User talk:Guy Macon/Yes. We are biased.

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The purpose of this essay[edit]

I wrote this essay to be a teaching tool for those who believe pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, urban myths, and other things which are not supported by any actual evidence.

For example, the reader may be someone who is a True Believer in magnetic water treatment and who strongly objects to the "bias" in our article on that topic. The same reader is likely to not be a True Believer in laundry balls or phrenology. My hope is that the reader, by seeing all these other pseudoscientific areas where Wikipedia is "biased" right next to his pet fringe theory, will come to an understanding of why it is that Wikipedia is "biased" against fringe theories in general.


Of course we know that in many cases this list will fail in that goal, because no argument will convince the fringe theorist. In such cases the secondary goal kicks in. This list also helps those who are responding to accusations of bias. All you have to do is to simply cut and paste the list into a talk page discussion with an edit summary of "Yes. We ARE biased." No need for attribution -- I released it under CC0 specifically so that you can use it as if it was your own. This cutting and pasting has been shown to take the wind out of the sails of many fringe theorists who think that they have found the magic words ("Bias!") that will magically cause Wikipedia to start promoting things that are not true. In general, cutting and pasting the list is more effective than linking to it, because promoters of pseudoscience have trained themselves to ignore the usual links to WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, etc. --Guy Macon 19:15, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Have been thinking good and long about this essay and Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans, and I'm coming around more to the POV expressed in them... I am a little bit of a bleeding heart for the True Believers™ but in the balance between skepticism and wonder, it does make sense for Wikipedia to be biased towards skepticism. That's how it's always been most useful to me. --User:Scarpy 18:30, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"[This essay] makes clear to everyone what editing Wikipedia is about. So, pseudoscience POV-pushers will be blocked or they will avoid pushing POVs, that choice is entirely theirs. But it makes crystal-clear that they will never prevail here. So, this is about establishing boundaries. Some people are honestly not aware that Wikipedia is WP:NOTFREESPEECH." --tgeorgescu 15:59, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"[If you don't like this essay] then let's have a competition: You try to keep more pseudoscience out of articles with your own method, whatever it is." --Hob Gadling 19:28, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that this entire essay is a conspiracy to keep me chain-reading article after article about interesting malarkey and its empirical refutations. Thanks a lot, Guy. I'll just clear my calendar. Yours from the rabbit hole, Laodah 18:34, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Curses! You have uncovered my Evil Plot! The only thing I can do now is to send you down a deeper rabbit hole. [ https://tvtropes.org/ ] BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! Guy Macon (talk) 00:03, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think the correct mad-scientist laugh goes more like "MUHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!" --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:57, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed[edit]

I would like to ask my loyal minions   sycophants   fanbois   henchmen   talk page stalkers  talk page watchers for assistance.

Through the invaluable assistance of others, most of the entries on this list have links to places where someone claimed we are biased against, say, laundry balls.[1]

Three items are missing such discussions:

  • We are biased towards science, and biased against pseudoscience.
  • We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
  • We are biased towards Mendelism, and biased against Lysenkoism.

Can anyone find discussions claiming we are biased against phrenology, Lysenkoism, or pseudoscience?

Discussions on Wikipedia would be ideal, but even an obsure plog or twitter discussion about how Wikipedia is biased against phrenology would be sufficient to establishe that someone claimed we are biased on that topic.

If you can fix this, you can expect a little something extra in the paychecks we all get for supressing the TRUTH[2][3]... --Guy Macon (talk) 04:28, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For pseudoscience there's this, although it mainly claims that we may wrongly classify certain topics as pseudoscience.
I couldn't find any claim that we were biased against Lysenkoism (maybe it doesn't have many adherents today?) but I did find the opposite claim. (t · c) buidhe 02:50, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fascinating article on "Wikipedia’s Lysenkoism", but in my opinion completely wrong. The author, while fighting for their preferred definition of such terms as "sex" "gender" and "female" (ignoring the easily observed fact that word definitions and usage change over time) completely mangles the meaning of "Lysenkoism", redefining it as "any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable" (it actually refers to one specific set of wrong opinions by Trofim Lysenko and to Joseph Stalin making those wrong opinions the only acceptable biological science in the USSR). Interesting, but not much use in this essay.
On the other hand, the jcom.sissa.it paper is just what I was looking for. In seems to be quite clearly claiming that Wikipedia is biased against pseudoscience. Example: "their scepticism is applied asymmetrically, always against beliefs contrary to scientific and medical orthodoxy and, and their efforts are invariably against groups espousing those beliefs". The paper even lists Breibart.com as the first citation! Good find. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:01, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When they gave that definition of Lysenkoism, they were quoting straight from our article on the term I don't believe the medium.com article was saying that Lysenkoism includes all forms of pseudoscience, but rather making an analogy between Lysenkoism (which suggests that evolution occurs within a single organism and they aren't bound by genetics) and people being transgender. Regardless, it's a biased article that doesn't work here. An alternative could be a discussion in Wikipedia that affirms that we do believe in Mendelism, such as this extensive discussion from Talk:Evolution or this one. RedPanda25 19:59, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Race_and_intelligence_(Comparison_of_explanations) could be an option for Wikipedia being biased against phrenology. It's not a topic discussed much for obvious reasons, but the fact that "it's phrenology" is enough of a reason to delete an article shows that we consider it to be sure pseudoscience. RedPanda25 17:56, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Related: I rather like the recent addition of "We are biased towards Oneirology, and biased against Oneiromancy". Does anyone have a "Wikipedia is biased" thread we can incluse?

Also see:

--Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 03:52, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I already checked and did not find anything. Maybe someone else will. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:57, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Where are the Wikitrolls and POV pushers when you need them? (smile) --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 17:45, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
are we biased in favor of logic and against magic? or is logic a type of magic? or is it we're biased against magical thinking. Andre🚐 17:46, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You were quoted by Creation.com (Creation Ministries International)![edit]

Just found this gem today: https://creation.com/wikipedia Félix An (talk) 08:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although maybe it goes against what you said in WP:YWAB, maybe it still has a certain degree of value to it. I mean, at least they believe in God and Jesus, which I agree with, although they interpret the Bible incorrectly. As Proverbs 9:10 said, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." At least maybe they are wiser from a spiritual POV, although not from a scientific POV. Félix An (talk) 08:45, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WP:NOTFORUM. Neither your personal beliefs nor those of the writers/translators of Proverbs are relevant to an essay explaining why Wikipedia is 'biased' towards science, and towards the academic mainstream. As for Creation.com, there is nothing new in any of that - they've been using the same dubious arguments for presenting their faith as 'science' for many years. Nobody beyond their own circles takes it at all seriously, and regardless of the many faults of Wikipedia, it would be a much inferior project to open it up to a false 'balance' based around such misrepresentations. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They actually complained because I counted the 7th day (where God rested) as one of the creation days in the biblical account: "Of course, this comment betrays ignorance of the biblical account itself, since God created in 6, not 7 days"
Maybe they should stop selling books like "Your complete children’s guide to the 7 days of Creation Week"[4] or writing that "Creation Week was 7 days"[5] Or quoting the KJV Bible, which clearly states "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made." For a bunch of supposed biblical literalists they sure are loosy goosy about whether God ended his work of creation on the 6th day or the 7th day...
In case anyone reading this still have doubts, here is one small part of the overwhelming scientific evidence that the Young Earth Creationist have the age of the Earth wrong:
Annual Layers (Varves) in Lake Sediments Show the Earth Is Not Young
Minor correction: The proper guideline for this page is WP:USERPAGE, not WP:NOTFORUM. That guideline allows a limited amount of personal opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia. I am a bit busy at the moment, but in a few days it might be worthwhile to discuss Félix An's post.
--Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 18:17, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't endorsing their views on science, Andy, by the way. I just thought it was hilarious that they quoted Guy. Looks like Guy is famous now! Félix An (talk) 00:57, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Always nice to have fame and fortune. Still waiting on the fortune... :( --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy"[edit]

I was having a discussion about an unrelated topic on another page, when my attention was brought to my claim "We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy". I would like to discuss that claim. Is it accurate?

First let's make my criteria for inclusion clear.

There is a difference between protoscience (things that were once believed but were abandoned based on new evidence) and pseudoscience (things that are believed despite the evidence against them).

Examples of pure psueodoscience are flood geology and laundry balls, both of which were invented long after we had good evidence that they do not describe what happens when you launder clothes and do not describe the geological history of the earth. We will never be unbiased about how laundry balls and laundry detergent compare.

Unless I am mistaken, an example of pure protoscience is be Humorism. I can't find anyone in 2024 who seriously believes that infectious disease is caused by corruption of the humors (Blood, Yellow bile, Black bile, Phlegm) and not by bacteria or viruses. While Wikipedia doesn't believe that Humorism is true, we lack anyone claiming that it IS true and that we are being biased by not following WP:NPOV on the issue of Humorism vs. Germ Theory. Without that I don't think we can say we are "biased against" Humorism in the sense that the concept is used in WP:YWAB.

Astrology is both protoscience and psueodoscience. Anyone who believed in astrology during the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950–1651 BCE) wasn't in any way rejecting evidence. The evidence that astrology doesn't work didn't exist yet. Modern proponents of astrology often try to use "Wikipedia is biased" as a set of magic words to stop us from saying mean things about it, which is why it is included.

So, which category does alchemy fit into? is there anyone in the twenty first century claiming that the theory of alchemy is true and the theory of chemistry is false? The discussion I link to is this essay [6] doesn't really establish that.

I am considering removing the "We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy" entry as being protoscience and not pseudoscience. What say you? --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 03:47, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Humorism still is adhered to in the pseudoscientific Unani medicine (lit. 'Greek medicine').
It seems likely that at least some of the alchemists listed at List of alchemists#Revival and modern believed that the theory of alchemy is true and the theory of chemistry is false, as you put it. The problem is that these figures and their ideas are very poorly studied, so for the most part we don't know very well what they believed (it's all still in the primary sources only).
In general though, most 20th-century 'alchemists' have very little connection to alchemy as it was historically practiced, and are instead regurgitating 19th-century and early 20th-century occultist ideas. Now one of the defining traits of occultism (in the sense as it is used by scholars in the field of Western estoricism studies, as a rather specific mid-19th century movement) is that it rejects modern science and instead extols the virtues of an imagined 'ancient science', part of which it supposes to have been alchemy. That's of course essentially pseudoscientific.
Because of the aforementioned scarcity of relevant RS we don't have much or any coverage of this on Wikipedia though (some of this was also discussed in this RfC). For anyone who would just like to know more, I'll briefly mention that the most relevant primary source to start with would be Mary Anne Atwood's (1817–1910) A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:28, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
interesting discussion. Personally, I'd say I'm biased towards understanding what alchemy was, and when and how how it influenced the early development of what is now considered science, and biased against misrepresenting modern bullshit as the alchemic Wisdom of the Ancients. Doesn't make for much of a slogan though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:49, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as the author of a counter-essay I of course think that as an encyclopedia, we should also promote the understanding of what the 'spiritual' alchemy of the occultists was all about, what precisely they believed and why, and that we should not be biased against anything really. There never is anything wrong with wanting to know. Curiosum nobis natura ingenium dedit. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:05, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, we describe their beliefs, we don't say they are true or at least plausible. Religious studies of Rudolf Steiner/Jiddu Krishnamurti/Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov do not assume that these gurus were right. Do we endorse information? Yes, we do. We don't say that the electron magnetic moment would be mere opinion, but we endorse it as fact in the voice of Wikipedia. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:38, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we describe beliefs as beliefs and facts as facts. But are we biased towards or against beliefs? Are we biased towards or against facts? Not really, as I think you'll agree. It's a manner of speaking, a form of linguistic reappropriation. But does everyone understand these in-group semantics? Can they not have obverse effects? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:55, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the context of this essay, we are not biased against religious beliefs that cannot be proven or disproven by science (whether God exists) and we are not biased against religious beliefs that have been proven by science (the modern Catholic Church belief that they were wrong before and that the earth revolves around the sun) but we are biased against beliefs that have been disproven by science (the Ayurveda belief that you can make mercury safe to consume by purifying it with burning dung or the belief that Benny Hinn has the ability to cure disease by touching people). --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 01:00, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So we don't just describe the Ayurveda and faith healing beliefs you mention, we apply a disproportionate weight against these beliefs, in a way that is inaccurate, closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair? Or not really? If not really but just in a manner of speaking, what about the issue of in-group semantics and possible obverse effects?
As a side question, if it's not real bias but just a manner of speaking, I'm also curious as to what it does effectively entail: what difference is there between our approach to writing about Ayurveda or faith healing and writing about other subjects that can in some way be called 'biased'? It's not about endorsion since we don't endorse religious beliefs either while we do endorse facts. It's not about rejection because we also reject scientific theories that have conclusively been disproven. So if not disproportionate weight etc., what is the figurative bias? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 08:32, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BDEhrman March 1, 2019 at 9:03 am - Reply

I’m not sure what you mean by assumption based? It seems to me that all human knowledge is based, in one way or another, on assumption, no? (Even scientific knowledge.) Maybe the problem is that people assume (!) that assumptions are just kind of like guesses or opinions, as opposed to reasoned judgments based on careful analysis?

BDEhrman January 24, 2017 at 9:08 am - Reply

I wouldn’t say “unbiased” just because I think we are all biased. But some of us critically examine our biases and try to allow the evidence to contradict what we previously thought, and then change our minds.

See also https://ehrmanblog.org/can-historians-be-neutral/ and https://ehrmanblog.org/can-teaching-be-objective/

I am not saying I have no agendas and no biases. Let me be emphatic. I DO have an agenda and I DO have biases. My agenda is to propagate a scholarly understanding and appreciation of the Bible. And my bias is that a scholarly understanding can NOT be determined by theological dogmas. Scholarship may affect what you choose to believe, theologically. But what you choose to believe, theologically, should not determine the results of your scholarship. That’s my very strong bias. Your historical or literary views should not be pre-determined by your religious beliefs.

— Bart Ehrman
Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 10:02, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apaugasma, reasonably enough, uses the definition of "bias" found in Bias, which is a Wikipedia article meant for the average reader. They could have, just as reasonably, used the definition of "bias" found in WP:BIAS, which is an explanatory essay about Wikipedia:Neutral point of view meant for Wikipedia editors.

The interesting thing about definitions is that different people use different definitions depending on the context. Which is fine as long as you clearly explain what definition you are using. Yes, you can use non-standard definitions without explaimong, and the reader can still gloork the meaning of the fleemishes from the context, but there ix a limit; If too many ot the vleeps are changed, it becomes harder and qixer to fllf what the wethcz is blorping, and evenually izs is bkb longer possible to ghilred frok at wifx. Dnighth? Ngfipht yk ur! Uvq the hhvd or hnnngh. Blorgk? Blorgk! Blorgkity-blorgk!!!!

That being said, once someone has made the definition they are using clear, you really shouldn't insist that they use another definition. For example, "decimate" now means "to destroy most of" instead of the original meaning, which was "destroy 10% of". If someone is talking about roman legions and defines "decimate" in that context, you shouldn't tell them that they are using the wrong definition. Same with the person who is talking about digital signal processing, which defines "decimate" as a type of data compression. The cost of insisting that they use your definition as the only possible definition is that it becomes impossible to discuss the roman punishment or the signal processing technique.

Not only have I made myself perfectly clear as to what kind of "bias" I am talking about (a set of magic words that you hope will cause Wikipedia to accept your favorite conspiracy theory, urban myth, pseudoscience, alternative medicine or fringe theory), I have even added links to others using the phrase the same way. Please read this discussion: [7] See how they are using the word "bias"? They are using it as a magic word that they hope will cause Wikipedia to accept a psuedoscientic theory as legitimate medicine. Adopting Apaugasma's definition as the only possible definition would make it impossible to address the definition used in that discussion. It would be like telling someone building a hot rod "that's not a header! A header of part of a document!". --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk)

Above I explicitly asked what, if not the definition given in bias, you mean with bias. So why are you complaining I'm insisting on one definition? And what are you then saying? The bias meant is a set of magic words that some editors hope will cause Wikipedia to accept conspiracy theories etc.? That doesn't make sense. What the user in the linked Ayurveda discussion seems to mean is the description in bias, i.e. they seem to believe that other editors apply disproportionate weight against Ayurveda in a prejudicial and unfair way. This is of course not true, but it's fairly clear that it is what they mean. Yes, they are using "biased" as a magic word in the way you describe, but the meaning of the word "biased" here is not 'magic word'. Could you describe in your own words the meaning of the word "biased" as used in that discussion?
Tgeorgescu quotes Bart Ehrman stating that his "very strong bias" is that theological dogmas belong to the realm of belief and should not determine scholarly understanding. At least here we have an example, though a definition would be more helpful. This indeed is a different meaning of the word 'bias', clearly not the meaning intended by e.g. the user in the Ayurveda discussion, but perhaps somewhat close to the meaning intended in this essay. 'Bias' here means support for a fundamental rule or frame of reference that will affect the whole system it applies to, so that for those who do not agree with or do not fit in the frame of reference, the system will be unfair. But for this meaning to work, there must be a real potential for unfairness. Is the game of soccer 'unfair' to those who do not agree with its fundamental rules? Are those who support and apply these rules 'biased'? For a system to be rendered unfair by bias, there must be a power imbalance between those holding the bias and those who are excluded by it. The strong opinion becomes significant as a bias only when it is held by those with significantly more power than those who do not hold it, so that the opinion comes to hold an unfair amount of weight in determining the system's overall rules.
But then of course there is the force of linguistic reappropriation. In my experience, it's only when people regularly get called biased by others that they start to call themselves biased, which is probably what happened to Ehrman too. Call soccer players 'biased' long enough and even they will start to affirm that you can't touch the ball with your hands because, you know, soccer players are biased against hands. But really now? There's nothing unfair about the rules of soccer being what they are, and since there is no potential for real unfairness it makes no sense to call its rules biased. Similarly, and at least in my view, there's nothing unfair about the rules of modern scholarship being what they are, and there's nothing unfair about the rules of how to write an encyclopedia being what they are. These rules were made and are constantly refined by a large and international community of scholars with a long tradition behind them, and there's no reason why people who stand completely outside of that community and who are neither scholars nor encyclopedists should all of a sudden get to dictate how it must work. Those who are questioning this, calling it biased, either do not understand how scholarship and encyclopedias based on them work, or are indeed doing so in an attempt at special pleading, hoping that invoking the magic word 'biased' will somehow make us reconsider our most fundamental rules. But they are wrong: we will not reconsider these rules, and not doing so is neither unfair nor biased.
But there's something else going on too in the essay. The WP equivalent of Ehrman's bias, or the kind of bias I've been talking about, would be something like a very strong bias that WP should fairly and proportionally represent the points of view published by reliable sources. It would be a bias involving some fundamental rule or frame of reference determining how a wider system will operate. As I've argued above, and as I argue in my counter-essay, it makes little or no sense to call a system's defining rules biased. But contrary to e.g. WP:ABIAS, this essay does not even speak about systemic rules, it speaks about being biased towards and being biased against specific subjects. Such wording in fact strongly suggests the prejudiced and unfair attitude described in bias. Even when starting from the view that 'we all have biases, there's nothing wrong with that as long as we admit them', it's quite impossible to understand this essay's use of the word 'bias' in that way. Perhaps the rationale behind some of the essay is embedded in the concept that we have certain biases in our policy and that this is a good thing, but in what the essay actually says it goes way beyond that in declaring specific and blanket biases against specific subjects. Of course the essay needs to do this if it is to serve its core purpose of discouraging certain types of editors who are favoring these subjects, but it's doing so through what is essentially a lie. If we are biased, we are not biased in the prejudiced and subject-specific way this essay suggests. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:42, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a Romanian ethics professor who read a paper about Kant's moral confabulations. The professor stated that confabulations about empirical facts are not the same as confabulations about moral values. Meaning: while the former are obviously wrong or delusional, that is not so obvious about the latter. Meaning: even if Kant has confabulated about ethics, his confabulations taught generations of ethicists how to think ethically, so Kant's confabulations are not obviously wrong in the same sense that delirium or a swindler are wrong. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:18, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we can go any farther with a discussion about what bias means. I see the words "I suggest you guys to shed your biased glasses and look at things objectively. Now, to enlighten you about multiple fields in which Ayurvedic treatments are much Superior than so-called 'Modern Medicine'..."[8] as a blatant attempt to use "bias" as a magic word to stop Wikipedia from saying that Ayurveda is pseudoscience/quackery. Apaugasma does not see the same thing I see in those words, which is fine. You can look at my essay and their essay and decide for yourself. I am not going to talk about the definition of "bias" any more but others are free to continue disussing it in this section. I am creating a new section with my original unanswered question, and will only allow discussing that specific question in that section --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 02:06, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Popper was right: discussions about the correct definitions of words are a waste of time. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:47, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a sign that people are either not willing or not able to understand each other. It's indeed better to cut off the discussion at that point. Thanks for your time, all. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 09:29, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Remove alchemy?[edit]

I am considering removing the "We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy" entry on the basis of alchemy being protoscience and not pseudoscience. What say you? --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 02:06, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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