[WikiEN-l] Re: Anti-scientific bias has me hopping mad!

Wed Oct 8 01:23:33 UTC 2003

> I'm getting awfully tired of watching environmentalists inject their
> junk science POV into articles. They palm off their own prejudices as
> scientific fact far too glibly for me to remain patient any longer.
> 
> We need to start cracking down on contributors who do this.
> 
> I'm talking about the dozens of places in which environmentalist
> contributors keep inserting their unattributed claim that there is a
> CONSENSUS that supports their POV. I'm talking about PhD scientists like
> William Connolley who insert statemnts like "Singer is wrong" into
> articles instead of NAMING the scientists who disagree with Singer and
> saying WHY they disagree.
> 
> I've tried being cordial affable. I've tried patiently explaining NPOV.
> Nothing works. These advocates keep injecting their POV back into the
> articles, even using smear tactics against scientists who report
> findings which disagree with environmentalist POV. 

I know the feeling. Other areas of WP is like that too. But one way I've 
found to be effective to battle "people like these" (not saying that 
those people Ed has a dispute with are, but people who act in a way that 
he describe) is to "write around them". Meaning, that instead of trying 
to resolve the dispute on the highest level, in this case the Global 
warming article I guess, you write about the smaller sub-subjects to the 
subjects. Because on WP it generally tends to be much, much harder to 
insert ones POV the smaller and more detailed the subject is. You tie a 
net around your opponents so to say.

I know nothing about global warming but as an example; say the article 
contains the statement: "The Kyoto Protocol found that the accelerating 
greenhouse effect was a fact". So you write an article called "The Kyoto 
Protocol Conference" and research everything related to that conference. 
   When all is done and you have done your research your article "The 
Kyoto Protocol Conference" contains the statement "Although most 
countries voted in favour of saying that 'the accelerating greenhouse 
effect was a fact' 75% of them were promised foreign aid from France, 
Germany and Italy if they did so". Then you have inhouse evidence to 
change the line "The Kyoto Protocol found that the accelerating 
greenhouse effect was a fact" to something closer to the truth and you 
have succeeded!

Sorry for the stupid example, but it actually works. And maybe it is the 
only way to resolve POV disputes indefinitely. The 
Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem-capital dispute could have been solved in the same 
way a long time ago if someone had taken the time to write proper 
article about it ("The capital of Israel dispute" for example) and 
included all the information about when the different cities were 
considered capitals and when those considerations changed. Instead of 
just reverting "this is something very unique .. bla bla". (Indeed, it 
is very unique, but it's also unique that israel isn't the target of an 
international UN-approved boycott at the moment. :-))

BL