Talk:Pseudoscience (physics)

This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Delete and redirect, 6 May 2021, see discussion.
Restore article., 29 April 2021, see discussion.
procedural close, 22 April 2021, see discussion.

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Arbitration Ruling on the Treatment of Pseudoscience

In December of 2006 the Arbitration Committee ruled on guidelines for the presentation of topics as pseudoscience in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The final decision was as follows:

Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience.
Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work.
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.
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.
Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

Division of Articles[edit]

This dividing articles into skeptics and general is not very neutral, especially as the "general" manuscript is apparently skeptical of psuedophysics. Salsb 21:35, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From PNA/Physics[edit]

Pseudophysics - A new article created by an anon. The article itself seems okay, but there has been dispute over the reference section Salsb 21:47, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Division of Main and Related and Other[edit]

Since pseudophysics is a subcategory of pseudoscience, it should be related. Salsb 21:35, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Salsb, many mainstream theories are untestable or cannot be falsified. String theory for one. But the Higgs Boson anf the many-worlds interpretation would be examples of this article. They probably should be includedd in the category too. 165.201.42.84 20:36, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

String theory is testable in principle.--Brentt 20:07, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not pseudophysics[edit]

How should we categorize and describe theories of physics (and other sciences) which are scientifically plausible, scientifically tested, but not (currently) accepted by the scientific community? "Unproven science theories"? -Willmcw 04:38, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Necro-posting allowed?

This is essentially the demarcation problem between science and pseudoscience. More problematic is the distinction between pseudophysics and some 'physical' topics of philosophy. If any non-testable, non-falsifiable claim about the physics of the universe is pseudophysics, any assertion about the presence and possible properties of other universes is pseudophysical (except that they don't exist - Occam's razor applied), as is any claim about what hides inside the event horizon of a black hole (unless it is the usually presumed space-time singularity - the simplest explanation again, which however appears to break with quantum mechanics). These are questions not enitrely of a physical nature, but give rise to a lot of philosophical ideas, because they are (as of now) untestable. Similarly the question if anything has ever existed before the big bang and what that should be. Simplest answer is, the question is absurd because time did not exist before the big bang. But there are again other, untestable, options that you can boggle your mind with. At some point humans are limited and cannot 'test' everything they can logically think about. --130.83.182.66 (talk) 14:23, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 20 November 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus not to move back. I recommend starting a separate discussion in order to determine if the article should be merged or redirected into Pseudoscience. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 20:44, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudoscience (physics) → Pseudophysics – Questionable, undiscussed move by user Footlessmouse (talk · contribs) on October 12. Firstly, the new name does not meet article title guidelines. Secondly, they dismissed the old title, without evidence, as a non-notable neologism. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 21:46, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@LaundryPizza03: I moved it without discussing because I did not believe there would be any objections, if you believe it should be discussed then you can revert the move. I was under the impression that it was a neologism as basically no one uses the phrase pseudophysics. I have been thinking about this page lately, I think it would probably be better to merge it into pseudoscience entirely, given its relative lack of notability. That being said, if you have reason to believe that pseudophysics is the accepted common term and there are reliable sources that use the term, then I will fully support reverting the move. Footlessmouse (talk) 21:55, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Though please note, the title does meet the WP:TITLE guidelines, if pseudoscience is the correct term rather than pseudophysics. That is how virtually all sub pages are named, it is named as its commonly known term, while a qualifier is put in parenthesis. Per that page: "Because no two articles can have the same title, it is sometimes necessary to add distinguishing information, often in the form of a description in parentheses after the name." I will still support the move if reliable sources are calling it pseudophysics rather than pseudoscience like I thought. Footlessmouse (talk) 22:05, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Last note for now, sorry for writing three times in a row, but to informally put into perspective the relative notability of the topics: Search for "pseudophysics" on Google scholar returns 80ish results. "pseudoscience"+"physics" returns 14000ish results. On regular Google, excluding Wiki, Youtube, etc., the former returns 3000 results, while the ladder returns 1.13 million results. JSTOR: 6 versus 999. Springer Link: 4 versus 1100. I do not think the position that "pseudophysics" is the correct term is seriously arguable here. Though, again, if I'm wrong, we should move it back. Footlessmouse (talk) 23:07, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can tell this term barely even exists. Practically all results in reliable sources are "in this study we used a pseudo-physics simulation model". What we're left with is not sufficient for an article, can't this just be redirected to Pseudoscience? – Thjarkur (talk) 23:54, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed. That was my point above. It should probably be merged into pseudoscience (or redirected) lets wait for other editors to respond here first and then we'll open a new discussion for merging. Footlessmouse (talk) 00:05, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This article has no merit whatsoever it's the definition of pseudoscience applied to physics. blindlynx (talk) 00:31, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.