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This area meaning "scientific topics on health". Quote: It may seem more problematic to speak of the bias of scientific articles, because many people do not w
by balnaphone 6y ago
This area meaning "scientific topics on health".
Quote:
It may seem more problematic to speak of the bias of scientific articles, because many people do not want to see “unscientific” views covered in encyclopedia articles. If such articles are “biased in favor of science,” some people naturally find that to be a feature, not a bug. The problem, though, is that scientists sometimes do not agree on which theories are and are not scientific. On such issues, the “scientific point of view” and the “objective point of view” according to the Establishment might be very much opposed to neutrality. So when the Establishment seems unified on a certain view of a scientific controversy, then that is the view that is taken for granted, and often aggressively asserted, by Wikipedia.
The global warming and MMR vaccine articles are examples; I hardly need to dive into these pages, since it is quite enough to say that they endorse definite positions that scientific minorities reject. Another example is how Wikipedia treats various topics in alternative medicine—often dismissively, and frequently labeled as “pseudoscience” in Wikipedia’s own voice. Indeed, Wikipedia defines the very term as follows: “Alternative medicine describes any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility and is untested, untestable or proven ineffective.” In all these cases, genuine neutrality requires a different sort of treatment.
Again, other examples could be found, in no doubt thousands of other, perfectly unexciting topics. These are just the first topics that came to mind, associated as they are with the culture wars, and their articles on those topics put Wikipedia very decidedly on one side of that war. You should not be able to say that about an encyclopedia that claims to be neutral.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y agoApologies, but I fail to see the relevance of this passage to the conversation above.
- balnaphone 6y agoSave the false apology, I don't need it. Clearly, for you raw milk is not a scientific topic related to human health. Perhaps it is a mystery, or a thriller, or something else. For the rest of the readers here, Sanger's message is perfectly clear.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't be a jerk on HN. Apart from breaking the site guidelines, it gives people a reason to dismiss what you're saying, which is not in your interest and particularly bad if what you're saying is true. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20truth%20discredit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...