Category talk:Creationism

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Regarding parent categories, it is probably better to link to specific religious faiths as parents that engage in Creationism, like Christianity and Islam, rather than linking it to the "Religion" category in general, since that category comprises a lot of faiths that have nothing to do with creationism as it is being discussed in this category. --Gary D 20:51, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pseudoscience

Here's a legitimate category to wonder if Category:Pseudoscience applies. It certainly does for many varieties of Creationism -- intelligence design, creation science, creation biology, etc. It doesn't to more generic and faith-driven forms of creationism, though, which don't purport to be scientific at all and just fall under "belief systems" rather than a "pseudoscience". Similarly the Creationism article doesn't list it as a pseudoscience while Creation biology does. Hmm... --Fastfission 04:42, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The creationism category includes articles which are pseudoscience such as Flood geology, and many other articles which aren't such as Theistic evolution. I strongly suggest that creationism should no longer be a sub-category of pseudoscience. Perhaps embarrassingly, I've posted the same comment ont he Pseudoscience talk page, but the point stands. Since Fastfission suggested this in June without dissent, I'll remove pseudoscience as a parent category if there's no other feedback within a week . ...dave souza 19:36, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I repsonded at Category talk:Pseudoscience. Basically, categories exist to provide navigation to other articles on related topics. They don't have to fit 100%, just close enough. -Willmcw 19:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, creationism itself is not pseudoscience, though many related articles are. We should remove the general article (and category) from the pseudoscience cat, and move move relevant articles in.
It would also make the rather silly discussion at ID talk unnecessary. -- Ec5618 19:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

On second thoughts, go for it. It'll also end an edit war on the intelligent design category. Some if not all of the relevant articles already have both categories, that'll be something to review ...dave souza 20:08, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a bit precipitous to say you'll wait a week, and then make the change immediately. The creationism-related categories could use some general tending. There appears to be considerable overlap and even a dubious category.
I'm not an expert on this topic, but I suspect that these categories, and their categorization, could be improved. -Willmcw 20:48, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Well this is the problem. Creationism is clearly theology. Some forms of creationism are not based on pseudoscience. However, one forms of creationism (intelligent design) claims not to be theology and generally consits entirely of anti-science arguments. Herein lies the problem, is categorisation rigid or flexible. Must something in a category be absolutely in that category or only be related? The latter must surely apply, the categorisation system is to group together related articles and serve as a navigation aid. The articles make clear that some forms are considered pseudoscience and some not, that is good enough. — Dunc| 22:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, since June seemed long enough, in the context of reversion battles at intelligent design category. Anyway, Creationism is clearly theology and philosophy, though some articles in the category are reacting to "creationism" and take the pro-science side so are not themselves "pseudoscience". A large proportion (about half of all Christians) are creationist in believing in a creator with more or less continuing involvement in thigs like speciation, but have no quarrel with science so are not pseudoscience: the Roman Catholic position is well documented. They come under evolutionary creationism which redirects to theistic evolution, two names covering the same range of positions. If they're under pseodoscience this is wrong for these articles, and as has been the case other creationist articles have the pseodoscience category applied on individual pages, which leads to arguments that they shouldn't as pseudoscience is the parent category. So it shouldn't be.
Intelligent design clearly claims to be science, and Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District has solidly confirmed the position taken by the scientific community and the Roman Catholic church that it's not science. It therefore makes sense for that category to be a subcategory of pseudoscience. That takes care of most of the list, and the same would apply to Creation science. That leaves Anti-creationism, Neo-Creationism and Young Earth creationism: the latter two clearly disagree with science, but don't necessarily claim to be science themselves, so the pseudoscience category should be decided on an article by article basis. Similarly the first is anti creationism, but not necessarily dealing with pseudoscience. I'm no expert on categorisation, but to me that seems a better approach than getting inconsistency or arguments as is the case at present. ....dave souza 23:26, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
A couple of weeks of season of goodwill have elapsed, we still have this fork where both intelligent design and creationism categories are sub-categories of pseudoscience, though many articles in this category don't come under that heading. Sometime today I'll remove the pseudoscience link from the creationism category. ....dave souza 11:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Good, please do.
Perhaps we should move a few articles into (currently unused) Category:Creation Science, as it can rightly be labeled pseudoscience.
  1. C-decay
  2. Creation biology
  3. Creation Research Society
  4. Creation science
  5. Creation science fair
  6. Creationist cosmologies
  7. Day-Age Creationism
  8. Fine-tuned universe
  9. Flood geology (not The Genesis Flood)
  10. Polystrate fossil
  11. Specified complexity
  12. Starlight problem
  13. Vapor canopy .. should all be moved.
Several articles should be moved to Category:Intelligent design:
  1. Teach the Controversy
  2. Wedge strategy
  3. Discovery Institute -- Ec5618 12:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I have removed the Creationism cat from the general pseudoscience cat. Assuming no-one objects, I'm going to reinstate cat: creation science, and move some content there. Creation science can 'safely be labeled pseudoscience. -- Ec5618 03:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks – sorry I got distracted, ,,,dave souza 07:19, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Pseudoscience

There are a number of articles listed in this category (creationism), and in the parent category (pseudoscience). Can we get these articles moved out of the parent cat? They mostly seem to just be cluttering things up over there; doesn't seem to serve much of a point. Pseudoscience currently has 140 articles in it, which is too many. Removing the creationism and i/d articles would drop this number by about 20. I tried doing this on my own but was promptly reverted. ...linas 02:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Moving specific articles out of a category because it is full seems unwise, but keeping them in a subcategory is fine. -- Ec5618 03:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
It'd seem to make more sense to keep this category in pseudoscience, but remove the individual articles which are categorized under pseudoscience. -Will Beback 07:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

As discussed previously, articles such as theistic evolution come under creationism, but are not pseudoscience. It makes more sense for pseudscience articles to come under a subcategory such as creation science or intelligent design which clearly comes under pseudoscience as well as creationsim. ..dave souza, talk 16:53, 24 April 2006 (UTC)