Wikipedia:Yes. We are biased.

[CrowsNest]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... are_biased.
http://archive.is/tcoBl

Rather incredibly, someone has taken one of Guy Macon's favourite pieces of rhetorical crap, and made it into an official Wikipedia essay. We'll come to what that means in a minute.

It rather pathetically attached a weird little list onto a quote from Jimmy Wales. The quote is perfectly reasonable.....

Wikipedia’s policies around [alternative medicine] are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn’t.

Nothing to argue against there. While it might sound insulting, the literal definition of lunatic and charlatan in this context, is correct. We saw the same correct usage when Larry Sanger said of the Wikipedia community, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. But that's another matter entirely. Sort of. Actually, in the case of the mind from whence the rest of this essay came from, it is firmly on point.

To my knowledge, Jimmy Wales has never been asked if his words could be used in this way. It is a quirk of Wikipedia policy that all you need to do here, so as to stay within the Wikipedian's idea of showing respect to your fellow man, is attribute the quote. I mean, sure, there's another policy that says don't deliberately misrepresent the thoughts or opinions of others for your own ends, or some shit like that, but that comes from the long depreciated civility policy, so is eminently ignorable.

The rest of the essay, purporting to be a derivation to the quote, is simply this bizarre list.....

So yes, we are biased towards science and biased against pseudoscience.
We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathic medicine.
We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
We are biased towards laundry soap, and biased against laundry balls.
We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
We are biased towards evolution, and biased against creationism.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
We are biased towards Mendelian inheritance, and biased against Lysenkoism.

And we are not going to change.

To get a real good laugh out of this piece of nonsense, we need only think about the actual definition of bias. Even if generously taking the view it merely means an inclination towards something, that implies they are not totally for science or against pseudoscience. Rather more troubling is the more commonplace understanding of bias, namely to mean an unfair prejudice.

LOLwut?

As someone with an actual scientific background, it's kind of fun how easy it is to take the piss out of Wikipedians who think they are being terribly cool in declaring their position on the great issue of our times, science versus bullshit. In that fight, does science really need the support of people who are frankly illiterate? I'd say no.

For even more shits and giggles, you need only deconstruct what it actually means, for this garbage to be classified as a Wikipedia essay. To quote the explanatory boilertext that adorns it....

This page is an essay.
It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

That all sounds rather pathetic, in context, does it not? If the nonsense appended to the policy derived quote made any sense, why would it not be considered not only a widespread norm, but a universal truth? Naturally, the ordinary way you can distinguish between an essay that is a minority viewpoint, and one which has widespread support, is whether or not it is in Wikipedia space (translation: has that Wikipedia prefix). There's nothing in the logs or history that suggests anyone has thoroughly vetted whether or not this essay warrants such a promotion, but I am not confident enough in the mental faculties of anyone in the Wikipedia community to be able to push back against the idea this illiterate nonsense is a widespread view. That it is some sort of explanatory note to be appended to that quote, or a guidance document to help people understand the Wikipedian's approach to science. Although if it stands, it would ironically be serving that latter purpose, alerting everyone to the fact these people are utter morons.

You literally can't be biased toward science if you wan't to be seen as not a lunatic charlatan, you can only accept it as an activity that produces findings in the furtherance of research. Even those who say things like "I believe in science" as if it were just another belief system to be cast against mysticism or whatnot, are showing their utter ignorance of what science is. Even arguing you believe in the scientific method, is utter garbage in any context which implies there is another proven method of divining knowledge.

As a matter of policy for the purposes of compiling an encyclopedia, you can accept science is a thing, and you can reject anything that is not science if it purports to be producing the same results. You can document beliefs and knowledge, distinguishing the two based on the scientific evidence available. This is not evidence you are biased. It is evidence you are educated. It is proof you are not a moron.

Wikipedians, to their eternal shame, have never really been bothered about being seen as morons. Most are literally too stupid to even understand how they come across to people with the sort of background, qualifications and mindset that makes them perfect compilers of an encyclopedia of all knowledge. Thankfully, such people can still find gainful employment, thus their participation in Wikipedia has to be secured by emotional blackmail - if you do not participate, the people who wrote this shit, are the ones who will.

Sorry, but no. Better to safeguard the readers against the threat by working on an innoculation, than be forced to accept that working with morons against lunatics is the new normal.

#NOTNORMAL #RESIST #GUYMACONISANIDIOT

[CrowsNest]

http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtop ... 12#p237112

Carrite is no doubt the sort of cotton wool headed prat who this essay was aimed at (if we assume Macon writes anything for the benefit of other people)....

Actually in this Alice in Wonderland world we are living in, belief in the scientific method and evidence-based analysis itself have become highly politicized — ergo, YES, Wikipedia should be "overtly and strongly political" by endorsing and adhering to these things.

You cannot be "political" about the strength of "belief" in the scientific method. People who think in these terms are the ones who are likely to damage Wikipedia by trying to convince their opponents they are wrong, people who of course cannot and will not be convinced, but will relish the battle (as the likes of Macon surely does too). If it hasn't happened already, you can imagine block reasons of the form "refusal to believe in the scientific method" as a type of disruptive, i.e. biased, editing.

Don't forget, Carrite is one of those people who considers themselves an expert in the Wikipedia sense of the word. A top of the line model. Can speak and everything.

Fucking Muppets, one and all.

[CrowsNest]

Wikipedia isn't against religion, it is against playing fast and loose with the facts. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:50, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is about giving free expression to retards. Is this person even old enough that we can consider their brain fully matured, so they can handle difficult concepts like "what is religion?". We cannot know, because Wikipedia lets anyone edit. Fully formed brain not required.

For those who haven't been paying attention, Wikipedia is against religion. It is against taking anything that rests solely on belief seriously as "encyclopedic" material, and so it will either ignore it entirely, or discredit it with confused comparisons to evidence based knowledge (the purpose of this moronic essay).

A proper encyclopedia documents beliefs in a neutral and dispassionate way, isolated from the rest of the encyclopedia, in a dedicated section, usually called Humanities or some such. Proper editors of an encyclopedia are not so frightened by the fact they might go to hell that they seek to go further than mere documentation, and will instead, armed by essays like this, which happily equate unsound science with religion, not so subtly take an editorial position on whether believers are nuttier than squirrel shit.

Wikipedia is against religion. No diggety, no doubt. One important exception of course, is that faith based homophobia is tolerated. Bizarre, I know. Wikipedia happily lets people like Guy Chapman decry pseudoscience, they rally around him by writing moronic essays like this, as if they have a clue. And yet they stand by and say nothing, when Guy Chapman claims that gay marriage is something reasonable people can disagree over.

Essentially, on Wikipedia, because it is being created by people far too stupid to be allowed to use a computer, someone advocating for human rights and basic equality, has to sit across the table from someone who thinks they should be treated differently because MAGIC MAN IN THE SKY MADE THEM, and treat them as an equal, their common enemy being the really crazy people.

According to the amateur hour bullshit artists that are considered the heavyweights of Wikipedia, it is reasonable to suggest marriage is between a man and a woman because God says so, but believing Trump was sent to us by God, is not. People who would not write much less use essays like this, can obviously see both are simply statements of religious belief, and therefore have no relevance beyond that. Any inference as to the capacity for the two different believers to edit Wikipedia is obviously mistaken, something an actual scientist (or to use this essays terminology, a believer in science) would not do.

Guy Chapman struggled with where to draw the line as far as ruling a Wikipedia editor's presumed competence to edit Wikipedia based on their religious beliefs, settling in that perverse idea that homophobes are allowed, Trump-zionists are not. Unsurprisingly then, the other Guy, the one who wrote this garbage, is now struggling as to where to draw the line between religion and religious study, so as to figure out what Wikipedia is "biased" against. Fucking moron. Both are afflicted with the same problem, their brains are defective, at a very high level.