This is an archive of past discussions with User:Shibbolethink. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Generally I think you are among the more reasonable people pushing the idea that WP must endorse the skeptic POV. However, in the specific discussion at Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory#Science new paper on Huanan Market, you did resort to the Bigfoot comparison to refer to a significant-minority view attributed to respectable scientists in reliable sources. If you don't think that's insulting, I hope you'll rethink after this discussion. Similarly, it's hard to see "snake-oil salesmen, cranks, charlatans, quacks, pseudoscientists, hoaxters, fools, and mountebanks" as anything but a list of insults.
On the same talk page, you twice conflated the "insufficent data, likely natural origin" position with the "engineered bioweapon" position, applying the defamatory labels "conspiracy theory" and "pseudoscience" to the former while citing sources about the latter. I still don't see how somebody could confuse those two positions in good faith, and you declined to explain when I brought it up. I think this is exactly the confusion we are discussing here and I think it illustrates the need for a guideline against conflation of minority and fringe, particularly motivated conflation that leads to defamatory labeling.
Again, I think you are one of the more reasonable people arguing this POV. There are others who employ the insult-by-strawman style with what appears to be glee rather than frustration. - Palpable (talk) 18:45, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to start off by saying this edit appears to be a criticism of me personally, and thus inappropriate for this talk page. It more appropriately belongs on my or your User Talk. If it's alright with you, I'd like to move it to one of those two venues, so as to distract less from this discussion about ideas and not about people. I feel strongly uncomfortable with it being here, and it surely must run afoul of parts of WP:TALKOFFTOPIC.That said, here is my response to the content of your comment, made in good faith:
pushing the idea that WP must endorse the skeptic POV do you mean the POV set down in WP:NPOV, WP:DUE, WP:FRINGE, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, WP:BMI, WP:RSUW, etc? I am not proposing any changes here. I'm "pushing" what is already written down as WP:PAG.Similarly, it's hard to see "snake-oil salesmen, cranks, charlatans, quacks, pseudoscientists, hoaxters, fools, and mountebanks" as anything but a list of insults. See, this is interesting, because I didn't say any of those things in reference to anyone on this page. Literally not applicable to anyone here. Not to say I haven't met people who fit those labels on this site, I absolutely have. They just aren't here right now. I said those things to demonstrate the people who would take advantage of this well-meaning change and thus bring about lots of bad changes to this site I love so much. The fact that you or anyone else thinks that those labels apply to you says a whole lot more about how you view yourself, or how you think that I view you, than it actually does about how I actually view you. I never made any reference or indication that those labels were about you. You're so vain... etc etc. Truly, it isn't about you. It's about what will happen if this well-meaning change actually happens.On the same talk page, you twice conflated the "insufficent data, likely natural origin" position with the "engineered bioweapon" position, applying the defamatory labels "conspiracy theory" and "pseudoscience" to the former while citing sources about the latter subtlety here, I sometimes refer to one and sometimes the other, but I don't conflate the two. I am referring to them separately in different contexts as applicable.That's why I say things like "There are versions of". There are more reasonable and less reasonable lab leak versions. There are some versions of the lab leak that are conspiracy theory. In some ways, it's all a conspiracy theory as it all boils down to requiring a conspiracy of actors to work together to "cover up" certain research projects. Literally a theory relying on the existence of a conspiracy. But as I have acknowledged before, I will acknowledge again, there are versions of the lab leak which are not "conspiracy theory" in the conventional sense, such as the idea that a virus was part of a sampling expedition and thus transferred to humanity without being part of any intentional research project. There's no conspiracy involved there. Still less likely. But this is the issue with the lab leak, it's big, amorphous, and it's as though most people are playing a Motte and bailey game with it. Referencing their preferred more radical versions when convenient, and retreating back to the most reasonable when inconvenient. But, as an aside, I think"pseudoscience" actually does apply to basically the entirety of most versions of the Lab leak theory. Because many of the versions of the leak are not based in scientific fact. These formulations are based in the absence of certain evidence. E.g. "We don't have the exact SARS-2 virus sampled directly from a living animal in the market back in November 2019, before the pandemic, and the exact same virus in a human, who was right next to that animal, before anything else, in exactly the way I want it, so therefore the zoonosis theory is dead in the water." I am not making that up, it is extremely close to something somebody said to me on twitter the other day. It's called special pleading. Eventually, the backflips one has to make to ignore the existing pro-zoonotic data get so big that one is creating special circumstances to keep the preferred version of the theory viable. THAT is an element of pseudoscience, because it has the appearance of science "I'm making a hypothesis, I'm talking about science-y things" but it doesn't follow the practice of science. E.g. it doesn't presume a null hypothesis and try to disprove itself. It doesn't use constructs such as occam's razor to find the most plausible construct devoid of new assumptions. it doesn't steel-man its own assertions. Etc. etc. It doesn't change the likelihood of itself to fit current data, the very ESSENCE of science. If its adherents did this, they would see the mounting evidence that various precursor viruses were circulating in bats, in and around the market, and underwent what appear to be multiple zoonotic transfer events into the human race (actually a common thing in zoonoses e.g. HIV-1 and HIV-2 and HIV-gorr, various subtypes of Flu-A, etc). All of which are consistent with a zoonotic narrative. And there has been no new data, no actual evidence, in support of the lab leak theory. All these lab leak theorists spend all day tearing down evidence they see as supporting a hypothesis they disagree with, and don't have any new evidence to support their own. That's a bad sign, epistemologically speaking. Ever seen this Futurama clip? It's the god of the gaps.And in some cases, it's actually complete misconceptions and/or misunderstandings. E.g. the idea that the furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 is somehow unique or specially targeted towards humans. it's not. Lots of other coronaviruses which infect humans actually have this same cleavage site. Coronaviruses swap parts of themselves around all the time. It is not at all surprising or special that the site is there, or that it looks the way it does. A similar thing is true about the CGGCGG codon doublet. This exists in literally thousands of coronavirus species. It is not special in any way. It just isn't very common in the coronaviruses which are most "famous" or known to infect humans. But, again, it's 1) not that far off from known codons in the same exact virus, and 2) it could have been passed in recombination, just like happens all the time.
In conclusion, I am sorry that you were insulted by my comments, that was not my intention. I do not want you to feel that way, and I apologize for any way in which my comments created that feeling. That's why I asked what I said to insult you, because I do not want to insult you. I have glee in this interaction because I am just so amazingly surprised at the many forms this argument takes. At the ways well-meaning people sometimes twist logic and policy up into knots to support their preferred outcome. I am truly, completely, and authentically, flabbergasted. If you are picturing me, I would like you to do it with my hands thrown up in amazement. That is the origin of my demeanor, not any ill feelings or will towards you or anyone else around here. — Shibbolethink(♔♕)19:18, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree - don't want to derail the discussion here, and after posting I thought maybe it would have been better on your talk page. If you could move it to your talk page I will follow up there. I'm not sure where the best place to cut is without giving someone the last word, I may leave a short note here if I feel like my position has been left misconstrued. Thanks - Palpable (talk) 19:48, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for suggesting and executing the move here.this edit appears to be a criticism of me personally: Please note that my previous comments were general. Then you asked "where do I insult anybody here?" and I reluctantly responded.By "skeptic POV" I mean roughly what is laid out in the essays WP:SPOV and WP:YWAB. It's clear that these go beyond the accepted PAG - SPOV was proposed as a guideline and explicitly rejected by the community.There are more reasonable and less reasonable lab leak versions. More importantly, there are different degrees of belief in those versions - and everybody at the lab leak discussion page was arguing for low probability of a reasonable version. When you reply with comments that only relate to the extreme version, you are absolutely conflating a minority view with a fringe view, and you should understand that being lumped in with the fringe is insulting to reasonable people. I thank you for acknowledging the difference here.The other stuff belongs on the relevant article talk page, but I'll offer that if you don't want people to feel insulted, it couldn't hurt to back off from derogatory terms like "pseudoscience" and "conspiracy theory" instead of doubling down. Best wishes - Palpable (talk) 21:42, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
By "skeptic POV" I mean roughly what is laid out in the essays WP:SPOV and WP:YWAB. It's clear that these go beyond the accepted PAG - SPOV was proposed as a guideline and explicitly rejected by the community -- well I am glad to be able to dissuage you of the idea that I agree fully with SPOV. I don't. For example, there are quite a few aspects of scientific and medical topics which are safely outside BMI and the "rigors of science." E.g. where work was conducted, ethical controversies around it, funding thereof, etc. But that does not mean that SCHOLARSHIP is no longer applicable. Scholarly secondary articles in topic relevant outlets peer reviewed by topic experts and published to a wide readership are the gold standard no matter the discipline. In the cases above, that would be: Higher education admin, philosophy, and economics/govt public policy, respectively. As an aside that essay is also deeply flawed by impact factor is a TERRIBLE way to measure utility in journals. Much more important for them to be staffed with subject matter experts and to have wide viewership among their discipline. Nature and Science are fine and everything, but they have astronomically high rates of retraction. Not exactly what you should be looking for in an iron-clad reliable source.With regards to YWAB, I would say that I agree with it up to a point. I don't think we should eliminate mention of these topics, and I don't think we need to remove the narrative described by true believers. I do think we need to describe it from an anthropological lens, and allow (notable) true believers to describe their views in their own words for all to read. And then we should provide the mainstream narrative which debunks such things, in proportionality to representation in the best available scholarly sources. — Shibbolethink(♔♕)21:47, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
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To recognize your efforts in research & discussion on Talk:Libs of TikTok. It's been quite the ride on that talk page and I have appreciated & valued every thought or nuance you've added to the conversation. Thank you! SiliconRed (he/him • talk) 02:11, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks @Siliconred, I'm happy to help, especially in these controversial articles which get more than their share of animosity. It's just a heightened situation and I'm glad we were able to de-escalate it. — Shibbolethink(♔♕)10:51, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
I incorporated what the proposer said in the ensuing discussion, and the former RMs into my analysis of the close. I disagree with your interpretation of whether any new arguments have been raised, I believe they have. Several users have discussed the logic of whether either is actually "singular" or "plural" in english usage, the article itself disputes whether all or only some of Italy uses "a" or "e", etc. Plenty of new arguments which were persuasive to respondents. You are more than welcome to open up a move closure review if you wish! Thanks — Shibbolethink(♔♕)22:15, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
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