[WikiEN-l] Science, politics, point of view, encyclopedic style...

Wed Oct 29 21:01:44 UTC 2003

The debate over the handling of abortion language largely boils down to
the postmodern dispute over the nature of bias in scientific language
and thought. That is: the practice of science includes only that which
is (potentially) confirmable or repeatable, rather than that which is
inherently subjective or unconfirmable.

Medical terminology falls under the scientific rubric in that the terms
have a precise practical meaning. The terminology excludes moral and
personal weightings.

"Uterus", for example, is a more precise term than "womb", in that
"uterus" only refers to the female organ, whereas "womb" is regularly
used metonymically.

One can argue that using medical terminology to discuss medical
practices is biased, because the terminology avoids the moral questions.
That is the argument used by those who say that we need to describe
abortion issues using words such as "birth canal" or "partial-birth
abortion", and who say that when we discuss medical practice the moral
issues must be admixed.

Delirium wrote: " Using strictly medical terms is considered biased by
the anti-abortion community, as they see it as an attempt to cast a
moral issue as a strictly sanitized medical issue; using non-medical
terms is seen as similarly biased by the pro-abortion community."

>From that he concludes that we need to somehow intermix the terminology
in order to construct a neutral article.

But that conclusion is fallacious, as the "moralist" and "medicalist"
arguments are not equivalent ones that cancel each other out, leaving
perfect neutrality. Medical terms have specific, objective meaning, but
non-medical terms do not. 

Considering both Wikipedia's mission and Wikipedia's methods, having a
bias towards scientific (objective, confirmable, empirical, etc.)
language and methods in constructing articles is right and (I believe)
necessary.

If we do not use specific, empirical language, we cannot express
confirmable statements. We will instead use sentences that muddle
meaning and issues. This fails Wikipedia's mission and leads to a
breakdown in Wikipedia's methods, as the hammerings of multiple authors
will not lead inexorably to one result.

Another way of putting the same idea: Wikipedia needs to be biased
towards language based on consensual thought, such as scientific
language, because Wikipedia is a consensual product.

A specific recommendation for the article at hand: the discussion of the
medical procedures and the political debate about the medical procedures
need to be mde distinct.

One thing this means is that the language of anti-abortion proponents
can't be used to describe the medical procedures, as that language
expressly disallows such a distinction.