Wikipedia:WikiProject Rational Skepticism/test

Dedicated to creating and adding to articles related to science and philosophy, while checking the POV currently present in various Wikipedia articles dealing with such topics as psychics, magick, "alternative" medicines, etc.

The neutral point of view (NPOV) must be preserved where it exists and created where it does not exist.

This WikiProject aims primarily to coordinate the efforts of Wikipedians who wish to promote science and reason in an effort to improve the general quality and range of Wikipedia articles on various topics, while maintaining the NPOV.

The goals of this WikiProject are as follows:

1. To create new articles relating to science and reason.
2. To create new Wikipedia articles regarding those topics not yet covered by Wikipedia, but which are covered by The Skeptic's Dictionary.
3. To place {{Rational Skepticism}} tags on articles related to Rational Skepticism, fraudster tags on articles concerning convicted fraudsters, and add to criticisms sections where criticism is due.
4. To identify cases of fraud and other unethical/illegal activities undertaken by religious and quasi-religious organizations, as they often go unreported.
5. To improve those articles which need help.
6. To serve as a nexus and discussion area for editors interested in doing such work.

Rational skepticism or Scientific skepticism (British English spelling: scepticism) sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a scientific, or practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence. In practice, a scientific skeptic generally focuses on critically examining claims and theories which they believe to be far beyond the mainstream of science.

Scientific skepticism is different from philosophical skepticism, which questions our right to claim knowledge about the nature of the world and how we perceive it. Scientific skepticism utilizes critical thinking and attempts to oppose claims made which lack suitable evidential basis.

If you wish to join this project or see its current members then please see the subpage below. If you want to join then simply add your name to the list of "active members" and don't forget to list your interests and specialities.

1. Autarch - mostly maths/physics related, but also evolution.
2. Jongpil Yun - Interests: Obliterating pseudoscience
3. Frexe
4. Fyslee - Interests: chiroquackery, sCAM, homeopathy, etc.
5. Pain
6. Hitchhiker89^talk 17:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
7. CCMichalZ 17:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
8. Qarnos 23:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
9. Michaelfavor 02:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
10. dino ^talk
11. Andries ^talk
12. Prosfilaes 20:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
13. Krash (Talk)
14. BillC ^talk – electrical engineer. 23:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
15. Jredwards
16. DartFrog ^talk - My aim is to help present all articles as straightforward and unbiased towards their subject matter.
17. Lundse Checking on POV'ed entries and pseudoscience.
18. MaxMangel^talk Skeptic, with interest in false memory
19. porges ; wikipedia needs close watch :)
20. Bhumiya - My specialties are creationism, bioconservatism, and other political/religious topics, but I also have some experience with Scientology, astrology, etc.
21. SuMadre- Interests: Creationism and Evolution
22. Smiloid- Interests: Paranormal occult
23. jpowell - Interests: sCAM and general quackery.
24. fel64 19:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
25. ScienceApologist
26. Mulder talk I'm an expert with almost all Paranormal subjects
27. David Mestel - Interests: pseudomedicine. 06:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
28. TurabianNights - pseudoarchaeology, alternative medicine, neopagan historical appropriation
29. Cybercobra - creationism
30. Levine2112 - differentiating between a skeptic and a "True Disbeliever"
31. Cri du canard -- all forms of quackery. At the moment, concerned with the systematic bias in the orthomolecular medicine series of articles.
32. Davidstrauss: creationism, new age religion, alternative medicine, etc.
33. Edhubbard: adding data from neuroscientific explanations, where applicable, for unusual experiences such as auras (see synesthesia), phantom limbs, out of body experiences, religious visitation (see temporal lobe epilepsy), and deja vu to combat bias towards mystical POVs.
34. K-UNIT: interested in pretty much anything, with a major interest in the historicity of Religions, Abduction phenomenon/Sleep Paralysis and the like.
35. xSAMIx. Have knowledge on paranormal and occult and believe that Wikipedia needs people who know about the subjects yet can remain neutral involved.
36. SSPecter Since 18 October 2006. Im interested in religion, science, pseudo-science, Information technology, AI.
37. Havermayer. I have a broad interest in all skeptical issues. I know quite a bit about creationism, and am currently investigating alternative medicine.
38. Openminded skeptic. Primarily interested in claims of paranormal phenomena, occult myths and ritual, UFOlogy etc. — e. ripley\^talk
39. NeoFreak. I have taken a great interest of late in the subculture of Otherkin, Draconity, Vampire lifestyle and related "articles", and the need to source them.
40. Rubico
41. Bduke. Scientist (chemist) and member of Australian Skeptics with varied interests.
42. Doczilla 00:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC) - psychology professor.
43. Długosz ^talk — wants to promote education and critical thinking.
44. Badbilltucker - Probably not in a big way, adding banners to appropriate articles, that sort of thing.
45. Zaparojdik - Interests: Creationism and Evolution
46. Belbo Casaubon - Interests: The New Age and Fortune Telling
47. LuckyLouie - Interests: pseudoscientific claims of "paranormal investigation" and "ghost hunting" groups, mediums, psychics, and spiritualists.
48. Audacity: backmasking, hidden message, subliminal message, theomatics, pareidolia
49. Wikidudeman ^(talk) - Interests: Religion, Physics, Biology, Bodybuilding, Debate, Mathematics & more.
50. Titanium Dragon - Biomedical Engineering major, graduate in 2 months. Interests: Religion, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Biology, Fantasy (particularly Dragons), Astronomy
51. User:Jim Butler. Interested in discriminating among pseudoscience, questionable science, and sig sci minority views per principles 14-18 at recent ArbCom decision on pseudoscience.
52. ——Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} I'm a skeptic in the tradition of Truzzi, and interested in precisely stating exactly what is known of the paranormal.
53. Lipollis - my expertise is in the fields of Archaeology, Antrhopology, Folklore and Linguistics. I've done a fair amount of field work in early American Industrial Archaeology, Iroquoian langues, archaeology, culture and the recent cultural conflicts over gaming. As a rational skeptic, my interests are in providing documented and legitimate academic criticisims where they apply. My most recent efforts have been on the Carlos Castaneda article.LiPollis 16:22, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
54. Mycroft7 22:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC) interested in researching and adding more skeptical viewpoints and neutral phrasing to paranormal articles
55. Philosophus, migrating from the Pseudoscience WikiProject (also the founder of the Einstein's Witnesses).
56. Xinit I have been focusing on general purpose copy editing of a handful of pseudoscientific and related articles here with an aim to improve readability, squash original research and uncited claims. That last is difficult when you're dealing with some subject matter in this area.
57. Omegatron — Electrical engineer. Can be found fighting to keep notable pseudoscience articles and trying to reform the irrationally skeptical.
58. Mainstream astronomy - Graduate student in astronomy. Bad astronomy abounds. Keeping it in check on Wikipedia.
59. John Carter 16:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC) - Primarily directly project-related activities.
60. Famousdog 14:07 11th July 2007 (UTC) - Vision, psychology, perception. There's a lot of rubbish talked about it!
61. Scorpion451 00:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)- Undergraduate in chemical engineering. My specialies are bluntness and a penchant for bulldozing bad articles into legible ones, as well as a talent for finding the flaws in the "evidence" behind pseudoscience. I also strive to defend the right of these theories to be objectively included in wikipedia. Paranormal researches did prove ball lightning and the okapi, after all.
62. ornis 01:38, 14 July 2007 (UTC) - interests: Religion, Creationism and Quackery.
63. Marion Delgado Interests: Climate science, history, sociology of science, energy, economics. Specialties: Abstract math, physics, journalism, conspiracy literature, linguistics
64. Rypcord Interests: Anthropology, Sexology, Sociology, Philosophy
65. User:Piechjo Alternative therapies for disabilities, pseudoscience in behavioral sciences.
66. Elhector - Strong interest in world religions. Also very interested in controversial topics like intelligent design and scientology. I would describe myself as a skeptic since birth.
67. Herd of Swine Interests: fringe medicine, pseudoscience, junk science, quackery
68. JMA1 I'm Belgian, so I mostly contribute to the French wikipédia, but my interest is in the UFO phenomena and especially the Psychosocial Hypothesis. I also try to put some French-related skeptical informations on the English wikipedia (like about COMETA or the GEIPAN for example).
69. Ronja 06:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC) I am a Bright from Finland and hope it is OK for me to be listed here, even though I most likely will use most the time I can spare to translate material from the articles in this project to the Finnish and Swedish wikipedias.
70. Kwork I am concerned about New Age irrationality; such as can be seen, for example, in the Alice Bailey article.
71. •Jim62sch• 10:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC) Any topic where pseudoscience, pseudohistory, religion or mysticism threatens to suvert or replace rational thought or scientific knowledge.
72. JFlav As a grad student in Physics I love to tackle misuses of physics, such as Perpetual Motion machines, other Second Law silliness, the mangling of Quantum Mechanics (specifically the Quantum mind), and other such things. I also like to weigh in on Evolution denial whenever possible, though I'm no expert.JFlav 14:11, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
73. MarkAnthonyBoyle 11:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC) .. registers support for this project. General interest, particularly Psychology, Magical thinking, Fashionable Nonsense, Postmodernism, Philosophy, Evolution.
74. DIEGO ^talk 04:31, 27 October 2007 (UTC). Interest/experience in psychoeducational research; evidence-based practice in the diagnosis and treatment of learning disabilities and autism/PDD (both areas are rife with quackery); anti-scientific mental health practices (e.g., psychoanalysis, dubious therapies, etc.); anti-scientific practices in (U.S.) public education (e.g., whole language, zero-tolerance policies, etc.); general interest in neuroscience, psychology, medicine, education, developmental biology, the paranormal, alternative medicine, faith healing, anything "new age", and all aspects of the creation-evolution debate.
75. Wikilost 05:34, 28 October 2007 (UTC) (Atheist, skeptic, interested in ensuring equal representation for controversial articles on Wikipedia)
76. Skeptic_za Interests: Psychology, philosophy, neurosciences and computer science.
77. Skinwalker 13:19, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
78. Naturezak (talk) 19:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC) Interests: epistemology and phenomenology; atheism and skepticism; evolutionary biology; cognitive neuroscience; poetics; spiritualism and pseudoscience in literature
79. LeContexte (talk) 15:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC) general interest in skepticism and rationality, particularly in relation to "free energy" claims
80. User:Writtenonsand
81. Noleander (talk) 19:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC) Scientist. Interested in rebutting pseudoscience or superstitions, especially when they are used to take advantage of uneducated folks.
82. User:pustelnik medicine, particularly endocrinology, anthropology
83. User:JamesStewart7 Interests: various medicine, biology, neuroscience and psychology related topics. Done multiple edits on alternative medicine topics.
84. Angrynight (talk) 10:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC) Interests: Skepticism in general, the skeptical movement, myths about traditions and religious practices, misconceptions about history.
85. ThracianSlave 15:52, 17 January 2008. Background in Biology, Chemistry, Sociology, Computer Science, Teaching, History. Interested in reviewing homeopathic ingredients, general quackery and other areas skeptics should chime in on.
86. papageno (talk) 02:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC) Interested in reviewing articles related to health and radio frequencies, mobile telephony and wireless communications.
87. Salmanazar (talk) 18:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC) Interests: so-called "mysterious disappearances" and UFOlogical nonsense.
88. Anynobody 05:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC) I'm interested in air/maritime "incidents", space, and the history of topics such as aviation, crime (fraud/murder), religions and influential people. Turns out these topics tend to cross into areas where skepticism is required.
89. Naturstud. BSc Pharmaceutical and Biological Chemistry. Pursuing Naturopathic medicine degree from an EBM POV, which can sometimes be extremely painful. Disliked intensely by the homeopathy set at school, needless to say. Fascinated by the interplay between rational and irrational skepticism that sometimes results as CAM gets more and more serious study. Mission: Seek out and destroy wild generalizations about the 'uselessnes' of 'widely rejected' CAM interventions that 'have no basis in science' and 'have been proven false' that, on closer inspection, have some decent data to support them, or, more bizarely, havn't been scientifically evaluated at all! Secret Mission: Expose the irrational basis of misplaced skepticism on wiki.
90. wshallwshall Earth sciences, medicine, technology.
91. Tyciol (talk) 01:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC) No specialties, all-around skeptic, enjoys superstition and suspension of disbelief for fun.
92. Consumed Crustacean
93. User:Cdynas Strong knowledge in Scientology & general interests in intelligent design, alternative medicines & psychics.
94. Voice-of-All. I'd like to patrol ID/evolution and alternative medicine articles.
95. cjllw (talk) 03:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC) — countering/identifying pseudoarchaeology and pseudohistory.
96. Mariordo engineering, economics, transportation economics, traffic engineering, biofuels, history of science, math, physics, astronomy, all-around skeptic and critical thinking.Mariordo (talk) 01:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
97. User:Ciroa Interested in widely recognized cases where skepticism delayed or impeded advances in mainstream science; if all skeptics agree, then it's not skepticism anymore.
98. chuck0765 - Chuck Brodeur - Interests include general science, critical thinking, and skepicism
99. User:Slowthy-Medical quackery of all sorts and intelligent design.
100. Vufors (talk) 08:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC) - Science areas in Physics and Mathematics.
101. Magnum Serpentine (talk) 21:38, 14 June 2008 (UTC) - Disproving Fundamentalist Reconstructionist. I am a Christian (Non Fundamentalist). Historian with degrees in United States and World Histories . Also have a degree in Psychology. Skeptic but not Skeptical Inquirer Skeptic. I will admit if I am stumped, I don't know or if there is not enough evidence to say yes or no on a subject. Also I will admit if something turns out to be true. Amateur Astronomer since age of 7.

[edit] Inactive members

• Maprov^(Founder)
• Jokermage ^{Not in right now, leave me a message}

  Reason: I have other things that I need to be focusing on, so I won't be able to participate in this project as much as I'd like. I'll still be watching this page to keep up with current events. If you feel the need to respond, please do it on my talk page. 06:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hob Gadling

  Same reason here. --Hob Gadling 20:09, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

• —Nightstallion (?)

I lack the time due to other wikiactivities, but still consider myself part of this particular WikiProject in spirit. =]

• Feureau

Same reason here. Feureau 10:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Bubba73 ^talk - Joined 1/31/06. I was active on pseudoscience articles, but I had to cut down on my Wikipedia hours, so I'm mostly inactive now. (Well I'm not as inactive as I claim to be, or wish to be.) Bubba73 (talk), 05:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
• Askolnick: alternative medicine, quackery, transcendental mediation, creationism/Intelligent design, science & medical journalism, and other areas of pseudoscience --He blanked his user page and left with the comment "Wikipedia is really not worth the enormous effort to write and edit articles and protect them from the myriad of Vandal tribes seeking to plunder the popularity of this source. Fighting against the dishonest changes of anonymous, often Single Purpose Account editors, is just not worth it." Let's hope it's just a temporary bout of wikistress, but perhaps we can contact him and encourage him to come back. Edhubbard 11:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Jamie Guinn 07:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC) Will check in time to time and help when I can.
• Chemist3456 - anything to keep those idiots who refuse science quiet.
• 7Kim ... I'm time-stressed at the moment, so I can't be as active as I'd like, but I feel it's important to support this project. I am deeply concerned about the use of distortion of science and the use of sloppy thinking and irrationalism in politics, particularly the social politics of gender and sexuality.
• User:Medical Intuitive - Bruce Dickson - Working medical intuitive with a science bent and involvement with psychic, healing, dowsing, spiritual field since the 1950s.
• User:Midgley Medicine. Busy though. Good project, even if I can't add much to it.

</noinclude>

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Pseudoscience
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Science
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Logic

Articles nearest to Featured Article status

1. Carl Sagan
2. Gillian McKeith
3. Isaac Asimov
4. L. Ron Hubbard
5. Linus Pauling
6. Organic food
7. Peer review
8. Psychotherapy
9. Quantum mechanics
10. Richard Dawkins
11. Scientology
12. Shroud of Turin
13. Truthiness
14. Chiropractic -- A-Class Article
15. Flight 19

Articles selected by the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team for release versions

1. Carl Sagan
2. Ethics
3. Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
4. Isaac Asimov
5. Linus Pauling
6. Metaphysics
7. Prayer healing
8. Psychotherapy
9. Quantum mechanics
10. Richard Dawkins
11. Scientific method
12. Shroud of Turin
13. Skepticism

Other articles needing attention

1. Immanuel Velikovsky
2. Morgellons
3. Joint manipulation
4. Quackwatch
5. Basava Premanand
6. Ghost
7. Qi
8. Hair analysis (alternative medicine)
9. Magnet therapy
10. Wallace Wattles
11. James Van Praagh
12. Perpetual motion
13. Primal therapy
14. Leonard Horowitz

WikiProject Rational Skepticism's (10) Newest Articles

Open articles for deletion discussions

• Articles currently undergoing the Articles for deletion (Article deletion) discussion process :

• 4 August – Autodynamics (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Autodynamics)
• 4 August – Ricardo Carezani (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ricardo Carezani)

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