Talk:Baraminology/Archive 2

Neologism?

An editor questions whether this article is merely documenting a neologism, pointing out that there are only 6380 hits in Google for "baraminology". There are 313,000 hits for "baramin". Perhaps it would be better to change the title to "Baramin"? I note also that there are Wikipedia articles on this topic in several other languages. It seems to be more than just a few people who are interested in this. TomS TDotO (talk) 15:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I support removing the neologism tag and retaining the current title. While baraminology has only sprung up in the last few decades and is used mostly by creationists, the topic has significant, reliable sources other than the creationist sources currently used. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has at least two articles that address baraminology: see "Baraminology: Systematic Discontinuity in Discontinuity Systematics " by Alan Gishlick and "Malcolm Gordon". Baraminology is also one of the topics in central focus in "Sternberg and the 'smear' of Creationism", an article from The Panda's Thumb.

Especially considering those non-creationist sources, I think the {{neologism}} tag should be removed. Even better, those sources could also be incorporated into the article. The fact that there is a reasonably well-sourced 'Criticism' section that includes non-creationist critiques of baraminology further contradicts the stated reasoning for the tag: "Less than 6000 Google hits, all quoting Wikipedia or from creationist websites". Emw2012 (talk) 17:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

In addition to Emw2012's points: (first, this article doesn't merely document a term, but is about a movement/thesis/etc.) I would be concerned if the word was entirely new, or some new combination (as "baramin" was), but it's a straightforward addition of a common suffix to a common word. Further, we cannot change the title to "baramin" because the article is not about baramins, nor can we change it to "the study of baramins" because that sounds funny and because it implies baramins are something legitimate. Let's remove the tag in a couple of days. –M^T 22:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above. A term, however specialized, with a large number of ghits is not a neologism in the sense of WP:NEOLOGISM. Since the editor who added the tag did not offer a term that he or she would not consider to be a neologism, I support removing the tag. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 23:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd just point out that Baramin (as well as "'Created kind) redirect to Baraminology.TomS TDotO (talk) 11:08, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

"It can be tempting to employ a made-up or non-notable neologism in such a case. Instead, use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title." - WP:NEOLOGISM Under this guideline, the proper name of this article should be "Baramin" (300,000+ Google hits) or "Baramin classification" rather than "Baraminology" (6,000 Google Hits). Sticking "-ology" onto the end of a word which is new to begin with makes it a neologism categorically. 70.111.139.224 (talk) 05:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection if someone wants to bother to rework this so that the main title of the article is Baramin, and redirects Created kind and Baraminology (and what else?) to that title. My personal feeling is that it doesn't make much difference, but if someone wants to do that kind of work, I'm not going to stand in their way. My concern was that someone was thinking about removing the content, but that doesn't seem to be the intent. TomS TDotO (talk) 13:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

While it is true that "baramin" has more raw Google hits, the term "baraminology" is also used (there are a few hits even in this scholar search), which establish that the term was not made up for the purposes of Wikipedia. So it isn't clear to me that this falls under the WP:NEOLOGISM guideline. Personally, I think that the title "baraminology" is a better title for an encyclopedia article than "baramin" (which, I suppose, would be next best) or "created kind" (which I don't like at all). siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 13:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Google "Scholar" merely indexes "journals" and citations, with very lax criteria. For example, in those search results we see primarily citations for "Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, 2002 - creationontheweb.com" "Creation Research Society Quarterly, 2000 - creationresearch.org" "Origins - biblicalcreation.co.uk" etc.. These also appear in the "regular" Google search and don't meet Wikipedia's reliability criteria and under WP:NEOLOGISM. "It can be tempting to employ a made-up or non-notable neologism in such a case," but we should use a better, more appropriate term. If in a few more years the term gains more press and becomes generally accepted with similar reach as "Baramin" it might be appropriate to change the article's title to "Baraminology." 70.111.139.224 (talk) 15:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

So would you propose a change of title to "baramin"? I don't strongly object to this, but I think you would have had an easier time had you first posted on the talk page rather than tagging the article without discussion. It may now be necessary to start an RfC on the matter, since the consensus that developed above (when you were unavailable for comment) was to keep the existing title and remove the tag. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 15:11, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• 'Baramin' and 'baraminology' seem to appear together much more often than not. And you can see in the Google search of 'baramin' that many irrelevant instances of that string are returned, e.g. Baramin S.A. de C.V. (apparently a manufacturing company in Mexico), posts by reddit and forum users under the pseudonym 'Baramin', ancestry.com entries for Baramin, etc. Given that there are so many irrelevant search results from that query and that 'baramin' is most often found in the same article as the word 'baraminology', I think the argument for 'baramin' being a much more widely recognized term (and thus a more suitable title for the article) than 'baraminology' isn't very substantial.

With regard to the neologism tag, the term 'baraminology' has been around for about 18 years, which makes it far less new than many subjects on Wikipedia. Inside the community of creationists which first used the term, along with those who make a habit of opposing creationists, the term is indeed notable. With regard to the fact that many -- perhaps most -- of the articles about baraminology are from creationist sources, I think these would be considered reliable sources according to WP:RS#Extremist_and_fringe_sources. The section states that "Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged by reliable sources as fringe, pseudoscience or extremist should be used only as sources about themselves and in articles about themselves or their activities.[1]", where the footnote reads "Examples of such views include certain forms of revisionist history and pseudoscience". Considering that most articles about this topic come from such pseudoscientific sources, they seem reliable in this particular context. Emw2012 (talk) 20:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Strong objection to changing the article title. The article is about baraminology, not about baramins. User 70.111.139.224 misunderstands the neologism policy. We're not here to prevent neologisms from being established (and 70.111.139.224 has missed that boat by 18 years), but we do have to avoid their use when a better term exists. The best term here is "baraminology". First, the reasonable addition of -ology or -ism is not the coining of a new word. Second, baraminology is an accepted term in both creationist literature and scholarly literature, so it's no longer a neologism. Third, 70.111.139.224's google search was sloppy: baramin returns other-language results (260k), while "baramin" returns both relevant and irrelevant results totaling a mere 16k (cf. baraminology's 7k). This entirely undermines the main argument for "baramin" being a neologism. –M^T 23:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Distinguishing facts and views

"Is baraminology pseudoscience?" is a question that concerns science. The answer of the NAS is "yes", and the NAS is the authority on scientific matters. Therefore editors may write "baraminology is pseudoscience" [S1] and cite the NAS -- which is to say, they may present S1 as a factual statement, and back it up with a citation from the NAS.

"The NAS says baraminology is pseudoscience" [S2] is also a factual statement. Do we want to make it? No. This is irrelevant to the article. We inform the reader that it's pseudoscience. If we can't do that, we might do the next best thing and say "there are many views, but the generally accepted NAS view is that it is" [S2]. If we write S2 instead of S1, we imply that there is no fact of the matter, when there without any doubt is. Baraminology is pseudoscience. Presenting this as a view is NPOV. We are to present it as the fact that it is.

A fact should not be presented as a view, unless that's the only way that it can be presented (that is, it's not really a fact). To append "according to the NAS" to a cited fact is to dress that fact up as a view. –M^T 00:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Not to poke holes, but does the NAS actually say that baraminology is pseudoscience? Wouldn't it be more accurate simply to say what the NAS position is apropos of baraminology? I think the following does a nice job:

Despite voluminous evidence for evolution at and above the species level, baraminologists reject universal common descent and the emergence of new families and higher taxa.

--siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 00:59, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm with –M on this one. If we can state it as a fact, rather than a view, then it would be biased to downgrade it. Spotfixer (talk) 01:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep, it does. I had wanted to just point to the cited site, but they've changed those pages :) They NAS doesn't mention baraminology, but does state that all of creation science is pseudoscience, and it's not in dispute that baraminology is creation science. I'll add some more citations. Your proposed wording sounds similar to another passage in the criticism section, and it might be good to merge the two. –M^T 02:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The site linked in the reference does not use the term "pseudoscience" in reference to baraminology or anything else, at least not according to the "search" feature. A reference which supports this wording would be preferable, although as I recall the NAS has been fairly explicit in their characterization of creation science as pseudoscience in the past. Perhaps a visit to archive.org is in order. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 02:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I added a few more, with the relevant quotes. I haven't gone through the "statements by organizations" one though. Pseudoscience is something that is presented as science which is (unequivocally, in this case) not science. But yes, it would be nice if we could find a citation that uses that particular language. I also wouldn't mind "is not science[citeNAS], which makes it a pseudoscience", though perhaps that's a bit wordy. –M^T 03:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Statements along the lines of Ungtss's wording ("The NAS says...") and my wording ("The scientific community says...") seem to be the WP convention: see Astrology (which is the relevant example in WP:PSCI), Intelligent design, Irreducible complexity, List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, and other related articles. When labeling subjects as pseudoscience, those labels are somehow qualified in the same sentence the overwhelming majority of the time. With regard to the distinction between fact and opinion, I do not think that saying something like "the scientific community generally considers creation science to be pseudoscience" even subtly implies that that classification is not authoritative. Such an explicit qualification better conveys the authority behind the statement, rather than detracting from it. Emw2012 (talk) 02:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with you, but unfortunately we're editing a creationism-related article :) A lot has been done to portray the scientific community as elitist, suppressive, a minority view in academia, a minority view in general, etc. For many readers who aren't scientifically literate, the wording just furthers the misconception. Also, baraminology falls into WP:PSCI's "obvious pseudoscience". It's false that the scientific community "generally" considers it pseudoscience. It's unequivocally pseudoscience, and that doesn't need more qualification. I actually find those other creationist articles are pretty horrendous (I have no idea how ID is featured, and I think it's undergoing delisting now). We shouldn't take any cues from them. –M^T 03:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I do not think baraminology falls into the category of obvious pseudoscience -- this would make it on par with Time Cube more than astrology (i.e. generally considered pseudoscience). Time Cube does not "have a following", which seems to be the main difference between the two categories. With a large percentage of Americans believing in it, creation science has a very significant following. So it is not obvious pseudoscience per WP:PSCI, and a qualification like either of the two suggested is indeed appropriate.

Regarding your evaluation of the Intelligent design article, you'll see in its FAR that "Keep" votes have a plurality, and several problems raised there exist in this article as well. Considering that it is FA and seems of significantly higher quality than this article, it seems very reasonable to use that article as a model for this one. Regarding your evaluation of the other articles I cited (only one other of which is specifically related to a type of creationism), I think most editors would agree that both the Astrology and Irreducible complexity articles are of higher quality than this one, and that the List of pseudosciences is not horrendous compared to this article. Considering that they are good to fair examples of labeling pseudoscience, and that editors that have weighed in are currently 3-2 against the present wording (Silly rabbit, Ungss and me against, Spotfixer and you favoring), I think the case for the qualified wording is stronger than the unqualified wording. Emw2012 (talk) 03:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Time Cube's following is one crazy guy. Astrology's following is 30% of the population, and it goes back to the 2nd millennium BCE. Baraminology is the product of a very small (<20?) group of creationists; very few in the the general population are aware of it at all. (It's extremely likely that more people know about the time cube than baraminology.) Even if we take it to be 'generally considered pseudoscience', in PSCI the note says it may be called pseudoscience, and the authority may be given. I think the "don't present facts as views" argument I gave above is a good reason for us to avoid that option in the lead of this article. The qualified wording presents a fact as a view, and this should not be acceptable. –M^T 04:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Your logic of presenting facts as views could apply to pseudosciences across a range of illegitimacy: from Time Cube to psychoanalysis. By your arguments above, since WP:PSCI says generally considered pseudoscience may contain the authority considering it pseudoscience (e.g. the authority doesn't really need to be given), thus the actual labeling of the subject as pseudoscience is merely a passing suggestion as well because the relevant clause contains the word "may".

If anything, baraminology is closer to questionable science (e.g. psychoanalysis) than obvious pseudoscience (e.g. Time Cube) or generally considered pseudoscience (astrolgy). At the very least, putting baraminology on the same level as Time Cube seems patently mistaken. Gene Ray produces barely intelligible scribbles to support his idea; baraminology uses non-peer-reviewed, possibly questionable phylogenetic metrics (e.g. baraminic distance correlation, see Baraminic Distance, Bootstraps, and BDISTMDS) in experiments to test its hypotheses. As such, baraminology is one of the closest examples creationism has to legitimate science, and thus one of the most deserving the type of qualification supported by the majority of the editors in the current discussion. Emw2012 (talk) 04:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you arguing that ID is not unequivocally pseudoscience? Note that this goes against the NAS, the courts, and scientific consensus. –M^T 04:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Please do not imply a straw man of my argument. As should be clear from my detailed entries above, I am arguing that baraminology is a very different type of pseudoscience from Time Cube (obvious pseudoscience), and is most reasonably considered to be on the more legitimate end of "generally considered pseudoscience". And thus, as such, it is at least as deserving as astrology, irreducible complexity, and other instances of generally considered pseudoscience of qualification in the form of appending "the scientific community generally considers baraminology to be pseudoscience". Emw2012 (talk) 04:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

A straw man is when I pretend that your position is something weaker than it really is. Here I'm trying to clarify your position precisely so that I don't end up arguing against something you don't support. Do you agree that ID is unequivocally pseudoscience? –M^T 05:00, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

If by "unequivocally pseudoscience" you mean "obviously bogus", and thus implicitly place ID in the same category as Time Cube, then no. My reasons for this are specifically outlined in my previous entries. Emw2012 (talk) 05:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I want to clarify whether we're arguing about a stylistic issue or a factual one. Are you opposed to "baraminology is pseudoscience" on factual grounds? Or do you simply think it's worth mentioning in the lead exactly who is opposed to baraminology's status as a science? –M^T 05:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I have not yet formed a substantive opinion on whether baraminology is better classified as "generally considered pseudoscience" or "questionable science". Baraminology is a subset of creation science, certainly, but not nearly as scientifically unsupported as other creation science-like examples of poor/non- science: consider Irreducible complexity and Flood geology. In both of those examples, which seem less scientific than baraminology, the label of pseudoscience is qualified in the forms that Ungtss and I have respectively suggested. Thus while putting my personal uncertainty on its factual grounding aside, I would support mentioning in the lead exactly who that the scientific community is opposed to baraminology's status as a science. (To ease readability, I suggest we put in an arbitrary section break within this Talk section -- please let me know if you object.) Emw2012 (talk) 05:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to continue this discussion on precisely how baraminology should be labeled "pseudoscience", since it's apparently been elevated to ANI here. This has been an issue for at least a few months. In ' Problems with the lead section', both users Walton One and David Gerard seem to support attributing the claim "baraminology is pseudoscience" to the scientific community (Walton One specifically to NAS, David Gerard to those "outside creationism"). In that same section, user M seems to be the only editor voicing support for unequivocally labeling baraminology as pseudoscience. In the section ' Neutral point of view??' directly above this, I suggested that WP:PSCI seems to apply, and that baraminology seems to be "generally considered pseudoscience", and that "baraminology is pseudoscience" should read similar "baraminology is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community". This follows the wording given in the lead of the Astrology article ("Generally, the scientific community considers astrology a pseudoscience or superstition.[9][10][11]"), which was cited in ArbCom's ruling as a subject "generally considered pseudoscience". Users Silly rabbit and Ungsst supported the rewording, while M and Spotfixer favor the stronger phrasing currently used in the article. To my count, there are five editors in favor of some form of attribution (Walton One, David Gerard, Silly rabbit, Ungsst and myself) and two editors in favor of the unequivocal wording "baraminology is pseudoscience" (M, Spotfixer).

It would be helpful to if some more editors could give their input on an appropriate way to label baraminology as pseudoscience. A recent discussion in WP:NPOV here seems very pertinent. Emw2012 (talk) 03:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

There are two tests to consider: 1) "purports to be scientific" and 2) "obviously bogus". Baraminology seems to pass the first test better than astrology or Time Cube does.

In my opinion the bogosity of baraminology is somewhere between that of astrology and that of Time Cube, but closer to astrology. It's about as plausible as astrology, but it's new enough to have its credibility seriously undermined by its obvious purpose and the lack of historical sources and proponents. (For clarity: As a mathematician I have no bias against comparing values of plausibility or credibility which are very close to zero.)

Based on this, I think "it's pseudoscience" is too direct, and just a qualified statement is too weak. Personally I think it might be best to use a qualified statement about its being pseudoscience, together with an explanation of the purpose it serves and a qualified explanation that it is misleadingly presented as science rather than religion. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The WP:PSCI criterion for "alternate theoretical formulation" is "have a following within the scientific community." Such formulations are defined as "not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process." Here is a link to one list of scientists who ascribe to creationism. Many of them are biologists. That list constitutes a "following within the scientific community." By WP:PSCI policy, creationism is not pseudoscience. Ungtss (talk) 13:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Nice try, but "following within the scientific community" is obviously about members of the scientific community who actually do research in the area and publish it. It's not about random people with a science degree who have caught religion and become conscientious objectors to science. Note that the WP:PSCI ruling does not even consider psychoanalysis to fall under this heading. And everything that smells even remotely of creationism has a long way to go before it gets close to the relative respectability of the pseudoscience called psychoanalysis. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Your argument is that "following within the scientific community" means people who research in the area and publish. Of course, if WP actually meant to require that, they could have said so -- but they did not. Nevertheless, let's take your stricter standard, and see if the shoe fits. Perhaps you've heard of the Creation Research Society Quarterly or the Baraminology Study Group? Written by scientists, writing in their areas of expertise, and peer reviewed. Whether you think they're "good" scientists or not is merely your POV -- the fact is that creationism meets the criterion for an alternate theoretical framework. Ungtss (talk) 19:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your first point: This sounds like wikilawyering, please stop. The plain reading of WP:PSCI is that it's a matter of degree. Psychoanalysis is clearly a lot more accepted by the scientific community (it is taken seriously, see Psychoanalysis#Research) than baraminology. Do you seriously claim that there are more scientists who believe in baraminology than scientists who believe in psychoanalysis? That's ridiculous.

Regarding your second point: No, I have never heard of the Creation Research Society Quarterly or the Baraminology Study Group. It turns out that in the UK the Creation Research Society Quarterly is available in the British Library and Cambridge University Library (two of the three libraries that have basically everything) and nowhere else, while I couldn't find any trace of the Occasional Papers of the BSG in any British library. Is this similar to the situation with an obscure scientific journal in German (Eiszeitalter und Gegenwart, i.e. Ice Age and Present, available in 8 British libraries)? No. It's not even similar to the situation of "scientific" astrology journals such as Correlation – Journal of Research into Astrology (available in 7 British scientific libraries) or Astrology Quarterly (5 libraries). If scientists don't want to read it, it can't be science. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

"If scientists don't want to read it, it can't be science." To the contrary, WP:PSCI does not define pseudoscience as "what scientists don't want to read." And even if it did, the shoe still wouldn't fit, because scientists are both reading and writing those peer reviewed articles. Just not as many as you think are necessary -- or not as "good" as you think they should be. But the WP:PSCI definition does not mention "peer reviewed journals" and it does not mention "libraries" and it does not mention "lots of scientists reading." It defines an alternate theoretical formulation as "having a following within the scientific community," and it does not require "scientists that Hans Adler thinks are good scientists." You are creating your own standards in this context. The plain wording of the policy does not support calling creationism pseudoscience. One last thought: Doesn't the fact that seven libraries subscribe to astrology journals singlehandedly kill "libraries must subscribe to the journal" as a legitimate criterion for science? Clearly "science" is not the criterion these universities have in mind when they select their subscriptions. Ungtss (talk) 05:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Ungtss asks if the fact that astrology rags are in science libraries "kills" using appearance in science libraries to detemine whether sometihng is science. No it doesn't. Why? "Neccessary but not sufficient condition." Further reading: [[1]] Bali ultimate (talk) 15:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

What I really ask is why the presence of journals in libraries in the UK is a necessary condition, when the criterion for "non-pseudoscience" is "following within the scientific community," with no mention of journals or libraries. As yet unanswered. Ungtss (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

*endorse calling it pseudoscience. Someone asked me about this on my talk page. If the scientific community considers it pseudoscience it's definitionally pseudoscience. In my extensive (well, 30 minutes spread over a few days, whatever) I have yet to find the narrowly and specifically defined falsifiable hypothesis that would be the minimum starting point for this to be defineable as a scientific theory. This IS bigotry in a way -- bigotry in favor of only those things that meet the special standards of scientific endeavor being called "scientific." I have no objection to a statement to the effect that "baraminology's supporters disagree with the scientific establishment.Bali ultimate (talk) 15:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Are you aware of the ArbCom ruling that is summarised at WP:PSCI? To simplify it, the question is where baraminology is in the spectrum Time Cube – astrology – psychoanalysis – non-mainstream science. Is it really worse than astrology and comparable to Time Cube? --Hans Adler (talk) 17:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

So Hans, you would support the phrasing "baraminology is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community" over the more direct "baraminology is pseudoscience"? Also, to Bali, when you say "endorse", it's not entirely clear which of the two wordings you prefer. Only a distinct minority are arguing that baraminology isn't pseudoscience. The issue here is exactly how unequivocally that label should be applied. The question is which of the two phrasings is more appropriate ("baraminology is pseudoscience" or "baraminology is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community"). Could you clarify your last entry in light of that? Much appreciated, Emw2012 (talk) 17:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's the right thing to do. But I think the case has enough tendencies towards Time Cube that we can also say something like the following:

"Although it masquerades as science, baraminology is motivated by religious belief rather than an open-minded impulse to understand the world. It is therefore considered pseudoscience by the scientific community."

This statement is about as strong as it gets without saying it is pseudoscience. It doesn't just say what the scientific community thinks, it also explains why it thinks that way, and it expresses (implicitly) our (Wikipedia's) sympathy with the scientific community. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:25, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the stronger wording. I could live with "baraminology has been FOUND to be pseudoscience by the scientific community." A weaker wording that i think would be minimally acceptable (as a compromise position) would be "The consensus of the scientific community is that baraminology is pseudoscience." I don't like "considered to be pseudoscience" at all. What is or is not pseudoscience is pretty clearly defined and baraminology is clearly on the pseudo side of the line. "Considers" implies a debate that's not really there. (supporters may "object" to the label because they don't like it, but this, ah, investigative belief structure, has not as yet chosen to formulate a testable, falsifiable, scientific hypothesis -- ergo it uses the language of science but is not science).Bali ultimate (talk) 17:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Excellent proposal. "Found" does exactly what I wanted to do, and more elegantly. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The issue with that wording is that it doesn't take into account that baraminology has never actually been mentioned by the peer-reviewed literature. The proposed wording makes it seem like baraminology has garnered specific ire from the scientific community. Based on that, would like following wording be a better case? "Since it is a subfield of creation science, baraminology is regarded as pseudoscience by the scientific community"? "Regards" doesn't seem vulnerable to the same type of diluted misinterpretation as "considers", so transplanting it gives an even more clear classification while also directly attributing it to the scientific community. Emw2012 (talk) 18:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

This article about baraminology was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Ungtss (talk) 19:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's do the [COPAC] test to see if the Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal is a scientific journal:

• Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal: British Library (above I mentioned Cambridge, but I can't find it there anymore)
• Evolution: 24 libraries
• Deutsche hydrographische Zeitschrift ("German hydrographic journal"): British Library, Cambridge, Imperial College, National Library of Scotland, Southampton
• American Journal of Psychoanalysis: Aberdeen, Birmingham, British Library, Cambridge, Cardiff, Durham, Institute of Education, King's College London, Manchester, National Library of Scotland, Nottingham, Sheffield, University College London, University of London
• Astrology Quarterly: British Library, Cambridge, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, Oxford

--Hans Adler (talk) 21:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

That is not a peer-reviewed journal as working scientists understand it BUT it may be an excellent article for how baraminology defines (or fails to define) itself. Will read with interest now.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Just following on, any abstract with the following -- "Criticisms of baraminology from evolutionists and creationists alike can be resolved with further research. Whatever its future, baraminology is at present a useful tool for investigating God’s biological creation" -- makes it hard to take what follows seriously as science. Criticism "can be resolved with further research?" I mean, maybe, but since it doesn't have a falsifiable hypothesis, it's kind of hard to take this seriously (confirmation bias). It kind of gets a lot worse from there. The strong impression i get from reading this thing is that baraminology is still searching for terms that will allow it to account with observed reality while also somehow tying in with some intepretation or other of the bible AND proving more useful than evolution. On this basis it seems more a semantic exercise than a scientific one -- all of this discussion of the meaning of "kind" would seem to require a true baraminologist to be an expert in aramaic, ancient hebrew, and ancient greek. I'm probably going too far afield, but just one more quote from this paper:

"Not basing baraminology on common ancestry does not mean that common ancestry cannot be assumed from a baraminic assignment. For example, I usually assume that the species of a holo­baramin of terrestrial animals descended from an ancestral pair that was on the ark. Because this is an assumption, it can be challenged or rejected. On the other hand, because plants survived the Flood both on and off the ark, species of a plant holobaramin need not be related to a common ancestor." This assumption pretty much requires him to ignore all of genetic science (and particularly if he believes the ark sailed during the past 100,000 years). The quote sort of defines -anti or pseudo-science. While i know that neither my, nor anyone elses, original research is meant to count for much in the article main space, i'm now firmly convinced that there is no reason to tack against the overwhelming consensus of professional scientists that this stuff is pseudo.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:45, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

So WP:PSCI requires "a following within the scientific community," but Talk:Baraminology requires "mention in peer reviewed journals to which major universities subscribe." Doesn't it seem to you that you're imposing a significantly higher standard than WP policy permits or requires? Ungtss (talk) 17:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Relevant sections from WP:PSCI to make things a bit easier: –M^T

1. Obvious pseudoscience: "Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more [justification]."
2. Generally considered pseudoscience: "Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience."

I think we might gaming the interpretation a bit. The first point states that we can call those pseudoscience and be done with it. The second point states that we can call them such, and that we can include "it is widely believed to be a science even though the SC rejects it". The ArbCom itself was very much about keeping editors from suppressing info about questionable but popular topics. It doesn't say a thing about qualification, and with good reason. We should definitely include the information later on, and we do, we have a whole section for it. But in the lead we should leave it out. The unequivocal answer to the question "is baraminology pseudoscience?" is yes and PSCI is not recommending that we qualify the statement. So should we? No:

1. Our audience includes many creationists. We can say truths that they don't want to hear, but we can't misrepresent the facts. To write "considered false by the SC" is to write "it's the opinion of the Scientistic Cabal that they don't really like it". Why do this when we don't have to?
2. Our audience includes many ordinary people, and a lot of effort has been put toward "one view among many", which is false, and something that we must not imply.
3. To say that is to present a fact as a view. "I kicked the ball" presents the ball first and foremost as the thing-kicked. Yes, it's a ball, but that's not the point; "ball" is only even there so that you can know what it is that got the kick. By saying "X is Y according to Z", we treat it as a view, which it isn't.
4. Is it clear and obvious that by saying "Baraminology is a pseudoscience according to the SC" we also say "B. is pseudoscience"? No, absolutely not. Is "B. is pseudoscience" something that should be made unambiguously clear in the lead? Yes.
5. The "Z thinks X is Y" wording is much weaker than "X is Y" in terms of style.

In summary, PSCI doesn't say we should qualify, we say plenty about the scientific community in the article, to qualify is to present a fact as a view (one view among many, teach the controversy), and not only is that incorrect, it sounds ugly too. –M^T 03:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding WP:PSCI. In "may properly contain that information", what is meant by "that information"? In isolation it's arguably ambiguous; it could mean (1) "the information that it is generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community", or (2) "the information that it is pseudoscience". I think (1) is the straightforward reading, while it is conceivable that (2) was intended but not expressed clearly enough. However, the context excludes the second reading. If we were allowed to just say "astrology is pseudoscience", then there would have been no need to say that "[Time Cube] may be […] labeled [as pseudoscience] […] without more". This sentence makes it clear that the intended meaning was (1). We can verify this by looking at the article that is directly mentioned in the ruling, because that's presumably where the ruling has the strongest influence: Generally, the scientific community considers astrology a pseudoscience or superstition. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:12, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

At least we might agree that the wording of PSCI is extremely poor. I see what you're getting at with "without more", but if they meant "qualification" why does PSCI say "justification"? Ok, we'll need to have info about why it gets called a pseudoscience. We have that. So we're back: (1) permits us to say one thing, (2) permits us to say two things. Note the use of "may", and "and". (1) "Things such that Z may be called pseudoscience" (2) "Things such that X may say X, and may be called pseudoscience". Not "may say X and be called" but "may say and may be called". Two distinct claims regarding permissibility, not obligation. –M^T 01:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I think Hans's point is valid. The question here is whether creation science is on the same level of bogosity as "obvious pseudoscience" viz. Time Cube. A consensus of editors have agreed that some version of qualified wording is more appropriate (Walton One, David Gerard, Silly rabbit, Ungsst, Hans Adler, BRPierce and myself), while M and Spotfixer disagree, and Bali ultimate would be willing to compromise with an adjusted wording.

The qualified wording that's been suggested (i.e., something along the lines of "baraminology is regarded as pseudoscience by the scientific community") is convention among articles about pseudoscientific topics. Consider the following examples of how the label of pseudoscience is qualified in the lead of other relevant articles:

• Intelligent design: "The consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science.[13][14][15][16] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science."[17] The US National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience.[18] Others in the scientific community have concurred, and some have called it junk science.[19][20]"
• Creationism: "When mainstream scientific research produces conclusions which contradict a creationist interpretation of scripture, the strict creationist approach is either to reject the conclusions of the research,[4] its underlying scientific theories,[5] and/or its methodology.[6] For this reason, both creation science and intelligent design have been labeled as pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific community.[7]"
• Creation science: "While creation science purports to be a true scientific challenge to the theory of evolution, often referred to by creation science proponents as Darwinism or as Darwinian evolution, it has never been recognized by or accepted within the scientific community as a valid scientific method of inquiry." Also in the lead: "Critics emphasize that creation science fails to meet the key criteria of any true science because it lacks empirical support, supplies no tentative hypotheses, and resolves to describe natural history in terms of scientifically untestable supernatural events.[5]"
• Flood geology "However, the evidence creationists have presented in support of flood geology has been evaluated, refuted and unequivocally dismissed by the scientific community, which considers such flood geology to be pseudoscience."
• Irreducible complexity "It is dismissed by the scientific community[2] and intelligent design has been referred to as pseudoscience."
• Specified complexity "The concept of specified complexity is widely regarded as mathematically unsound and has not been the basis for further independent work in information theory, complexity theory, or biology.[1][2][3]"

M, you may be of the opinion that "those other creationist articles are pretty horrendous", but the unqualified wording "baraminology is pseudoscience" runs against the precedent set in all other articles on creationism/intelligent design that I have read. Furthermore, none of the articles I've read on the list of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts contain the word "pseudoscience" without some qualification in the form of what's being suggested. Regarding your point that "our audience includes many creationists", I'm sure Wikipedia's audience also contains many astrologists, homeopathists, scientologists, and others who hold beliefs that the scientific community unequivocally denounces. However, look through the articles pertaining to those beliefs, and you'll see that the wording in which that denunciation is made known is not unequivocal, but qualified. Emw2012 (talk) 20:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

<undent> Your first point is irrelevant - assume that I concede and agree that baraminology is like astrology (it's not, note the popularity). Your second point is not valid because a) only three~ people are participating, and b) it doesn't matter how many agree, what matters is what is correct, and we're still trying to establish that. Your third point regarding use in other articles isn't convincing. Precedent has to do with judgements, not occurrences. Dropping books several times isn't precedent for future book-dropping. You shouldn't be linking me to articles, but to discussions.

• Time cube, crop circles, and many others don't even mention pseudoscience.
• Homeopathy: "The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting its efficacy[13] and its use of remedies without active ingredients have caused homeopathy to be regarded as pseudoscience[14] or quackery.[15]" - no qualifications.
• The brunt of Dianetics doesn't make scientific claims, but when pseudoscience is brought up the phrase "achieved no general acceptance as a bona fide scientific theory" is cited, not qualified.

The relevant point is not the denunciation, it's the fact. In ID, the scientific community is in play, and we care what they think. But the SC hasn't said a thing about baraminology, so what are you going to say and cite here? I would really like to know what you (both) think about these points, in addition to arguments from convention and the interpretation of PSCI, which is I think are separate issues. I asked you this before and you 'dodged' the question. I ask again (and to Hans Adler too): Is "baraminology is pseudoscience" a fact, by wikipedia's standards? –M^T 01:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Methodology, temporarily removed from article.

The following needs cleanup. I've removed uncited/untrue parts while it was still in the article, so see revisions there.

--

1) Baraminologists believe that some, but not all organisms share common descent. Thus, one might conclude that all felines are a single "kind," and are descended from a single ancestral gene pool.

This is pretty basic.

2) One key difference between the baraminological concept of common descent and the evolutionary model of common descent is that baraminology posits greater genetic diversity within the original kinds.

this needs to be cited. Also presents "original kinds" as legitimate (cf. "do you still beat your wife?").

3) Baraminology views diversification and speciation as inbreeding and a loss of genetic diversity in particular populations, rather than an increase in genetic diversity posited by the theory of evolution.

I don't understand what baraminologists mean when they say "diversification" and "speciation", so that needs to be explained first. Also, increase in genetic diversity is not merely posited, but true/correct/right.

4) The primal "feline" population may have included both tiger and lion genes that mixed freely. After the population bottleneck caused by Noah's Flood, populations spread, and variation and natural selection led to speciation, not through the increase in genetic information, but through the adaption of a species to its environment by the loss of other disadvantageous traits through variation and natual selection. ref name="rbc"/

What feline population? Noah's flood wasn't real. These lasts to paragraphs would need to be put into the context of "how the heck is it that evolution can cause an increase in genetic information? It can't! So here's what actually happened". This whole discussion doesn't belong in baraminology, though we might mention something about how baraminology needs to explain it.

5) For it to be possible for two organisms to be related, the two character spaces must be linked by viable, hypothetical organisms. If there is a gap between the two organisms in which no organism could be viable, then those two organisms should be seen as being in separate "kinds."

View presented as fact. This is interesting and concisely presented, though. Should be revised and reincluded.

6) The Baraminology Study Group has put out a number of papers.ref {cite web | title=Occasional Papers of the BSG | publisher=Baraminology Study Group | url=http://www.creationbiology.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=201240&module_id=36813}/ref

This seems to be an excuse to link that page...

The major problems with that new section was that it presented views as facts, had trivia, was disconnected, and brought up unrelated evolution-creation discussions. –M^T 01:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

---

Ungtss makes the following points, (see the threaded version) I've inserted numbers, removed extra signatures. Spotfixer's response also copied. –M^T 04:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

• 2) No, it "posits" them -- neither legit nor illegit. Just an explanation of the idea.
• 3) The example to explain it is immediately below. If the primal Kind was similar to a Liger or a Cama, different subpopulations moved into different niches and diverged into lions, tigers, camels, and llamas under the effects of variation, natural selection, and genetic drift.
• 4) When you're explaining baraminology, you have to explain it in the context of its assumptions. It assumes a population bottleneck 6-10,000 years ago, and posits speciation via the stated mechanism.
• 5) Again, this is obviously within the context of explaining the view. Do you propose qualifying every clause in every sentence with "This is false! Don't believe the fideists!?"
• 6) How so? The section is about the methodology, and the linked page links papers describing the methodology.

Ungtss (talk) 04:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC) Well, as I understand it, Wikipedia is a group effort. I don't understand why the section was simply removed wholesale, since your objections are easily corrected in the text. Ungtss (talk) 04:40, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Spotfixer wrote some time ago: I'm with –M on this one. If we can state it as a fact, rather than a view, then it would be biased to downgrade it. Spotfixer (talk) 01:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It's fascinating to me that attributing a claim to the National Academy of Sciences is a "downgrade" from attributing it to no one. If the NAS is really the authority, then why is it a downgrade to place their credibility behind it? Ungtss (talk) 05:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

---

Because "X says it's so" is less confident than "It's so." Spotfixer (talk) 02:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

This discussion has its own section above. And agreed, it's also a much better wording in terms of style. –M^T 04:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Not if X is truly authoritative on the matter. If "We, the authors of Wikipedia say it's so" means more than "the NAS says it's so" then either the NAS isn't as authoritative as we thought, or Wikipedia is a lot more authoritative than we thought. Ungtss (talk) 21:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

To say "the original kinds may or may not be numerous" is to imply that "the original kinds" are real (cf. "do you still beat your wife?", which assumes). This is weasel wording, and the reason we don't start the cold fusion article with "Cold Fusion is nuclear fusion occurring at near-ordinary temperatures and pressures". The article as it is is very careful to avoid this sort of thing. One can "explain in context" without resorting to this. Some examples:

• Traditional interpretations, such as those of ... hold that ...
• A typical interpretation of Genesis, with focus upon the kinds, is that ...
• ReMine's work specifies four groupings: ...

So yes, I do propose that all such statements should be qualified. There are 2-5 paragraphs in the article where precisely this is done. As for the citation - a citation isn't a link. A citation is used to back something dubious up, not provide some extra info that might be interesting. I spent time going through your changes, removing POV etc. (Please do not revert to these, I removed them for much more serious reasons that we can talk about in a new section.) I was left with those 6 fragments above, and I didn't want to leave them floating there. Please feel free to work them into the article. There's already an "overview" section where most of this would belong. –M^T 04:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

"hi" said bob. "hey" replied alice. "how are you" replied bob. "I'm good" replied alice.

This might be the only way you know how to present dialog, but it's absolutely no excuse to write: hi hey how are you I'm good. Yes, statements need to be qualified. If it sounds bad, then that's unfortunate. The article, minus your contribution, does this everywhere necessary without being obtrusive or sounding that bad. Maybe you want to start your two paragraphs with "these are written from the baraminologist's point of view/from the context of baraminology"? There's actually a wiki that encourages articles written from pov - they suggest it avoids conflict. But this is unacceptable in WP. If you write here, you write from the neutral point of view. So figure out a way to tactfully qualify the statements, or qualify them in an ugly way and someone will fix them, or simply don't add them. –M^T 20:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Ungtss, please reply here. –M^T 03:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this is the "response" you're referring to. If so, then there are 5 points above that you have not addressed in your "response". As to the above response, I don't have a dog in that fight, really -- I honestly like how extremely biased these articles come off (stating NAS opinion as fact, and then qualifying every clause of every sentence describing the subject matter), because it puts the reader on notice that the subject matter in the article is being misrepresented. So although it's absurd to state NAS opinion as fact and then qualify every clause of sentence on the subject matter (making for a mess of an article that doesn't even effectively explain its basic concepts), I am willing to concede that, because I am more interested in writing an article (however biased it must be to get through the thought police) that actually explains what baraminology is about. Ungtss (talk) 05:03, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a reply to all of them. See it as a reply to point 2, or at least give any answer to the comment aside from "this comment is not satisfactory". Also, we're presenting the facts as facts. For anything to do with science it's policy to treat what the NAS, scientific community, and courts say, as being true. Sorry. –M^T 06:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I already responded to it -- I don't mind the patent bias in that approach, because it has collateral benefits. Two questions for you -- do you have any response to my other comments, and 2) Where's the policy that says that we need to treat Court and NAS opinion as Truth? Ungtss (talk) 07:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I should have thought that would be clear, Ungtss. Wikipedia isn't about presenting capital-t-Truth; if it was, we'd have a stack of blank articles with mile-long talk pages debating epistemology.

Wikipedia instead presents articles based on the consensus of acknowledged experts. Judges are certainly acknowledged experts on the law; therefore, their decisions are entirely relevant to determining whether baraminology is pseudoscience in a legal sense. The NAS represents a large body of experts in the matter of science and the scientific method; therefore, their position on the matter is entirely relevant to determining whether baraminology is pseudoscience in a practical sense. (Note, too, that the NAS is hardly the only scientific body to take this position; virtually every major professional organization of scientists in relevant fields has, at one point or another, issued a statement affirming the scientific validity of modern evolutionary synthesis.) --BRPierce (talk) 14:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Naturally the position of the NAS is relevant in determining whether or not creationism is valid. But M said it is policy to treat their views (as well as the views of the Courts) as being true. If indeed that is the WP policy on the matter, I'd like to know where that policy is. If that is not the policy, I wonder why this article is permitted to treat the POV of the NAS as fact. Ungtss (talk) 18:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Adaptive radiation and other processes

[redundant wording removed.] –M^T 04:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This really clutters up the talk page. Wouldn't it be easier to write a paragraph that concisely addresses my points? This sort of 'threading' should be avoided. We'll end up arguing the same thing in 5 different places, and each of the 5 threads will grow. –M^T 05:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you suggest? Spotfixer (talk) 02:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't want my comment to be presented with random quips inserted, especially when it's not immediately clear where my text ends and the quip begins. Ungtss should have copied each of her or his points and pasted them into a comment under mine. I'll do that myself. –M^T 04:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you going to address the points? Ungtss (talk) 21:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Your points have been addressed above. –M^T 03:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Where? I see one paragraph from you in which you argue that every sentence should be attributed (rather than using clear language, attributing the whole model, and then describing it step by step without extra and useless wording that insults the reader's intelligence). I don't see any response to my response to your numbered, paragraphed response. Ungtss (talk) 04:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Please reply above. That's where my comment is. –M^T 20:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to reply above because it's getting kind of messy to figure out who said what. But how on can "loss of disadvantageous traits" explain the adaptive radiation of the African Great Lakes cichlids? A handful of pretty similar looking fish species became all kinds of dramatically different looking things.Bali ultimate (talk) 23:07, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

To my understanding of baraminology, its chief proponents would say that such adaptive radiation is explained standard evolutionary processes (e.g. genetic drift and natural selection) filling in the biological character space of bounded potentiality regions (see pages 6-7 of A Refined Baramin Concept if that mouthful of terminology is unclear). In other words, from what I have read here from the Baraminology Study Group (or BSG, which seems to be the authority on and engine behind baraminology), they break from the tendencies of their creationist colleagues and do not address the issue of genetic information loss. A Dr. Carl Wieland uses the term 'baramin' in the context of genetic information loss in Variation, information and the created kind, but it isn't clear how that application of baraminology is being received by the BSG. Emw2012 (talk) 03:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Allow me to simplify my question. How can adaptation, that always and only involves the loss of traits explain speciation into creatures with more traits? That is, they exhibit a gain of traits? I didn't use the word genetic above (if i did i regret it). My question is about "traits." My confusion may be that, in this context, its definition is unclear to me.Bali ultimate (talk) 05:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's an example: Grab a population of ferral dogs (which are highly heterozygous, but homomorphic), and breed them for particular traits. The information permitting those traits already existed in the ferral population -- the population was simply heterozygous for those traits, so they were not expressed. Eliminate the alternate trait by inbreeding the trait, and the trait becomes expressed. Increased diversity of gene expression by decreased diversity of genetic information. The resulting, isolated subpopuulations are homozygous, but are highly varied from the other, isolated subpopulations which are expressing other traits. Ungtss (talk) 06:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Is this relevant to editing the article? –M^T 04:00, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Since the article has been so muddied as to make it impossible to understand the basic concepts of baraminology, those concepts need to be explained here, where they can be stated clearly and understood, so that editors can work toward making the article itself comprehensible. Bali asked for such an explanation, and proposed putting such an explanation in the article. I provided it here, because I'm well aware that any attempt to explain baraminology in the article itself will be chopped to ribbons or deleted wholesale. Incidentally, are you ever going to address my response to your problems with the section I added? Ungtss (talk) 04:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Explanations should come from cited sources. Because you're not citing anything it looks like you might giving your own WP:OR interpretation of baraminology. Or do you claim to be an WP:EXPERT in baraminology? –M^T 06:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments in talkpages do not have to be sourced. Only statements in articles. I answered his question directly, on the talkpage. The answer to his question does not need to be sourced. Ungtss (talk) 06:39, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

A sentence with a citation written up as if it's to go in the article would be best (though as you say doesn't have to be done that way). Otherwise, this all gets more muddled, harder to pin down, and less likely the article will be improved.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough -- next time. Ungtss (talk) 19:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

From species to kinds

Shouldn't there be some mention about the change that creationism took, from speaking about species to speaking about kinds? I don't know when that change took place, but wasn't the motivation that (1) there are just far too many species, for example, for Noah's Ark to have room for exemplars of each species (2) it was recognized that there are cases, for example with hybridization, where new species appear? Does anyone have a good reference for when and why the new concept, kind, was introduced in the creationist community? TomS TDotO (talk) 15:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

There was no "shift" from species to kinds. Kinds and species are different concepts, and baraminology includes both. Species are still species. Kinds are the original lifeforms, before they differentiated. Thus there was a "feline" kind, but now the tiger, lion, domestic species, etc. All the sources on kinds make that clear. The key is understanding the different model of speciation. Evolution posits speciation through the creation of new genetic information vua mutation. Baraminology posits speciation through the loss of old genetic information as subpopulations adapted to their environments after a population bottleneck -- in other words, speciation is a negative process, where populations lose pre-existing genetic information that is disadvantageous in their niche. The article had explained that, but the explanation was removed, and discussion on the talkpage has not been forthcoming. Ungtss (talk) 21:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The 'Overview' section mentions and cites when "baramin" (i.e., kind) and other baraminological terms emerged. Emw2012 (talk) 21:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

What I had in mind was to note that the original idea of "fixity of species" was altered to "fixity of kinds", where a kind is a larger group than a species. I believe that one of the reasons for this was that it was becoming obvious that there are far too many distinct species to fit exemplars of each on Noah's Ark; and perhaps also that there was recognition that speciation was an observable phenomenon. I was also thinking of pointing out that the ideas of the creation of species and of the fixity of species were introduced only in the 17th century. As long as this article seems to be in flux, I intend to hold off on doing anything about this. I will wait until other things calm down a bit. But I think that something like this is worth mentioning in this article. TomS TDotO (talk) 11:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I would speculate that the change from "fixity in species" to "fixity in kind" was a result of increased information and analysis, just as new information altered the theory of evolution from Lamarckism to Darwinism to Punctuated Equilibrium to the Modern Synthesis. With increased understanding of the genetic code and the importance of recombination and genetic drift in variation, it became clear that some speciation could occur without an increase in genetic information -- if greater diversity is posited in the original forms. Theory adapted to accomodate fact. Ungtss (talk) 13:39, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

To the contrary, I would argue that a shift from a relatively well-defined and testable system of taxonomy to a much more vaguely-defined and untestable system predicated on a priori reasoning is not an "adaptation of theory." --BRPierce (talk) 17:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Does someone have a reference for the shift? Surely, when the first creationists abandoned the fixity of species in favor of fixity of kinds, there was some reason given, wasn't there? TomS TDotO (talk) 18:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I would argue that a shift from a relatively well-defined and testable system of taxonomy to a much more vaguely-defined and untestable system predicated on a priori reasoning is not an "adaptation of theory."

You're mischaracterizing the change. They did not abandon the species as a system of categorization -- they abandonned fixity of species as factually indefensible. Ungtss (talk) 18:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

They have not abandoned the position that the current taxonomy is invalid. They have also not provided any sort of testable, viable alternative--largely because they have yet to develop a model which accounts for the observed data and which also places humans and apes in discreet baramins. To be honest, I was trying to be diplomatic about the change. If I wanted to characterize it accurately, I would have said that they abandoned a term with a fixed definition in favor of one with no fixed definition in order to make it impossible to refute their claim of "no evolution beyond kind." --BRPierce (talk) 20:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

It's important not to conflate taxonomy and cladistics. Taxonomy is about categorization and naming -- e.g. homo sapien. Cladistics is hypotheses about descent. Baraminologists have not abandonned taxonomy at all. They have a different model of cladistics. And just as the methodology of cladistics is somewhat vague (as we're not really sure what the whales evolved from, but we have some guesses) the methodology of baraminology is also vague. Ungtss (talk) 05:11, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)

If by "vague" you mean "nonexistent," I'd be inclined to agree with your last statement. There is no agreed-upon methodology for determining kind, because there is no agreed-upon definition of a "kind." Nor do I think there ever will be; Creationists protest that it's "a young science," but I can't think of any other "science" that has gone several decades without managing to come up with at least a definition for one of their key terms. Your assertion concerning whales is also rather inaccurate, as the sequence of transitional fossils is robust and amounts to considerably more than "guesses." Note, too, that those fossils were found precisely because of the predictive power of modern evolutionary theory; a prediction was made concerning where such ancestors were likely to have lived, the prediction was tested, and the fossils were found. This is precisely what baraminology (and Creation Science in general) do not and cannot do.

This is ranging very far afield, though, and as this isn't a forum for such discussions, I suggest we refocus on the article, and reserve any further debate for a more appropriate venue. Now: while I personally agree with the premise that the term "kind" was embraced to avoid testability, the important thing here is verifiability. Are there, in fact, reliable sources that discuss this shift and provide insight (preferrably with documentary evidence) as to the reason? If not, then I don't think we can reasonably make the suggested change to the article. --BRPierce (talk) 13:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Your claim that they have not defined their terms is not true -- the linked articles from BSG define the terms clearly. The WP article contained those definitions sometime ago [2] and a history of their development, but the definitions were subsequently removed. Are the definitions perfect? Of course not. But neither is the definition of Species. See Species problem. As to the shift from species to baramin, I am not aware of any sources both knowledgable and objective enough to actually consider the topic in that great a depth. Ungtss (talk) 13:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

New User question about terms and the hypothesis

Stumbled across this (at first thought it might be some kind of specialist term for students of Lates Calcarifer) and find this all fascinating in a weird kind of way. I'm going to ask a question, then i'm going to do some reading on this topic (have read the article), so if it's an FAQ level question don't bother answering (unless you want to and don't find it exasperating.) But do they have any specific definition of "kind?" If they really believe "no evolution beyond kind" are they actually saying that a four-legged land omnivore can't become an aquatic carnivore? Is kind determined by appearance, in which case swiftlets and swallows are seen as more closely related than, say, Guitarfish and Mako Sharks? Do they really believe that life is in some kind of zero sum race to "less genetic diversity" (someone tell the Galapagos finches and, if memory serves, the entire fauna of New Zealand). My biggest question after reading about Baraminology for the first time (just now) is this: "I wonder what the Baraminological definition of "kind" is."Bali ultimate (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Reading through this rather, uh, robust talk page and i have another question: Can someone express, in a paragraph or less, the precise and testable hypothesis that Baramanology is testing?Bali ultimate (talk) 23:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

For instance, i read through the article again. I'm pretty sure that the word "hypothesis" is only mentioned in the context of something or other to do with biblical hebrew. In my opinion, while the biblical underpinnings of this belief about biology probably do belong in this article, they seem to be getting undue weight, both in length (a few sentences about the use of the word "kind" in the bible and what it means to baraminologists ought to do it) and location (some more specific discussion of its central claims, history of the belief, and hypothesis(es?) should come first.Bali ultimate (talk) 23:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

That is a philosophical issue the editors of this article will have to face at some point. Is the purpose of this article to describe the ideas of baraminology and criticize them on the merits, or repeat, over and over and over, that it's religion and not science, religion and not science, religion and not science. So far the latter approach is dominating. Ungtss (talk) 05:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Ungtss -- your reply doesn't answer any of the above questions (though i appreciate you taking the time). I'd really like to hear answers to questions such as "how can greater morphological diversity be squared with ever declining genetic diversity?" and "What is the precise definition of "kind" to a Baraminologist?" and "What is this Baraminology's testable hypothesis?" Having a look at the quality of these answers, how they match up to policies, common sense, etc... may be the best way to go forward.Bali ultimate (talk) 05:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Bali wrote: how can greater morphological diversity be squared with ever declining genetic diversity?"

The important difference is that it is declining genetic diversity in reproductively isolated populations. A simplified example is this -- the initial population was composed of ligers. After the population bottleneck, one group moved to Africa, and one group moved to Asia. In Africa, survival pressures gave the "lion-like" genes an advantage, and in Asia, survival pressures gave the "tiger-like" genes an advantage. Consequently, the lion-like genes were lost on Asia, and the tiger-like genes were lost in Africa. Thus, due to the loss of genetic variability in each subpopulation, you end up with two distinct species adapted to their environment -- and you do so without any increase in genetic information. Ungtss (talk) 06:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Bali wrote: What is the precise definition of "kind" to a Baraminologist

The best way to describe it, I think, is a family tree. Whereas the theory of evolution sees all life in one single tree, baraminology sees all life in a number of different trees. For example, a "feline" tree, a "canine" tree, etc. Those trees go all the way back to the original, created organisms. All organisms descended of those original animals are part of the same tree, and therefore part of the same kind. Incidentally, here is what the article looked like when I last edited it, 3 years ago. Ungtss (talk) 06:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Bali wrote: What is this Baraminology's testable hypothesis

The big one is this: "Life originated in a number of distinct forms which were preloaded with the capacity for genetic variability, rather than a simple form that developed its variability by random chance." Ungtss (talk) 05:55, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Bali wrote: Do they really believe that life is in some kind of zero sum race to "less genetic diversity" (someone tell the Galapagos finches and, if memory serves, the entire fauna of New Zealand).

No -- what they believe is that genetic information is a zero sum game, but there is a great deal of reshuffling of that information in the form of recombination. There was no new information required to explain the variability observed in the finches. Variations in size are simply a reshuffling of old information -- not the creation of new information. But the development of "beak" from "no beak" requires new genetic information, and that's what they don't believe occurs. Ungtss (talk) 06:24, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Ungtss -- that's all very helpful. Thank you. Shouldn't some of this (in citable, slightly different form) be in the article. Particluarly attempts to show the hypothesis and this definition of kinds? That would really help frame how it does or does not stand up to rational probing. (on a completely unrelated issue, i note that you respond to questions like a usenet thread. Maybe that's the culture on this talk page -- but sometimes all that clear writing can get lost between the indents and the outdents. This probably would have worked better in a section below my questions, making it easier for others to endorse/disagree with/chime in on your comments). But, again, your answers have moved me much closer to understanding what's going on here. Bali ultimate (talk) 14:07, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you -- I'd like cited descriptions of the ideas in the article, too -- and preferably up front. That text always seems to get deleted or buried in long "not science! religion! pay no attention to this! wrong!" passages. If we all agreed, philosophically, on the purpose of this article and its structure, I think its development would go much more smoothly. Ungtss (talk) 14:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Checking out.

Since the dominant position appears to be that the purpose of this article is to malign and obscure, I'll be moving on. Perhaps someday WP's express NPOV policy and categories will be applied to creationism. Until then. Ungtss (talk) 13:32, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

(This doesn't need its own section.) Sounds somewhat similar to [3][4][5][6]. Does anyone else see a problem with pov in the article? I think it presents the facts with minimal sniping. Were Ungtss's claims about original kinds being like mules/ligers ever substantiated as a central feature of baraminology? –M^T 14:34, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes -- in the Answers in Genesis link here. Ungtss (talk) 15:51, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

AiG is not a reliable source. Additionally, the author is an Agricultural Scientist/Horticulturist with no relevant expertise in mammalian evolution. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

If the issue were "is baraminology true?" you would have a point. But the guidance you linked requires that "their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." The subject at hand is "what creationists believe." Who is more trustworthy in describing the views of creationists than the creationists themselves? How are we to describe the opinion if we can't cite the people holding it? Ungtss (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

1. The article you cited does not substantiate that "claims about original kinds being like mules/ligers ... [are] a central feature of baraminology" -- in fact the only direct mention of baraminology is in the footnotes.
2. AiG is not particularly "trustworthy or authoritative in relation to" the definition of baraminology, as its main area of expertise is in the evangelisation of YEC -- a more appropriate source would be the Institute for Creation Research or better yet the a Baraminology Study Group.
3. Don Batten's qualifications are no more appropriate to mammalian baraminology than to mammalian evolution.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

So who is an authoritative source on baraminology? How about CRSQ? In the abstract, it says "Instead of a “tree” the creation model has a “forest” of unrelated organisms with vast genetic potential." Ungtss (talk) 18:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back! Or are you still in the process of leaving? :) Please have a look at Talk:Intelligent_design/FAQ. I very much think that you should take these points there. –M^T 00:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I always get sucked back in. I don't know that these arguments would apply on the ID page. ID is a philosophical enterprise -- analogous to the (tacitly assumed) philosophical enterprise of philosophical naturalism implicit in evolution. Neither of those enterprises are scientific, I don't think. But baraminology is analogous to cladistics -- it actually involves the analysis of data. In my perfect world, the ID page would call it a "philosophy," rather than pseudoscience, and this page would call baraminology an "relatively undeveloped alternative theoretical formulation received with skepticism by the scientific community because of its adherents' perceived failure to perform rigorous research." Ungtss (talk) 06:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Baraminology is a type of creation science. Creation science has been wholly rejected by the courts and by the scientific community. That page explains why this matters in wikipedia, and why CRS or AiG don't matter at all. You're making points that have been made hundreds or thousands of times before, and at that page there exist people much better suited to explaining things. –M^T 01:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

CRS is (within the sphere of YEC) a more scholarly source than AiG, and this piece is far more explicitly about baraminology. While opinions expressed in their journal are likely to be merely 'positions consonant with the society' rather than 'official positions of the society', I would see no problem with including an appropriate summarisation of the CRSQ piece's view in this article. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 02:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Any other objections? Ungtss (talk) 06:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Creation and ancestry

Maybe someone can explain this one to me. God directly creates lion F and lion M. If you get directly created by God, you have no common ancestry. So both these lions have no common ancestry. So though they're part of the same kind, they're part of differing baramins. So either our lead sentence is wrong, or a test for no-ancestry is not a test for kind and baraminology is misguided. I suspect it's the latter, but perhaps there's an explanation. (If the explanation is that the lions were conjoined, or self-fertilizing (a trait lost immediately to inbreeding), then I too may 'check out'.) –M^T 03:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That's part of the problem. There's no way to know how many of each "kind" were originally created. Could have been 2. Could have been 2,000,000. Of course, UCD has the same ambiguity here -- it's not clear whether we're descended from a single individual, or from a single gene pool (e.g. multiple protoorganisms that arose spontaneously under the same conditions). At this point, all baraminology is trying to do is figure out who's part of the same ancient gene pool, and who's not. UCD skipped that step, and assumed (without falsifiable experiment) that all organisms on the planet share common descent. The real project of baraminology is to track descent back to the gene pools that stepped off the ark. For example, ostensibly 14 members of the feline kind would have stepped off, and subsequently interbred. Were they related? We can't really know. But baraminology is trying to find ways to figure out how many of today's species descended from the feline kind's gene pool. Ungtss (talk) 04:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This is related to a misperception about evolution/paleontology -- the frequently used term 'common ancestor' does not refer to an individual, but to a common ancestral population (each of who individually may or may not be common ancestors to current-day individuals). Populations evolve -- individuals don't. The only self-consistent definition would be to define "kind" as "population (of two or more individuals, for kinds that have sexual repreoduction) that were created by God to reproductively compatible" (or similar). The problem with this (apart from the fact that it is OR) is that it allows universal common descent as a limiting case. Ungtss's claims would appear to be demonstrably false. I know of no 'experimental genetic baraminology' into ancestral gene pools -- as far as I can see, baraminology is purely an 'armchair' or 'Monday morning quaterbacking' field -- involving the procrustian manipulation of pre-existing scientifc evidence to fit Biblical preconceptions. It has been repeatedly falsified by evidence of common descent that cross barminological lines (such that barminologists introduce explicit barminological rules stating that Bible interpretation trumps scientific evidence). One blatant example would be the compelling evidence of common descent of man and ape. UCD is NOT an unfalsifiable assumption, but rather a scientific hypothesis that has stood up to a wealth of new genetic data that has failed to falsify it, and is thus a scientific theory (and part of the Theory of Evolution). Every experiment/analysis that has involved genetic comparison of believed-to-be-related populations has been potentially a falsification of UCD. but the fact of the matter is that these are far more likely to turn up an unexpected close relationship than an unexpectedly distant one -- and none have turned up no sign at all of a relationship. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This is off-topic. If you'd like to present a single experiment that could have falsified UCD, I'd love to read about it and discuss it on my talkpage, but not here. The answer to M's question is "the lead sentence is wrong -- baraminology defines the "kind" (for our purposes, anyway -- post-flood) as a gene pool of somewhere between 2 and 14 individuals per kind, and not descent from a single individual. Tracking back to the original antediluvian kinds is virtually impossible, but the noahic kinds can be expected to have strongly resembled them." Ungtss (talk) 09:33, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Your demand for a "single experiment" shows a gross misunderstanding of how science works -- but then Creationists are always happy to criticise what they don't understand. Falsifiability does not require the existence of an 'all or nothing' single experiment, merely testable predictions (which UCD provides, in spades). It does not even require laboratory experiments at all -- merely that the predictions can be tested against future observations (be they lab experiment or field observations, singular or part of a large set). Your noahic kinds" simplification ignores the vast range of purely aquatic species that would not have gone onto the purported ark -- as well as plants (and probably a few other categories). In any case, this definition appears to be WP:OR, unless you can cite a WP:RS that articulates it. Incidentally, where is the genetic evidence that the ultimate population was 2-14 individuals, and how does this hypothesis explain (i) how such tiny (and thus genetically non-viable) populations survived in-breeding and (ii) the massive mutation needed to turn such a small gene pool into the enormous genetic diversity that modern science has documented? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 10:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You are off topic again. I am going to copy this over to my talkpage, and am more than willing to discuss it with you there. Ungtss (talk) 10:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

No, the problem is verifiability -- and you provide no evidence that your definition is asserted by Baraminology, let alone that such a definition has any scientific merit (the latter question being very much on topic for this article). The 'falsifiability' thread is arguably off-topic -- but you started it with your erroneous and inflammatory crack at UCD. But even that has at least some relevance as it impinges on the question of what is science -- which has implications for this article. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 11:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You justified your revert with "Alteration obfuscates primacy of Genesis over observation." How is that not a POV edit on your part? As to OR, I'll concede it's not cited, but the intro you're defending is neither cited nor correct. What's up with that? Ungtss (talk) 11:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

"Scripture claims (used in baraminology but not in discontinuity systematics). This has priority over all other considerations. For example humans are a separate holobaramin because they separately were created (Genesis 1 and 2)."[7] Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 13:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Are the opening sentences clear?

Rather than boldly going ahead and changing the opening sentences, I will first ask for opinions. "Baraminology is a creationist system for classifying life into groups having no common ancestry, called "baramins". Classification is based on a literal creationist reading of "kinds" in Genesis, especially a distinction between man and other animals." To me, the first sentence is not clear, as it could be read as saying that a "baramin" does not have common ancestry. I think that it should be reworded to make it clear that while within a baramin, common ancestry is accepted by all parties, the baraminologists deny that distinct baramins share common ancestry. Am I being overly precisionist? I suggest something like this: "Baraminology is a creationist division of life into groups, called "baramins", which are distinct, rather than sharing common ancestry between them. This separation between baramins is based on a particular creationist reading of Genesis. This separation held to be of special importance in distinguishing between humans and other animals." TomS TDotO (talk) 15:23, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm a precisionist myself, and agree that the current wording muddies this (as does a recently attempted change). I would suggest "Baraminology is a creationist system for classifying life into separately created groups, called "baramins" which, according to this system, have no common ancestry linking the groups. Classification is based primarily on a literal creationist reading of "kinds" in Genesis, and especially the separate creation of man and other animals." Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It's the groups that are having no ancestry - so it's precise, but not clear. I've been staring at the same part for the same reason wondering what a better wording might be. I've left it because the other interpretation should seem unlikely to readers. The main problem is that we don't want an extra sentence up there just to explain what we mean because we can't find a good enough wording. First, a few other points:

• (For TomS TDotO's wording) B. is not a division, it's a system for finding a division
• it's not clear what distinct means - perhaps integral/tightly-knit etc. - until one reads the next part, which is just what we already have
• that reading is somewhat widespread, not particular (which implies minimal acceptance among even creationists)
• it's the reverse: the presumed biblical distinction between man/animals is important to a corresponding distinction among baramins
• (For Hrafn's wording) The separately-created groups were the 'original kinds', not baramins.
• Baraminology doesn't care about separate creation, it cares about no-ancestry.
• we probably don't need to qualify, since 'baramin' is defined by creationists
• the ensuing 'other criteria' implies the 'primarily'.
• It's based on the interpretation's distinction, not the separate creation (which many contest)
• it's based on 'a' distinction, because it's one interpretation among many

I think the wordings are unclear mostly because baraminology is trying to define baramins without formally mentioning kinds. We could write "baramins are sets st each set is closed under the relation of common ancestry and no two sets have members st those members are not related by common ancestry", but this might be too formal. I was thinking of writing: ...called "baramins". These groups [are intended] to be [closely aligned/similar/] / are intended to correspond / correspond to -- These groups correspond roughly to "kinds" in genesis, [this transition is very awkward] though under a literal creationist reading of kinds, especially the distinction... [and now something is broken]. The idea is that by mentioning the correspondence between baramins and kinds, any confusion is cleared up. The problem is not messing up what the ensuing sentence is getting at, which is that baraminology is based on a presumed biblical distinction between man and animal. –M^T 18:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

TrueOrigin Archive

Take it to WP:RS/N if you think that this source is reliable. This is WP:NOTAFORUM for the promotion of obscure self-published websites, unqualified and unaffiliated authors or made-up word like "creationary".
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Recent attempts have been made to add this site as a reference for this article. It is a self-published website of one Tim Wallace, who appears to lack any scientific qualifications whatsoever. It clearly fails WP:SELFPUB for use here. Anybody wanting to get it added to the article is welcome to take it up with WP:RS/N (but I sincerely doubt if they'll meet with any success there). HrafnTalkStalk 18:19, 11 January 2009 (UTC) The articles on TrueOrigins are written by scientific creationary authors as eminently qualified as any on Talk.origins. As web master, Wallace does not write the articles, but maintains the site. Most of the authors are scientists who are members of CRS. The real reason why this site is being rejected is because it is a real threat to evolutionists. If it wasn't no one would care. Evolutionists are becoming more and more paranoid and more and more fanatical. If Evolution was such a sure thing, evolutionists would have nothing to fear. It isn't and they're running scared! Censorship tactics such as this are just another symptom of the mortal crisis evolution is destined to face. Christian Skeptic (talk) 04:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC) The weirdness and hyperbole of the above comment aside, it might be a reliable source for what creationists think. The articles it hosts don't appear (i've just looked at the site) to go through any scientific peer review and most of the articles i just glanced at appear to be non-science. The first thing is about helium evidence for a young earth, age about 6,000 years old. Enough said. The rest appear to be attacks on mainstream scientists rather than scholarly work (that is, these pieces don't even attempt to be scientific; they exist in the realm of polemics). I suppose this site can sometimes host or link to useable information, so would not be opposed to looking at stuff on a case by case basis. What is it you want to use from there for this article on the non-science of Baraminology (i call it this because baraminology does not seem to have a falsifiable hypothesis, at least none that i've found so far).Bali ultimate (talk) 15:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC) The Talk.Origins articles are not peer reviewed either. None of the True.Origins articles are personal attacks on evolutionary scientist, but critiques of the ideas. You ought to really read before you speak. All I was doing was making a reference to a critique by Camp of the ideas presented by the Talk.Origins author. I was not inserting quotes from Camp. It was just a reference to a counter idea. By-the-by, Evolutionism is not a hypothesis either. It is a fact of Metaphysical naturalism. The only scientific theories that exist are about HOW evolution works, not if it is real. Christian Skeptic (talk) 21:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC) The "scientific creationary author" (read "pseudoscientific crank" in the real world) in the article in question is one Ashby Camp, who appears to lack any scientific qualification whatsoever. Further, he appears to have no particular affiliation or stature in the Creationist Apologetics community. I disagree that TrueOrigin Archive is a RS, even for what creationists think -- creationists are a notoriously fratricidal community, and it is not uncommon for them to condemn each others 'theories'. It would therefore be appropriate to only use sources that demonstrate some degree of following (i.e. publications, online or otherwise, of a major creationist group) for creationists' opinions. This is, to a considerable extent a case of applying WP:DUE in weighting opinions within the Creationist Apologetics community, as well as between them and the scientific community. HrafnTalkStalk 16:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC) Camp is well known among the creationary group as I should know. The Creationary community is not and has never been homogeneous. There are many different ideas, but for the most part they get along great. The ICC's are examples of sharing of ideas and community. There are some recognized off-shoot groups like Dr. Dino and a couple others that receive criticism. Most of the authors on True.Origin come from many ideas in creationism. Most are members of CRS. CRS, ICR and AiG and CIM all share basic beliefs and all sell each others books and DVDs, etc. There have been some personality conflicts, but these mainly have to do with how to proceede rather than in basic beliefs. Creationists consider that people like Dawkins to be pseudoscientific cranks. Christian Skeptic (talk) 21:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I would further point out in response to this personal attack that where an editor was initially directed to WP:RS/N, and that editor's continued protestations here failed to win any support, archiving this unproductive discussion & re-directing that editor to WP:RS/N is entirely appropriate and is in no way censorship. Christian Skeptic: wikipedia is not a WP:BATTLEGROUND for your fighting the "Creationary" good fight against the forces of objective reality. Please make your arguments with at least a bare minimum of civility, and a solid grounding in wikipedia policy (including WP:RS, WP:DUE & WP:NPOVFAQ).

Serpopards

I don't know much about this topic, but has anyone encountered the notion apparently on some sites, that the large bones of dinosaur remains really belonged to a cat-like creature called a serpopard, and depicted in Ancient Egyptian palettes? Or something like that... Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 00:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

(i) We don't as yet have a RS on this. (ii) I rather doubt that such claims would fall within the field of Baraminology -- as its practitioners are attempting to give the impression of serious science. It might fall within Creation science more generally, but we'd still need a mainstream creationist source for it to be worth including. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Two words: {{citation needed}}. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 03:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

bolding and evidence

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baraminology&diff=281892610&oldid=281810195

A reader following the holobaramins redirect will not be confused by arriving at Baraminology for the same reason that a reader following the symbiont redirect will not be confused by arriving at symbiosis. We need not bold every redirect. We do not bold baramin or baraminologist. These terms are barely important enough to be in the article. Bolding them gives them undue weight and distracts the reader. –M^T 22:46, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The wording "Biological evidence shows that all life has common ancestry" implies that only some evidence shows this. In fact, only biological evidence. We've been through this several times before on this talk page, see the distinguishing facts and views section. Because this article deals with pseudoscience, we have to be very careful about not using misleading language. So when we say "is creation science" we have to say "but not real science", and when we say "it is the opinion of scientists" we have to understand that many readers will take this to imply that other legitimate authorities exist and disagree (which is false). "Biological evidence" leaves open other forms of evidence in a way that "biological fact" does not. See the neutral point of view section above. Further, our use of 'evidence' there is as poorly defined as the use of 'theory'. So either we say "yes, we mean that all evidence we have managed to find agrees with common descent and most evidence suggests it" or we say "biological fact". If there is concern that we should use the word 'evidence' because the linked-to article has the word 'evidence' in its name, then just remove the link. –M^T 22:46, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Evolutionary hypotheses

Evolutionary hypotheses does not mean evolution is a hypothesis. It means that there are hypotheses based upon evolution. Evolutionary is an adjective. Christian Skeptic (talk) 01:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I cleared up the confusion your word choice caused. TruthIIPower (talk) 01:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion collapsed. Wikipedia is WP:NOTAFORUM to discuss the epistemic merits or faults of creationism or evolution, the dogmas of people who believe in either, and so on. It's also WP:NOTSOAPBOX. Finally, the enclosed comments are not particularly WP:CIVIL. –MT 20:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Cadistics is based upon evolution. The species are seen as close because similarities are considered to be because of evolution. The evolutionary basis needs to be in the sentence. Christian Skeptic (talk) 01:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Christian Skeptic: Word to the wise, there is no institutional support on WP for having these articles present any creation-related topic in a rational way. It will not happen, because there are too many evolutionary fundamentalists running around who are too stuck on spreading their own dogmas. If you set out to try and make these articles make sense, you will give yourself an ulcer and inevitably fail. But if you use WP as a tool to learn and sharpen your own thoughts through research and discussion, you will grow a great deal. Ungtss (talk) 07:35, 10 April 2009 (UTC) ROFLMAO! My irony meter just exploded. Baraminology exists purely to support the "fundamentalist" "dogmas" of Biblical literalism. To call evolutionary theory "dogmas" is not "rational", because "dogma" doesn't change, whereas evolutionary theory demonstrably does -- Darwin's original theory, articulated in On the Origin of Species is not the modern evolutionary synthesis. Such black-is-white claims as yours, Ungtss, are exactly why most editors on wikipedia don't take most Creationist utterances even remotely seriously. If you expect to make arguments that aren't simply laughed at, I would suggest some serious study of WP:NPOV, WP:NPOVFAQ & WP:FRINGE. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Christian Skeptic: QED. Ungtss (talk) 10:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Ungtss: rather say creationist projection. You have not demonstrated that evolutionary theory is a 'dogma', nor that it is "fundamentalist" to become angry at pervasive dishonesty and misrepresentation, nor that it is not "rational" to value the findings and opinions of hordes of legitimate experts over the bare assertions and cherry-picking of a few, often ill-qualified, cranks. ~(QED), not even close. :) HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:26, 10 April 2009 (UTC) I am not seeking to demonstrate the things you listed. Christian Skeptic already knows those things. I am seeking to show him that WP articles on creationism cannot be made right, because there are a large number of people on WP that are blinded to reason by their hatred of creationism. You are demonstrating that phenomenon quite well, and for that I thank you. I will respond no further. Ungtss (talk) 10:38, 10 April 2009 (UTC) "I am not seeking to demonstrate the things you listed" (which just happen to be the things you listed in your original comment). Then what the hades did you think the 'D' in Q.E.D. stood for? ROFLMAO (again). No, "WP articles on creationism cannot be made right" for your definition of "right", because wikipedia policy is to give WP:DUE weight to what the scientific community states in the overwhelming majority of WP:RS, not to the 'WP:TRUTH' of the WP:FRINGE sources you champion. Good luck with your tilting at windmills. :) HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Christianskeptic: As you can see, some WP authors become so infuriated in the context of creationism that they lose their capacity for reading comprehension. You say "X is true, and supported by this evidence and Y shared assumptions." They say "you haven't proven Y." You respond, "I was not seeking to demonstrate Y; I was seeking to demonastrate X, because he already knows Y." They respond, "You moron! You claimed you had demonstrated Y! Don't you know what demonstrated means!?" They don't bother to read what you write before responding. This creationism derangement syndrome will drive you crazy if your aim is an article that makes sense -- because an article that follows the principles the NPOV appears to them to be "creationist screed." Ungtss (talk) 12:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC) <smiles beatifically> Thank you Ungtss for proving my own point of "dishonesty" by completely misrepresenting what I said. You made a claim of "no institutional support on WP for having these articles present any creation-related topic in a rational way" & "too many evolutionary fundamentalists running around who are too stuck on spreading their own dogmas". You then took my rebuttal of the premises underlying your claim as 'demonstrating' that claim. When I pointed out the fallacy of this, you instead claimed that I had demonstrated the claim that "people on WP that are blinded to reason by their hatred of creationism" (incidentally, the correct word isn't "hatred" it is "contempt") -- a claim you did not originally make. "You moron!..." -- these are your words not mine. That you have to shove into my mouth to raise your false feelings of martyrdom to the level you crave is indicative of the psychological dysfunctionality of your mindset. "...because an article that follows the principles the NPOV appears to them to be 'creationist screed.'" ROFLMAO2 This is in fact the exact opposite of what I said. I can see no "rational" interpretation of WP:NPOV (which contains WP:DUE) that would allow something that I would consider to be even remotely a "creationist screed" (incidentally, again, who are you quoting? It sure as hell wasn't me. :) ). Ungtss, you have your head so thoroughly immersed in the Christian right authoritarian echo chamber that you are unlikely to be comfortable on wikipedia. You would however be perfect for Conservapedia, WorldNetDaily, or similar fora that value purity of ideology over trifling things like facts, science, or internal consistency. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC) ChristianSkeptic: Again, you can see Hfrafn does not understand that my initial comment to you assumed things upon which both of us agree, and then complained that I did not support those shared assumptions. Then, with flair characteristic of NPD, he declares victory in a battle I did not join, because I chose instead to discuss only one issue, based on shared assumptions, with you. If they can't understand something this simple -- the idea of "I'm not talking to you about that, I'm talking to him about something else," how in the world can we expect them to understand the nuances of philosophy of science? Ungtss (talk) 13:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Boy that sure got blown out of hand. I know what you are talking about Ungtss. Christian Skeptic (talk) 13:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Best of luck to you, man:). Ungtss (talk) 14:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Yes, I can imagine that it would be quite disconcerting while preaching to the choir on the basis of your shared, but completely false and self-inflicted, sense of persecution, to have somebody come along and pull out the rug under your premises. If you two want to reprise the ludicrous caricature of anti-creationism (previously immortalised in the Chick tract Big Daddy) in peace, then I suggest that you find somewhere private to do so. Do so here, and people will inevitably point out the flaws in your narrative. I did understand your initial comment -- I simply regard it as the meritless projection of dogmatically Biblically literalist fundamentalist Christians. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 15:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Hmmmm. And you don't have any biases. Christian Skeptic (talk) 15:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC) I appreciate that from a creationist viewpoint reality is biased, but our task it to show the fringe view in compliance with policies. If you think proportionate representation of majority expert views is unfair, then you'll just have to suffer that feeling here, or as Hrafn suggests you may find other sites more congenial. . . dave souza, talk 16:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Everyone is biased. Those who aren't, are. This article is about what is thought by many to be a fringe view and I have no problem with the majority making its case. Yet the article should accurately reflect what Baraminologists think, not what critics think they think. That is like Socialists explaining the benefits of Capitalism--it's not going to be accurate. There is a big difference between neutrally telling the position of Baraminology and presenting an argument against it. Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Neutral point of view??

First, an apology: I am brand new to Wikipedia and edited your article without any discussion (I was looking in the wrong place for TALK); so when I edited, it was not according to protocol. Rude of me, sorry.

Now, my concern: I thought that Wikipedia articles were supposed to be from a neutral point of view (hence my edits, I did think I was moving the article toward that goal). This article is strongly biased and states as fact theories which many people reject (including Ph.D's in all areas of science; see www.dissentfromdarwin.org). Your insistence on common ancestry as established fact undermines your article's credibility. Gracie Allan (talk) 03:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

To put it roughly, Wikipedia follows the scientific consensus, which favors evolution. See our FAQ page for more details. If more non-creation scientists accepted baraminology/creation then Wikipedia would reflect that.--Andrewlp1991 (talk) 04:30, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

In other words, Wikipedia traded NPOV for SCPOV -- which would have supported geocentrism against heliocentrism (rather than neutrally describing both) for 1500 years. It's the new scholasticism. Ungtss (talk) 06:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the page to discuss this policy. Please take these comments to the relevant page. –M^T 00:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In articles about ostensibly scientific subjects, Wikipedia should follow the consensus among scientists. In articles about history, it should follow the consensus among historians. In articles about the historicity of Jesus, it should follow the consensus among Biblical historians and Christian scholars. To do otherwise, to put the views of an extreme minority on equal footing with the views of the vast majority, would be to give them WP:UNDUE weight in the discussion. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 13:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The policy doesn't say what you say it says. It lays out which points of view are mentioned -- including signifant minorities. It does not require (or even permit) that views not vetted by the intelligentsia be tagged as "pseudoscience unconnected with the facts of biology." That's just bigotry. But bigots always cover their tracks by attacking the opposition without facts -- because in a debate on the facts, they lose, and deep down, they know it. Ungtss (talk) 14:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you calling me a bigot? siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 14:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Personal attacks aside, you must be reading a different policy than I am if you feel that the proposed edit is consonant with the policy under discussion:

There is some debate as to whether bariminology is an actual science. A competing view is that all life descended from one

This would be like in an article on the shape of the Earth mentioning that there are some people who think that the Earth is not flat. This does not fairly represent significant views held by reliable scientific sources, so it is definitely not in line with the policy. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 14:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I am not calling you a bigot. I wouldn't necessarily support the line you wrote above, but neither do I support calling it (without qualification) "pseudoscience disconnected from the facts of biology," as the article does now. I would support something along the lines of "By contrast, the hypothesis of universal common descent holds that all life descended from one form of life. According to X credible source, baraminology has been shown to be false because of X, Y, and Z facts." The policy does not require that articles state (unequivocally) that particular views are false. The policy determines which views are to be mentioned. This article is about baraminology, so the question of whether it will be mentioned is already settled. The only remaining question is whether it will be unequivocally misrepresented and described as false without factual support. Unfortunately, that question has also already answered -- implicitly, anyway. Ungtss (talk) 15:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to be blunt, but it doesn't matter what you support. Creationism is pseudoscience according to wikipedia-accepted authority. I strongly encourage you to read my comments in the section "Problems with the lead section". You're confusing views with facts. It is a fact that [all life descended from a common ancestor] (it is a fact that X). It's also a fact that the UCD hypothesis is, roughly, that [...] (it's a fact that UCD = X). The first one of these is relevant, the second is irrelevant and dilutes the truth. You're uncomfortable with X being presented as a truth, so you'd like the article to present X as one position (and let's not mention that it's the correct one). This won't fly. –M^T 00:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Define fact. According to the scientific method, a fact is a belief we have about the world that can be directly observed and tested by experiment.[8] Acceleration due to gravity. Function of genes. Components of water. Beliefs about reality that cannot be directly observed and tested by experiment are not facts -- they are hypotheses. And the purpose of science is to develop ways to test those hypotheses. So, you've stated that UCD is fact, but you haven't defined "fact." What exactly do you mean by "fact" in this context, such that an unobservable, unverifiable, untestable assertion about events 4B years ago is "fact?" Ungtss (talk) 05:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The statement you are disagreeing with is properly cited. If you think you have a better authority than the national academy of sciences, then suggest it. If you'd like to argue UCD's factuality you may do so on a variety of online forums. But that sort of argument is not welcome here since it's off-topic and WP:OR. The editors at Talk:Common descent might be more helpful, so why not bring your points up there? –M^T 07:15, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Then you are the one confusing fact and view. Facts are objective and verifiable. Views are subjective and must be attributed, rather than stated as objectively true. The NAS stated its view. The article states it as fact. Either define fact such that it include's the NAS's views, or admit their views are solely views, not facts. There are no other options consistent with NPOV. Ungtss (talk) 08:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a fact is objective and verifiable, and one of the ways we verify it is to show that those whose views are authoritative on the matter are in agreement. Because scientists, including the NAS, agree that creationism is non-scientific, we must accept that this is so. When we mention differing views, it is then that we need to qualify them by explaining that it's only the Discovery Institute's opinion. We can state well-supported facts as facts while making it clear that unsupported alternatives are merely opinions espoused by specific individuals.

By way of example, imagine if articles that now say things like "John Smith was born in 1952" are all changed to "John Smith was born, according to the his mommy and daddy, in 1952". It's one thing to ask that we cite facts so that their accuracy can be checked, another to demand that all text be couched in weasel words. Spotfixer (talk) 16:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Because scientists, including the NAS, agree that creationism is non-scientific, we must accept that this is so

Where does the NPOV policy require that? Ungtss (talk) 17:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

On matters such as whether something is scientific, scientists are the reliable source. The next time we want to know what Catholicism says about Limbo, I'll ask the Pope. Spotfixer (talk) 17:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You're evading. Where does the NPOV policy require that when scientists say something, articles must take it as true? Incidentally, the Wikipedia article on Limbo does not take it as true -- it rightly attributes it to the people who hold the idea. Ungtss (talk) 18:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

When there is a reliable source for the truth of something, that IS neutral. For matters, such as Limbo, where there is no truth, we just refer to what people claim. Spotfixer (talk) 18:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think WP:PSCI applies in this situation. Since creation science is generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, it seems reasonable to label it as such. Emw2012 (talk) 18:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

When there is a reliable source for the truth of something, that IS neutral. For matters, such as Limbo, where there is no truth, we just refer to what people claim.

You said "On matters such as whether something is scientific, scientists are the reliable source. The next time we want to know what Catholicism says about Limbo, I'll ask the Pope." Your own example describes the Pope as a reliable source on the topic; you then state that the claims of reliable sources should be stated as fact. By necessary implication, we should take the Pope's view on limbo as fact. Or should we?

I think WP:PSCI applies in this situation. Since creation science is generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, it seems reasonable to label it as such. Emw2012 (talk) 18:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The rule is as follows: "Generally considered pseudoscience: "Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience." The rule says that the fact that the idea is generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may be included in the article. It does not say that the article may state (as fact) that it is pseudoscience unconnected with the facts of biology -- least of all without factual support to support the claim. Ungtss (talk) 19:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that WP:PSCI applies here, but to clarify the Limbo example, the issue isn't the truth of the matter regarding Limbo, just what the official Catholic doctrine is. This is something the Pope is quite authoritative about, particularly if he speaks ex cathedra. In the same way, we can explain what Creationists believe, without ever suggesting those beliefs are true, but when we explain the scientific consensus, we don't need to put quotes around it. Spotfixer (talk) 20:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

That's what I asked you to clarify. Where in WP policy does it say that "scientific consensus" about issues that are not experimentally falsifiable does not need to be attributed to the scientific community? Ungtss (talk) 20:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In following with the example that WP:PSCI sets out in the Astrology article, I've amended the wording to read "considered pseudoscience by the scientific community". That seems to be what you are suggesting, and doesn't seem like a problematic use of weasel words to dilute the idea that it is backed by scientific consensus. Emw2012 (talk) 20:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the present wording is definitely an improvement over what was in the article prior to this discussion. Ungtss's version was also reasonable, in my opinion. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 21:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Definitely better, and greatly appreciated. The only problem currently is that it overgeneralizes. Let's be precise. The NAS put out the statement we're citing, so why not ascribe it to the NAS? If we have a survey saying how many scientists call this "pseudoscience," let's quote that. But let's not say that "scientists" believe something, when there is a group (however small) who disagree. Ungtss (talk) 21:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The National Academies, the organization that wrote the source, comprises authoritative scientific in addition to The National Academies of Science. It represents the US scientific community . I assure you that, like they oppose Intelligent Design (see the List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design), the vast majority of scientific associations also consider creation science to be pseudoscience (or worse). Thus "the scientific community" seems appropriate to convey that the vast majority of the scientific community considers creation science to be pseudoscience. To reflect that this is a broad statement about that group, I've added "generally" into the sentence in question. Similar phrasing exists in the Astrology article, which is the example used for WP:PSCI; considering that the sources for that usage are less authoritative than the National Academies, I do not think that ArbCom would consider consider this instance of "scientific community" an undue generalization.Emw2012 (talk) 23:36, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I still maintain that the use of the word "fact" referring to UCD is inappropriate in the same way that referring to the "fact" of Allah being God and Mohamed his prophet, would be. (And I hope you would agree that the Muslim's list of evidence supporting his belief would not negate its religious nature.) Belief in UCD is more religion than science, the denial of its adherents notwithstanding. Everyone looks at science through his own religious grid (even the atheist-materialist). We have successfully identified the creationist perspective of science as a "view", but have been slow to do the same for the atheist materialist perspective (largely, I think, because the atheist wrongly insists he has no beliefs.) Your use of the word "fact" in this context is a religious assertion. And you cannot write off those in the scientific community who disagree with you as a handful of wing nuts. There are too many of them.Gracie Allan (talk) 00:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

As covered in the article on evidence for common descent, there is an extensive body of experimental and theoretical evidence supporting the scientific claims made in this article. I would suggest reading over the article on Objections to evolution for common rebuttals to many of the points you've made. The section Evolution is a religion seems especially relevant here. With regard to the link you cited in your opening entry in this thread (to www.dissentfromdarwin.org), I would also refer you to Recent scientific trends in support for evolution, which shows that the "many people" with PhD's who reject evolution they gathered are, in fact, exceedingly few compared to the total number of those with PhDs in biological and geological sciences. The claim from www.dissentfromdarwin.org is clearly meant to exaggerate the level of dissent about evolution within the scientific community. To dilute the wording around universal common dissent based on such a misrepresentation would be a classic example of giving undue weight. Emw2012 (talk) 02:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The article you referred me to shares the pro-evolution bias of this one. It is hardly a neutral presentation of creation vs. evolution; it is mostly a rebuttal of creationist arguments (many of which are weakly presented). It would be better titled "Objections to objections to evolution"! Also whether UCD is a fact or a belief is not really a numbers game decided by which side has more Ph.D's on their side, (or do you think the golden tablets of Moroni are a fact in Utah, but a belief in New Jersey?) The reason for citing Ph.D's who dissent is to clarify that it's not just people who don't "get the science" that reject evolution. Fact vs. belief is more of a philosophical question which traces back to an individual's presuppositions about reality. That is where this argument lies in the evolution vs creation controversy. When people don't recognize their own philosophical bias, it makes identifying "neutral" very difficult. The information gatekeepers at Wikipedia seem to have wrongly taken the stance that believing in evolution IS the neutral point of view. Gracie Allan (talk) 04:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The reason that evolutionary theory tends to be presented as fact is that it is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus (see Level of support for evolution) based on voluminous evidence for evolution. If you think that creationist arguments are weakly presented, then please suggest how they can be improved. In doing so, however, keep in mind that Wikipedia's policy on undue weight is typically considered the criterion for assigning weight (e.g. strength of language) to a given viewpoint. A viewpoint's prominence in reliable sources determines its proper weight. Considering that the concept of a universal common ancestor has so much prominence and support in scientific publications (see, for example, a search of Google Scholar for "universal common descent"), it is allocated much more weight than, say, baraminology or irreducible complexity.

We're back to truth as a numbers game (greatest published poundage wins-their side gets to say we have the facts and the other guys have opinions). In your system, the Ptolemy followers had the facts while the Copernicus advocates only believed, until the numbers tipped the scale in the other direction. ...Okay, I'll just be patient. Truth does have a way of prevailing. But in the meantime, I'll take any Wikipedia assertions in the arena of science with a grain of salt. Gracie Allan (talk) 06:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of being rude here, this is a fairly standard tactic: claim that there's a controversy and attempt to portray evolution and creationism as equally-valid "views" through intellectual relativism. The problem is that it simply doesn't hold up under examination; "baraminology" may have an impressive-sounding name, but it simply is not science. It makes no testable predictions (indeed, it makes no predictions of any kind); it has no practical applications. Indeed, it doesn't even define its own terms; has anyone yet offered a firm definition of "created kind," or a means of identifying one? Modern evolutionary synthesis theory, on the other hand, makes many testable and verifiable predictions and has many practical applications; the biologists and geneticists who affirm that they make use of evolutionary theory every day aren't part of some massive deceptive conspiracy.

Unless and until that changes, there is no reason to consider baraminology a science.

Parenthetically speaking, let's remember that the reason Copernicus had such a hard time getting a fair hearing was because his findings were dismissed as "bad science" because they were believed to contradict the Bible. --BRPierce (talk) 17:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

This article is entirely biased. Instead of saying Baraminology is pseudoscience wouldn't it be better to say baraminology is considered pseudoscience by much of scientific community?--EvilFlyingMonkey (talk) 16:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:ARB/PS, it may most certainly be labelled pseudoscience, so your removal was inappropriate. The exact phrasing is "Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience." I am assuming that "may properly contain that information" means to state that XXX is "generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community", so it might be slightly more compliant with the ruling to state "Baraminology is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community" (which is also, I suspect the most common phrasing on PS articles, on the creationism side of things at least). Can we get a WP:CONSENSUS for this change? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 18:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, and in the interim I've restored a properly sourced statement making the bawic position clear in accordance with WP:PSCI policy and WP:NPOV/FAQ policy. In relation to science we mustn't give undue weight to the fringe view that the claims of baraminology are anything other than pseudoscience and a religious belief. . dave souza, talk 19:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Large amounts of reference does not objectivity make. Just because something is heavily cited doesn't mean it's not still biased. There are large portions of the scientific community that do NOT consider it pseudoscience, firstly. Secondly, regardless of the majority view, there's still a significant portion of the population that disagrees, so to tell them they are wrong is, by definition, bias. Regardless of your stance, Wikipedia IS still about neutrality, so to argue that it should stay the way it is, frankly, is bigoted and contradicts what Wikipedia is about. 17:58, 18 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.113.209 (talk)

(i) WP:RS for "large portions of the scientific community that do NOT consider it pseudoscience"? (ii) argumentum ad populum = fallacy (and likewise is not a RS). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 18:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

"argumentum ad populum" argues that something is fact because people believe it. My argument was that the "last sentence [being] HEAVILY cited" is NOT true just because many people believe it, as evidenced by the lack of solid evidence and the large number of dissenters. Essentially, you just pointed out the proper terminology behind the exact argument I was just making. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.113.209 (talk) 20:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Wrong! -- that "a significant portion of the population that disagrees" does not make their view true -- especially as they generally have no expertise in the issue (hence argumentum ad populum). There is no "lack of solid evidence" (there's whole libraries full of the stuff), nor a "large number of dissenters" within the scientific community. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 20:12, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I never once claimed that said view was true. Not once did I. I have been arguing the point of neutrality this entire time. Additionally, it is entirely subjective as to whether the evidence is solid or not. There are absolutely "libraries" full of books that make those claims, but not one that makes them solid. And as for your last claim, that seems to ignore the entire point of this discussion.

Vox populis is not a WP:RS, and hence is given no WP:WEIGHT, per WP:NPOV (hence my original linking of argumentum ad populum & RS). Vox populis quite often includes all sorts of nonsense. That the evidence is solid is a matter of both (i) sheer volume & (ii) expert opinion. I had assumed your "dissenters" were your mythical "large portions of the scientific community that do NOT consider it pseudoscience". If they are not, then your "entire point" has no basis in WP:WEIGHT and thus WP:NPOV. Your complaint appears to have no basis in either policy or reliable source, so unless you make a solid argument with relevant basis in either, I'll be archiving this (per WP:TALK) as "not relevant to improving the article". Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:56, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Not that this is particularly relevant, but I seriously doubt that there are large numbers of people, even if we include non-experts, and the non-informed, who have a positive opinion about "baramins" and "baraminology". My guess is that a large fraction of even the people who are creationists of some sort would not have any idea of what a "baramin" is. Does anyone have even an informal poll to the contrary? TomS TDotO (talk) 14:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Your point probably has more relevance than much of what else we've been discussing here. I dare say there'd be 'large numbers who would agree with baraminology if they'd actually heard of it (regardless of if they understood it or not)', but that of course makes for an even weaker case than vanilla vox populis. I likewise doubt if there's any polling on the issue, and am more than a little glad that the combination of WP:RS & WP:DUE means that we don't have to care. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 14:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Interpretation of Biblical kinds

Indeed, the sources do not specifically use the Liger/Tigon example, but they do talk about hybridization as the deliniation for a Baramin (or Holobaramin), which is precisely what is a Liger/Tigon. So it is a valid, easy to understand, example of what the sources are talking about.

True, neither source specifially mentions Genesis 1:24-25 to define Baramin, however, NO OTHER Biblical reference to kind-after-their-kind exists, so by logic, Gen 1:24-25 is implicitly the Biblical reference they are talking about. Christian Skeptic (talk) 15:06, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

That looks like original research, do please find a reliable source that supports your reasoning. . dave souza, talk 16:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Reliable as to what? Reliable evidence that Creationists believe it, or that it's true? Ungtss (talk) 17:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

WP is not about truth. It is about what exists. The above accurately reflects what Bariminologists think as shown in their publications, regardless of whether others accept it as truth or not. In this post-modern world where there is no ultimate truth--each person's truth is as valid as anyone else's--it is really odd that post-modernists are so insistent on their truth at the destruction of others. Go figure.... Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

If all editors agree that the criteria is credible evidence that creationists use ligers as an example, then this should do. Ungtss (talk) 18:47, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The article is about baraminologists, not any random article written by a creationist. –M^T 20:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

So there you have it, ChristianSkeptic. Articles written in Creationist magazines about the biblical kinds are not reliable sources about creationist views about the biblical kinds. Ungtss (talk) 20:21, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Don Batten[9] doesn't speak for baraminologists nor for any other major group, nor is he an authority on created kinds. –M^T 22:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:OR. I appreciate you bringing this up on talk first, though. –M^T 20:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

cladistics and kinds

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baraminology&diff=282928574&oldid=282687384

These changes do nothing to improve the article. The first is an (A) obfuscation through verbosity, and an intentional (B) weakening by generalization.

classifies species based on how closely the various organisms are related to one another.

classifies species based on how closely organisms are related.

classifies species based on evolutionary history and emphasizes objective, quantitative analysis.

(First, we omit needless words.) Now, what do we mean by 'closely'? Every taxonomic system organizes by 'closeness'. Phenetics does it by morphology, your family tree does it by 'relatedness', and Cladistics does it by evolutionary history. Lastly, the edit flat-out deletes an essential contrast between Cladistics and Baraminology: objective and quantitative.

The second issue is the injection of baraminologists and ligers into the kinds section. This is inappropriate for three reasons. 1) it breaks into the middle of the 'what the bible actually says' subsection (the other two subsections there are linguistic and traditional interpretations), 2) Baraminology has an entire section right below it, and 3) created kinds redirects here, and that section is about created kinds. We've got Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin in there - Marsh and ReMine are more than sightly out of place. We give background here, we'll get into baraminology in just one moment, so don't jump the gun.

Given that Christian Skeptic's edits[10] in the article and on talk seem to push unreliable sources, and given that ample time for explanation has been given (this seems to have turned into a backpatting session with Ungtss in the sections above), I'm requesting that Christian Skeptic discuss any edits of his or hers that others revert on the talk page, and try to get consensus there before reverting. –M^T 19:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

First, the clade sentence is wrong according to modern (2008) college evolutionary biology textbooks. My original modification reflected precisely what the textbook says. This is a good place to reiterate that any phylogenetic tree represents a hypothesis about how the various organisms in the tree are related to one another. The best hypothesis is the one that best fits all the available data. A phylogenetic hypothesis may be modified when new evidence compels systematists to revise their trees. {cite book | title= BIOLOGY (textbook) | author= Campbell, N. A., et. al. | year=2008 | publisher= Pearson Education, Inc. | page=547 | isbn=536-96944-6}. And this quote from the same book: Phylogenetic systematists seek to classify organisms based on common descent. [i.e. evolution] p. 661 Cladistics is a hypothesis based upon evolution. i.e. its an evolutionary hypothesis. This is not creationary subterfuge, but facts directly from an evolutionary text. Students lost points on the midterm for not noting that cladistics is a hypothesis based upon evolution. And second, Cladistsics has nothing to do with "objective and quantitative" analysis. It is ENTIRELY subjective. Clades are inferred from shared derived characters that are unique to members of the clade and their common ancestor. For example, a clade might be inferred from key anatomical and emryological similarities that researchers conclude are homologous. (Same textbook, p. 662) The text does not mention anything about quantitative analysis.

According to M this common college text book is an unreliable source. Based on what? Christian Skeptic (talk) 21:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Nobody here is disputing that it's a hypothesis. Rather the point is that this might be irrelevant to Baraminology, and might give readers the wrong impression. Would you mind moving this discussion to Cladistics talk? Our wording is a summary of that article's lead. If you can get your views upheld there, then we should change the wording. But the people best equipped to handle this discussion are at Talk:Cladistics. –M^T 22:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

not based on Cladistics page?

In talking about this very point to another editor, MT said "Our wording is a summary of that article's [Cladistsics] lead. If you can get your views upheld there, then we should change the wording. But the people best equipped to handle this discussion are at Talk:Cladistics. –MT"." I merely look at the cladistics page and found this: Cladistics is distinguished from other taxonomic systems because it focuses on the evolutionary relationships of species rather than on morphological similarities, which may be convergent, and because it places heavy emphasis on quantitative analysis. So following the advice of MT, I changed the above to "The taxonomic system widely applied in biology is cladistics, which classifies species based on evolutionary history and emphasizes quantitative analysis." It seems to me that WP should be consistent. 8teenfourT4 (talk) 19:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Necessary but not sufficient. WP doesn't need to be identical across every page, and the current wording is in no way inconsistent. "Objective" is relevant and important given our context. –M^T 23:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

According to the history page of Cladistics the word objective was removed from the introduction because it is not found anywhere in the article. And further, what appeared to be OR, not supported by any link or resource, was removed which had had the word. So it is highly irregular to keep a word here that is not supported by ANY reference ANYwhere and also appears to be false OR. Keeping it here is pure OR. Until someone can find a reference that Cladistics is objective it ought not appear here. 8teenfourT4 (talk) 00:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Cladistics, by definition, aims to be objective. Try this (4th paragraph). If you do a search for "cladistics and objectivity" a lot of links turn up. Science itself endeavors towards objectivity. I think you may be making too much of this word. Quietmarc (talk) 01:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for helping us improve the page. –M^T 18:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Is a PubMed search an RS? Is it OR?

I noticed some of the refs are to the absence of hits on a PubMed search. Is this acceptable? I seems to be skirting the borders of OR to me. --Dr Marcus Hill (talk) 13:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

If frequency of citation or appearance within scientific journals is used by Reliable sources as a metric for scientific acceptance of some issue or term, then no, I don't think it is.    M   19:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

If frequency of citation or appearance within scientific journals is used by reliable sources as a metric for scientific acceptance of some issue or term, then find a reliable source which uses frequency of citation or appearance within scientific journals regarding scientific acceptance of baraminology. 174.103.152.118 (talk) 02:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the fact-tagged assertion "Baraminology is a pseudoscience, and has not produced any peer-reviewed scientific research." Would this reference suffice? It reads simply: "Baraminology is not a recognized scientific study." 207.67.17.45 (talk) 19:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a reliable source to me... Auntie E. 01:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The source looks reliable, but unfortunately does not provide any reasoning that details why baraminology is not a recognised science. Furhermore, this source does not make any mention of pseudoscience nor does it assert that baraminology has not produced any peer-reviewed scientific research." --Duffsta (talk) 01:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

1. My understanding is that search results, even of RSs, are not taken to be a RS (for one thing search results being dynamic are subject to change without notice, for another thing they are computer generated without editorial oversight).

   I am confused, as usual. Are you suggesting that a peer-reviewed scientific article that relies on database searching for all or part of the conclusions is not a reliable source? That would leave out all of the Cochrane Reviews, I think, and many others.66.120.181.218 (talk) 05:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)Desoto10 (talk) 05:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

   No, I am not saying that. See my paranthetical above -- a "peer-reviewed scientific article" (i) would give a permanent record for WP to point to for the search results & (ii) provides an intervening level of human/editorial oversight. The issue is that the claim is the result of WP:OR -- which is something that "peer-reviewed scientific article[s]" are generally required to do, and WP editors are required not to do. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 06:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

2. The act of searching is unambiguously an WP:OR action. Similarly stating (on the basis of a search) that a RS contained X mentions of topic Y would be OR.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I included it as a reference to the claim that baraminology is pseudoscientific. Still no reference for the claim that it has not produced any peer-reviewed scientific research.

First, I think the claim is notable and would certainly be included if a reference were available. Second, according to Wikipedia:Citation_needed, such a claim should only be removed if you have "If you have reason to think that the claim is inaccurate" (emphasis not mine) or if it's BLP. As anyone can do a search and not find it, I bet no one has a good reason to think it's inaccurate. Third, I think this satisfies the requirement for caution. 174.103.152.118 (talk) 04:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

"and is not related to science" redundant?

I understand this sentence has been heavily debated here, but I thought a separate topic for this minor qualm would be better than to put it in the old one.

I posit that this:

"Like all of creation science, baraminology is pseudoscience and is not related to science"

would be better put like this:

"Like all of creation science, baraminology is pseudoscience"

and leave it at that, as the labeling of it as pseudoscience (well grounded and all, not going near that argument here) already implies it isn't science. Seems a bit like saying "This shirt is black, and it isn't white"

(Terper (talk) 16:00, 22 October 2009 (UTC))

I would rather have: "Like all of creation science, baraminology is not related to science, but is a religious concept."Desoto10 (talk) 05:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

More redundancy?

"Baraminology is a pseudoscience" is mentioned twice. The first time has three citations (2,3,4), the second time has citation number 23. Couldn't we state this just once with all four citations? Or, if we're to leave both statements, couldn't one be rephrased so it's not EXACTLY the same as the first statement?

"typically considered" pseudoscience

You guys are correct that the IP was edit warring, but this wording does need to be discussed. "Like all of creationism, Baraminology is a pseudoscience" is horribly POV, especially for a topic as controversial as this. "Typically considered pseudoscience" is verifiable and neutral language. Plus, "like all of creationism" really is not necessary and sounds like a POV jab. (For what it's worth, I find creationism pretty ridiculous, but the point is our articles should not be taking any sides.) When it comes to an issue as divisive as this and a term as strong as "pseudoscience", it's really not our place to judge what is real science and what isn't; besides, "typically considered pseudoscience" gets the job done (alerting the readers that this is bunk) without requiring us to take any sides and without requiring us to pretend we control what constitutes "science". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the need for the "typically" myself. There is no science at all. No studies, no predictions, no nothing. Just an "-ology." Auntie E. 15:32, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

What about "Like all of creation science"? Again, that is a needless sideswipe. There are cases where unequivocally calling something a pseudoscience is ok (for example, reverse speech), and this may be one, but extending that accusation to all of creationism is unacceptable, especially in a GA. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:35, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

A small but obvious clarification: creationism only becomes pseudoscience when it makes claims to be science: in the broader sense creationism includes purely religious beliefs that have no objection to science, but where creationism means anti-evolution, as in barminology, it's pseudoscience. . . dave souza, talk 22:35, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. We're not talking about creationism, we're talking about creation science. The two shouldn't be confused.    M   22:51, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

1. The phrasing in WP:PSCI is "generally considered pseudoscience", not "typically".
2. The wording ("include") does not imply that the classifications are exhaustive (and it is reasonable to expect that a middle ground exists between "generally considered pseudoscience" & "obvious pseudoscience").
3. Mention of creation science is not a sideswipe. Baraminology is a subfield of creation science, and most condemnations would be of the entire field, not of individual subfields of it (particularly as the list of subfields would be quite long). I would suggest a statement along the lines of 'Creation science, a field that includes baraminology, is regarded by the scientific community as pseudoscientific.' If a citation is needed, I'd suggest this: [11].

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 16:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

That's better I think... Auntie E. 16:48, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

And yes Rjanag, the reason for the addition of CS in the statement is because it's usually a general condemnation of CS by the sci-com instead of baraminology itself. But I agree it could be better stated like Hrafn suggests. Auntie E. 16:50, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps 'Creation science, the field that includes baraminology ...'? This, or some other wording, that indicates that "baraminology" is a term exclusive to creation science? TomS TDotO (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

How about "baraminology is a subfield of creation science, which is considered a pseudoscience by much of the scientific community." rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:29, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Like da judge say, it's "overwhelming majority of the scientific community". . dave souza, talk 20:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

We've had numerous discussions on this talk page about adding the qualifier "by the scientific community" to phrases in this article. The reason we don't do this is that, while that phrase is true, it's absolutely irrelevant. When we say "the speed of light is constant in any frame" we don't need to qualify it with "or at least, that's what Einstein thinks". It's a fact that baraminology, like all of creation science, is not science. Period. We have 3 or 4 solid citations, including both legal and scientific authorities. If we add the "by X", this automatically implies (thanks to creationists) that there's an equally credible stealth movement "Y" that disagrees. There isn't, it's just plainly a fact that it's not science, as far as wikipedia is concerned. It's not that the wording is unclear (we state that it's a subfield in the preceding sentence), it's that every few months some creationist becomes annoyed that we're not mentioning that nasty scientistic conspiracy that's keeping the truth from the world, and tries to make cute little "changes". No thanks, creationwiki is <-- thataway.    M   21:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

My leaning is toward M's comments, though I don't have very strong feelings against any of the suggestions for re-wording (My preference would be "baraminology is a subfield of creation science, which is considered a pseudoscience by the scientific community." - the "much of" is unnecessary, IMO). I mainly reverted the changes because they had the effect of weakening the prose and introducing a slight creationist bias.Quietmarc (talk) 23:12, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

IMO at least, the issue is striking a balance between, on the one hand accuracy & WP:DUE, and on the other the requirement to attribute opinions. I'm relatively indifferent between "considered" and "considered by the scientific community" (as the latter is implicit in the former) and between "overwhelmingly considered" and baldly "considered". I think "is considered" is better than (the current) bald "is", in that it is an opinion, albeit an all-but-universally-held expert one. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as wikipedia is concerned, that's what a fact is. In the case of creation science, it's not all-but-universal, it is universal among all applicable sources. The sources do not say "it's the humble opinion of the scientific community that it's not a science", they say "it isn't, don't teach it".

• "Spoon bending is pseudoscience"
• "Spoon bending is considered pseudoscience by James Randi"

The first is a fact. The second is an opinion. Let's not concede to dressing up the simple fact that CS is pseudoscience in the guise of an opinion.    M   03:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

This is badly and provocatively phrased, it is far too strong and is not consistent with Wikipedia phrasing on similar pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oceanblue1492 (talk • contribs) 09:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the similar pages need improved to comply with WP:PSCI. Any specific pages in mind? . . dave souza, talk 10:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Just because Creation Science may be classed as pseudoscience does not necessarily mean that every one of its disciplines should also be regarded as pseudoscience. For example, Alchemy is a classic pseudoscience however a number of the practices, theories and principles that the study progressed can still be classed as 'scientific' based on the idea that science is a pursuit of truth through objective and qualitative analysis. Just because a theory may have flaws or inconsistancies does not necessarily mean it can be easily discounted as 'pseudoscience'. None of the sources I see on the article page claim that baraminology is a pseudoscience - instead they point to opinions from qualified sources regarding creation science. From what I understand, baraminology is simply another system of catagorising living matter into 'kinds'. It does not in any way disagree with or oppose the current widely-used system of 'genus and species'.The archived peer review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Baraminology/archive1 also suggested that the term pseudoscience be removed. --Duffsta (talk) 01:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

"From what I understand, baraminology is simply another system of catagorising living matter into 'kinds'. It does not in any way disagree with or oppose the current widely-used system of 'genus and species'." this statement is three times factually incorrect and tendentious. first, baraminology is a religious practice, based on a biblical description of species creation; on that ground it is distinct from scientific taxonomic systems. second, the "widely-used system of genus and species" is specifically based on and exemplifies the principle of common descent, and uses cladistic or taxonomic principles to sort animals into species, genus or other categories, while baraminology has no systematic methodology for classifying life forms and specifically denies the principle of common descent (these are "kinds" that cannot interbreed). it seems to me that when these kinds of inaccuracies and pseudotruths are inserted into a "fair minded" discussion of biology then the term "pseudoscience" sets up a useful boundary marker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Macevoy (talk • contribs) 16:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC) M and Macevoy, you're in the minority, here. the majority believes "is pseudoscience" is POV. Please, don't revert my edits.Bettering the Wiki (talk) 01:01, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Drawing your own conclusions from old discussions doesn't give you the power to edit without current consensus. Start a new section and explain in your own words why you think you have a more compelling argument than the editors who support the status quo. That's the way things work around here, when they work at all.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I support the points used above. Besides, Conservapedia points out,at number 49, this is an example of bias.Bettering the Wiki (talk) 01:55, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Does Conservapedia support illogic (I'm guessing yes)? The points above include contradictory viewpoints, since it was a discussion among several editors. You are welcome to support them all, but it will be difficult to convince other editors that your support of self-contradiction is at all convincing. I suppose I could go to Conservapedia and remove number 49...no, wait a minute, that would violate consensus.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:49, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

First off, I removed the banner because it was unprofessional("Dead guys"?). Secondly, I meant I support the points above pointing out POV.Bettering the Wiki (talk) 04:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to make a couple of commments. I hope they're helpful. The current version says that "evidence shows". Evidence, or artifacts, don't communicate. They exist. In fact, the entire second part of the conjunction, "and biological facts and evidence shows that all life has common ancestry", is redundant because if you were to word it so that it is more semantically correct, you would have to say something like "John interpreted x to mean y" which is what you find in citations 2, 3, and 4. Maybe I should have just pointed out that the second conjunction is begging the question and really has no place in formal argumentation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffrey.l.holt (talk • contribs) 21:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC) BTW, I noticed this is a GA. Is a neutrality dispute enough to delist?Bettering the Wiki (talk) 23:08, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Yikes! Do I dare step into this minefield? Ha! Of course I do! I'm about to rework the pseudoscience sentence, specifically the latter half that read "...and biological facts and evidence shows that all life has common ancestry." And I know full well that I'd better justify my reworking or face the wrath! Partly I'm a bit iffy about the issue of adopting vs describing a POV -- but mostly I just think the sentence was poorly constructed. :-) At present, it reads like, "A dog is a mammal, and reptiles have scales." I'm going to try and tie the mentions of common descent into the first half better by mentioning its status as scientific consensus, instead of just "it is". -- Perey (talk) 15:27, 20 June 2010 (UTC) (PS I made a few other tweaks while I was there. Why am I even mentioning this? Am I really that paranoid that someone will accuse me of secretly slipping changes into the article? ...Of course I am. This is Wikipedia. :-P)

And not unexpectedly, the core of my edit was reverted (revision 369301879, by Johnuniq, who apparently objected to my use of the term "mainstream"). For ease of reference:

restore part of lead: it's not just "mainstream", there is strong evidence: as strong as it gets

I have restored my changed sentence, all except for the word "mainstream", since Johnuniq's edit restored the sentence structure I so disliked. But it should be said that I feel that "mainstream" is the right word. It sounds (on the basis of just that edit comment) that Johnuniq is reading "mainstream" to mean "majority" or "typical". It doesn't, or I didn't intend it to, except in the sense that there are always legitimate scientists who choose to propose theories that oppose the accepted, the mainstream, the dominant theory or model (and thus science advances). But anyway, now the sentence says "general" instead of "mainstream", which I hope captures the right sense of breadth. (And may I also say that "as strong as it gets" is rather debatable?) -- Perey (talk) 14:09, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Making sentences readable does help. Geometry guy 22:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

• It might be helpful to quantify just what constitutes categories such as much,most,mainstream and their like,otherwise the objectivity of the entire article is in grave peril. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sochwa (talk • contribs) 21:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Second Ref OR?

I noticed the second ref talks about Creation Science as a whole, not baraminology specifically. Is it OR to deduce "baraminology is not science"?Bettering the Wiki (talk) 04:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

No. If a source said "birds are descended from therapod dinosaurs" and the subject was sparrows, I think the source would support "sparrows, like other species of birds, are descended from therapod dinosaurs" and is not OR.

Any other perceived violations of policy? If no, I will remove the neutrality tag. Auntie E. (talk) 22:43, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Don't remove the tag-the article's treatment of how to say "the scientific community says baraminology is psuedoscience" is in dispute.Bettering the Wiki (talk) 01:56, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Deductive reasoning is not research. The deduction in question is valid, and as both premises are correct, it is also sound. I don't see a potentional for bettering the article in disputing this; the only potentional I see in such a dispute, is one for disruption. - Soulkeeper (talk) 17:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I suggest that deductive reasoning can be original research. To make that point, we can just point to mathematical proofs, which are deductive reasoning, yet original research. What we can say is that a simple, obvious inference is not original research. Is it a simple, obvious inference that every aspect of "Creation Science" is not science (granted that CS as a whole is not science)? I don't think so. I think that we should be careful of the fallacies of composition and division. Some aspects of CS could involve quite legitimate ideas. (I don't think that "Baraminology" happens to be one of those - but I think that it takes a bit of non-obvious, non-simple argumentation to establish that.) CS, for example, might use arithmetic, but that doesn't mean that arithmetic is non-scientific. TomS TDotO (talk) 10:28, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, maybe deduction can be original research, but still, in this case it's stretching the term. If X is a subset of a pseudoscience, then X is pseudoscience. Do you really think that such an obvious deduction can be regarded as OR? In that case, it doesn't promise well for Wikipedia as a whole. - Soulkeeper (talk) 13:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

As I said, it is not an obvious deduction: If X is Y, and Z is part of X, that does not imply that Z is Y. That is the Fallacy of division. In particular: If "creation science" is pseudoscience, and baraminology is part of creation science, it does not thereby follow that baraminology is pseudoscience. Or: Astrology is pseudoscience, and Mars being in opposition is part of astrology, but Mars being in opposition is not pseudoscience. One can make the argument that because baraminology is not referred to outside of the context of creation science, that means that baraminology is not scientific. (And, by the way, if I had my way, I would say "not scientific" rather than "pseudoscience", but I realize that I can't always have my way.) Would there be any objections if I reworded these couple of sentences to note that baraminology exists only in the context of creation science, and therefore it is pseudoscience? TomS TDotO (talk) 09:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The reason it isn't science is because it's based on parts of the bible that were probably first written down some time in the bronze age, which divide animals into kinds. While observation contributes to the system, observations that conflict with certain religious interpretations of the biblical text are discarded and no attempt is made to test the system against scientific systematics or to integrate it with observations of common descent (which are, in fact, actively resisted on purely religious grounds.) Tasty monster (=TS ) 12:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

If this is the reason that barminology isn't science, then it is not an obvious consequence of creation science not being science. And then we'd have to explicitly give this reason, together with citations to the literature. But baraminology is not based on the Bible, for the simple reason that the Bible has nothing to say about dividing animals (and plants) into "kinds". Biological taxonomy is an anachronism in the bronze age. Nobody thought of doing that until much later. FInding "kinds" in the Bible is just creationist Eisegesis. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, as far as it goes. It's based on a particular interpretation of the biblical text. That does make it unscientific, but to the extent that my words above could be taken to imply that the interpretation itself had anything to do with the opinions of the people who wrote down the book of Genesis, for instance, that was an anachronism. Tasty monster (=TS ) 17:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Let's not use a quote saying creationism is pseudoscience to support the assertion that baraminology is pseudoscience. Those of are on the side of mainstream scholarship have an obligation to be extra patient with the unfortunate editors who find themselves on the wrong side of academia. Maybe we say, "Baraminology, like creationism in general, is pseudoscience." Then use all three citations. Leadwind (talk) 01:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Lack of Expertise

We need more people who are familiar with Baraminology before letting this article stand as it is. I am going to try to add a expertise note to hopefully get more people who are actually familiar with Baraminology to work on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gniniv (talk • contribs) 00:24, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Are there "experts" in pseudoscientific fields? I think they're just called 'charlatans'. --King Öomie 20:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

There are those who study pseudoscientific fields, their methodology and culture. Such sources are needed in this article much more than baraminologists are, in my view. Geometry guy 22:33, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

What mistakes, omissions or inconsistencies do you believe require expert attention? Also, as mentioned above, who exactly would this expert be, and how would he be able to improve the article?

I propose that the expert tag serves no purpose, and should be removed. Tags are intended as means of improving the article, and not as badges of shame. See the WP:TMC guidelines for more information.

— Hyperdeath^(Talk) 09:08, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The article is written largely by critics who are not trained in this classification scheme. The tag should stand until more balanced expertise can be found...--Gniniv (talk) 22:54, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

You say that like Baraminology is a legitimate field of study. --King Öomie 13:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't mock others. remember, WP:Assume Good Faith.Bettering the Wiki (talk) 23:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

@Goodone Who exactly are you accusing of assuming bad faith? I see no such assumptions. Jess ^talk _cs 00:32, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

This is not about whether Baraminology is actually a scientific field (how you view that depends on your POV). We just need some input on how it is used by those familiar with it.--Gniniv (talk) 04:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Reading the article, it's clear that it isn't a scientific field - they aren't doing anything that can be tested, and they base their conclusions on the Bible, not on testing or observation, which would make it a theological field. Unless someone changed the definition of science since I was last in school. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I was interested to find the paper from Sanders (a prominent and prolific baraminologist) directly advocating assessment on the basis of one's subjective feelings rather than measurement. This would place baraminology as a variety of art criticism (with God as the artists) rather than biology - David Gerard (talk) 23:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The source of these opinions is this wikipedia article, we can't reference that?! It seems someone added the refs from a creation article, adding a general statement with the uncited connection in parentheses, "creation science is in fact not science and should not be presented as such in science classes." (Note that baraminology is a type of creation science.)" Therefore 'the truth' is this is pseudo-science, and we can say what we like about any associated ideas and their [living] exponents. The lead then goes on to contrast the topic the taxonomic system (apparently there is only one) with a ref to history of modern cladistics, with lots of big words, but no mention of baramin or its supposed -ology. Afaik, some wikipedian decided anything associated with the word baramin was creation science and pseudoscience. The article is a fundamentalist fluff piece, not a proper article and probably never will be. Cygnis insignis (talk) 00:22, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

It defies belief that baraminology is somehow a science when creation science, of which it is part, is pseudoscience. Baraminology exists to solve one problem: how to fit all the animals on Noah's Ark. Trying to make out that the result is somehow science just because there isn't a ready quote about that specific component is a pseudoscience is mere querulousness. (Edit: Or, to assume better faith, a lack of comprehension of science and pseudoscience.)

For your other questions: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Baraminology contains a lot of etymological discussion. (I wrote large chunks of it.) It's probably not a referenceable source per se (it's a wiki and proudly wears a very strong POV), but may be useful as a source of its references - David Gerard (talk) 14:37, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The editor who added the 'expert' tag having withdrawn voluntarily from articles dealing with Creationism, and not in any case seeing the need for it, I've removed the expert tag. Dougweller (talk) 17:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Theological criticism

This section appears to cover only criticism of young earth creationism in general, not baraminology in particular. Is there any? - David Gerard (talk) 23:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

If someone can't come up with something specific to baraminology, I'm inclined to delete this subsection - David Gerard (talk) 12:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Deleted section, feel free to restore any theological criticisms that are of baraminology - David Gerard (talk) 15:51, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

"considered"

I really don't see what's wrong with "considered a pseudoscience", speaking as someone who quite definitely considers it one. This implies someone doing the considering, of course, but then that is in fact the case. If something gets labelled a pseudoscience, it's humans doing the labelling - David Gerard (talk) 12:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, for one it's unnecessary. Compare to changing Hammer to say "A hammer is considered a tool". Baraminology very clearly fits the description of pseudoscience to the letter, and this is backed up extensively by our reliable sources. Secondly, it casts doubt on the claim. Albeit minimal, the doubt is entirely avoidable. Compare to changing a BLP to say "Johnathan is considered Irish"; This new phrasing clearly conveys a different message than "Johnathan is Irish", one in which he perhaps isn't really Irish, but he's been "accepted into the club" for some reason. Thirdly, it conflicts with WP:Weasel. Who considers it pseudoscience? Everybody in the world? Then why say "considered"? Scholars? Then we're in WP:Weasel again.

In short, there's no reason for its inclusion, but plenty of reasons to avoid it. Jess_talk|_edits 16:38, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Heh, that's entirely sensible, yes :-) "is" it is,then - David Gerard (talk) 15:48, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree: "is" expresses the full meaning, and "is considered" would be less accurate. We don't say "the Earth is considered a planet," and only some members of the U.S. Tea Party would say "Barack Obama is considered president of the United States." -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

There's a difference between this case and the examples you gave. A hammer MEETS the definition of a tool, and Obama was elected president. Those are concrete things! Pseudoscience is a very broad and disputed topic, and it is not WPs place to say whether or not an entire (contraversial) field of study is a pseudoscience. In fact, I think "considered" is anti-Baraminology POV as well. It cites several institutions/people who SAY it is a pseudoscience, so we would be better off to elaborate on who says it. (...has been classified as a pseudoscience by many prominent members of the scientific community). To outright say it is pseudoscience would require a consensus among everyone involved, not just anti-creationists.--AxiomOfFaith (talk) 20:19, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Baraminology meets the definition of pseudoscience too. That's what our reliable sources say, and it's not our place to question the sources. If you'd like to argue this point, please find reliable sources claiming baraminology is a legitimate field of science. Jess_talk|_edits 21:39, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I do not want to argue whether or not Baraminology is a pseudoscience. The fact is that these "reliable sources", as reliable as they are, are stating an opinion. Just because they are "reliable" doesn't mean that their opinion is fact. In fact, if every single person in the entire world believed that Baraminology is a pseudoscience, that would still be a belief.

Let me give you another example. I think there is worldwide consensus that if anyone meets the definition of evil, it is Adolf Hitler. Every single reliable source on WWII or the Holocaust would agree that Hitler meets most common definitions of evil. yet the article on Adolf Hitler says "Historians, philosophers, and politicians have often applied the word evil in both a secular and a religious [citation needed] sense." If we don't want to declare that Adolf Hitler is evil, how can we say with such certainty a less agreed upon opinion??? Would that not violate our principle of NPOV. Perhaps we ought to elaborate on why people believe that Baraminology is a pseudoscience. That I would understand. But we do not express opinions, no matter how popular and no matter what the experts believe. If the opinion that Baraminology is a pseudoscience is so "obvious", then why don't we just give readers the straight facts and let them see that for themselves??????????????????--AxiomOfFaith (talk) 00:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Our reliable sources explicitly define Baraminology as pseudoscience... therefore, that is reflected in the article. Please read WP:V and WP:NPOV. As editors, it is not our job (or, indeed, our right) to interpret sources in ways other than what they are evidently expressing. Doing so is original research, and is against editing policy. Jess_talk|_edits 01:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

You speak as though it is a fact. I am perfectly content with the way it is right now because it gets the point across and doesn't assert something that some people would contest.--AxiomOfFaith (talk) 12:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It is a fact that our reliable sources explicitly define Baraminology as pseudoscience. We therefore have to reflect that. If you have a reliable source which demonstrates it's an accepted scientific field, we could then have a discussion. Jess_talk|_edits 14:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Pseudoscience is something that makes scientific claims without first following the Scientific method. Our Reliable Sources are essentially accusing some Baraminologists of pseudoscience. We KNOW that, in violation of the scientific method, some unscientific things happened regarding Climate Change research, yet nowhere there does it say that Climate CHange is a pseudoscience. When you can provide a Reliable Source saying that ALL baraminologists BY NECESSITY disobey the scientific method, then we can say with some certainty that the entire field of study is grounded wholly in pseudoscience. --AxiomOfFaith (talk) 18:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

This article doesn't have anything to do with climate change, as far as I know. I'm not familiar with the 'unscientific things' that were published in peer-reviewed journals, but that discussion should happen at that article. I'm not aware of any reliable source that identifies 'baraminology' as a science- personally, I think even identifying it as a pseudoscience is overstating its connection to factual reality. It's a branch of Bible study, not of science, and I'd classify it as theology, not science of any kind- but that doesn't seem to be the way the best available sources look at it. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The point I'm trying to get across is a.) The actions of baraminologists do not affect the entire whole of baraminology, and b.) the Reliable Source are stating opinions and make no attempt to assert baraminology's status as pseudoscience as fact. This has nothing to do with climate change.--AxiomOfFaith (talk) 18:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

And the point you're missing is WP:V. We go by what our reliable sources say, and you've yet to provide any backing up your claims. Jess_talk|_edits 18:28, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I apologize for overreacting. However, there is still no reason to take the opinions of sources as fact. The sources may very well be reliable, and their opinions may very well be correct, but they are opinions nonetheless and ought to be stated as such. As I am new, could you also provide me with the link to the guidelines on reliable sources? Thank you.--AxiomOfFaith (talk) 18:33, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:ASSERT. You can assert facts and facts about opinions, but you can't outright assert opinions.--AxiomOfFaith (talk) 18:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

That baraminology meets the definition of a pseudoscience is not an opinion, but a fact. As you point out, baraminology is founded on principles other than the scientific method, and does not follow the scientific method: instead, it begins with the pre-determined conclusion, and does not change or discard the pre-determined conclusion in response to evidence or experiment. Baraminology is, by its own nature, a pseudoscience. (I personally tend to think that, since it is not the study of evidence, but the study of the Bible, baraminology could be more appropriately termed 'theology' than either 'science' or 'pseudoscience.' However, the best available sources don't seem to agree with me, so I've never tried to make that change.) -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the sources we use are making highly biased and opinionated statements. Because we directly use those sources to assert a fact, we too are asserting biased an opinionated statements. I don't see what is so hard about getting that, but maybe I am mistaken about some WP policy.--AxiomOfFaith (talk) 19:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

@ AxiomOfFaith, the sources policy you're looking for is WP:SOURCES, part of WP:V and supplemented by the WP:RS guideline, As for Assert, see also WP:WEIGHT and WP:PSCI. Your beliefs are irrelevant. . . dave souza, talk 19:06, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Axiom, I am equally baffled by you- I don't understand how anyone who knows what the scientific method is could defend baraminology as anything other than pseudoscience, and feel as disoriented as if I were trying to explain that the sun is a star. But since we cannot understand each other, let's try to mirror what the best available sources say. If all of the available sources say that baraminology is a pseudoscience, please try to be open to the possiblity that it's true. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I reject the opinions that baraminology is and is not a pseudoscience as fact about equally because they are merely opinions. WIkipedia will lose credibility if it asserts widely held opinions as fact -- not because they aren't right, but because they by definition are not true. --AxiomOfFaith (talk) 19:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Color me baffled also. Well, maybe not, it occurs to me that AxiomOfFaith is really saying expressing disagreement with our basic policies, in which case that argument needs to be taken to the relevant policy talk pages. Meanwhile, there doesn't seem much for me to add. Our articles reflect or at least should reflect what reliable sources have to say about a subject - Wikipedia is not about a search for 'truth'. Dougweller (talk) 19:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Please refute my argument or concede defeat: As per WP:ASSERT, we cannot assert the opinions of "reliable sources" as fact, but we should assert facts about these opinions. The issue is not whether or not I think baraminology violates the Scientific method because an entire field cannot do that, only individuals. This is not an issue of policy or the truth; it is an issue of what is a verifiable fact and what is a popular opinion.--AxiomOfFaith (talk) 19:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

It isn't necessary to say the same thing over and over again; your earlier comments are still on the page. Thus far, it seems that consensus does not agree with you that the word 'pseudoscience' is a statement of opinion- you appear to be the only person making that assertion. There's nothing to 'refute' in what you've said-there are several sources cited which confirm that barminology meets the definition of 'pseudoscience,' and you haven't yet offered any reliable sources which say otherwise, so we can't discuss whether your sources are more reliable than the ones that are currently in the article. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:43, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

@ AxiomOfFaith, please present detailed proposals for improvements, with sources backing up your proposals, and pay particalar attention not to give baraminoology "equal validity" as science. Your "concede defeat" comment suggests you're treating this page as a soapbox – that's unacceptable. . . dave souza, talk 19:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, it appears as though consensus has always been that NPOV is whatever you say it is. I want it on the record also that I am arguing against people with very strong opinions on this subject. With that, I will give up. You folks cannot be reasoned with. I shall move on to something less contraversial--Axiom^talk 20:12, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

'Interpretations of Biblical kinds' section

This section appears to be WP:SYNTH. It takes a series of Bible quotes, then three sources on Bible translation, and implies that this is how 'Baraminology' got its name and worldview. Unless this gets replaced with RSs directly linking the Bible to Baraminology, I think this section has to go. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:36, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Introductory paragraph

As a part of creation science, baraminology is considered a pseudoscience by the scientific community,[2][3][4][5] as the evidence for common ancestry of all life has general scientific acceptance. The taxonomic system widely applied in modern biology is cladistics, which classifies species based on evolutionary history and emphasizes objective, quantitative analysis.[6]

Are we talking about scientists in general who consider baraminology a psuedoscience? Or creation scientists specifically? If it is scientists in general, I think this paragraph should go completely. It gives the article a critical tone of baraminology right from the beginning. It is not neutral. I have seen less bias in the introductions of far more controversial articles.

At very least shift this paragraph to the "Criticism" section. It would be far more suiting there. Chargee (talk) 20:28, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

If we want to give a factually accurate explanation of what baraminology, it's important to explain that clearly in the lede: including the fact that it is a pseudoscience. It would be unfortunate if a reader misunderstood the article and thought baraminology was a scientific concept rather than a subset of the study of theology. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

When psychologists agree that a certain sexual preference is a deviation, then an encyclopedia must say so from the start. This is what our pedophilia article does. When there is a consensus among scholars and politicians that a certain practice is immoral, impractical and criminal, then our article about the practice must say so rather than pretend that, for example, torture can be a useful or legitimate tool for extracting confessions. When scientists agree that a certain superficially science-like practice is a deviation then we must also say so, for the same reasons. Neutrality is not the same thing as "balanced" media reporting that tries not to offend customers who hold fringe views. Hans Adler 23:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Templates

Could somebody tell me why this article needs the {{creationism}} in addition to the {{creationism2}}? The former has much the same information as the latter, but is somewhat out of date (in that a number of articles have been renamed and/or redirected since it was last updated). As it is infrequently used, I was looking at seeing if it was really necessary to have this duplication, before updating it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Universal Common Descent?

"Universal common descent... is well-established and tested, and is a scientifically-verified fact." ...it is!? Not according to the page on [common descent], and not according to the cited source on either page. I believe a more correct term would be, "well-supported and commonly accepted theory" as opposed to "is a scientifically-verified fact." Further, if the cited article provided any evidence that UCD is scientifically-verified, would not the title of said artice be more along the lines of "Proof of macro-evolution" or "Universal common decent: confirmed!"? 76.97.140.235 (talk) 04:32, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Common descent is an unassessed article. Try Evidence for common descent.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:11, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

As... far as I know Universal Common Descent is a very well-supported scientific theory. Evolution is a fact- get some E. Coli together and you can go watch it happen. UCD isn't definitively "proven", in the same way that the Big Bang, the origin of the moon, the age of the earth aren't "proven". While our current ideas about their origins are very, very well supported, it's not scientifically correct to call any of these "facts".

I'm aware this is sort of like 'ammo' for creationists (and I personally have no problem with the current scientific thinking on any example I gave), but I can't abide denying or dodging the truth because of how it might be misinterpreted or misused. --King Öomie 17:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

"widely-accepted theory" gives the erroneous impression that there is a legitimate body of scientific thought that does not 'accept' it. The wording needs to be unequivocal, particularly given the 'just a theory'/theory=guess meme that creationists tend to peddle. The old wording is imperfect, but at least does not allow misunderstanding of the level of scientific acceptance of UCD. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 18:10, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Something being a scientific theory doesn't preclude it from being a fact. See Scientific theory. Evolution is both, and so is common descent. Quoting from the first paragraph of Evidence for common descent, "Evolutionary biologists document the fact of common descent: making testable predictions, testing hypotheses, and developing theories that illustrate and describe its causes.". Our wording describes this well. To change it, we should have reliable sources which indicate that common descent is not fully supported within the scientific community. What we have now indicates otherwise.   — Jess· Δ♥ 14:32, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

What part of common descent is considered a fact? I don't see that part of the article actually sourced. Are they referring to the actual timeline, which is still changing as we find fossils? Or simply the idea that everything in existence started with a single variety of self-replicating protein chains? Because I really don't see how anyone could call either a "fact" in good conscience, unless they have a flux capacitor and an old sports coupe. The only thing I could imagine they'd be referring to is the fact that species can and have descended from other species- but this is not 'universal' common descent. --King Öomie 04:05, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

It can be considered to be a "fact" in that it is a simple statement, which can either be true or false, with little in the way of grey area in between, whose truth is well attested to by evidence. It is probably at least as 'factual'/well-attested-to-by-evidence as the 'fact' that your parents are indeed your parents (or that mine are indeed mine). It is only tenuously an "explanation" (and therefore a "theory"), as its primary purpose would appear to be conclusionary, rather than explanatory. The problem is that we're running into a grey area in semantics, driven by the fact that science has become progressively more complicated and multi-layered, meaning that the demarcation between fact and theory are becoming increasingly more blurred and contextual, and that many things that earlier were viewed as theoretical constructs, are sufficiently widely accepted that they are regarded as 'facts', which themselves feed, largely unquestioned, into the formulation of more recent theories. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:30, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Classify

The program of modern biology is moving away from classification as an endeavor, which is typological and essentialist and does not accurately reflect the dynamic nature of life. This is a general problem in WP. Biology is in transition between the older idea that diversity can be classified to the idea that diveristy can be represented by elucidating the relationships between lineages. Baraminology is typological. Science is moving away from typology. I would, therefore, prefer not to use the word "classify", since what we aim to do today is systematize diveristy, not classify it. I have edited the bit on that accordingly with a reference to support the edit.Michaplot (talk) 21:43, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Information from Baraminologists

Information from those that practice Baraminology is relevant even without third party sourcing. This is especially true given the recent controversies of non-creationists using Baraminology to provide another line of research into universal common descent. In any other practice, even pseudoscience, the claims of the practicing would have merit and be an essential part of the definition and discussion. This particular study has relevance, because it comes from the most respected creationist group. The claims that it makes are extraordinary, for example Australopithecus sediba possibly being a descendant of the biblical Noah. An actual research paper from an actual Baraminologist eliminates the possibility of presenting straw research. MosesModel (talk) 12:43, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

(i) Please take greater care in your writing -- your statements are passing over the border into incoherence. (ii) You have provided no substantiation for your claim of "recent controversies of non-creationists using Baraminology to provide another line of research into universal common descent" -- which seems highly unlikely. (iii) Like most creationist groups, AiG has no scientific respectability at all. (iv) "Extraordinary" claims require extraordinary sources, per WP:REDFLAG -- not a far-below-ordinary source such as AiG. I would suggest that you take a closer look at WP:FRINGE, which presents Wikipedia's policies relevant to this topic. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 12:58, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Dr. Phil Senter this year has published two entries in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology using Baraminology to prove common descent.1 2 This wikipedia page is about a research tool with no real scientific respectability. In that context one does not have to prove baraminology, just demonstrate what they publish. If I ripped to shreds the idea that sediba was a descendant of Noah, that would not be a neutral point of view. This is a page to present what baraminology is. MosesModel (talk) 1:15, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that Senter is explicitly using "creation science itself" to "demonstrate evolutionary principles in such a way that they cannot be countered by creation science." He is not "using Baraminology to provide another line of research into universal common descent." He is rather using Creationist research methods to demonstrate that they are self-refuting. In any case, none of this is relevant to the material you attempted to add -- which is about hominids, not dinosaurs. Per WP:DUE, "articles specifically about a minority viewpoint ... should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view." The section that you added represented content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 13:56, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Baraminological evolution is more rapid than Evolution

The study holds a basis in the young-earth creationist model, but it does allow for evolutionary change that would account for the current diversity of species and the diversity of extinct species, all of which need to occur within the allowable time frame (6000 or 10000 years seem to be the accepted numbers). So how fast does genetic mutation have to occur under this model (1) assuming no cross breeding between "kind" and (2) allowing for cross breeding between the barim. How does this rate of evolution compare with the rate of evolution in old-earth models? The http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/43/43_3/baraminology.htm reference has the phrase "too much evolution" in it's own criticism section; "too much evolution" would be a good subsection for the criticism section. The CRSQ article has a long list from which to derive additional information to augment the current Wikipedia article. --MathInclined (talk) 22:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia relies on reliable WP:SECONDARY sources, not original WP:Synthesis of WP:FRINGE primary sources. (Oh, and new threads go at the bottom of the talk page.) Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Quantities needed

Only one image suggests the size of the phylogenetic trees that would be the product of this research. Just how many "kind" are there and how do the # of kind map to established taxonomies? The article needs some quantitative information (or directions to finding this info) in order to be encyclopedic.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MathInclined (talk • contribs)

As far as I know, creationists typically do not define such quantities (or the term "kind" itself, for that matter), preferring to be intentionally vague. However, if you have a source which does include that information, we could of course use it in the article. I am dubious that such a source exists, but it may be worth looking for if you're interested in the subject. All the best,   — Jess· Δ♥ 01:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Surely there is some claim on the number of kinds, even if estimated solely from space constraints of the supposed ark.

Also, is it possible for the article to list some examples of identified kinds? Even just one example? For example, if there really is a legitimate field of study to call baraminology, can we at least say whether giraffes are or are not a single kind? And can they put an upper and lower bound on the number of kinds from which modern hares, rabits and pikas are derived? (And if not why not?) An example is worth a thousand words.. Cesiumfrog (talk) 05:26, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

There may well be just such information in creationary sources, but as Hrafn notes below, creationary sources are automatically disqualified as reliable sources because they are creationary sources. So, whaddar-ya-sposed to do? Mthoodhood (talk) 05:37, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Look for a website that is more impartial, telling both sides, and less rabidly polemic. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

i read through this on-line journal report of Abstracts of a recent conference. Perhaps I don't know polemic when I see it but I didn't see much of it there. Mthoodhood (talk) 16:45, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Not all polemics are vitriolic. Some can come disguised as sweet reason. Here are two excerpts from the pdf in that link:

Excerpts

{{ A Biblical View of Australopithecines Paleoanthropological Data J. Klenck Paleontological Research Corporation A theory is proposed that Genesis provides a scriptural context for australopithecines as a potential helper or ezer [‫ ]עזר‬for Adam before the formation of Eve (Genesis 2:18-20). This view counters evolutionary theories claiming that australopithecines are ancestral to human populations. Many creationists proffer that australopithecines resemble great apes. Evolutionists respond exhibiting human-like features in australopithecines such as morphological evidence for bipedal locomotion. ... Biological Origins in Christian Textbooks: Problems and Suggestions for Improvement E. Lantzer, A. Daniels Independent Scholars In order to equip future scientists to further the development of a scientific model of creation, curriculum is needed that adequately prepares Christian high school students for the rigor and scientific realities of the academic world. This study is intended to inform the members of the creation community about the problems of current curricula and provide suggestions for improvement. The treatment of biological origins was evaluated in several biology textbooks from major Christian publishers. We developed a rubric of topics, and evaluated each textbook’s origins section by paragraph, evaluating their position on each topic. In the process, four general problems emerged across all the textbooks. In addition to evaluating the textbooks, we designed a survey to quantify students’ beliefs about origins issues with the purpose of providing a framework for evaluating students’ preparedness. It was given to seniors at five Christian high schools with a total of 114 participants. The survey results show that the majority of seniors were well versed in a dogmatic version of creationist thought, but unaccustomed to thinking about the issues in more complex ways. They were nearly unanimous in their affirmation of a Divine creation in six literal days with man as a separate creation. However, only 22% agreed with the statement, “A single species can diversify over time to create many different species,” which falls within the consensus of both standard evolutionary and YEC scientific thought. Though the survey covered only a small cross-section of students in one area of the U.S., these answers are consistent with the results we would expect after evaluating the curricula. The following are the observed problems with the curricula. First, creationists have traditionally focused on apologetics, which is reflected in the textbooks’ preoccupation with anti-evolution arguments. This creates an unintentional problem when students discover post-high school that evolution issues are broader than the apologetic arguments they have been taught. Second, specific interpretations of scientific evidence are linked too closely to Christian beliefs. When they discover that specific interpretations are more complex than they realized, students can either discard the creation account, or, unable to disassociate specific doctrines of creation from their understanding of faith, they can reject Christianity altogether. Third, the texts do not teach the students how to think critically about origins issues. They present conclusions, largely focusing on tearing down the evolutionary model, instead of guiding students through the thinking process. When students are confronted with new and conflicting evidence, they do not have the training to evaluate it in light of their belief system. Finally, Christian textbooks sometimes use outdated research in refutation of evolution and support of YEC. This is an obvious shortcoming in light of academic and biblical principles, and in giving students an understanding of current scientific thought. ...}}

Forgive my being blunt, but the first excerpt, claiming that australopithecines coexisted with modern humans, is pure malarkey. The second excerpt exposes the motives for all this creationist rhetorical tap-dancing, which I will loosely paraphrase as: "If we don't clean up our act and inoculate young minds more effectively, they are at risk of rejecting our teachings when they experience more of the world after high school."

This is probably not the place for an extended defense or rebuttal of the notions put forth in that conference. I thought it might be useful to see some examples of what we are discussing here. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 17:48, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

"Useful"? To what end? You have filled this page with lengthy extracts that do not mention Baraminology and cannot have any direct outcome on changing the article Baraminology, and yet for all that effort in copy-pasting, it's dubious whether you've succeeded in converting even one new person to share your own obvious bias, which is my definition of a "polemic" purpose as opposed to "unbiased", the way our article ostensibly should be. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:08, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Easy there. I was responding to Mthoodhood, who did not see polemic in the given link. I wanted to point out that not all polemics are rabid. The utility of all that copied/pasted text, in my view, is to make it more accessible than the PDF, and to expose that source as biased, and hence unreliable. If you open the PDF, you will find plenty of mention of baramins. I am not interested in converting anyone. Is it biased to call baraminology pseudoscience? I doubt it. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 18:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

We need to distinguish between biased or polemic sources, which often are used in articles to illustrate (though ideally in an impartial manner) what a particular significant point of view is, and wikipedia / wikipedians engaging in bias or polemic, which is more what I am referring to. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The number of kinds

Using Talkorigins Archive as an accepted third party source, the number to fit on the Ark has been calculated as equating to the number or genera,[12] However, apparently "Creationists have identified kinds with everything from species to entire kingdoms",[13] and "Creationists have been unable to specify what the created kinds are."[14] . . dave souza, talk 20:19, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

From what I've read, most creationists follow after Woodmoreappe (Noah's Ark: a fesebility study) concerning the number of animals on the Ark. He based his numbers on the standard biological classification system suggesting, (if I remember correctely), that a kind may be family or genus depending upon which animal one is talking about. However, Baraminology is an attempt to reclassify all life forms according to specific scientific criteria based on Biblical assumptions. Since this endeavor is probably not even 20 years old, I'm quite certain that they have not developed their theories enough to have classified all known biotica; probably not even more than several dozens baramins. And one of the articles in the above mentioned report talks about checking their formulae to determine if they can deduce which animals belong in which baramin. So, perhaps the numbers wanted here do not yet exist. Mthoodhood (talk) 23:08, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

You're correct that creationist sources are not reliable for statements about biological fact. However you seem to miss that creationist sources are reliable sources for statements about creationist opinion. While obviously they could not have a comprehensive scheme (since the facts refute their axioms), you now seem to be suggesting that there would at least be particular examples which would be well accepted within "baraminology". If so then wikipedia is free describe a selection of such examples whilst citing only those sources (provided it is done with in-text attribution, that only the content of the opinion is controversial and there is no reason to seriously doubt that the opinion is nonetheless held, that the presentation is done carefully so as not to push a non-mainstream viewpoint, and that we expect it will aid the reader to understand this topic, and so on). Cesiumfrog (talk) 14:29, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem with that.... Mthoodhood (talk) 18:01, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Blocked sockpuppets

Mthoodhood (talk · contribs) and Christian Skeptic (talk · contribs) are pov blocked sockpuppets of Allenroyboy, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Allenroyboy/Archive. Dougweller (talk) 09:16, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Birds and bats

I deleted the addition which says that it is illogical to group bats with birds. IMHO, there is nothing illogical about classifying bats with birds. It just happens to be that there is a scientific classification in which bats are mammals (along with whales and platypuses) while birds include ostriches and penguins. Without doubt there are good reasons for the scientific classification (among which are the facts of closeness of common descent - mammals are descendants of one branch of ancient tetrapods, while birds are descendants of another branch of ancient tetrapods). But the Biblical categories undoubtedly reflect different interests - in particular, what animals are considered fit for eating. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:08, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

I love how creationists will just delete anything that seems to contradict their claims. I have posted twice about how the bible says that bats are birds and have had that deleted twice. The second time was under the heading of Criticism, and they still can’t take that. If you can’t handle criticism then you might want to take a good hard look at the claim that you are defending. What happened to teaching the controversy? I guess that would be a bad thing for your side wouldn’t it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.3.17.43 (talk) 14:33, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

This is not the place to engage in the debunking of evolution denial, nor for lists of problems with naive literalist interpretations of Scripture. There are plenty of forums where you can engage in this, as varied as talk.origins, pandasthumb.org and RationalWiki.org. TomS TDotO (talk) 16:28, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

poking holes in the Bible is easy. Poking holes using reliable sources, that's Wikipedia. :) Just quoting the Bible and giving a personal opinion on it isn't something that can stay in the article, whoever's "side" it supports. GDallimore (Talk) 18:38, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree, arguing about what the bible says is like arguing Star Trek vs. Star Wars. Fiction is fiction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.3.17.43 (talk) 20:47, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Biased article

This article seems very biased in favour of evolution and against the idea of Baraminology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.246.178 (talk) 22:49, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

The article goes where the reliable sources go. If you can find reliable sources suggesting Baraminology is a worthwhile scientific endeavour, please bring them forward. GDallimore (Talk) 00:07, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

So am I to be under the impression that the article will remain "biased" until the needs/wants of the admin to be satisfied? I was under the impression that wikipedia was to present articles of unbiased positions (on any matter), regardless of the subject, topic, and/or belief. More than likely this post will be removed as it exposes such contradictions.....I shall resume to using more reliable websites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.43.132.225 (talk) 12:47, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

As a reader and researcher I would find more information about this topic to be wonderful....and perhaps an unbiased article. One that affirms the wikipedia standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.43.132.225 (talk) 12:43, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

There's no admin here. Just editors following editing guidelines that articles must be neutral. And WP:Neutral means that all viewpoints are represented fairly according to their prominence in WP:Reliable sources. In other words, Wikipedia editors do not decide what is neutral and what is biased. Rather, articles are written to represent the viewpoint of the preponderance of reliable sources in order to represent all major views in relation to how significant those views are.

Put another way, this article is NOT biased. If you think it is biased, then your problem is the sources, not this article since the sources clearly say that baraminology is wholly rejected by mainstream science and evolution is the only scientific theory we have to explain the variety of life on this planey.

If you are of the opinion that this article is biased, then you have two options open to you: (a) show where the current selection of sources have been misrepresented in the article and/or (b) find new reliable sources which present the counter-position. In either case, the article can then be edited to find a new, neutral position.

Before you ask, answersingenesis is not a reliable source for anything except information about answersingenesis.

I hope you understand the main point: the problem is not with the article as far as I can see, but that the sources cited by the article do not say things which you would consider unbiased. GDallimore (Talk) 15:01, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I suggest looking at the (reasonable) policy which is stated here: WP:UNDUE TomS TDotO (talk) 15:41, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

If you're looking for unbiased information, Wikipedia is the wrong place to look. The site policies specifically state the the opinion held by the majority should be given more credit than the opinion held by the minority: WP:UNDUE Basically, if you want to discuss or learn about an unpopular topic in an objective manner, go somewhere else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.120.224.193 (talk) 19:53, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Baraminology as science

Stevemonica recently changed the article to indicate that Baraminology is science. This is problematic, since (while Baraminologists claim they are investigating scientifically) we have ample sourcing to indicate that Baraminology is not science, and is in fact opposed to legitimate scientific inquiry. I'd be happy to discuss this further, but we need to go by the sources, so it would be helpful if you could provide sources backing up your proposed change. Thanks!   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:52, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Stevenmonika (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Actually, I changed only the comments that attributed intentional deception on the part of Baraminologists. That claim is not proven and any claim that an individual acted in this way needs a credible citation from that or those Young Earth Creationist(s) themselves, before it can be considered to be objective or accurate or worthy of encyclopedic inclusion. Positive claims require citation but the removal of speculation does not require citation. Or if a cited "source" does not in fact say anything related to the claim, it should not be considered a valid or verifiable source. What I tried to do was edit the comment to be less accusative. I only have this one user account, so if someone else is making changes, address that to them. I did not indicate or imply that Baraminology is science by my chosen edit. Conversely I did not imply it was not.Stevenmonika (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Stevenmonika

Good secondary source: Baraminology | NCSE which gives some credence to their attempts to develop systematics, but "The biblical criteria are paramount and trump all other criteria". Thus "Despite its use of computer software and flashy statistical graphics, the practice of baraminology amounts to little more than a parroting of scientific investigations into phylogenetics. A critical analysis of the results from the one "objective" software program employed by baraminologists suggests that the method does not actually work. The supremacy of the biblical criteria is explicitly admitted to by Wood and others (2003) in their guidebook to baraminology, so all their claims of "objectivity" notwithstanding, the results will never stray very far from a literal reading of biblical texts. I will give the baraminologists credit in one area: they are up-front about their motives and predispositions and true to their biblical criteria and methodology". . . dave souza, talk 23:38, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Cladistics

However neither cladistics, the field devoted to classifying living things according to the ancestral relationships between them....

Cladistics certainly do not classify things according to ancestral relationships. In an article devoted to bashing classification methods, you might want to strive for a little more accuracy here...

(In fact... Cladistics was once looked upon skeptically by the evolutionary community because of its disturbing resemblance to Typology.) 64.222.130.236 (talk) 13:16, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see a significant difference between that description and the lead of Cladistics.   — Jess· Δ♥ 14:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Pastafarianism in see also

In a hurry, I used WP:COATRACK in the edit summary, when reverting the addition of Pastafarianism to "see also." This article isn't a coat rack, but how is His Saucy Noodliness relevant to baraminology? Seems like a stretch to me. Just plain Bill (talk) 18:44, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

See also

You removed Pastafarian. Plainly it belongs here. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:51, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Not so plain to me. What has the FSM got to do with creationist taxonomy? Just plain Bill (talk) 19:04, 10 April 2014 (UTC)