[WikiEN-l] Re: Example vs. Original research

Tue Jul 26 16:02:08 UTC 2005

Yes, I agree, but in areas other than science, almost
any contention can become the greater issue rather
than the insignificant one--a very small group of
violent extremists, for example, can disrupt things
far beyond their representation. The point is that
"original research" isnt really the issue, as much as
rational versus irrational writing--of which writing
skill is a substantial factor. Contrary to what some
may say, its *not* POV to say that a view is
considered "irrational" by most people, and putting
things in that context helps to rectify the problems
of marginal views promoting themselves out of their
element (irrationality) even if they are 

Using the Flat Earth example again, the FES's notions
are generally unclear in terms of whether they are
actually sincere (still), or that they might be
speaking metaphorically, or IMHO from the POV of human
experience. Thus it can rather ridiculous to talk in
terms of science, without explaining what their actual
point is, which might be something like: 
 'Thinking about the Earth as round is only a
conceptual construct which also requires thinking
along notions of complex relativity-- in real life, we
intrinsically think of the world as Euclidian, and
therefore, "flat." The FES might just be claiming that
the religious view that all souls be on the same
plane, or else that in personal terms, thinking in
global terms is just a waste of precious time. 

IOW: While its easy to call such people stupid, its
hard to say exactly objectively what such group
actually represents. Skpeptical "science" (ie. science
POV) doesnt offer insight into this basic aspect. The
articles talk about FES "models" of the Earth,
assuming that models are the actual *point* of the
group--the physical descriptions may be quite
irrelevant.

SV

--- Haukur Þorgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:

> How many religious fundamentalists does it take to
> make a fact contentious? How actively do they have
> to argue? Where are you going to draw the line? And
> why should we privilege the points of view that
> happen to be held by people alive today?
> 
> Wikipedia would be a parody of an encyclopedia if it
> held that the approximately spherical shape of the
> Earth is contentious. People expect an encyclopedia
> to be written from a scientific point of view - and,
> for the most part, that's how Wikipedia is written.
> 
> Regards,
> Haukur
> 
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> 

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