[WikiEN-l] WP:3RR

Wed Nov 17 22:57:49 UTC 2004

Mark Richards wrote:

>So you think that in science pages, for example, space
>should be given to different theories based on their
>relative popularity? This will wreak havock on
>evolution, not to mention gravity!
>Are you really serious?
>  
>
We can simply contextualize what we're talking about.  If an article is 
in the context of a scientific theory, it should say what the scientific 
viewpoint on it is.  If other communities disagree, these could be 
mentioned briefly.  If there is a lot to mention, a separate article 
such as [[creationism]] or [[controversies involving evolution]], or 
something of that sort, is warranted.

Sometimes this is hard to do, but I think usually it's possible.  To 
take one example, something like [[clinical depression]] could describe 
the orthodox psychiatric view of clinical depression, with a mention 
that it's controversial and a link to a more general article and/or an 
article specifically about the controversy.  If this had been 1970, when 
orthodox psychiatry considered homosexuality a mental illness, we'd have 
a similar case, where we'd have [[homosexuality (paraphilia)]] 
describing psychiatry's take on it and linking to [[homosexuality]] or 
[[gay]] or something of that sort describing controversies and other 
views on the matter.

The problem with a hardcore scientism point of view is that scientists 
are not always right, as the homosexuality example illustrates.

-Mark