[WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

Mon Dec 12 20:46:05 UTC 2005

Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Wikipedia should accurately reflect truth - if people say something 
> wrong, it is not POV for us to point out that it is wrong, and to show 
> why it is wrong.

I got a private message saying this conflicted with Wikipedia's NPOV 
policy on pseudoscience. I'd like to clarify - it's right to mention 
that some people disbelieve a certain theory, and believe other ideas on 
how such a phenomenon exists. It's also good to include why people 
believes/believed such a theory.

Of course, because the other ideas are normally all wrong, it's not POV 
to include a criticism section in the article with references to 
scientific experiments demonstrating that the idea is wrong.

As an encyclopaedia which is intended to include 'all knowledge', I 
don't see any conflict between including pseudoscientific babble and 
explaining why it is babble. Including all knowledge doesn't conflict 
with Wikipedia accurately reflecting reality.

It's easy to get all philosophical about this (what is truth? what is 
reality? what is knowledge?), so please assume that I'm within the 
bounds of WP:NPOV with what I'm saying and that any deviations are due 
to me becoming philosophical :) ).

Chris