, he needs to accept consensus and stop standing in the way of ethnic Jews being listed as Middle Eastern.  -- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:58, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Israelis are Middle Eastern, Jews are not necessarily. An ethnically Chinese convert to Judaism, or the descendant of Ashkenazi Jews from Poland is not from "the Middle East" in any meaningful way. User:力 (power~enwiki,  π,  ν ) 19:07, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * It's also a question based on a false premise. All Jews are not Middle Eastern, but ethnic Jews are Middle Eastern which is supported by RS and long standing consensus.  Sure a random Jew might be a convert, but a random Arab might actually be a European who's been adopted.  The Jewish ethnic group is Middle Eastern.  Period.  -- Bob drobbs (talk) 19:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This is quite overstretching the word "native". "Native" to an area does not mean "historically originating" from an area. E.g., Ashkenazi Jews are ethnic Jews, but only the Isrealis among their descendants have become "native Middle Easterners" by relatively recent migration to Israel (or Palestine before the foundation of modern Israel), side by side with other Jewish groups from outside of the Middle East, and of course also including Jewish groups that have continuously lived in the Middle East for ages. –Austronesier (talk) 20:21, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * How do we explore the ancestry of fictional people? They don't even have one if the author doesn't give them one. --mfb (talk) 21:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Austronesier The Middle East page lists a number of ethnic group as being "native to" the Middle East.  The more in depth Ethnic groups in the Middle East page refers to "indigenous, native, or long-standing ethnic groups".  Both pages include Jews.  In any case, we should refer to those pages as being the agreed upon consensus in this matter, and not Rsk6400's claim that this is a fringe theory solely because he personally feels some legitimate RS 'fall short'. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 22:12, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * - Of course the Jewish faith/culture/etc ultimately has its origins in the Middle East/the Levant region of Western Asia. But the migration/diaspora of Jews, especially those who migrated to Europe was thousands of years ago. I agree with the points of and  - At the risk of sounding repetitive, are we going to say that Stan Lee is a "Middle Eastern American" even though his Ashkenazi Jewish parents were from Europe? There are ethnic groups who migrated from Asia thousands of years ago like the Romany people or "Gypsies" (originally from South Asia), and the Native Americans. I'm pretty sure most don't consider the Romany (or people in the Romany diaspora) as being "South Asian", or the Native Americans as being "Asian Americans" or other similar terms, unless I'm wrong. "Bob drobbs", you also seem to have the same issue with the Middle Eastern American page, with you and other users claiming that all Jews in the diaspora (including those of European background) must automatically be part of the aforementioned label, even though no reliable source has been provided saying that all Jewish Americans are by default, "Middle Eastern American" or "West Asian" or whatever. As I mentioned on the talk page. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 05:09, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think we're beating a dead horse at this point, but one more rhetorical question: should we consider all Jews to be Egyptian (because of The Exodus)? User:力 (power~enwiki, π,  ν ) 05:12, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

This is not a WP:FRINGE issue. Categorization and labeling is necessarily fraught and is the one area where limited original research is tolerated on WP. The question is really one for an appropriately phrased WP:RfC. Frankly, the idea that there should be any lists at all identifying where superheroes are supposed to be from strikes me as absurdly WP:INUNIVERSE. jps (talk) 00:37, 1 April 2021 (UTC)


 * All Jews are not to be called Middle Eastern (or Asian) by default, especially Ashkenazi Jews. There are endless discussions about this e.g. at Category talk:People of Jewish descent or Category talk:North American Jews. These discussions are usually plagued by exterior canvassing and a number of SPAs showing up repeating the same arguments in the face of common logic. It is quite not the same to consider that Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE and that the "Middle Eastern" label is the best way to describe the Jews of today. Jewish identity (like most ethnic and religious identities) involves and supersedes many things that assimilated into a new distinct identity. Attempts to place this Middle Eastern / Asian moniker on anything Jewish is actually pretty disrespectful towards the richness and the strength of Jewish identity. WP:UNDUE comes to mind where Jewish communities that lived for millenia outside of the Middle East, while keeping a remarkable continuity in tradition but also incorporating elements through contact with their neighbours. My stomach is turned when the European character in the identity of European Jews is so easily carved out. On a more basic note, calling all Jews "Middle Eastern" based on a several-millenium-old origin is akin to:
 * calling all French people "Bavarians" because the Franks originated in Franconia, a region now in Bavaria
 * calling all Sephardi Jews "Spanish" because they originated in medieval Spain
 * calling all Russians "Ukrainians" because they consider the Kievan Rus' to be their original motherland
 * while you're at it, also calling all Russians "Swedes" because this state was established by a group of Varangians from present-day Sweden
 * calling all Mormons "Jews" because of the journeys of ancient Israelites to America taught in the Book of Mormon
 * In short, placing one long-remote element of identity (the Ancient Levant origins) above all other elements that make the Jewish identity is not only undue weight, it is plain nonsense. Place Clichy (talk) 01:32, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Jews have lived in Greece for about 2500 years and in Italy for at least 2200 years, well before Christianity came into existence in the Middle East. Ashkenazi Jews have lived in Northern Europe for at least 1000 years. I am a Jew with significant Irish and Scandinavian ancestry but no known Middle Eastern ancestry. If you go back far enough, every human being is of African ancestry. Those facts argue against categorizing all Jews as Middle Eastern although many are. What makes this particular discussion quite absurd is that we are talking about fictional superheroes. Any editor working on ethnoreligious categorization of fictional pop-culture characters ought to re-think their priorities. It is not encyclopedic and really quite ridiculous. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  01:59, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * - I agree with what you said. It seems like a pretty cut and dry situation. Beyond a few fringe groups, no one's going to look at Albert Einstein or Stan Lee and consider them "Middle Eastern". Even when it comes to Jews from Israel, though all people from Israel are from/are Middle Eastern/Western Asian, they may or may not be ethnically Middle Eastern/West Asian. An Ashkenazi Jew in Israel would obviously still be European ethnically. So I guess it depends on whether we categorize/label them by where they're from or based on their ethnic background (or both, IDK). Anyways, beyond this, it does seem to be only a few users (IP and or otherwise) who keep pushing the narrative that every person in the Jewish diaspora must be included as being Middle Eastern/Asian. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 07:29, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Just noticed that IPs and one SPA edit Middle Eastern Americans based on the same fringe theory, e.g. this edit which I reverted. --Rsk6400 (talk) 06:42, 2 April 2021 (UTC) This is forum shopping. User:Bob drobbs started an RfC on March 28th at Talk:List of Middle Eastern superheroes. He presented two positions, one that it should only include those born in and lived in the Middle East. The other was "Another idea is that anyone of any "Middle Eastern ethnicities" should also be counted, but total disagreement and no consistent standards about who qualifies." Hardly neutral, but it got worse as he concluded with the statement that "Outside, non-biased, thoughts would be much appreciated." Which raises the question in my mind as to who was going to decide what thoughts were non-biased. 3 days later he reverted text in the article with the edit summary "Agreement in the RFC. No stated disagreement to the selection criteria proposed. Get new consensus before changing again.". That was far too soon for an agreement to be reached and I don't see one. Later that day he said he was closing the RfC (he should have withdrawn it), said that an editor was acting in bad faith and except for the lack of the RfC template no one would know it was "closed"), said that an editor was acting in bad faith and that he was moving the discussion elsewhere, ie here . Shutting down a 3 day old RfC because you are unhappy with it and moving the discussion is a misuse of the RfC process and forumshopping . Doug Weller  talk 12:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)


 * no, sorry, I was the one who started this discussion here. But I didn't start that RfC. I was also the one who was accused of bias and bad faith. I totally agree with the rest of your comment. --Rsk6400 (talk) 12:10, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * my bad. He said he was moving the discussion and I assumed he'd moved it here.  Doug Weller  talk 15:53, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The difference between calling French people Bavarians and Jews Middle Eastern is the connection Jews have felt with Israel even though they were cleansed from their ancestral home. I think a related question would be how many generations do Palestinians refugees have to be outside Palestine before they're not longer considered to be "Palestinian"? Two generations?  Ten?  Twenty?  -- Bob drobbs (talk) 00:31, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * To be fair, (taking an example) Charlemagne is considered in both German and French historiography (he ruled over most of the modern territory of both). So even nationality/ethnicity issues from just over a millenium ago are difficult to assess. I easily see how this issue transposes to something even older than that... Editors should be strictly reminded to follow the usual processes (RfCs take time, yes, but patient is necessary, come on) and to follow the usual content policies (the holy trinity of WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:NPOV). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:30, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll admit I made mistakes. I've edited a bit for a long time, but that was my first RFC.  I just put up another one RFC on the page which I believe no one will accuse of being biased.  I welcome your feedback on it.  -- Bob drobbs (talk) 01:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you touched one of the core points here: the connection Jews have felt with Israel is religious belief, and we cannot really let religious beliefs govern how Wikipedia applies ethnic identifications and categorization. Giving disproportionate weight to this millenium-old Ancient Levant origin of the Jews is not really feasible. No Jewish diaspora subgroup can claim that they did not mix, both culturally and genetically, so you would deny these other influences by sticking to this "Miďdle Eastern/Asian" tag (there is nobody that defines European identity better than Stefan Zweig). Also, if we would go back several millennia in the past for very ethnic group (because there is no reason to treat Jews differently) then that would really not be workable, unless we consider that we are all Africans. Articles Old Yishuv and Samaritans tell me that they were not cleansed, but that's not the topic here . Place Clichy (talk) 15:43, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The Jewish connection to Israel is no more solely a religious issue than the Palestinian connection to Palestine. All I'm pushing for is clear consistent standards applied equally to people of all religions and ethnicities, instead of just singling out Jews for exclusion.
 * One hero included on the page was, at best, an American who was 1/8 Arab. At worst he was 1/8 Chinese American whose grandfather happened to be born in North Africa.  That's how we define a Middle Easterner? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 15:59, 3 April 2021 (UTC)


 * A fallacy in what you say is to strike a false balance between Jews who feel a connection to Israel and Palestinians who feel a connection to Palestine. The forcible seizure of Palestine occurred in recent history, starting in 1947. Palestinians were evicted from their homeland within the memory of many Palestinians who are still alive, and the younger Palestinians know about it directly from older family members. Refugees' feeling of connection with their illegally occupied lands has nothing to do with religion. In contrast, the Israeli claim on the land stems from Biblical texts, not from anything that's in the family history of Jews who live today.
 * In what you say there's also a problem of stereotyping, and that's something we should avoid in writing about any religious or ethnic group, including Jews. A large number of Jews in the world do not self-identify as Middle Eastern and do not feel a special connection to Israel. I'm thinking of Jews who are secular, assimilated, maybe slightly religious, and politically liberal and more sympathetic to Palestinian rights than to the Israeli government. We should not categorize a whole religion or ethnic group in a way that a large proportion of them don't identify with. NightHeron (talk) 17:02, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I looked at your 50 newest contributions. In 13 days, you made about 45 edits promoting or related to your theory that all Jews should be called "Middle Eastern". You started 2 RfCs, 6 (or more) discussion threads, accusing other editors of bias about 10 times, of bad faith at least once. The number of WP:RS you provided was 0 (zero). I think it's time to stop.
 * While I totally agree with you on the main issue, I think we should not complicate this discussion by referring to sensitive points of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:02, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * What is your problem with inclusion criteria? I have never said that ALL Jews are Middle Eastern, so you NEED to stop with that bullshit accusation.  You have spent an equal amount of time actively trying to exclude Jews, and seemimgly only Jews while actively supporting inclusion of Muslims who are not Middle Eastern (e.g. North Africans).  The only thing I'm asking for is for clear inclusion criteria to be created and applied in an unbiased fashion to people of all races, religions, and ethnicities.
 * Is a man who is 1/8 Chinese to be considered "Middle Eastern" because one Grandfather was born in North Africa?
 * Editors categorized him as Middle Eastern (do you?), while Jews were excluded. This is why I put up the POV tag on that page and it needs to remain until there is actual inclusion criteria. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 14:51, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Upon a bit more reflection, the most relevant analogy is probably the Romani People.
 * Are they European? Are they Asian?  Do they simultaneously have aspects of both identities?  I don't see this as a cut and dry question for either Romani or for ethnic Jews.  And yet again, this is why we need clear inclusion criteria.  -- Bob drobbs (talk) 16:51, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

FYI: I just created a warning template, Template:Warning Middle Eastern Jews, based on the one shown on Talk:Antisemitism, in the hope that it might discourage some proponents of this "plain nonsense" (as Place Clichy aptly called it) from further discussion. Feel free to comment or criticize. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:54, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

 Please do not misrepresent this conversion elsewhere as you did on the Middle Eastern People talk page. The question asked here is if ALL Jews are Middle Eastern. That's obviously not true. It's a totally different question if ethnic Jews are Middle Eastern. You cannot conflate the two, especially as you've acknowledged there are RS which say ethnic Jews are of Middle Eastern descent. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 06:12, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So that everybody can form their own opinion on whether I misrepresented this discussion: I never contributed on "Middle Eastern People", but possibly Bob drobbs intended to refer to this comment of mine. --Rsk6400 (talk) 09:01, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Problems with superhero list criteria
In-universe descriptions should not take precedence over real-world descriptions. A "Middle Eastern superhero" is not a superhero whose fictional background gives them some Middle Eastern ethnicity or nationality, it is a superhero who was created by a Middle Eastern author, or perhaps a superhero who appeared in a Middle Eastern publication. Looking at the various Lists of superheroes, this is a widespread problem on this site, with characters created by American authors and appearing in American publications being labelled as "Chinese superheroes" or whatever based on their fictional ethnicities or nationalities. This is the kind of thing you would expect on a fan wiki. It doesn't belong on Wikipedia, and I believe it violates WP:INUNIVERSE. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 02:37, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Be wary. Get anywhere close to pop culture material that looks like WP:FANCRUFT and the effort of removing the material becomes difficult in an inversely proportional relationship to how popular it is. Though by all means, if that is a problem, do act on it... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:44, 3 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Now THIS is an interesting twist on the debate... I kinda see the point when talking about nationality, but I don’t think it works in other ways... For example, the character “Wonder Woman” was created by a man, so should we categorize Wonder Woman as a “male superhero”? Blueboar (talk) 03:04, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I've now nominated the article for deletion, see Articles for deletion/List of Middle Eastern superheroes. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:37, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I argue Jews ARE Middle Eastern Jews are Middle Eastern apart from converts to the Jewish religions. Jews are a Middle Eastern ethnic group, they are not ethnic Europeans so this should not be classed as a fringe theory because it is true. Their ancestors came from Ancient Judea so they remain Middle Eastern. Although every ethnically Jewish person is not included as as West Asian in the US definition, that does not mean they are not genetically West Asian. Jews are genetically different from Europeans, they are closely related to the Canaanite peoples. Arab people describe themselves as Middle Eastern with no problems, but when Jews do the same they seem to be attacked verbally. If your ancestors come from Middle Eastern ancestry it is not ridiculous to call yourself ethnically Middle Eastern because Jews ARE ethnically Middle Eastern. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews (T96) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tzofia1996 (talk • contribs) 16:59, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Except... before the Jews came from Judea, their ancestors came from Mesopotamia (at least that is the tradition). OK, so far, we are still in the Middle East, but... according to DNA analysis, the humans who populated Mesopotamia migrated from Africa. This is TRUE! To use your own logic: If your ancestors come from Africa, it is not ridiculous to call yourself ethically African. Thus, Jews ARE ethnically African (as is everyone else).  Ain’t history fun! Blueboar (talk) 18:06, 5 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Motion: Per Blueboar, all Jews should now be categorised as of 'African descent'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:28, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * And, by the same reasoning, reductio ad absurdum, everybody else too, of course. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:48, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

A related discussion has been started at WP:ANI. --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:48, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That discussion has been archived to WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1063. I think the issue has been solved. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:47, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Adam's Bridge

 * Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_6
 * Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_8
 * Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_58
 * Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_58

The lede currently includes There is disagreement among experts as to if it is natural or man made... --Hipal (talk) 01:23, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I cut that nonsense from the lead at least; hopefully nobody reverts. Don't have time for the stuff in the body, but it's almost certainly got fringe stuff. Crossroads -talk- 06:01, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I tried to cleanup the section in the article. The one part I could not make heads or tails of was Ramasamy's investigations which I think are motivated Ramayana archaeology but do not, as far as I can tell, come to any explicit fringe conclusions that I can see. Still, paring it down as I did with the more obviously fringe claims might be reasonable. I'll leave that to someone else. jps (talk) 12:09, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Talked to some who were more familiar with the politics surrounding this and I think we're getting close to a proper framing which is fairly incredible. One thing I think is an interesting point is that in the last decade or so a lot more sources have started calling this feature Ram Setu because of the political winds. I cannot figure out in WP:MOS world whether this is a case as in the instance of Mount McKinley being properly identified as Denali or, alternatively, Mount Everest as the article name for Sagarmāthā. jps (talk) 11:34, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Todd Rokita / "2020 election was stolen" claims


Some borderline pro-fringe editing here. More eyes would be welcome. Neutralitytalk 22:24, 12 April 2021 (UTC)


 * ,, . --Guy Macon (talk) 00:50, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Homeovestism
Participants of this noticeboard may be interested in the following AfD: Articles for deletion/Homeovestism (2nd nomination). Crossroads -talk- 06:01, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Ayurveda

 * Talk:Ayurveda
 * Talk:Ayurveda

Ayurveda has been brought up over two dozen times on this noticeboard. I've not looked to see if the current specific dispute is strongly related to past disputes.

The article is under a 1RR restriction.

Attempt to qualify the content in the lede, The Indian Medical Association (IMA) characterises the practice of modern medicine by Ayurvedic practitioners as quackery, with:
 * 1) because persons qualified to practice Ayurvedic medicine are not qualified to practice Western allopathic medicine
 * 2) because "a doctor who has qualification in Ayurvedic, Unani or homeopathic medicine will be liable if he prescribes allopathic treatment..."

Looks like selective qualification to undercut the content in the lede.

Same editor that is involved in theFringe_theories/Noticeboard dispute mentioned above. --Hipal (talk) 16:35, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks like things have gone down the toilet since I unwatched, but my personal well-being has improved. -Roxy the sycamore . wooF 17:09, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Nothing a few cow products wouldn't fix, — Paleo Neonate  – 20:49, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The problems on the Ayurveda page are rooted in the following:
 * A lot of people make a lot of money through ayurvedic quackery. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it" ―Upton Sinclair
 * They have managed to get the government of India to support and promote the quackery.
 * On various discussion boards OpIndia coordinates and advises their army of followers on how to disrupt Wikipedia. See "Wikipedia vs OpIndia: The crusade launched against OpIndia by Wiki, the left-bias and the players involved" (blacklisted, so h t t p s : //www.opindia.com/2020/06/wikipedia-opindia-crusade-left-bias-wiki-editors-negative-all-you-need-to-know/ ).
 * One tactic they recommend is to argue about the exact meaning of the Indian Medical Association's statement on quackery. Related: "Opindia topic: Indian Medical Association" (blacklisted, so h t t p s : //www.opindia.com/tag/indian-medical-association/ ).
 * Opindia is also doing the same song and dance on related articles. They bounce around the various pages in Category:Ayurveda looking for pages where nobody is watching closely.--Guy Macon (talk) 21:23, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Not helping is that many people don't have proper access to better mainstream medicine, to a point where health orgs acknowledge it and are fairly tolerant, — Paleo  Neonate  – 21:33, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed. It's actually very cold and calculated; "we have a shortage of actual doctors, so we are going to recommend quacks who put dangerous levels of mercury in their treatments",
 * Here are more examples of Opindia's war on Wikipedia. It seems that they don't like our 2020 Delhi riots article at all. So guess who they get to talk about how evil Wikipedia's NPOV policy is?
 * How Wikipedia twists facts, manufactures lies
 * Larry Sanger, founder of Wikipedia, talks to OpIndia
 * The bit starting at 1:00:25 is especially... Larry. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:58, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Opindia interviewing Larry Sanger is some kind of Ayurveda/QAnon singularity. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:26, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Larry Sanger is a lot like Bunsen Honeydew of Muppet Labs. Has anyone ever seen them in the same place at the same time? Larry keeps trying to do experiments with creating a better encyclopedia than Wikipedia, and they always blow up in his face. See Nupedia, Citizendium, Encyclopedia of Earth, and Everipedia. At some point he needs to admit that when he and Jimbo disagreed about the basic structure of Wikipedia (only experts can edit vs. anyone can edit), Jimbo turned out to be right. Instead he spends his time sniping at Wikipedia. I listened to that Opindia interview while I was soldering a bunch of PCBs, and Larry didn't object when the Opindia lady made completely bogus claims. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:13, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * they always blow up in his face Shouldn't they blow up in someone else's face? --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:53, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I just realised that my comment on this thread, ^^ points up ^^, might be interpreted to say that I dont think that editors there are doing a good job. Nothing could be further from the truth. -Roxy the grumpy dog . wooF 16:01, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Sanger has a history of being a mark for quacks. He put Dana Ullman in charge of Citizendium's "healing arts" workgroup, which badly damaged the project's hopes of being a serious reference work.  71.234.45.38 (talk) 19:34, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I always called him Dullman. He didn't like it. -Roxy the grumpy dog . wooF 23:04, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Event symmetry
I've brought Event symmetry to AfD following discussion at its talk page regarding a contested PROD. I'm bringing attention here because a portion of the article concerns a fringe theory of quantum gravity. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 18:21, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The user who deprodded (the page creator) it is the founder of viXra, the premier outlet for fringe physics cranks, though I don't think that their ideas are anywhere near as fringe as many of those on viXra. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:31, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I suspect their comments on the AfD will tend into drop the stick territory.... XOR&#39;easter (talk) 12:53, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The AfD was closed as delete. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:38, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Noticeboard discussion on reliability of Skeptoid (Brian Dunning)
There is a noticeboard discussion on the reliability of Skeptoid (skeptoid.com), a podcast hosted by Brian Dunning. If you are interested, please participate at. —  Newslinger  talk   22:44, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese Medicine
Recent complaints that the Traditional Chinese Medicine article is biased at Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:30, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Prepare for the excrement to impact the rotational air impeller...
In I removed a bunch of fringe theories from. We decided a while back to document those theories on our Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin page and to only feature mainstream science on the SoT page.

I expect that the shroudies will not be happy with what I have done.

Among other things, I removed the flash-like irradiation hypothesis -- that when Jesus was resurrected there was an intense flash of high energy protons or possibly ultraviolet radiation that created an image that by an amazing coincidence has the exact same attributes as a medieval forgery. Totally mainstream science, dude, and don't let anybody tell you different. Can you name anyone who came back from the dead without atomic power being involved? I didn't think so. Source: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Please watchlist the page to see the fireworks show. I will make popcorn. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:57, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Aha, so Jesus was Captain Universe. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:49, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Just noting that I'm surprised there are so many subarticles (found via Shroud of Turin). — Paleo  Neonate  – 23:18, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Good point. I see that Template:Creationism topics doesn't list a dedicated page for the arguments young-earth creationists use to try to refute radiocarbon dating and there is way more material on that.


 * I am surprised that so far the end result of digestion has failed to achieve the expected high-speed interaction with the atmosphere moving equipment. Has shroudology gone out of style?


 * Is anybody here willing to work with me to clean up and condense the whole topic? I have a limited amount of time I can put in each day, so would need some help.
 * Let me start with some ideas:
 * Merge VP8 Image Analyzer into a couple of sentences in Shroud of Turin Research Project.
 * Merge any actual science in Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin is into Radiocarbon dating (for general info about RD), merge into Shroud of Turin (for actual science that is shroud specific) and merge any fringe criticisms of RD into Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin. Much of it will already be in those three targets, so mostly this will be checking.
 * Anyone interested? sign up below. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:11, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Just had a look at VP8 Image Analyzer. It does not look as if there is anything worth preserving in there, it seems to be just an incoherent jumble of white noise written by people who don't know how to make a cogent argument and are very impressed by doctorates. I don't know what that thing is supposed to do and how, but from context, I guess its results prove that the Shroud is real. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:22, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , all but one of the sources were unreliable shroudie sites, so I removed them. I suspect the remaining content is WP:CSD. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:44, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. I just did a search and found some interesting pages about it, Dodgy sources but a fascinating read for an engineer such as myself:
 * http://shroudnm.com/docs/seam-vp8-presentation.pdf
 * https://www.shroud.com/78strp10.htm
 * https://shroudstory.com/2014/03/30/nasa-had-nothing-to-do-with-it/
 * What I could not find is any evidence of it being used for anything else, ever, or any evidence establishing notability. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:55, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the shroudies have been temporarily subdued by the weight of scientific evidence, although they still insert sections on vanillin aging from time to time.
 * The VP8 Image Analyzer was a NASA machine, which was used to create 3D images out of photos of the moon, to help analyse the topography of the moon. Some NASA guys were shroudies, and they used it on the Shroud photos. It is interesting that the VP8 images show the burnt holes in the Shroud as pyramids standing up from the flat background, and these have to be trimmed away whenever the "miraculous 3D image" is displayed.
 * A two-line summary on the VP8 Image Analyzer would fit better in the Shroud of Turin article, under the "Image analysis" sub-section.
 * The article on the Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin is a 53k daughter article, which exists separately because the detail here would over-whelm the main article. It would help a lot to keep it as a separate article. There is minimal over-lap, because the main article has been pared down, although more polishing could help.
 * The article on the Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin is a 42k daughter article, which also exists separately because the detail here would also over-whelm the main article. It would help a lot to keep this article as well.
 * Wdford (talk) 13:23, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I do however think you have over-done the removal of non-mainstream material - especially since you have not moved it into the Fringe article as far as I can see, but seem to have merely deleted it. This deletion included an explanation of the VP8 analyzer. The article has been stable for a long time, in part because this non-mainstream material has been reported in summary - although always together with a thorough debunking. I think it would be best to restore it to the main article, to facilitate the relocation of the various individual discussions to the Fringe article. This relocation should be discussed on the talk page first, not here. Wdford (talk) 13:36, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I suggest this discussion takes place at Talk:Shroud of Turin. Lennart97 (talk) 14:58, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The related article on History of the Shroud of Turin could certainly use a clean up as part of the condensation project. Wdford (talk) 14:09, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I know some NASA guys are Shriners, but there are also shroudies implicated? ~ cygnis insignis 14:39, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Seems that way. Wdford (talk) 14:49, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the good news is that nobody contested the speedy on the merits. The bad news is that DGG says I used the wrong template. (Not my fault! The Other Guy made me do it! (I always wanted to say that -- smile) ) "It's a product. products are not eligible for A7, just companies. Use AfD". --Guy Macon (talk) 02:36, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

A fair bit of effort was made to isolate the fringe material out of the main article. Because there are a ton of theories about the shroud (which has it's own, proprietary -ology word), the majority of them crackpot fringe theories, the fringe theory topic is clearly notable. The content of the fringe article doesn't have to be, however, as long as it has reliable sourcing, and is proportionate. I have no problem with reliably described nutball theories being described in "Nutball theories of..." er, I mean, "Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin", any more than I do the Moon hoax, or Alternative theories of Hungarian language origins. There's no need to duplicate any of the fringe theories in the main article, nor should they be. However, the Shroud article is clearly parent article to the Fringe theories article, and a section of a couple of paragraphs or so in the main article summarizing the main fringe theories with Main and Further links, as called for by WP:Summary style is entirely appropriate, but 48k is way out of proportion.

On the other hand, there is currently nothing in the article about fringe theories, and that is just as wildly out of proportion, given the amount of sourcing and significant coverage devoted to it. Recreate a section, #Fringe theories in the main article, and duly summarize the content of the fringe article, and all will be well. Mathglot (talk) 05:33, 11 April 2021 (UTC)


 * How much materiel about Moon landing conspiracy theories do you find in our Moon article? Nada. Moon landing has one small small section: Moon landing that contains no details about the fringe theories and cites no fringe sources.
 * How about earth? Any material about Creation science, Flat earth or Hollow Earth there? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:25, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think these aren't one to one comparisons, the Shroud of Turin is largely notable because of all the fringe theories about it, if those fringe theories never existed then the shroud probably wouldn't have ever been very notable. The moon landing is an extremely noteworthy event in its own right, if there weren't nutjobs out there who think that it's fake it would still be an equally noteworthy event. Same goes for the Earth. I think a section on fringe theories, summarizing the ancillary article (and the mainstream view that these theories are wrong), would be due and helpful to the article in this case, but that doesn't mean that irrelevant fringe nutjobs need to find their place on mainstream articles like Earth. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 06:47, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's not equivalent, since the shroud is already considered to be a hoax (or at least, its most notable initial interpretation/claims to be incorrect). For Earth and Evolution WP:MNA indeed applies...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 08:28, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the page should continue to document the religious views (as we would any catholic relic) and the investigations done prior to the radiocarbon testing, which while not great science, aren't actually fringe because at the time there really was no mainstream view. The business about a flash of atomic power when Jesus was resurrected and how that atomic flash both created the image and screwed up the carbon 14 ratios is purely a fringe theory concocted to deny the actual science. It has no place in the article. It's a lot like the young earth creationists who react to science saying that many stars are more than 10,000 light years away and thus the light should not have reached us yet with absurd theories that the speed of light is not a constant or that all of the the stars are no more that a hundred light years away (yes, people believe these things) -- the fringe theory only exists to give the true believers a plausible reason to reject the science. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:12, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Right. The ideas people just "plucked from their arses" in Hahnemannian style should go. But the flash of atomic power is plausible if Jesus had been bitten by a radioactive photographer... --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:21, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Good. Now that we have had a broader discussion - albeit still not on the article talk page - it seems there is agreement on the same consensus that was established about three years ago. So how do we implement it now?
 * I suggest the following process:
 * First, we temporarily reinstate all the material that was mass-deleted, because it would be easier to fix it if we can actually see it.
 * Second, we copy the various chunks of fringe material in full to the Fringe article. That won't take long.
 * Third, we agree on what summaries to keep in the main article, and where to put it, and then we summarize it accordingly.
 * That approach would work, and it will be quick and easy, provided everyone co-operates. Shall we proceed? Wdford (talk) 10:38, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You are a long way from "it will be quick and easy, provided everyone co-operates", considering that everybody else disagrees with you and nobody supports you.
 * There is zero need to "temporarily reinstate all the material that was mass-deleted, because it would be easier to fix it if we can actually see it" that's just an excuse to get your way when the consensus is against you. Just go to the page history, click on the time and date of whatever version you prefer, and you will be able to "see it" just fine. I recommend copying that version to your sandbox so you can easily access and edit it amd move whatever you think best to the fringe article.
 * Please let me know when you have finished working on the Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin page. Going through that page is on my TODO list and I wouldn't want to duplicate effort. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:49, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * First, the consensus didn't go against me - review the discussion above.
 * Second, I have already done as you suggest. However many of the references think they are broken, although I copied them verbatim. They seem to need time for the bots to fix the broken refs, and that can only be done if the material is temporarily reinstated.
 * Please WP:AGF, and don't make unfounded accusations based on unfounded assumptions.
 * Apart from this referencing issue, I have finished working on the Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin page for now. Please go ahead as per the consensus.
 * Wdford (talk) 13:56, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The discussions at agreed that the fringe theories about the authenticity of the Shroud are notable, and that while the detail thereof must be reported at the Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin article, a summary of the fringe material must be reported here also, with proper disclosure that it is actually fringe and not mainstream science.
 * I have therefore added back the summaries of the main fringe theories.
 * I have also added back scientific material that is not fringe, but which was deleted anyway.
 * Wdford (talk) 14:35, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Spacedrives
The former doesn't look notable at all. The latter survived AfD in 2014 thanks to a list of sources that superficially looks good but may suffer from reliability problems upon closer examination. "Engage! Warp Drive Could Become Reality with Quantum-Thruster Physics". No. No, it could not. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:48, 18 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "Antimatter is one of the most expensive substances on Earth: about $62.5 trillion a gram. VARIES could solve this issue.... The lasers aboard VARIES would produce protons and antiprotons directly from the vacuum of space through the Schwinger pair production."


 * PROBLEM SOLVED!


 * jps (talk) 01:21, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yea, with no current technology even allowing to currently test the theoretically basis, — Paleo Neonate  – 22:43, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * What?! You don't think they're going to be able to make a gamma-ray laser? Ye of little faith. jps (talk) 01:09, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Let's review the sources:

AfD? –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 16:48, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) : 2 sentences, part of a large gallery. No consensus yet on the reliability of space.com.
 * 2) Primary source, a JBIS paper detailing the proposal by Richard Obousy. Obousy is also a co-founder of Icarus.
 * 3) : Primary source to Icarus website, plus weird citation formatting.
 * 4) : About antimatter and fusion technology, does not mention VARIES.
 * 5)  Supposedly republished from Discovery News, but the original is no longer available; might be a PR by Obousy. There is no consensus on the reliability of Fox News for science topics.
 * 6) : 2 paragraphs out of many proposals; probably not RS.
 * 7) : This is the paper that first predicted Schwinger pair production. It was published in 1931, while the proposal was made in 2011.
 * 8) : Blog.
 * I'd say so. The Fox News item definitely looks like PR written by Obousy himself; it doesn't have a byline at the top, but the text at the bottom (Richard Obousy is co-founder and President of Icarus Interstellar Inc., etc.) certainly reads like an author bio. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:58, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/Vacuum to Antimatter-Rocket. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 17:12, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Now, as for Icarus Interstellar... It reads like a PR, and at least some of the sources are primary or PR as well. Any comments? –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 21:51, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It passed AfD in 2014 (Articles for deletion/Icarus Interstellar) based on a list of apparently in-universe sources (unconvincing keep for me). On the other hand, if this page subsists it'd be the right place to preserve mentions of some projects that could not remain as separate articles, perhaps...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 00:15, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * 2014 was a while ago, and the old AfD basically took the source quality as given without digging into it. Revisiting that might be in order. Meanwhile, there's also Helical engine to consider. I'm doubtful that a tabloid flash-in-the-pan really amounts to notability. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:46, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Half of Helical engine is currently a copyvio from a non-peer-reviewed "report" by the inventor. Oddly, Earwig doesn't seem to pick it up (and is running very slow today), but the paragraph beginning The engine accelerates ions confined in a closed loop is almost verbatim. I've reverted more on that page recently than I'm generally comfortable with (confrontational is not my favorite look); would anyone else want to investigate and hazard a judgment on whether it's even notable? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:32, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I've gone and reverted 's reversion of your deletion. Judging by the previous ANI thread Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1059 ExoEditor seems to have major WP:CIR issues. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:38, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * They restored it again. Recommend RD1. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 17:45, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, my stars — they added a student's homework report as a source, calling it a statement by the professor who taught the class. What can I say but WP:CIR? There also seems to be a systematic issue with taking only the credulous parts of sources, like omitting how the Popular Mechanics' story admits it would likely violate the laws of the conservation of momentum. When you've lost Popular Mechanics... XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:06, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Let's look at the sourcing for Icarus Interstellar... So we have at most one live, usable source in this article. AfD? –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 00:20, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) : Primary source.
 * 2) : Dead link to and Alaska government website, possibly with regards to its registration status as a nonprofit.
 * 3) : Primarily an interview.
 * 4) : Primary source.
 * 5) : Dead link, presumably a primary source.
 * 6) : Primary source
 * 7) : Paywalled, can't tell.
 * 8) Duplicate of 4
 * 9) : Dead link
 * 10) : Primarily about Project Persephone, not its parent project.
 * 11) : Dead link?
 * 12) : Passing mention; primarily about Eric Davies.
 * 13) : Scheduale for a conference organized by Icarus.
 * 14) : PR-like article describing the the conference; I don't think this is encyclopedic.
 * 15) : PR.
 * 16) : Dead link.
 * 17) : Primary source.
 * Having received no response, I opened the AfD: Articles for deletion/Icarus Interstellar (2nd nomination). I noticed that another WP:BEFORE might not be necessary, since the last project update on their site was in 2015. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 11:19, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The AfD was closed as delete. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:06, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

In the same topic area, cited to some of the same dubious sources and seemingly coming out of the same community: XOR&#39;easter (talk) 23:28, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * When I first see Warp-field experiments and start reading it it seems generic and legitimate. Then I see that it's unfortunately a person's work that the few who commented about have criticized and that the only two independent sources are a little synthesis used to cover the topic.  I agree with the current PROD and we'll see.  For White–Juday warp-field interferometer there appear to be some other sources, like "NIAC is Back: NASA Funds 30 Innovative Ideas that Just Might Work".  I look at it and see no mention of White, Juday or interferometer.  Are some of them better?  Or is there a potential merge target (well there's Harold G. White too)?  — Paleo  Neonate  – 03:42, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I deleted three supposed references that, from everything I could find, did not mention the topic of the article. Everything else seems to be either primary or fluff. "News" websites have no goddamn filter when it comes to "NASA is building a warp drive for real!" stories. Maybe the Harold G. White article could serve as a target for a redirect or a very selective merge. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 04:34, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I did a copyvio check on White–Juday warp-field interferometer and found some rather egregious examples. With them gone, the article looks even more like it would float off in a light breeze, but I despair of getting it deleted over the objections of the "it has footnotes, so it must be notable" crowd. Anyone have thoughts about a possible smerge target? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:58, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * As part of the ongoing spring cleaning we're trying to manage over at the Physics WikiProject, I've redirected White–Juday warp-field interferometer to Harold G. White. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:18, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Ze'ev Herzog
What do you think about and ? Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:07, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, the material was restored without consensus. — Paleo  Neonate  – 12:49, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Ted Gunderson


User removes Skeptical Inquirer source, adds YouTube instead. Seems pretty active at the moment. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:47, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The Passing of the Great Race


Unsure about wording. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:05, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Sounds Lovecraftian. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Is this like red squirrels and gray squirrels?
More eyes needed at Grey alien‎. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!! --Guy Macon (talk) 01:14, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * And my MindGuard-running Amiga was stuck at a Guru Meditation and needed restarting! For all that time I remained vulnerable.[Humor]  — Paleo  Neonate  – 01:56, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * This article possibly contains original research hints at remarkable possibilities. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:19, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Now at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:03, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Hyperborea
Lots of back on forth editing with people trying to make Hyperborea out to be a real thing, plus some general nuttery. Might want to keep an eye on it. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 11:41, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Now protected. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:19, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Nur ibn Mujahid


An editor attempted to ascribe an ethnicity (Somali) to a historical figure based on a single source touching on the existence of "oral traditions" linking the figure to Somalis (this is presented as a footnote in the original source). The vast majority of reliable sources do not attach an ethnicity to this figure and only discuss him as a Muslim leader who had taken part in a war between Muslims and Christians in the region. I have removed the additions from the article's lede and left a mention of this in the article's body, but seeking more opinions on whether the additions should be discarded completely as a fringe theory. --Kzl55 (talk) 20:42, 3 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Kzl55 I have replaced the source in question with a biographic encyclopedic one and provided a link under it for verification . You are right it was in the foot note and i didn't take notice of it .However it's not a fringe theory. The one i provided now is not and it's a reliable biographic description of him based on two other sources based on manuscripts.


 * I explained it much further, if you are interested:


 * Also please notify me the next time around.


 * Cheers


 * Ragnimo (talk) 01:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This is still undue, the only reliable citations presented is a footnote and a single sentence mention. Exceptional claims on Wikipedia require exceptional evidence. Please also see WP:RSUW "if a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not". Please be patient and await further contributions from the community. Also please indent your comments in the future, you've been advised on this previously. --Kzl55 (talk) 11:21, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

The source i replace it with is reliable and not a mere mention but an actual biographic entry about him. Namely from    and this has been refrenced by other texts and the dictionary reviewed by other journals  & suffice to say it should fit Wiki standards.

And there is no other source you can mention to contest this either or that state otherwise. So the rule of minority POV or exceptional claim do not really apply here. As for being patient and awaiting fruther contributions, you should have had notified me about beginning this discussion, it was only after i made correction edit that i saw that you had opened this Noticeboard through looking at your contrib, so notify people as the rules "If you begin a discussion of another user on a common notice board, it is expected that you will notify the subject user by posting a message on their talk page (and/or through off-wiki email, if the subject has chosen to enable that function). There are two sides to most stories, and good faith requires the assumption that the subject of the complaint may have a valuable perspective to contribute." WP:NOTIFY. As i had advised you earlier.

Cheers.

Ragnimo (talk) 16:06, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Please stay on topic and keep your comments brief. In terms of your additions, as explained above they describe viewpoints held by a small minority of reliable sources, you've cited a single footnote as well as a single sentence mention, and so would not normally be included in Wikipedia article "regardless of whether it is true or not" per WP:RSUW. The vast majority of reliable sources do not comment on the individual's ethnicity. There is no point of turning this into a forum, I suggest we wait for opinions from other editors on whether the addition is undue or not. Lastly, use of indentation is a behavioural guideline that all editors are expected to follow, please adhere to it otherwise your comments will clutter talk page discussions. --Kzl55 (talk) 16:32, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Please adress my points and keep your comments on the contention itself, without having to repeat yourself.

Again as i stated it's not even a minority view point if (A) it's not contested by other sources and (B) other sources don't offer a different viewpoint about his background. And (C) it's from a mainstream encyclopedic dictionary production about African biographies that have been reviewed as credible by African academic journals and is used a refrence text

Wether other sources make mentions of it or not has nothing to say for if this a minority POV or not.

Ragnimo (talk) 12:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * You are attempting to add text based on very limited support in reliable sources, this goes against content guidelines as explained above. The vast majority of sources do not comment on ethnicity of this figure. Article content not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight by inclusion per WP:FRINGE. Inclusion would also breach neutrality guidelines as Wikipedia articles should cover "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views". As stated above, we are going in circles, this is a noticeboard and not a forum, I suggest we wait for input from other editors. --Kzl55 (talk) 20:26, 7 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Again as i stated it's not even a minority view point if (A) it's not contested by other sources and (B) other sources don't offer a different viewpoint about his background.
 * I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. If one scholar claims Person A is Ethnicity B, and no one else has bothered to speculate on the topic, that means... we just take it as fact? That's the very definition of a minority viewpoint: the majority has not speculated on their ethnicity, while one has.
 * Also, if the source is mainstream encyclopedic dictionary production about African biographies, that violates WP:RS. We do not cite other encyclopedias, only direct sources. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 21:46, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Bite. First of all it is a direct source, because the view is less so encyclopedic more so a collection of other scholars contributions, that write in biographies of historical people. The one about Nur Ibn Mujahid being Merahen Darood is from that of anthropologist Harvel Sebastian, from Dictionary of African historical biography (Vol. 1)

Also it doesn't mean we should take it as a blatant fact but include it and state the scholar in question who holds that view?

In any case can we include it in the body instead of the leed that there exist a tradition about it because there is another source besides from that one scholar claiming that traditions existence &  Which i previously added before it being removed by KzI55 on the grounds that it was in a footnote.

Both Kurt Wendt and Ethiopian/Somali studies authority Enrico Cerulli was refrenced for that by Harvel Sebastian. I could look for another source by Enrico Cerulli which is most likely in Italian if that helps. Ragnimo (talk) 23:52, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * You are recycling the same argument. The additions you are trying to insert are supported by a limited number of sources, by your own admission a single in-passing mention in one source and a footnote. This is a glaring example of a minority viewpoint and Wikipedia guidelines are clear on this issue as explained above by THTFY and myself. Why is this so hard for you to accept? --Kzl55 (talk) 02:37, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * irst of all it is a direct source, because the view is less so encyclopedic more so a collection of other scholars contributions, that write in biographies of historical people.
 * No. That is flatly wrong. It is not a direct cite. If you want to cite someone, cite the original work where the statement was made, not an encyclopedia or dictionary.
 * Also it doesn't mean we should take it as a blatant fact but include it and state the scholar in question who holds that view?
 * No. At best you could say it's this scholar's opinion, but then you're giving undue weight to a minority viewpoint.
 * Right now, you do not have enough reliable sources to include this claim of ethnicity. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 12:55, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it if other sources or scholars don't discuss it, it's probably undue for Wikipedia. If the one who supports the view is very notable in the field, it could be mentioned with attribution.  Since it's being contested by multiple editors, it's probably best to leave it out and move-on until better sources are available...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 14:51, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed, I have now removed the undue additions. Many thanks for your input HandThatFeeds and PaleoNeonate. --Kzl55 (talk) 23:26, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response back was busy all keeping vandals and socks in check.

Bite '''No. That is flatly wrong. It is not a direct cite. If you want to cite someone, cite the original work where the statement was made, not an encyclopedia or dictionary. ''' It is original work, its written by Harvel Sebastian himself. And his attribution is on the page. But OK.

If the one who supports the view is very notable in the field, it could be mentioned with attribution.

I will find the original source of Enrico Cerulli in Italian, and perhaps look to see if there is another source for this and i will come back to this noticeboard or alert you on the talk page.

Cheers Ragnimo (talk) 13:04, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

The source that I will reference in this initial post will be directly from a book written in 1935 by the highly accredited Professor Kurt Wendt, in which he explicitly mentions the ethnic background of Emir Nur as being from the Darod tribe, Marehan clan. This book has been cited in many contemporary works throughout the last 70 years and is widely held as the one of the preeminent scholarships into the "Conquest of Abayssinya" as this book contains the original manuscripts. Furthermore many other prominent historians such as I.M Lewis from the London school of economics and French Professor Robert Ferry have mentioned quite clearly that the Conquest of Abyssinia was accomplished predominantly by the Darod tribe headed by the Marehan, Harti, Gerri, and Bartire. With that being said, I believe it is intellectually dishonest to not include the mention of the Emir's ethnicity since there have been no disputes from other scholarly sources that would contradict this information. --CSI99283 (talk) 20:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by CSI99283 (talk • contribs) 07:43, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Ragnimo, the source you are looking for is E. Cerulli, "Documenti arabi per la storia dell'Etiopia". This should be added and used. It's a clear reference that states that Nur ibn Mujahid was of Marrehan extraction. I will shortly in due time provide at least three sources. That way it will not be viewed as a minority opinion and therefore the article can be reedited using the clear references since there is no concensus here anyway. Take care, see you all soon. 86.18.37.245 (talk) 14:05, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * As explained multiple times by a number of editors above, inclusion of a viewpoint held by a limited number of sources is undue as its a minority view point. Per WP:RSUW "if a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia". If the majority of reliable sources do not comment on his ethnicity then Wikipedia should not either. I suggest you put this to rest. --Kzl55 (talk) 14:58, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Of all the sources that ascribe an ethnicity to Nur Ibn Mujahid they consistently reiterate his ethnic background is of the Marehan extraction. As the editor above said "If the one who supports the view is very notable in the field, it could be mentioned with attribution." I've already included one of the preeminent notables in the field of East African studies, Professor Wendt, who ascribed the Marehan background to the Emir. And the editor above me has stated that he will provide a source from Dr E. Ceruli who is exceedingly prominent and known to be a distinguished scholar in regards to the history of the Horn of Africa region.

In the words of London School of Economics Professor I.M Lewis, who has also written extensively about Somalia in many of his various books states "Dr Cerulli is the doyen of Cushitic studies and the founder of modern ethnographic studies of the Somali, in which he was the first to adopt the rigorous standard of oriental scholarship. All those who now work in the field owe a great debt to Cerulli's pioneer endeavor and to his many brilliant contributions"

I am including this as a preface to the addition of Dr. Cerulli's "Documenti arabi per la storia dell'Etiopia" in which he explicitly states that Nur Ibn Mujahid is indeed of the Marehan extraction. Which would undoubtedly make this a significant contribution from a notable scholar in this specific field of study thus warranting contribution into this Wikipedia page. --CSI99283 (talk) 20:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by CSI99283 (talk • contribs) 17:11, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Of all the sources that ascribe an ethnicity to Nur Ibn Mujahid...
 * If the majority of reliable sources discussing this individual do not comment on his ethnicity, which is the case here, then adding a minority viewpoint found in limited sources would be undue for Wikipedia. There is no reason to comment on ethnicity if majority of reliable sources do not discuss it. This was thoroughly discussed above. Lastly, please stick to one talk page for this discussion, it makes no sense to have two identical copies of the same discussion running across two talk pages. --Kzl55 (talk) 19:00, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

We don't have to mention the information explicitly, It's all about the wording. So for example, it should be worded as: "Some sources state that he was of Marrehan-Darod extraction." If we have a few sources, then to include it is valid. The wording can be debated later on. However there is no doubt that there is academic literature that clearly state him to be Marrehan and therefore that should be included. I will very soon collect them and add them and then Ragnimo and others should edit the article to reflect that. 86.18.37.245 (talk) 20:08, 3 April 2021 (UTC)


 * We are going in circles, you need to understand and accept Wikipedia guidelines as explained by multiple editors above. The vast majority of reliable sources discussing this individual do not comment on ethnicity . Adding information found on very limited number of sources would be undue weight given to a minority viewpoint. Per WEIGHT: "generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all". Put this to rest until such time your additions find wider support within reliable sources. --Kzl55 (talk) 20:25, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I created a new account since it makes it much easier to communicate. I just want to say that there is no consensus. That's just not the case. There is a difference of opinion and our job is to resolve that. There were 3 editors including yourself that was opposed. That doesn't make it a consensus because many of us think that a tentative and not explicit mention is justifiable. Having said that, User: CSI99283 and myself are willing to change the wording. We are not proposing to state him as Marehan explicitly. However, we can easily state that he was 'tentatively' Marehan and the problem will be resolved. The only references that mention his identity all mention he was Marehan Darod. Hopefully within the next few days I place them here.

I.e. "Documenti Arabi per la stories dell'Etiopia." It states: "Nur ibn Mujahid, of the Marrehan Darod." (Translated). CSI99283, the source is clear. I don't see any reason why this edit shouldn't be worded to reflect that he could have been Marehan Darod even just to say that he "some sources state he was Marehan", this would be a perfect edit. Can we agree? Sade Tan (talk) 01:09, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree Sade Tan, this edit seems to be the most balanced and neutral per Wikipedia guidelines since it reflects the most prominent and reputable authoritative source on the subject and is not contradicted by any information thus far presented on the board. Furthermore per wiki guidelines neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence which means that the reference to "Documenti Arabi per la stories dell'Etiopia." is the most significant contribution that has been made up to this point. There is seldom any scholar that is deemed more distinguished in this particular field of study than Dr Cerulli and thus warrants this attribution in my view. --CSI99283 (talk) 01:16, 4 April 2021 (UTC)


 * A quick search on Google Books yields +30 pages of results for Nur ibn Mujahid, and yet not a single one of them mentions this ethnic clan claim . I stand by my previous comments, three citations would still be a minority view point if the overwhelming majority of reliable sources discussing this topic are not commenting on his ethnicity.


 * Lastly, off-Wikipedia canvassing will not be tolerated, you can not brute-force minority view points by attempting to game the system. Both CSI99283 and Sade Tan were reported at ANI Administrators%27_noticeboard. --Kzl55 (talk) 11:06, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

What does off Wikipedia canvassing even mean? We kept the discussion on these boards for a reason. Are you forcing us to accept your opinion?

First of all, that is an absolutely wild allegation made in bad faith. I used to frequent the Nur ibn Mujahid article for a long time before I ever chose to register. I never accused you of cheating or doing something questionable nor did I ever force my opinion on anyone else. These are discussions going on these boards and I kept it there. If I wanted to force it, these discussions might not even be happening. Someone could have forced edit the article, but that's not happening is it? Unacceptable allegations. Sade Tan (talk) 11:21, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't think there is any off site canvassing Nur Ibn Mujahid was written as being Marahen was on the page for a very long time. So it's not suprising that regular vistors would be alerted when they saw this change.

Going back to what Kzl55 said before: If the one who supports the view is very notable in the field, it could be mentioned with attribution.

As someone above me explained it is mentioned in "Documenti arabi per la storia dell'Etiopia"(Arab documents for the history of Ethiopia) by Enrico Cerruli, who is a Somali & Ethiopian studies authority and very notable enough. He is the primary sources for Muslim medieval history and is aknowledged by other scholars in that field. It is also mentioned in another publication on Somali Islamic history "Storia Delia Somalia L'Islam in Somalia Il Libro Degli Zengi(Islam in Somalia)

" e al suo successore, I'emiro Nur, origine dalla tribu Somala dei Marrehan: He had a successor, The Emir Nur, who originated from the Somali tribe of the Marrehan" We can mention this with attribution to him.

Ragnimo (talk) 05:36, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I see im not the only one to have issues with your fringe theories. Its easy to cherry pick sources, the Harar emirs are known to have been Harari not Somali though, they may have diverse ancestry like many monarchs did. The Harari dynasty existed as late as the 19th century see Emirate of Harar, they do not claim Somali origin. Mohammed Hassan states the following about Nur on p. 180 "Nur was the son of Wazir Mujahid, one of the brilliant cavalry generals of Imam Ahmad. Mujahid, the son of Garad Ali, was from a well established Adare (Harari) landed noble family. Mujahid married Ahmad’s sister, from which marriage Nur was born. Described as "just and God-fearing leader", Nur was well-connected within the ruling Harari nobility. However, in spite of his family connections, his link with the Harari ulema, his experience in the jihad and his maturity of age, it took him many years to establish his authority. or see Alemayehu Wondimu p.20 "It could be said that it is unlikely to find the Harari emir who did not involve himself in propagation of Islam. Even some emirs became great figures both in spreading as well as in protecting it. Among these Aw-Abadir, Sultan Sabraddiin, Sultan Sa‘daddin, Emir  Mahfuz,  Grad  Abogn,  Imam  Ahmed, EmirNur, Emir Sadiq, Emir Abdash-Shakur, Emir Abdal-Karim, Emir Abdullahi are worth mentioning." . Magherbin (talk) 22:32, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Advanced Biomedical Research
This AfD may be of interest to the community here. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:40, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence
Some time ago, SENS was designated as a fringe theory. I cannot speak for the situation at the time, but in the modern day, this is incorrect.

While there is debate as to the exact efficacy of the strategies proposed (if they will be as revolutionary as the organization claims, or are 'merely' promising strategies cure disease), they are now widely accepted as valid tactics to consider when developing treatments for age-related diseases.

Exhibit 1: Hallmarks of Aging

In 2012, SENS's theories were effectively repackaged in a paper published in Cell, titled "The Hallmarks of Aging" - this paper has an extremely high number of citations (7296 and counting at the time of writing), providing it with ample authority and an indication of popular support. Its statements are unquestionably identical to SENS's own, but more in-depth, with slightly different categorization and an additional emphasis placed on genomic instability and epigenetic drift

(to summarize:

SENS: Extracellular aggregates. HoA: Loss of proteostasis. Misfolded proteins often aggregate. SENS: Extracellular matrix stiffening. HoA: Again, loss of proteostasis. ECM is made from proteins, the stiffening is thought to be caused by modifications to these proteins - which can easily be classed as loss of proteostasis. SENS: Intracellular aggregates. HoA: Wow, SENS likes (hates?) their loss of proteostasis. SENS: Death-resistant cells. HoA: Cellular senescence. SENS: Mitochondrial mutations. HoA: Mitochondrial dysfunction. SENS: Cancerous cells (note that this is separate to death-resistant (senescent) cells). HoA: All cancer is caused by epigenetic alterations or genomic instability. Both hallmarks. SENS: Cell loss, tissue atrophy (SENS strategy: introduce stem cells) HoA: Stem cell exhaustion)

Though the paper does not explicitly call out SENS, it comes to effectively identical conclusions (with a few additions), and its popularity therefore suggests that these conclusions are shared by the scientific community, raising SENS's authority. Looking at its authors, one (Maria Blasco) is now on the research advisory board of SENS, suggesting that she supports the organization - lending it further authority, given her prominence in the field.

Exhibit 2: Investor confidence & startups

SENS has completed extensive intra- and extra-mural research programmes on prospective drugs matching its preferred strategies, and some of these programmes are now approaching clinical trials, with ample funding. See: Revel Pharmaceuticals, Ichor Therapeutics & (the only currently public company built on a strategy SENS initially proposed) Unity Biotechnologies. Unity in particular is a good example, with a current market cap of $304m. Of course, even fringe theories can be well-funded, so this is more supporting information than anything.

Exhibit 3: Preclinical data

SENS has now released extensive preclinical data for a variety of approaches based upon its strategy, which have shown a range of impressive results. They have done this through both intramural and extramural research, as well as research by scientists who agree with their conclusions. Despite these approaches generally being preclinical, there is still evidence supporting them and significant data available, which I feel contributes to a potential re-designation of SENS as non-fringe. Efforts to treat disease using strategies identical to SENS are also underway by independent groups, and I will happily discuss these if prompted. Alyarin9000 (talk) 00:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)


 * For context, I recently opened an RfC about the SENS controversy section. There are previous FTN threads about SENS but not an incredibly decisive consensus. As the discussion of the RfC continued, it's become clear that the status of SENS as fringe or not (which might have changed in the past 10 or so years) is central to how that section will wind up. — Wingedserif (talk) 22:41, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * , it is 100% fringe. They have become more adept at trying to position themselves as legitimate students of gerontology, but if you peel even the first layer of the onion, it's the same old bullshit. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you trying to suggest Hallmarks and SENS are significantly different, or are you suggesting that a paper with over 7000 citations is "fringe"? Alyarin9000 (talk) 19:37, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , SENS are a bunch of cranks. Citation counts don't change that. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:49, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You can't just call some people "bunch of cranks" and ignoring scientific studies and the scientific community without even giving any argument to support your claim.--ThunderheadX (talk) 00:23, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , yes I can, when the evidence shows them to be a bunch of cranks, and their main activity is policy-based evidence making. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:09, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * What evidence?, You are just ignoring the scientific studies and the scientific consensus about the science behind SENS. You just decided that SENS are "bunch of cranks" and that scientific studies doesn't matter.--ThunderheadX (talk) 19:15, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So when does something turn from fringe to respectable enough to NOT be considered fringe? Because obviously acceptance by the scientific community doesn't count if what you're saying is true. Would it take a drug passing the FDA using one of their strategies? Woudl an extramural group doing so independently count (e.g. Gensight Biologics), or would it have to be an agency started by SENS?
 * SENS is questionable as far as if they're over-hyping how quickly they can have an effect, but consensus seems to start to be convergent towards "they could at least have a shot at treating various age related diseases". Alyarin9000 (talk) 19:56, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Though the paper does not explicitly call out SENS So it's not explicitly SENS, but we should treat it as if it is! --Hipal (talk) 20:11, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Read my comparison - Hallmarks and SENS have a very broad overlap. Broad enough that if one is fringe the other is, and vice versa. They say almost the same thing, Hallmarks just puts more emphasis on epigenetic drift and only indirectly references extracellular matrix crosslinking. One of the writers is even on SENS's scientific advisory board (or equivalent) right now! Alyarin9000 (talk) 21:21, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Can you please provide reliable sources to this effect? I expressed a very similar concern to Hipal in the talk page RfC several weeks ago: "Hallmarks of Aging" authors don't seem to explicitly link their criteria to those of SENS—it makes it hard to tell whether SENS has influenced current medical theories of aging or if there's just a coincidence in terms, which is why I mentioned WP:SYNTH above. We need to be able to WP:VERIFY the relationship between the two, otherwise the popularity of the "Hallmarks of Aging" doesn't impart mainstream acceptance to SENS. — Wingedserif (talk) 23:09, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * How does Maria A. Blasco, one of the writers of Hallmarks, being on the SENS research advisory board sound? How about the harvard researcher that spearheaded the first genomic sequencing method? He's also on the board, George Church. Impressive history, respectable.
 * What about their papers? "7-ketocholesterol catabolism by Rhodococcus jostii RHA1" cited by 35, "Whole-animal senescent cytotoxic T cell removal using antibodies linked to magnetic nanoparticles." cited by 14, "Enzymatic degradation of A2E, a retinal pigment epithelial lipofuscin bisretinoid." cited by 45 - these are impressive citation numbers which any scientist would tell you provides some level of authority suggestive that, at least at some point, the research likely enjoyed significant support by the field. This is better than a news report, this is primary literature - and with those citation counts, they are certainly not fringe. My lecturers at university got way, WAY less than that on their own papers.
 * Big figures in the financial industry such as Jim Mellon are throwing money at them, respected scientists such as the "world renowned cyclodextrin expert Dr. Lajos Szente" (globalnewswire's words, not mine) are stating their work could be "truly revolutionary" (Underdog was a spin-out from a SENS research project) - do I need to keep digging? Alyarin9000 (talk) 01:02, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The reason I asked for an independent reliable source—a news story, a journal article by non-SENS scientists, a literature review, anything—is that I think claims about SENS having or not having fringe status calls for more than we allow self-published sources to assert. I have been looking for such a source myself and I have been unable to find one, only articles that say Silicon Valley investors are attracted to support SENS. (FWIW, I think SENS would fit somewhere in the middle of the fringe spectrum as "Questionable science", not "Pseudoscience".) It seems to me to be going way off into the weeds to establish reliability by citation counts of board members or institutional funders, which still might constitute OR. — Wingedserif (talk) 12:08, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * What about my other points ? The citation counts of SENS's own research papers? The ties between SENS and the actual WRITERS of the Hallmarks of Aging paper, suggesting some level of agreement? Alyarin9000 (talk) 14:25, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You just ignore the fact that there are already secondary sources that prove that SENS isn't "questionable science" because it targets known and significant causes of aging phenotypes. What exactly is "questionable science" in SENS?.--ThunderheadX (talk) 15:48, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , Globalnewswire is a press release distribution service, they say whatever they are paid to say. MrOllie (talk) 01:26, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * TIL. Regardless, Google states that Lajos Szente has over 9000 citations to his name, with a H-index of 45. That is RIDICULOUSLY respectable, so i'd concur with the statement that the guy's almost certainly great. ("H-index scores between 3 and 5 seem common for new assistant professors, scores between 8 and 12 fairly standard for promotion to the position of tenured associate professor, and scores between 15 and 20 about right for becoming a full professor." according to journal-publishing.com) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alyarin9000 (talk • contribs) 01:34, 20 April 2021 (UTC)


 * SENS target known causes of aging, it is an undeniable fact even without the hallmarks of aging article. There are secondary sources that show that SENS target actual and significant causes of aging:
 * Senescent cells: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12325-020-01287-0 https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/504845 (ApoptoSENS)
 * Advanced-Glycation-end-Products: https://www.nature.com/articles/s12276-021-00561-7 (GlycoSENS)
 * mitochonrial mutations: https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(16)30502-2.pdf (MitoSENS)
 * Even the wiki articles about Senescent cells and Advanced Glycation end Products say that they play a role in aging. So what exactly are you asking for? for an article that will confirm that when SENS mention "senescent cells" they actually talk about senescent cells?... It looks like some people just decided that SENS are "a bunch of cranks" and decided to ignore scientific studies and the scientific consensus. There is actually no proof that SENS methods and goals aren't recognized as legitimate by the scientific community today, there are many studies and scientific articles that prove that the scientific community support the science behind SENS and its goals. and some of them actually mention SENS : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5161440/ "Newly armed with an idea of how humans age, numerous companies and government-funded programmes have sprung up to address human ageing as a problem in and of itself, rather than trying to address the diseases of ageing separately. High profile examples include the (formerly Google) Alphabet-funded ageing research venture, Calico (California Life Sciences Company); the interventions testing program (ITP) run by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), designed to test the longevity-enhancing potential of a variety of different drugs; and Human Longevity Inc., co-founded by J. Craig Venter, which aims to elucidate and treat the (epi)genetic causes of age-related diseases. Furthermore, the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Research Foundation performs its own research and helps fund the research of other institutes, and focuses on utilising combinations of regenerative medicine, gene therapy and pharmacology to reverse ageing." --ThunderheadX (talk) 00:06, 12 April 2021 (UTC)


 * It's fringe. Fringe proponents citing each other a lot does not de-fringe something. As for the OP's assertion that these ideas are "widely accepted as valid" ... well, show me the supporting text from that from the NHS, CDC, or WHO and I'll buy it. Until then, fringe. Alexbrn (talk) 14:54, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Hallmarks of Aging is literally cited by the UK parliament, in an article published by the authority of the House of Lords - https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5801/ldselect/ldsctech/183/183.pdf Alyarin9000 (talk) 16:15, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Or are you gonna claim the House of Lords are a fringe organization of pseudoscientists? Alyarin9000 (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Not a reliable source for anything SCI/MED certainly. And even if it was, their session reports are going to cite stuff interviewees mentioned. That would not necessarily lend any credibility to it. The document doesn't even mention SENS that I can see. Alexbrn (talk) 16:37, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * They're discussing hallmarks of aging, which is effectively identical with a few small variations. Hallmarks of aging is cited here. https://www.who.int/ageing/health-systems/4_History-development-lessons-learned-frailty-concept.pdf - WHO. Happy now? Alyarin9000 (talk) 16:44, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oops, forgot to ping you Alyarin9000 (talk) 16:49, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Happy that the fringe designation is correct and applies. We can't use synthesis to talk about one thing as though it were another by dint of an editor's original research, and in any case something being "cited" does not mean is it accepted, or non-fringe. If you want to show SENS is "widely accepted" as a whole, you need a source that says that. Alexbrn (talk) 16:51, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, so let me get this straight. An organization proposes a hypothesis that says X things are the root causes of aging. They are considered fringe, until another group publish a hypothesis stating X+1 things are the root causes of aging. The other group is cited 7000 times, by groups including the WHO and UK parliament, and major investors such as Jim Mellon and Peter Thiel invest in drugs focusing on them. The first group, despite being effectively identical to the second group, and in fact HAVING FOUNDING MEMBERS OF THAT SUCCESSFUL GROUP ON THEIR BOARD are considered fringe no matter how respected the second group are, nor how similar their findings are, nor how much their authors show agreement with the other group after publishing. The house of lords is a fringe organization of pseudoscientists, and the WHO routinely cites psuedoscientists in their reports showing an overview of what we know. The only thing that matters is if the WSJ or w/e report very specifically that the first group is "totally fine" - the number of varied citations means nothing, ONLY WHAT A SCIENTIFIC JOURNALIST THINKS
 * I'm at my wit's end here. I'm arguing with a bunch of I.T. specialists who are claiming that journalists are the final arbiters of science, despite the complete incompetence of scientific journalists that is absolutely obvious to anyone with half a semester of scientific education. I have lost whatever small fragment of faith I once had in this lousy project's capability to hold an ounce of truth. You ignore primary literature and evidence in a misguided sense of neutrality, and instead wholeheartedly rely on the people who are so bad at science that they can only report.
 * What metric do we even HAVE to recognize a paper's 'fringeness' other than its citation count (tempered by the reputations of those citing it), the history of its authors, the soundness of its methodology, the outcomes it produces in experimentation? What the Wall Street Journal or New York Times think? Don't make me laugh. Alyarin9000 (talk) 17:13, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Your descent into ad hominem probably betrays the weakness of the argument, and a reason why this will be my last response. To propose that a paper proposing characteristics is somehow the same as a set of strategies to head-off ageing, mixed up with extreme quackery like cryonics, is a daft idea that has no basis in sources. SENS was (is?) fringe. Alexbrn (talk) 17:27, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * My descent into a steadily controlled rant only betrays the fact that i've been arguing this for so long that my frustration is finally boiling over. The strategies match the characteristics, they are based on them, they are the first to HIGHLIGHT them. Cryonics isn't even central to SENS, it's at most a peripheral topic which tends to interest a subset of people interested in SENS - but in no way does cryonics target the damages that SENS highlights. Completely different areas, with completely different levels of reliability. Alyarin9000 (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Concluding ping - and have a good day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alyarin9000 (talk • contribs) 17:42, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So there's no true SENSman. Alexbrn (talk) 18:26, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * SENS does 0 research on full-body cryogenics - you just cannot tie them together. Alyarin9000 (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No, let's leave such associations to the SENS thoughtleaders, eh? Alexbrn (talk) 19:12, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * AdG also solved a mathematical problem which left professional mathematicians stumped. Does that mean SENS also researches mathematics?  Alyarin9000 (talk) 19:34, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You call the hallmark of aging article a "fringe"?, based on what exactly?. And what exactly are you saying? that SENS targets for alleviating aging like reducing senescent cells and advanced glycation end products in the body have no support from the scientific community?. I already provided here secondary sources that support the fact that SENS target known and significant causes of aging phenotypes, and no, they don't need to specifically mention SENS and confirm that when SENS mention "senescent cells" they actually talk about senescent cells. --ThunderheadX (talk) 18:01, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't call any "article" fringe; I called the ragbag strategies of SENS, with its cryonics/quackery connections fringe. Try to stay relevant to the section's question. Alexbrn (talk) 18:27, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? there is no cryonics in SENS methods and it have nothing to do with the discussion here. We are talking about the "hallmark of aging" paper and other sources point out the fact that SENS is based on known and well accepted science and isn't "fringe" or "questionable science".--ThunderheadX (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * See the title of this section for the topic ("Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence"). See the link given for the cryonics connection. Alexbrn (talk) 20:10, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * There is nothing about cryogenics in SENS website at all. I don't know what link you are talking about but it doesn't matter and you are just changing the subject for no good reason. You have anything to say about the secondary sources that show that SENS does target known reasons for aging phenotypes?. read the articles in SENS "intro to SENS research" page on their website: https://www.sens.org/our-research/intro-to-sens-research/ and you can see that SENS research is focused on those known and well accepted causes for aging phenotypes. You can't ignore this fact. --ThunderheadX (talk) 21:05, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Fringe organisations typically try to market themselves as serious, so their own website is obviously not WP:FRIND. In actuality, it's classic Motte and bailey argumentation since this is one woo that seems to be in play. And that's before we get to all the Benjamin Button claims. THE OP claimed that SENS is "widely accepted as valid". Instead the organisation seem merely to have raised a few journalists' eyebrows and hooked up with strange bedfellows. Come back if/when there are good WP:MEDRS to cite. Alexbrn (talk) 03:08, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * IRT "known reasons for aging phenotypes", isn't it more accepted as one of the symptoms rather than a main cause? Also, research in aging is legitimate and indeed also done by others, but the discussed article is about SENS itself, its claims, results and reception.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 04:01, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * SENS website isn't a good source about SENS research focus?. What are you trying to say? that SENS just lie about the fact that their research focus on accepted causes of aging phenotypes like senescent cells and advanced glycation end products and instead just research about cryogenic?. it doesn't look like you read WP:FRIND, it doesn't say that an organization's website isn't a reliable source about the activity of the organization. You treat everything SENS say as a lie even when they talk about their own activity because you are just looking for excuses for ignoring the fact that SENS target well known causes of aging. I know you are sure that SENS are liars but you can't treat it as a fact in a discussion without giving any reasonable evidence for this, and you need one hell of an evidence to prove that SENS completely lies about all of its activities.
 * " isn't it more accepted as one of the symptoms rather than a main cause?" Didn't you read the studies I provided here? things like senescent cells and advanced glycation end products(AGEs) are known causes of aging phenotypes and not just markers of aging or something like that. There are more "upstream" causes of aging that also cause senescent cells but removing senescent cells is a well known strategy for reversing age-related symptoms: Senolytic. advanced glycation end products are an accumulated molecular damage and it is known that removing them will alleviate phenotypes of aging. And it is obviously relevant to SENS itself because their research focus on those things. How can you call SENS a "fringe" if their research is supported by well known scientific facts? --ThunderheadX (talk) 12:24, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * We need WP:FRIND sources for fringe topics, and even in general we need independent sources for content to establish there's sufficient WP:WEIGHT for something to be worth mentioning. Remember, an encyclopedia article is not (directly) "about" a topic, but should be a summary, rather, of what the best sources are saying about it. Alexbrn (talk) 13:12, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you kidding me?, WP:FRIND have nothing to do here and there is nothing in this page that say that an organization's website isn't a reliable source about its own activities regardless of if they are considered "fringe" or not. You are just making up ridiculous rules and claim them to be part of pages like WP:FRIND. And BTW there are other sources that prove that SENS is deeply involved in research about causes of aging like advanced glycation end products: https://www.revelpharmaceuticals.com/ " Opening a new category in the SENS repair approach to aging ... Since then progress has been rapid, with development of glucosepane binding antibodies and discovery of therapeutic enzyme candidates capable of breaking up glucosepane crosslinks. Revel will build upon this progress by advancing the first GlycoSENS therapeutics into the clinic.  This company is part of SENS's GlycoSENS program of researching ways to remove advanced glycation end product cross-links from the body. --ThunderheadX (talk) 15:42, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This is WP:FT/N, where the correct application of WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE to fringe topics, in particular, are discussed. Your pharmaceutiucal website is not a good source for anything either. What we want are reputable, secondary, independent sources. Per WP:FRIND the best sources to use when describing fringe theories, are independent reliable sources. Anyway, since consensus is clear I suggest we are now done. Alexbrn (talk) 15:54, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Its like you are not even reading my replies... You just keep with the same lie over and over again. There is no rule in wikipedia or any of your pages that say that a website of some organization isn't a reliable source for the activity of the organization. I am talking about the research focus of SENS(and research groups that are working with SENS) and not about the theory itself. I already provided secondary sources that support the fact that SENS target known causes of aging. --ThunderheadX (talk) 19:45, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , you have already been referred to the WP:ABOUTSELF policy, which you presumably read since you replied to my message. — Wingedserif (talk) 20:30, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Your reply have nothing to do with anything I just said, and its not the first time it happens. --ThunderheadX (talk) 20:41, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It's more a neutrality issue than a reliability issue. Of course a website is "reliable" for what an organisation likes to say about itself, but there's no weight to it and it likely deviates from the accepted knowledge that is meant to be our common currency. Hence WP:FRIND exists. If it didn't we'd be doing things like using David Icke's site to detail his beliefs because "it's reliable" for them. In general, "it's reliable" is the mating call of the POV-pusher. If fringe ideas don't get coverage in good sources, we must omit them. And that is core policy and non-negotiable. Alexbrn (talk) 20:37, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * "deviates from the accepted knowledge"? we are talking here about facts about the organization activities like its research focus. If an organization claim to research about senolytics or enzymes that brakes advanced glycation end products why shouldn't we believe it?, there is nothing to do with reliability here. Are you sure you understand about what I am talking about? it seems like you don't get what I am talking about and you react to something else completely. --ThunderheadX (talk) 21:11, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think I understand well what you're trying to do. Wikipedia does not generally deal in "facts", but in knowledge. We want merely to reflect what accepted knowledge there is about SENS as published in good sources (i.e. that they're a maverick/silly organisation with hyperbolic claims). Just because something is a "fact" (like the fact that SENS say their work is invaluable) does not make it worthy of our notice. See WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Or better still start at WP:5P and try to get a WP:CLUE about what the overall purpose of this Project is. It's WP:NOT a venue for you to advocate fringe notions or boost fringe organisations. Alexbrn (talk) 06:05, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So to make it clear - the citation counts of the papers SENS research mean nothing, the quality of the journals they publish in mean nothing, their agreement (and actual pre-dating) with widely accepted information means nothing -- we can only VERY SPECIFICALLY remove fringe designation if someone outright says 'they are no longer fringe', we cannot infer that information from the wider context and standard indicators academics usually use to denote quality? Alyarin9000 (talk) 12:04, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Some rubbish there. Nothing has been produced to show SENS is mainstream (only tricksy propositions that something kinda like SENS might be like what SENS might do and be kinda legitimate if we indulge in some speculative squinting); plenty that it's fringe. So that's where we are. Wikipedia cannot change reality, merely reflect it. Alexbrn (talk) 13:02, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Look, if you'll agree to give it a fair shake, i'll highlight some of SENS's papers, their citation counts, what journals they're published in and such to show practical evidence that SENS are currently seen as more than fringe by the scientific community, I just thought that would be considered too close to Original Research Alyarin9000 (talk) 13:08, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It would be. If you want Wikipedia to say something about the view of "the scientific community", you need a source meeting WP:RS/AC. You are just WP:REHASHing previous unconvincing appeals. Alexbrn (talk) 13:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * My problem is i'm used to that sort of thing being the accepted standard of evidence (lack of OR actually being looked down on), so i'm a little lost using journalists as actual sources etc. And the opinions of very authoritative scientists probably mean nothing in this context as well, I assume? We couldn't, say, look at SENS's scientific advisory board and analyze their H-indexes etcetera? That sounds like it'd also fall under Original Research. It feels like the acceptable range of information is excessively narrow - but I guess it is not ours to question why. It just seems a shame - no matter how compelling SENS's case, nor how much evidence there is supporting its authority as 'more than fringe', wikipedia will continue to actively harm their efforts until a journalist decides that they like them. Alyarin9000 (talk) 13:39, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * (Later) Bingo! In fact I have found such a source:
 * It says,
 * So there we have it. Alexbrn (talk) 13:34, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * 2005 was before they began their research programmes - and before a lot of the field did similar. "As far as we know, “senescence marker-tagged toxins” do not yet exist. Moreover, if they did, it is uncertain whether they would do more harm than good." - these 'senescence marker-tagged toxins' are senolytics, which have been shown to exist and are used in a wide variety of papers, showing benefit in a range of areas (at least in mice). Hallmarks of Aging probably cites a few, but there are tons. FOXO4-DRI etcetera. At the time, the most optimistic of Aubrey's proposals (classed as exceptionally optimistic by your paper) - allotopic expression of mitochondrial genes - was considered the most 'science fantasy' of all his proposals. SENS then managed to express those genes in mice in a highly respectable journal. Gensight Biologics may well pass their own drug independently which does the exact same thing for a third gene - they finished P3 already, and just need to be accepted by regulators in September. Their data is exceptional to treat the genetic disease they are targeting, so obviously the gene functions. In short, the paper you're citing is outdated . Alyarin9000 (talk) 13:49, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, we know what the "informed scientific community" thinks, we know that you will disagree. These SENS guys were obviously thought preposterous and (insofar as anybody remembers them) no source exists to say that has changed. This is obviously WP:PROFRINGE advocacy now, with a likely COI taint. Time to end the discussion. Alexbrn (talk) 14:04, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * New data, - yes, a source exists to say that this has changed. The idea that any research programme could reverse aging has basically split the field 50/50 - I point you to https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343052399_Lack_of_consensus_on_an_aging_biology_paradigm_A_global_survey_reveals_an_agreement_to_disagree_and_the_need_for_an_interdisciplinary_framework . Given the support for Hallmarks, which is near identical to SENS, that question likely closely parallels any individual researcher's opinion on SENS. Published in "Mechanisms of Ageing and Development", a - once again - fairly respectable journal https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=29640&tip=sid&clean=0 Alyarin9000 (talk) 14:10, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Another irrelevant paper. Alexbrn (talk) 14:23, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * New data, - yes, a source exists to say that this has changed. The idea that any research programme could reverse aging has basically split the field 50/50 - I point you to https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343052399_Lack_of_consensus_on_an_aging_biology_paradigm_A_global_survey_reveals_an_agreement_to_disagree_and_the_need_for_an_interdisciplinary_framework . Given the support for Hallmarks, which is near identical to SENS, that question likely closely parallels any individual researcher's opinion on SENS. Published in "Mechanisms of Ageing and Development", a - once again - fairly respectable journal https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=29640&tip=sid&clean=0 Alyarin9000 (talk) 14:10, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Another irrelevant paper. Alexbrn (talk) 14:23, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I've been looking into this topic since yesterday afternoon, and I've found no reason to suspect there is anything mainstream about this term. It seems entirely relegated to the fringes, and as such, we should portray it as fringe. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  15:10, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * What is the definition for "mainstream"?. The scientific community support the science behind SENS's research focus and I gave secondary sources that prove it, even articles in wikipedia admit that Senolytic(removing senescent cells which is a major research focus of SENS) are being researched as a way to " prevent, alleviate, or reverse age-related diseases" and that advanced glycation end products play a role in aging. so there is no reason to consider SENS as "fringe".--ThunderheadX (talk) 15:42, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In all frankness, if your argument depends on quibbling over the definition of "mainstream," then your argument is doomed to failure. I'll not answer your question, because it is a pointless waste of time to argue over what "mainstream" means. We both already know, and our definitions are similar enough that you understand what I meant.
 * As for the rest of your comment, I would point out that the science behind the concept of warp drive is supported by the scientific community, but anyone who sets out to build one is most definitely a fringe actor. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:23, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You just define "mainstream" as something that in your opinion is accepted by the scientific community while ignoring many studies and secondary sources that prove you wrong. Do you want me to give you studies about potential rejuvenation treatments? there are plenty of those and many of them doesn't have anything to do with SENS. Rejuvenation is possible and most of SENS research focus will probably be part of it according to current scientific consensus. You just keep ignoring this fact. If someone was developing a technology that will probably be a significant part of alcubierre drive then it will obviously won't be considered a "fringe" just because more technological advancement is needed. SENS doesn't expect to make it all by itself, there are very promising potential rejuvenation treatments like partial-reprogramming that are still not part of SENS strategy and might not need to be, but even when partial reprogramming will be available in the clinics some SENS strategies like removing advanced glycation end products will still be needed and nobody is questioning this fact.--ThunderheadX (talk) 20:17, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You may wish to read WP:BLUDGEON. With each response you make, I find myself respecting your views here less and less. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  20:26, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * If you and others here have tried to actually read and understand what I am saying I wouldn't have to repeat the same facts over and over. Its not my fault that you just ignore the facts. And to be honest I don't find myself having less and less respect for your views becaus I have no respect for your views at all because they are just based on your unwillingness to consider the facts when they contradicts your beliefs. --ThunderheadX (talk) 21:00, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Stop pinging me. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  21:16, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Let's be sensible: the notion that ageing can be "reversed" by some kind of "strategy" is not part of mainstream medicine. Alexbrn (talk) 15:59, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Why didn't you just admitted that this is your problem with SENS instead of making out ridiculous lies about wikipedia's rules?. Anyway, how you decided that reversing aging "isn't part of mainstream medicine"? there are plenty of scientific papers that talk about this possibility and about current technologies like partial reprogramming that are probably going to be part of future rejuvenation therapy, here is one of those articles: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/12/5/611/htm The discovery that partial reprogramming can reverse the aging clock without permanent alteration of cellular identity has led to initial studies that demonstrate the potential to reverse organismic aging. Although there are many challenges ahead, our current understanding of cellular clocks and our ability to reprogram them using germline factors opens the door to many promising therapeutic approaches to slowing down, preventing, or reversing aging itself and thus treating the many age-related diseases that burden society. Indeed, if these approaches can be made practical and scalable, we may find ourselves in a future in which we have no time to age. --ThunderheadX (talk) 20:33, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I stopped reading when I saw a junk journal being cited. Wikipedia likes reputable sources, not quackademic ones. Alexbrn (talk) 20:41, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * A quick check states that the journal's in the 2nd quartile for its field, not quite 1Q but it's not like he's citing a 3-4Q journal Alyarin9000 (talk) 03:50, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * read the article about this "quackademic" source MDPI, it is one of the largest publishers of scientific journals. The paper I showed you is also on researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351034806_No_Time_to_Age_Uncoupling_Aging_from_Chronological_Time .--ThunderheadX (talk) 21:27, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, MDPI come up a lot at this noticeboard. See WP:CRAPWATCH. Researchgate is a general repository containing a variety of things, some of it predatory/crap too. In any case the paper you link seems not even to mention SENS. Alexbrn (talk) 05:53, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Again, MDPI is an aggregator like pubmed. The journal is Gene, which is apparently in the second quartile - i'm not reading too deeply into it, so maybe it's lower in other fields, but if you want to criticize any journal - criticize Gene. Thunder was replying to your statement that reversal of 'aging' is not mainstream - there are many different organizations who confirm that it is. All you need to do is look at methylation clocks to see that aging is actually highly plastic to intervention, including exercise etc (with limited effect) Alyarin9000 (talk) 12:00, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * MDPI is a publishing company. It is not an aggregator. Unclear how you messed that up. Its journals are of varying quality. I wouldn't call it as awful as Hindawi, but if the standard-bearer for a claim is sourced to MDPI, that's definitely a WP:REDFLAG as is rightly being pointed out. As for whether an article is on ResearchGate or not, that's just up to some author posting it. It says nothing about the reliability of the article. jps (talk) 12:16, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Publishing company, sure. Sorry, i am rushing a little at this point. Still, wikipedia itself highlights that MDPI should be considered on a case-by-case basis. The article itself is published in Genes 2021. Looking at SJR - https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=19700188368&tip=sid&clean=0 - that journal is actually fairly respectable in 2021 Alyarin9000 (talk) 12:59, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * "Fairly respectable" is perhaps something I can get behind as an accurate evaluation. However, for WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims, we would like to see them sourced to something a bit more than a "fairly respectable" journal. Major breakthroughs typically are published in the top-notch journals, not the "fairly respectable" ones. jps (talk) 13:30, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think MDPI is worse than Hindawi by any reasonable standard. --JBL (talk) 00:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Difference between what "is" what is being researched, no? Were one proposing that there is currently a human colony on Mars, that would be fringe. Proposing the same to be a possibility for investigation is not. Designing Mars habs for future use is not. Hyperbolick (talk) 16:11, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Real research would be to determine whether something could be done, not to pre-decide it and hype it. Thus pretty much the opening words on the SENS website invite you to watch a video describing why "SENS is invaluable to defeating aging". Even the experimental research seems to have long got short shrift, with some of the mouse experiments being described as "frankly silly". Alexbrn (talk) 16:23, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You're more right than you know about feasibility vs accomplishing a goal. Compare Mars One and the Moon to Mars program. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:27, 21 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Unambiguous fringe theory. I carefully read all of the above arguments, and found the case for it being fringe to be compelling. One day we may figure out how to reverse aging, but it certainly has not happened yet (and yes, the SENS proponents say that it has happened, not just that they are researching it). If it ever happens, everybody will be talking about it, not just a few cranks. I don't mind most marine mammals, but Sea Lions? I could do without Sea lions. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:17, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The case against it being fringe, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired. Trying to sell a parliament as a reliable source for science by setting up the false dilemma that everything must be either a reliable scientific source or a fringe organization of pseudoscientists? Claiming that WP:ABOUTSELF is not about cases such as this, which involves a questionable source as a source on itself? Trying to redefine "mainstream" so something which is clearly not mainstream becomes so? Those methods may be slightly original, at least I have not encountered them in exactly this form, but they are still well within the area of bad reasoning well-known to everybody who frequents this page, and of course well outside the area of sound reasoning. Also, I am surprised that the link to WP:IDHT has not made an appearance yet. (Do not ping me either. I live here.) --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:47, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * My statement about parliament being a fringe organization of pseudoscientists was more just my frustration boiling over into the most tame string of words which could convey my frustration. The point remains that the most important factor highlighting the feasibility of the SENS approach (enough to make it lose fringe designation) is its similarity to the Hallmarks of Aging paper. You cannot say a review with 7000 citations from a wide variety of institutions is fringe, and by extension SENS becomes incomplete yet close enough to the sum of current knowledge to be considered a reasonable strategy. Alyarin9000 (talk) 03:41, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd like to add, HoA is literally published in Cell - that's a high-quality journal Alyarin9000 (talk) 12:13, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * You claim that I have bad reasoning? did you even read the WP:ABOUTSELF page?: "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities" which is what I said over and over in the discussion. You claim that the WP:ABOUTSELF page or any other page say that we shouldn't take SENS's website as a reliable source for SENS's activities like researching about senolytics and enzymes that brakes advanced glycation end products?. Non of you even answered this simple question and you are just avoiding the subject and just dismiss anything and everybody as "fringe" or "bunch of cranks". If something can be non-"mainstream" and still be a scientific consensus(like the fact that SENS target some significant causes of aging phenotypes) than this term "mainstream" is completely irrelevant for the discussion here. You cant talk about good or bad reasoning while completely ignoring the points of the other side.--ThunderheadX (talk) 00:15, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * "So long as the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;"
 * ABOUTSELF is not a loophole in WP:FRINGE.
 * ApLundell (talk) 00:51, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * What is "exceptional claim" in claiming to research about things like senolytics and enzymes that brakes advanced glycation end products?, There is nothing exceptional or special about this and SENS aren't even the only ones who are doing this. Senolytics research is quite common actually. There is no reason not to believe those simple facts SENS is publishing about its research.--ThunderheadX (talk) 01:52, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

What is "exceptional claim" This is a good question. Thomas Kuhn, as outmoded as he may be these days in Science and Technology Studies and Philosophy of science circles, may help to provide an answer to this. An "exceptional claim" would be one that seeks to overturn a paradigm while an "ordinary claim" might be so-called "normal science". jps (talk) 13:36, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I think it will be helpful if you answer some questions about what is your problem with the arguments in favor of stoping considering SENS as fringe. Do you think that SENS's website isn't a reliable source for claiming that SENS is researching about things like senolytics and removing advancded glycation end products? or that it doesn't matter and not worthy to be considered in the article?. What you consider as a good evidence that SENS isn't fringe?, do you expect a letter (like the letter that is being used as a source in the "criticism" section) that simply state that SENS is accepted by the scientific community?. You think that we should prove that the idea of reversing aging is itself not "fringe"? or that is "mainstream"?. How you determine if something is "mainstream" or not?.--ThunderheadX (talk) 16:13, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * ThunderheadX, you have to provide reliable, secondary sources. Of course, SENS's website doesn't qualify. If you are not able to provide that kind of sources, please stop trying to wear down other editors' patience. --Rsk6400 (talk) 16:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * +1 to this. I've been lurking throughout this conversation because I'm curious to see how more experienced editors handle persistent WP:SEALIONing from committed SPAs like these. At what point does the community decide to WP:DENY recognition? At what point is WP:IDHT considered disruptive? Not necessarily seeking direct answers to these questions here, just pointing out that this thread is instructive. Generalrelative (talk) 16:30, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That point has now been reached (if it hadn't been before). The case is closed. Alexbrn (talk) 16:36, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So you say that I didn't provided any secondary sources here, like I never mentioned it over and over... ok. You know what I got tired of this game you are playing, it is clear that none of the "experienced editors" here are here to have a serious discussion and just blame me for being an advocator of SENS. Accusing me of advocating for SENS like I am working for them or something doesn't change anything and in fact it isn't really about SENS anymore because there are serious problems with how wiki editors(including the "experienced" ones) are dealing with sources and information or the discussion about those things and I noticed this problem not just on the SENS article(read my earlier discussion on wingedserif talk page). Do whatever you want with the SENS article but don't act as if you had any real discussion about anything, you are just wasting people's time and efforts on pointless fake discussion with a predetermined ending.--ThunderheadX (talk) 19:03, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Vaticinium ex eventu


What do you think of ? Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:08, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Also related: — Paleo Neonate  – 04:58, 23 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't think this is fringe at all: see my last comment in Talk:Vaticinium ex eventu, and perhaps also my comments at Talk:Gospel of Mark. Any further participation in these discussions is more than welcome, Apaugasma (talk&#124;contribs) 17:39, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Pentagon UFO videos, again
Media publicity surrounding the latest UFO video acknowledged by the Pentagon. I think a 4 day old story needs a bit more time to settle, but there are article move and rename proposals being discussed. See Talk:Pentagon_UFO_videos. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:18, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The fact is, of course, that all the articles on the newest leak reference the old videos as well. I would not be the least bit surprised if this new business was orchestrated by To the Stars (company). jps (talk) 12:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I wondered the same when looking at the CNN source the other day although another site was linked there, that I didn't really check the origin of. On the other hand it seemed nothing new: confirmation that the videos were not fake and that what was filmed is unknown/unidentified, that airspace is monitored for potential aircraft that may pose a security threat.  I'm sure some will see more into that, as usual, or at least attempt to echo every news post in a stream of speculation...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 14:35, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The new video shows unidentified triangular shaped objects, which UFOs-are-aliens proponents are heralding as a new breakthrough in Earth-ET relations. Of course there are other explanations. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Some previously unidentified triangle videos (other than optical illusions) were eventually confirmed to be known planes, of course... — Paleo  Neonate  – 01:20, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Stop throwing cold water on my Earth-ET relations! Exopolitics is the next big thing! jps (talk) 16:02, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * They claim to drive Pentagon UFOs? Triangular vehicles are two corners short! They must be illegal aliens from shithole planets with severe corner shortages. Earth First! --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:29, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure Earth First! wants anything to do with this. Generalrelative (talk) 20:07, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Swiss Policy Research
There's a new account SPA over on Swiss Policy Research that's trying to remove criticism of the website as a conspiracy and pseudoscience site. Silver seren C 00:38, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Alternative theories of quantum evolution


Rename this? Other ideas? Whenever someone suggests that something is based on quantum, that usually means they do not understand how it works and think that adding quantum will reduce the pain. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:49, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, it doesn’t seem to be anything to do with quantum evolution, so some sort of rename is appropriate. Brunton (talk) 12:31, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/Alternative theories of quantum evolution. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 04:57, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Dave Grossman (author), Killology
Do the pages Dave Grossman (author), Killology and On Killing meet the NPOV and FRINGE guidelines? As far as I can tell, the subject is a non-academic who is not doing science, yet presenting his work as if it were science (psychology, more precisely). However, the Wikipedia articles makes him appear as if he were an academic. The misrepresentation of the subject and his works is particularly problematic given that the person and his works have been attributed as a contributor to militarization of police in the US. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:49, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * This is going to be a headache.
 * As you noted, Grossman isn't an academic. However On Killing and, to a less degree, On Combat were definitely influential; they got onto various military required reading lists and spread into scholarly works from there. Case in point, one of the sources on the Killology page, "At War with Metaphor: Media, Propaganda, and Racism in the War on Terror", is written by a Sociology Professor and takes Grossman's work as an expert opinion. By and large, On Killing is also just an exploration of S.L.A. Marshall's well known thesis in Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command.
 * Which is a problem, because Marshall's work is actually very controversial. Our article is pretty bad, this source summarises the dispute much more evenly (though, for what its worth, it also cites Grossman as an 'academic supporter of Marshall'). Personally I find the argument of those who think Marshall fabricated his evidence very compelling, but I'm not an expert.
 * Back to Grossman. He's got more credibility than the news reports would imply, but he's not an actual psychological researcher (and he's probably wrong). No idea where that leaves us. --RaiderAspect (talk) 07:21, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Update/shameless plug of WP:UPSD, a script to detect unreliable sources
It's been about 14 months since this script was created, and since its inception it became one of the most imported scripts (currently #54, with 286+ adopters).

Since last year, it's been significantly expanded to cover more bad sources, and is more useful than ever, so I figured it would be a good time to bring up the script up again. This way others who might not know about it can take a look and try it for themselves. I would highly recommend that anyone doing citation work, who writes/expands articles, or does bad-sourcing/BLP cleanup work installs the script.

The idea is that it takes something like and turns it into something like
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from cite web, cite journal and doi.

Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:09, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This is a nice tool indeed! jps (talk) 14:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Yup... very useful. I especially like how it states clearly that it has limitations, and outlines how it should NOT be used. I hope people will read that. Blueboar (talk) 14:12, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I've been using it for cleanup for a while, it is very useful. With a glance I can see which sources should be double-checked, and which parts of the article are suspicious. Tercer (talk) 18:40, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Transcendental Meditation
The evidence for the effectiveness of the technique seems to have improved over the last two months! Also, Cochrane reviews seem to be less relevant than other studies. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:01, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Some content was restored. In case someone has access to the full source, I posted a concern on its talk page.  Thanks, — Paleo  Neonate  – 13:03, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Benveniste affair


The article was renamed last year, from Jacques Benveniste, and reorganized accordingly. Now someone (probably a relative) tries to turn it into a biography again, moving the "Jacques Benveniste" part to the top but not renaming the article. Also, removing categories. Someone else revented, then I reverted again after the second attempt. But I guess this is not the end of it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:11, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , Benveniste affair seems preferable per WP:BLP. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:38, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * COI editor warned at User talk:Claire Benveniste. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:46, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Faith healing
My edit has been removed in which I specified on the lead that the practice is fringe. This article needs more eyes. Shankargb (talk) 17:56, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I restored the scientific consensus language in the lead (again). Shankargb, please pay attention to what's on the article talk page where there was careful consensus for specific language (generally the better place to visit first than a noticeboard). The language you were removing was there to illustrate the scientific consensus against faith healing being anything but pseudoscience. That language in part originated with having to deal with fringe POV-pushing there. KoA (talk) 03:55, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * While the mention of pseudoscience is not in the first paragraph, it is still in the lead in both versions. Since there was previous talk page consensus in relation to specifics, the now-restored previous revision seems fine.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 09:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It should be mentioned in first or second sentence given Homeopathy and Astrology get that treatment too. Moving it to last paragraph of lead is problematic. Shankargb (talk) 20:26, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Slightly different subject. Astrology was a protoscience and precursor to astronomy which gets deployed by certain practitioners with the veneer of science. Meanwhile, homeopathy makes explicit claims that are pseudoscientific (such as serial dilution increases potency). Faith healing, however, arises in a variety of contexts. Surely some of those contexts rely on pseudoscientific reasoning, but a lot of them are no more pseudoscientific than someone who carries a rabbit foot for good luck. Some superstitions just don't rise to even having the veneer of scientific argument. jps (talk) 01:34, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The edit just moved things around, it did not add or remove any text apart from removing "virtually all" and a minor change in the gestures part. --mfb (talk) 01:28, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The most recent edit, yes, though the edit in question at the time was removing it linked above. KoA (talk) 02:39, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry for not pitching in earlier. I followed Shankargb's recommendation of putting it in the first paragraph; but beyond that I didn't change anything. But this isn't really a discussion for here, if I may (the article talk page would have been fine: there doesn't appear to be any dispute [at least among those of you here] that faith healing is the usual pseudoscience BS). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:44, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Covid-19
See my comments at Talk:COVID-19 misinformation:

Also see: --Guy Macon (talk) 10:28, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
 * China is promoting coronavirus treatments based on unproven traditional medicines --Nature
 * Be Wary of Acupuncture, Qigong, and "Chinese Medicine" --Quackwatch
 * Beijing proposes law to ban criticism of traditional Chinese medicine ==British Medical Journal
 * TCM for COVID-19 --Science-Based Medicine
 * There has got to be an intersection here with homeopathy where someone has recommended dilution of bat for a Covid cure.... Or is that Witchcraft? Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:41, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Roko's basilisk at AfD
This discussion may be of interest to the community here. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:33, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Kingdom of Judah
What do you think about and subsequent edits? I'll grant you that the majority of scholars believe that the United Monarchy existed, however they believe so based upon sparse and shoddy evidence, it is a leap of faith rather than science. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:19, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I will put my cards on the table here--I am a United Monarchy skeptic, for pretty much the reasons you describe. The extra-biblical evidence just doesn't seem to fit the political entity described in the writing.  That being said, it is undoubtedly true that while some skepticism is probably widespread, a belief in the general existence and contours of the United Monarchy is the majority opinion.  I will note my exegetical days are well behind me and I have not done any surveys of more recent literature, so this is largely an informed opinion from 20 years ago.  To sum up: I agree with you, but for Wikipedia purposes, I think we likely have to concede this point.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 12:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yup, but you see: when Amihai Mazar says United Monarchy existed, Mazar is good; when he says Judah was sparsely populated in the 10th and 9th centuries BCE, Mazar is bad (deleted). If you read what he wrote, he puts the estimate of the whole population of the United Monarchy somewhere around 20 thousand people. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Just want to note that the majority of scholars who are interested in that question must be theology scholars, whose job description contains believing things completely without evidence. What do the historians believe? --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * For good or ill, that's something of a porous boundary in these instances. I am going to see if I can't get back in student mode and update my thinking a bit with a survey of the landscape.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 13:59, 30 April 2021 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I was recently looking into this issue, and the impression I got is that the term "United Monarchy" is used as description of the period preceding the origins of Judah as a polity. In other words, they call it the "United Monarchy" while perceiving it as anywhere from a single Monarchic state to a tight-knit group of tribes. As to the prevalence of those perceptions, I got the impression that there's quite a bit of disagreement, with liberal and agnostic scholars predominantly favoring the tribal view, and conservative and theistic scholars predominantly favoring the monarchy. Personally, I doubt there there was a single kingdom controlling the region at that time. I'm not as familiar with this period as I am with the New Testament period, but from what I recall, the earliest evidence of Israelis as a distinct ethnic group shows that they started as small communities scattered throughout Canaan. I have a hard time imagining that turning into a massive state that then split into two states. And I've yet to find any evidence other than biblical texts to support that notion.
 * FYI, this was also an issue at Yahweh, but in that case, I suggested a change that would sidestep the issue. In both cases, it was the same editor. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:19, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a generally good summation. And yes, the consensus is that an independent Israelite identity emerged in several seemingly disparate places in Canaan, from within the Canaanite ethnic group, based on archaeological findings that seem to indicate some communities uniformly adopting what resemble Kosher dietary habits. And later, it can be said with more certainty that several tribes emerged, some only later being absorbed into an Israelite identity, from both archaeological findings and clues in extant texts (such as the Biblical "Song of Deborah"). This was a complicated process that spanned centuries, and only later did a more cohesive and unified Israelite identity form, and even then more so in the context of tribal kinship and mutual recognition of those other tribes as related peoples. And of course that there were specific cities and limited regions that were identified as belonging to those tribes. From what I recall though, most scholars (by this, I mean mainly archaeologists and critical textual scholars) tend to dismiss the concept of the United Monarchy as semi-legendary, at least as far as any it being any sort of actual unified polity that exercised any power outside the environs of Judah. That there was possibly a historical Saul, David, and Solomon, but that while they claimed to be a sort of chieftain over a loose tribal confederacy of most of the Israelite tribes, they wielded little if any influence over the northern tribes, and it was something more akin to being a ceremonial kingship that was later mythologized and regarded as something more than it actually was, by both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. A way to claim legitimacy for later rulers. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 20:02, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * FWIW, this is the sense I get of the current state of scholarship as well. The scholarly matter of The Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed, 2014) also aligns with this perspective, the most relevant article being by Oded Lipschits (pp. 2107-2119). Newimpartial (talk) 16:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * If I remember well, that source also has an article by Aren Maeir, imparting more nuance. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, if by more nuance you mean describing more positions taken in the archeological scholarship and drawing somewhat more modest conclusions. The concluding statement of the relevant passage ((pp. 2126-7), however, which can be taken as Maeir's own position, is In any case, the lack of substantive epigraphic materials...and other extensive archeological evidence, indicate that even if an early united monarchy existed, its level of political and bureaucratic complexity was not as developed as the biblical text suggests. In other words, the position he has described earlier -  Some scholars continue to believe that the United monarchy was a large and prosperous kingdom, mirroring to a large extent the image portrayed in the biblical text - is not supported by the currently available material evidence. Newimpartial (talk) 19:53, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * True, the text is available at, and if Maeir posits anything:
 * extreme scarcity of evidence about the United Monarchy;
 * lack of consensus about UM among archaeologists. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:56, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Like other recent scholars, he is able to rule out the historicity of the large iron-age kingdom described in the Tanakh as the "united monarchy". I think that is significant as well. Newimpartial (talk) 20:02, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Lab leak 3001: The Probably Not-So Final Odyssey
Attempt to relitigate the legitimacy of the lab leak supposition again at Talk:Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Patriotic Alternative
There seems to be a lot of vandalism and removing of various criticisms of this white nationalist fringe group from IPS and red accounts. Eyes needed. Psychologist Guy (talk) 12:50, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page
An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 20:41, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on genetic link between race and intelligence
There is a request for comment on whether the hypothesis that there is a genetic link between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. If you are interested, please participate at. —  Newslinger  talk   08:09, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Now archived. jps (talk) 17:37, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And now reinvigorated at Talk:Race and intelligence. jps (talk) 22:45, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Mammoths in the Shahnameh
is currently edit warring this unsourced passage into the mammoth article. "According to Ferdowsi's Shahnameh in the Shah Mazandaran Shah's army (which is located in Mazandaran Shahnameh is different from the current Mazandaran and some consider it in northern Asia and the current Russian steppes), there were 1200 elephants. If we consider the Shahnameh as an epic based on the facts of the last 3000 years, then we may encounter a report of the survival of a group of mammoths up to 3000 years ago in North Asia."

As far as fringe theories go, this is certainly out there. I can't find any reference to this so this appears to be a "novel theory" from the user in question. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * He also appears to be adding the same passage to the Farsi Wiki diff note: read right to left. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:29, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Jack Sarfatti


"He is critical of Cultural Marxism"

I think this is not according to WP:FRINGE, but I do not know enough about the easter egg Marxist cultural analysis behind the "Cultural Marxism" link to be sure. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:37, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The article doesn't appear to say what "Kaiser 2011" actually is, but I'm guessing it's How the Hippies Saved Physics. That book doesn't mention "cultural Marxism" anywhere (unsurprisingly). I'll go ahead and remove the dog-whistle. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:43, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * As an aside: that is such a good book! I read it for one of my favorite history of science seminars in grad school. The title makes it sound kind of woowoo but Kaiser is a top-notch scholar. Highly recommended. Generalrelative (talk) 00:46, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

QAnon conspiracy theory: Trump is still in the Oval Office, Biden presumed dead
,

I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:15, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , well, you can - they do - but I know what you mean. As to Lin Wood? I cannot give my honest opinion without being banned under WP:BLP. See - pure crazy town. Even Rittenhouse has dropped him. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:15, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oooh, I got a picture with Dubya back in '03 or '04, think I could convince a bunch of Q fans that the last 17-18 years have been a sting operation to catch Obama sacrificing kids to Satan on Mars while high on adrenochrome? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  21:54, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * AHA, but Obama had Satan in his pocket, there is PROOF. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:34, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That video reveals Obama's deepest, darkest secret. Listen carefully as he says "good ta see ya!" He has a thick Norwegian accent! Then he switches to his usual cultured voice. And note that Norway and Hawaii have the same number of letters, which as we all know [ Citation Needed ] is essential when altering a birth certificate. And look at this: Looks like a coverup to me! --Guy Macon (talk) 00:26, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I sport a Satan on my user page too, — Paleo Neonate  – 02:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And cats. This proves that you weigh the same as a duck and are made of wood. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:59, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * As with so many of the claims of these QAnon adjacent political operatives, it is like Poe's Law on steroids. They can always fall back on "can't y'all take a joke?" I mean, I guess we used to be able to take a joke, but it gets increasingly harder to do this when we are so unmoored from a common reality that it is anyone's guess as to who will believe what. Remember Billy the Burlap Bag Boy when the internet was new? I could hardly believe then that anyone would be misled by such obvious parody. Fast forward 21 years and parody has been slain. jps (talk) 11:03, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I can (almost famously) take a joke, but I don't see how "Let's start a civil war for bullshit reasons just so we can get our asses handed to us by the vast majority of people, but not before killing a whole bunch of innocent people just to make us feel better about the fact that people keep telling us that our fucked up beliefs are fucked up!" is a very good joke.
 * Now, "Birds aren't real" ? That's a joke. So is "Finland isn't real". And the Pacific Northwest tree octopus. In fact, the world is chock-full of so many examples of good jokes that I find it hard to believe that most of the crap coming from this group is a joke. Especially when you look into the history of Ufology and the kind of ridiculous crap it proves people are willing to believe earnestly. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  12:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey now, a lot of ufology consists of harmless jokes that are genuinely funny. Remember when crop circles were all the rage? I had a lot of fun back then. Please don't throw it in the same pot as fascist propaganda. Tercer (talk) 15:55, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I was going to defend my comparison, but honestly, I truly believe that one would have to be significantly stupider to believe in a Democrat satanic pedophile ring secretly controlling the government and that Trump is a stalwart, genius defender of the children than to believe that there are beings from Zeta Reticuli who want to stick a probe up one's ass. Therefore, I concede the point. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:00, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) I agree that it's two topics, although there are some links between politics and ufology, — Paleo  Neonate  – 16:02, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a good point. There's also the famous paper NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science. I guess I never managed to believe that people actually believed aliens travelled light-years just to play some pranks and leave again in the dead of the night. If you soften your head enough to accept this nonsense you're bound to be more vulnerable to fascist propaganda. Tercer (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. If there are a few blurry UFO pics from back when most people didn't have cameras, just put a high resolution video camera in everyone's pocket. If the UFOs are real you will get a boatload of photographic evidence. If not, you will get lolcats. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * On UFOs and conspiracy theories there's a really interesting article in The Conversation by Benjamin Zeller, the formost expert on the infamous UFO cult Heaven's Gate about how the group embraced a culture of conspiracy. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:57, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I finally got to the bottom of this. Look at this photo: Look at the size of the Bidens compared to the Carters... --Guy Macon (talk) 06:06, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * There were giants on the Earth in those days...looks like it's time to bring the Nephilim into this discussion! Dumuzid (talk) 12:40, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Joe and Jill Biden are at least half angels, confirmed. (Oh, wait...) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  12:44, 5 May 2021 (UTC)


 * It's clearly intended as humor. However, like all humor, only partisans find it funny. If you want to understand the joke, backdate it four years and for Trump and Biden, substitute Hillary Clinton and Trump. Or backdate it twenty years and substitute Gore and George W. In each case the joke is that the wrong person is in the White House. The legitimate president was robbed of his office and replaced by someone who is brain dead. If you think the right person is in the Oval Office, then it isn't funny. TFD (talk) 19:12, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It's clearly intended as humor It may be clear to you. But the positions out there are so diverse nowadays, there are probably people who believe it. And the person who invented it could be one of those. Poe's Law in action, as jps said. Somehow similar to the question whether people who sell snake oil believe in it themselves: I can't tell, just speculate, and I don't really need to.
 * Maybe the positions have always been so diverse, it's just that the kind of people who lived in padded rooms in the fifties became talk show guests in the eighties, and now they have their own popular YouTube channels or TV shows. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:49, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * TFD, I've no doubt it was intended as humor, at least partially. Whether or not it's even remotely successful as humor is an entirely different question, and what we here were "discussing" (read: mostly satirizing but also discussing a little) was the likelihood of it being read as humor by the intended audience. Frankly, most of those people have never met a wildly improbable claim they didn't want to believe, and some may well try to edit WP to reflect their belief. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:57, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Paracas Candelabra
IP and two accounts adding fringe material trying to link this to Hindu mythology. Needs more eyes. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

"Geopolymer" fringe theory in "Material science analysis" section of Pumapunku Article
Members of this group might want to take look at the Material science analysis section of the Pumapunku article, which gives undue credence to the fringe idea that the sandstone and andesitic blocks are artificial stones composed of alleged "geopolymers." Paul H. (talk) 01:24, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * User, who added the section, claims that the hypothesis is backed up by peer-reviewed research. But both sources are by the same three authors, so they are not independent. Not sure about the speculation by Richard Inwards about this hypothesis. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 06:08, 7 May 2021 (UTC)