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

Wed Jul 27 20:19:59 UTC 2005

Ryan Delaney wrote:

> The [[Race and intelligence]] article is a perfect example of this 
> phenomenon. People who know nothing about the research done in this 
> field have many times gone into that article and edited it mercilessly 
> in the name of NPOV because the established scientific opinion 
> presented (and extensively referenced) in the article is very 
> contradictory to the "politically correct" opinion. In my view, 
> Wikipedians need to have more respect for references and experts to 
> prevent this kind of thing from happening. The usual Wiki philosophy 
> usually works in other cases, but in such an emotional subject as 
> [[Race and intelligence]], people tend to go way overboard, and the 
> NPOV and "everyone's equal" policies only make them more convictional 
> about their right to push their POV over that of the academic consensus.

In such cases, where there are mostly-irreconcilable differences of 
opinion held by various groups, it makes sense to simply describe the 
opinion of each group, properly attributed.  In this case, there could 
be a section on academic viewpoints, and one on how the issue plays out 
in the political sphere.  Of course, political groups who attack the 
academic consensus should have their POV reported as well and properly 
attributed.

Sometimes there might be more than two sections as well---the areas on 
psychiatry/psychology/mental-illness could use a revamping to better 
attribute and cover the range of: 1) medical consensus [e.g. what the 
_DSM_ says]; 2) scientific consensus of current research [often not the 
same as #1]; 3) philosophical consensus opinion [e.g. on the definition 
of "mental illness"]; and 4) public/political opinion.  So long as all 
opinions are properly attributed to who holds them, rather than 
presented as "the right opinion", I don't see why these can't all co-exist.

-Mark