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

Wed Oct 29 20:53:12 UTC 2003

I think this is excellent.

The Cunctator wrote:

> 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.
> 
> 
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