User:Asmodeus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] Instructions
Visitors to this page are naturally very welcome, but are asked to confine any comments to my Talk Page. I prefer to keep this (User) page as mine alone, and will simply move or delete comments not my own.
[edit] Introduction
I live in the American Midwest with my wife and many pets. My interests include science (particularly physics and biology), mathematics, philosophy, theology, and the social covenant.
For Wikipedia purposes, I am Asmodeus. I have chosen this handle not because I am a real-life demon worshipper or demonology aficionado; I have chosen it because it is the name sometimes given to a spirit of wrath (among other things).
Why do I feel wrathful? There is a certain disquieting trend afoot here at Wikipedia. It is manifest in the apparent existence of a cabal of crusading editors who have appointed themselves the Enemies of Pseudoscience ... And Everything Possibly Related To It, No Matter How Remotely...And Also Anything Which Has Been Rightly or Wrongly Called "Pseudoscience" By Any Cabal Member (QED). They tend to mill about in places like this, this, and this.
Make no mistake, I am myself no friend of pseudoscience (or pseudomathematics). I probably dislike it even more strongly than some members of the Unofficial Anti-Pseudoscience Executive (U-APE). However, during my admittedly short tenure here at Wikipedia, I have ascertained that this Executive has a problem: many of its members ("APEs") seem to have no idea how to distinguish science from the philosophy of science, physics from metaphysics, or pseudoscience from metascience, and in their reactionary zeal, make egregious errors of classification.
Many of the APEs have some amount of knowledge in one or more technical fields, sometimes proudly flaunting extensive academic credentials and affiliations. Unfortunately, this knowledge often appears to act as a sort of cognitive filter, preventing them from making neutral, informed judgments regarding purported instances of the general object of their self-generated enmity (pseudoscience). Unfortunately, knowledge in one or more technical fields typically does not tell one how to distinguish science from pseudoscience from metascience, unless the field of expertise happens to be a particularly advanced, cutting-edge form of the philosophy of science.
I use the term "advanced" because science and mathematics are expanding too rapidly, and on too many different horizons, to be neatly encapsulated in any finite set of distinguishing principles (even when those principles are tendered as elements in some absurd or sarcastic crackpot index). In the history of intellectual progress, the "metaphysics" of today has often turned out to be the "science" of tomorrow. If various minority viewpoints which later became predominant had been prejudicially suppressed as "pseudoscience" on their very emergence from the box, science would not be what it is today. It would be stunted and stagnant by comparison.
Obviously, Wikipedia cannot afford to let purblind, torch-bearing anti-pseudoscience fanatics establish constraints which automatically exclude legitimate, notable currents of thought and inquiry in favor of their own more orthodox, more limited viewpoints. It is not up to any encyclopedia to promulgate majority opinions at the total expense of opinions which are notable, but espoused by only a minority (no matter how small that minority may be). While no serious encyclopedia should throw open its doors to crankery, neither should it slam them on unpopular or unorthodox ideas already notable in their own right.
This applies to Wikipedia just as it applies to any other encyclopedia. The current problem, as I see it, is twofold:
(1) The Unofficial Anti-Pseudoscience Executive (U-APE) has demonstrated that it will not, or perhaps merely cannot, recognize any problems in connection with its unbridled anti-pseudoscience zealotry. Unfortunately, Wikipedia as a whole cannot afford to ignore such problems. Building a Better Britannica is an admirable goal, but letting myopic "anti-pseudoscience" pogroms and witch-hunts run wild is not. In fact, when one looks carefully at what goes into a good encyclopedia, conceptual and ideological witch-hunting and associated forms of censorship are seen to be antithetical to encyclopedic accuracy and comprehensiveness.
(2) Although U-APEs are as driven as a gasoline fire in a hurricane, there is no one to oppose or police them...nothing analogous to an APE-house supervisor, or to the IAD within a police force. Thus, nothing prevents APEs from becoming abusive, swarming the objects of their sometimes irrational hatred, and manipulatively raping the editorial and administrative procedures of Wikipedia in order to satisfy their ravenous appetite for deletion.
Obviously, no one person - especially a busy one like me - has the vast amount of time that would be necessary to curtail the abuses of out-of-control APEs here at Wikipedia. But I hope that I can find enough to at least begin to do my part, whatever that may turn out to be.
Coming Soon:
