Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pseudoscience/Green Cheese Model of Lunar Composition

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[edit] Comments about the first draft of the GCM article

Were I reading this as an article, I would object to A. Nonymous maintained that this model provided a better explanation of the existence of lunar mice than the silicate rock model used by mainstream science. in the intro, since this appears to accept the existence of lunar mice as given. William M. Connolley 2005-07-08 21:24:11 (UTC).

I'd probably object to lithosphere composed of cheese too, as wrong-by-definition: a lithosphere is rock. William M. Connolley 2005-07-08 21:27:25 (UTC).

Opponents: one of the problems with the junk is that some of it is so wacky that no mainstream scientist has even bothered to say that its junk. This leaves the articles with a NPOV problem of having no reputable source for the statement "this is junk". So the opps section is perhaps unrealistic. William M. Connolley 2005-07-08 21:27:25 (UTC).

I'll take a closer look at this on Monday; I'm afraid I'll be doing a lot of running around during the weekend. Thanks for the prompt reply, though! --Christopher Thomas 9 July 2005 14:49 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox and response to first-pass comments

A couple of updates:

  • I'm still mostly on-sabbatical. This edit is an anomaly :).
  • The Green Cheese article now uses {{Infobox Pseudoscience}}.
  • A distressing amount of "obviously gibberish" pseudoscience is present in WikiPedia, and in some cases survives VfD. The Green Cheese article does indeed take this to a silly extreme, but it's not much more extreme than some of the real articles I've seen. Consider it exaggeration for illustrative purposes.
  • Regarding usage of the word "lithosphere", I understand it to mean "the outer solid layers of a planet or planetoid". Your mileage may vary :). Certainly the layer of the moon that the GCM disputes is called the lithosphere by mainstream science, so I feel the use is appropriate in the sample. By all means propose alternate phrasing on this page, though.
  • Regarding opponents, if the junk science in question hasn't stirred up enough chatter to have some scientist, somewhere, on record as saying "this is bunk", it's probably Non-Notable enough to be VfDd. I feel that having an "opponents" subsection is important for a balanced presentation of any pseudoscience article (otherwise its fans very quickly edit the "proponents" section to give the impression that it has widespread support).

Now, I'm going to re-lurk. I'll get to the article skeleton template eventually. --Christopher Thomas 08:16, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revision of "claims" section and request for feedback

I've rewritten the "claims" section. My main goals were twofold:

  • Have "core claims" and "how science disagrees with this" in separate subsections, instead of trying to split up the claims.
  • Explicitly providing article links where the usual very-verbose explanation and defense that appears should go, to discourage it from going in the primary article. Otherwise you get the problem of the current version of autodynamics - there's so much cruft to wade through that a casual reader won't be able to quickly get an answer to the question of what autodynamics _is_.

While this feels better than the previous version, I'd still like suggestions before I make the blank-article template. The goal is to produce something that can give a brief, neutral description of a pseudoscience that isn't likely to be reverted or mutated beyond recognition by the pseudoscience's supporters. --Christopher Thomas 23:14, 14 November 2005 (UTC)