The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Though among those who want to keep it there seems to be agreement that this would work better as a list.  Sandstein  16:16, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fringe science organizations[edit]

Fringe science organizations (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This is an article that is passing off as a list, but the problem is that the criteria is over-broad. There aren't any third-party references which identify these particular groups as being related and, as such, Wikipedia by hosting this collection is effectively promoting its own original research that these groups are all connected. jps (talk) 01:29, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Question: would it make more sense to rename List of fringe science organizations and remove entries that do not have third party references? I am willing to bet, for example, that we could find sources for inclusion of Flat Earth Society. VQuakr (talk) 01:39, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Fringe science" is a bit of a Wikipedia neologism. What constitutes "fringe science" is difficult to say as there aren't many authoritative works on the subject. Certain attempts have been made in the sociology of science literature, but those have generally focused on specific instances rather than attempting to make an exhaustive accounting or identify easy-to-discern criteria to determine when a topic is "fringe" and when it is not. Besides this, one could look at the history of science to see instances of when certain excluded ideas became mainstream and vice-versa, but this is rather far afield. No, I think there isn't a decent source out there which would allow us to write an article that tries to list which organizations are "fringe science" and which ones aren't regardless of how obvious it may seem to the casual reader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by jps (talk • contribs) 01:46, 19 September 2015
    • Almost all the organizations mentioned in this article have third party references describing how they go against the scientific mainstream. So in theory, you could call the article "Organizations promoting non-mainstream science" and the verifiability question would be met. But I the best word for this is fringe. It's less pejorative than crank, and more intuitive than non-mainstream. LouScheffer (talk) 03:46, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't really see any sources which condemn the organizations per se. Can you point to some? jps (talk) 15:51, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong oppose to deletion. This page serves a very useful purpose. For example, suppose a casual reader wonders if the idea of a cosmological ether makes any sense. They go to google scholar and type in 'cosmological ether' (without the quotes). On the first page, the first reference is to an article published by the Natural Philosophy Alliance, and the third is published in the Astrophysical Journal. A quick peek at the reputation of the Journal and the Alliance is enough to tell that one is likely to be the mainstream view, and the other not well accepted by the scientific community. This page helps the process, by providing a landing page for re-directs from the names of the individual organizations. This purpose used to be served by pages for each of the organizations, but many felt they were not (individually) notable enough. But some quick way for assessing where an organization stands on the spectrum of scientific concensus is very helpful. LouScheffer (talk) 03:19, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:USEFUL? jps (talk) 10:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:USEFUL just says that "useful" alone is not helpful, so be sure to state your arguments as to why/why not the article is useful. I think I've done that, but if you disagree feel free to explain your reasoning.LouScheffer (talk) 14:24, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think your explanation basically aligns with a claim that the list is useful, but that's not what the inclusion criteria for Wikipedia is. The inclusion criteria has to be that the list is verifiable and based on reliable sources. I don't see that this burden has been met. jps (talk) 15:28, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • Actually, 'useful' IS one of the criteria for inclusion. As WP:USEFUL states, "If reasons are given, "usefulness" can be the basis of a valid argument for inclusion. An encyclopedia should, by definition, be informative and useful to its readers. Try to exercise common sense, and consider how a non-trivial number of people will consider the information "useful".". I think the argument I made follows this prescription. LouScheffer (talk) 03:46, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • Utility of the compendium cannot trump its synthetic nature. Where are your sources which indicate that all these are "fringe science"? jps (talk) 11:01, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • The article Fringe science defines it as "an inquiry in an established field of study which departs significantly from the mainstream theory in that field". You would have to argue that spherical earth, relativity, big bang, and so on are mainstream theories. (If needed you could cite any number of high school science texts to show that this is the case). And there are references to the organizations mentioned here that show their departure from these theories. No synthesis whatsoever, this is derived straight from the definition of fringe science. LouScheffer (talk) 14:05, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid it's not quite so simple (would that it were!). To be clear, I'm personally all in favor of this kind of synthetic demarcation, but Wikipedia explicitly forbids it. I used to lament this, but now I see that it serves a purpose. The problem is that obscure or uncommented upon ideas/organizations are simply not worthy of inclusion at Wikipedia at all. By attempting to do the work of secondary sources in identifying which organizations are fringe and which are not, we would have to allow original research. It may not be obvious right now, but let's say someone wants to include the International Conference on Cold Fusion. Seems to me to be a pretty clear example of "fringe science". You may find it difficult, however, to fight the proponents who ask you to explain why it is fringe. Then we have the Heartland Institute. Again, clear example, but how are you going to maintain its inclusion? Are you just going to show how they are different than the IPCC? Then we have Council for Responsible Genetics. How are they to be labeled? What about the Parapsychological Association (they're affiliates of AAAS!)? And so forth....

The only practical solution is to have third party independent sources which identify each organization as a fringe science organization. That's something I haven't yet seen that we have. It may be that such sources exist, but so far no one has pointed me to them.

jps (talk) 15:34, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:04, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:30, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:30, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Delete / Redirect to Fringe science or Merge as appropriate to list of topics characterized as pseudoscience - the latter article has been the subject of many discussions concerning how to handle such topics and such a list. If kept, this article is likewise headed for list of organizations characterized as promoters of fringe science. What we would really need to keep it, in addition to clear inclusion criteria, are a bunch of reliable sources which treat these organizations as a group so as to make such a list notable. Fringe science is notable, the topics they cover are notable, and some of the organizations are individually notable, but as a group it's less clear. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:37, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - It looks like Natural Philosophy Alliance was merged into this article last year. If this article is deleted, that should be undone and, if necessary, the other article nominated. (It was not merged as a result of a proposed merge or afd). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:38, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • True, but perhaps it would be a good idea to merge it to another article like fringe physics. jps (talk) 15:08, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• KEEP but need to rename, restructure, cleanup. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 02:19, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but there has to be a better name. I approached this article from the standpoint of a reader and found it to be quite useful and fascinating. I am not suggesting that it should be kept because it is liked or not liked. A category also exists with this name and with the same 'name' problem.

  Bfpage |leave a message  00:21, 23 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - Inherently POV name. That needs to be changed if this winds up in the keep column. Carrite (talk) 15:19, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Just does not feel encyclopedic. You might as well include organizations promoting the theories of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx since they are no longer taken seriously by mainstream science.Borock (talk) 12:22, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Move to List of fringe science organizations and remove any that fail WP:RS, per VQuakr, above. Thanks for the good idea. Good luck, — Cirt (talk) 05:47, 28 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Move to List of fringe science organizations and delete all entries that do not have articles. General consensus seems to be that items in this type of list a): be notable enough to have an article, and, b): have a well developed "criticism" section in that article supporting the claim of "fringe". We are looking at a resultant list of two entries right now (three if "Natural Philosophy Alliance" gets spun back out) (and more can be created from these list entries) but anything short of that falls into WP:LABEL. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:16, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete According to which independent sources they are fringe science organizations? None? The title is WP:OR. I could not find any reliable sources to indicate they are fringe science organizations. This is a pure WP:SYN topic. If we remove any that fail WP:RS and WP:V policy the page could be blanked. An independent source must show for each entry it is fringe. That's not what is being done here. QuackGuru (talk) 17:50, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to List of topics characterized as pseudoscience, no merge, since there really is nothing here needed to add there. Reading the article, I immediately noticed it's similarity to the list, so it makes sense to point it there. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, rename and clean up. There is no doubt that these organizations exist. It only took me a few minutes, for example, to find several articles in major newspapers (The Guardian, New York Times) about the Flat Earth Society. The problem is not that the organizations aren't notable, it's that finding WP:RS supporting the categorization as fringe is not easy. Such sources do exist, but the effort needs to be put into finding them and being careful to not say more here than is supported by the sources. For example, I found a New York Times article about the Flat Earth Society. It says:

Most people have come to accept the idea that the sun, the earth, and the moon are all spheres [...] but one group of people, the International Flat Earth Research Society, contends that such an explanation is merely part of a gigantic hoax

I think it's pretty clear we can call that a WP:RS not only for the organization existing, but also that it's out of the mainstream of scientific thinking. We need to find sources of similar quality for the other entries in this list, or remove them. And, as others have pointed out, fringe is a loaded word, so the article really needs a better title. But, finding consensus for a better title isn't a blocker for keeping the article, and can be conducted on the article talk page after this AfD is over. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:47, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Move to List of fringe science organizations. I don't agree that it's inherently OR to characterize organizations that are widely acknowledged to be outside of the mainstream as fringe, and I don't think the word is necessarily pejorative either. Don't agree there are no sources to verify these organizations as fringe. Here's an article in LiveScience (previously identified as a reliable source) that refers to it as "fringe": [1]. An article in the BBC characterizes them as "conspiratorial", which is synonymous with fringe in this instance: [2]. Without going through the rest, I'm guessing other organizations have similar articles on them. However, this page lends itself much more to a list rather than an article, since that would require synthesis. mikeman67 (talk) 14:16, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.