User talk:JamesStewart7

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Welcome...

Hello, JamesStewart7, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! Craigtalbert 14:48, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Problems on complementary medicine

Your footnote #19 in your rewrite of the last section is all messed up.

Also, the Wikipedia footnote system has a major problem in it on that article somewhere. Everytime I add a new reference to the mind-body section it throws the footnote numbers off by one. Or, a footnote before that section disappears for some reason. -- John Gohde (talk) 00:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Open mind

Greetings of the season James. A small point from the homeopathy talk page </groan> but you took exception to the concept of an open mind - and I must ask if you are certain on that point? AFAICT, a certain signpost to false results in any scientific endeavour is to see a closed mind. Not, of course, an empty mind - quite different from being open minded. Peace and joy for the New Year! docboat (talk) 06:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

An open mind as in being receptive to new ideas and information is highly desirable. However, this is rarely what anyone means when they use the term. Practically every time I see someone use the term "open mind", what they mean to imply is that the person the are talking to is being close minded because they are not accepting their ideas. Hence, using the term "open mind" is often some form of concealed attack at the opposition. It has been my experience that the vast majority of people who use the term "open mind" faily to realise the difference between someone rejecting their ideas because they lack merit and someone rejecting their ideas because they cannot accept new concepts.

So you see open mind never really means open mind. What it really means is accept a lower standard of evidence. Like for example when you said it before "The reporting of those anecdotal records has been documented sufficiently in the appropriate homeopathic publications, but not to the "gold" standard of double blind placebo etc etc. They are most certainly empirically interesting to all who wish to keep an open mind" You were clearly advocating that these anecdotes are worth something when science says otherwise. It is not close minded to reject bad evidence but this is always the intended implication. Open mind is a term like family values. It's a term that doesn't actually mean what it says but no one would dare oppose what the person using the term says because they are then closed minded/hate familes. This is why I universally oppose the term. If the term actually meant what it implied I'd be all for it. JamesStewart7 (talk) 06:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Well, we can almost agree. Clearly advocating these anecdotes does not imply to accept the anecdotes - but to look at them and ask if there is any merit in them. It is one area of research where we look at a cohort study, which is a collection of anecdotal evidence, and has been used to justify giving antibiotics to treat ear infections. Wrong, but anecdotally convincing. I think of an open mind as in the examples of Koch and Pasteur, whose enemies among the medical community were well-respected, and closed minded. That is my understanding of the term. But then again, my use of English also includes the term "gay" to mean happy/joyful/light-hearted. docboat (talk) 07:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that using a cohort study is one thing when RCT are not available. It is another to prefer a cohort design when RCT are available (as was the case with homeopathy). Also cohort studies are a far of a lot better controlled than anecdotes. Cohorts studies keep track of the hits and misses will anecdotes tend to only report the hits. With a cohort study you can also control for many other factors with techniques such as a multiple regression. However, as far as the term open mind goes, I guess we can just conclude that it has become a tainted term for me due to the misuse of it by many. I'm sure for others though that it carries a different meaning. JamesStewart7 (talk) 13:34, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of family values, I could tell you something. Please enable your email, or use my email to contact me. -- Fyslee / talk 06:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CAM page

Tell you what. Though we have different POV, I think I could work with you. How about we discuss changes on the talk page, before we edit the article? I would say that as we edit more and more, we will get to know better what you are I might object to. So an edit that we think the other might have a objection too, I will wait and discuss with you. What do you think? Anthon01 (talk) 15:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to offer a lot of different wordings. All your revisions have shared one particular sentence (the sentence which both I and others have objected to). If you want to work together you need to offer more than one version of the section. JamesStewart7 (talk) 15:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
You are right. I am fine with the current version. Anthon01 (talk) 16:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Homeopathy

I assume something unexpected happen here, but with this edit in the Homeopathy TP, a lot of info was added to earlier sections and some was removed from the current section. This has happened several times in the last week. Is any part of the edit look like what you intended? I assume there is a software problem that we may have to report.Anthon01 (talk) 13:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I reverted that particular edit, since it seems it was a mistake. Thanks, --Phirazo 18:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah I didn't intend to do to remove anyone's comments. I don't know what happened there. JamesStewart7 (talk) 23:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POV tags on CFS page (graded exercise)

What is the reason for the POV tags that you added on PMID 15210489 and PMID 15723894? I think previously there was a pov tag on the entire section, but you changed it so there are now two POV tags just on these studies. I looked at the abstracts and I don't see any POV problems and I don't see anything on the talk page about these studies. I was just going to remove the POV tags but I thought I'd check with you first so I don't step on anyone's toes. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 23:30, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chronic fatigue syndrome

James, please do not remove so much material so fast from the article. The bacterial section is now gone. Even though the material you removed was dubious, there are other RS that talk about CFS connections with Coxiella burnetii, Chlamydia pneumoniae, and Borrelia burgdorferi that I know of. The material removed from the Controversy section left a one sided POV. There is now a broken link from something that was removed recently. You may or may not have done that, I don't know. This is making it hard to keep the article organized. You have not responded to talk page replys to several items that have resulted from your edits. I ask that you be a little more careful. Thank you, Ward20 (talk) 10:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Broken link wasn't me. The controversy section is especially in need of references for the other POV (the removed one). If reliable sources cannot be found for said POV then that POV should not be included in the article. WP:NPOV policy does not say that we have to represent all POVs equally, It states "the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." No RS means no reason to represnt that POV. If the unreferenced material substantially changes the POV of the article, I If removing unreferenced material makes a large change to the POV of the article then the article was clearly not compliant with wikipedia NPOV policy to begin with.
As a point of note, I did not remove Ramsay and the other references from the controversy section. Someone else did. I merely attributed the source. I do the best I can to respond to talk page comments. As the comments are not always kept in order, I occasionally miss things. Anyway I'll throw the removed content on the talk page so that it may be discussed. JamesStewart7 (talk) 12:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
You may or may not know this, I am discussing it so you can watch for it, if you already know it I apologize. this edit removed the citation <ref name="CDCToolkit">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2006), "[http://www.cdc.gov/cfs/toolkit.htm] CFS Toolkit: Fact Sheets for Healthcare Professionals"</ref>, which is OK except that the citation was used in another passage by this shortcut <ref name="CDCToolkit"/>. When the main citation is removed, the shortcut can not find the master reference, so you have to be careful when the citation is used multiple times. Ward20 (talk) 00:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry I may have missed that. I guess I just assumed the full citation was present elsewhere as my edit was rather late in the article. JamesStewart7 (talk) 04:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oriflame

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