[WikiEN-l] Reasonable doubt and the Neutral Point of View

Fri Jul 1 21:51:33 UTC 2005

> Global warming is a bad example.  That's an area that involves
> considerable controversy and contention among scientists, there really
> is no scientific consensus on it.  Also, all sides are at least
> capable of being scientific (as they are very falsifiable) and there
> is science being practiced , to some extent, on both sides.
>
> This is quite a bit different than well-established, non-controversial
> theories for which there is near unanimous consent in the scientific
> community.  Especially in cases where the only opposition is religious
> and/or political in nature.

Agreed. And of course the line of reasonable
doubt has to be drawn somewhere. I think that
it is noble and a sign of the high quality
of Wikipedia editors that they are generally
willing to err on the side of caution. It's just
that I don't think we should err *enormously*
on the side of caution. Let's look at a few
propositions:

A 1. The Earth is less than 10 thousand years old.
A 2. Homeopathic remedies are more effective than
can be explained by the placebo effect.

B 1. Human beings did not land on the moon in the 1960's.
B 2. Jews were not systematically exterminated in Europe
under the Nazi regime.

- - - My line of reasonable doubt - - -

C 1. Human activities are not having a significant
effect on global weather patterns and average temperature.
C 2. When presenting the case for invading Iraq,
the Bush administration made no attempt to exaggerate
the threat of Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction.

I'd say the propositions in the B class are an order of
magnitude more reasonable and probable than those in the
A class. They don't break any laws of physics. They do,
however, involve vast forgery of documents and a conspiracy
to conceal the truth which is so enormous as to be entirely
improbable.

The propositions in the C class are again an order of
magnitude more probable than those in the B class.
They don't break any laws of physics and they don't
require vast conspiracies. They do, I think, require
interpreting a lot of data in creative ways but I'd
say they are tenable enough for Wikipedia to take
into account when discussing the relevant phenomena.

The line has to be drawn somehwere. There comes a point
where attempting to take every theory into account gets
in the way of writing a useful encyclopedia. We shouldn't
need to qualify statements about the Earth's age and we
shouldn't hestitate to put a discipline that involves
shaking water and pretending it's medicine into a
pseudo-science category.

- - -

I think the Neutral Point of View is a good policy.
When reasonable people disagree about a subject we
should report all sides of the argument. That's what
I try to do myself, take my article on [[Hrafnkels saga]]
as an example. There are many theories on the saga's
origins and the article tries to describe each of them
fairly.

Of course Wikipedia can't settle every argument and
establish the truth of every proposition. But when the
truth is known beyond reasonable doubt we should report it.
And we do.

Regards,
Haukur