User:Dominic Mayers/Give due weight to the different cultures

Some say that, when we write a Wikipedia article, there is no need for reasoning about what is the most relevant information and whether such information is missing. Instead one should simply follow what the "best" sources say. In this view, UNDUE, BALANCE and a neutral tone is considered sufficient. This view usually leads to a phase of great progress in the creation of articles, but only within fixed paradigms.

The opposite view is that to be most useful to readers, an article should provide all relevant information, describe debates, provide arguments, attribute opinions, etc. At the same time, the subject should remain precise to allow readers to figure out which information is to be found in the article as well as to allow wikipedians to go deeper into the subject without creating a too large article. This goes beyond an editorial process that only uses UNDUE, BALANCE, etc. and an impartial tone: it requires actively finding all relevant informations and presenting them.

The opposition between these two philosophies is just a generalisation of the old opposition between rationalism and empiricism, which has been observed for more than 400 years and applies today to the Wikipedia restricted setting. In this setting, the world is seen though published sources, but a similar debate exists. This debate lasted in different forms for so long, because it is intrinsic to our way to understand the world. It is a mistake to favour one over the other, because they are two complementary phases of progress toward understanding the world.

This is not a philosophical debate disconnected from practical social concerns. Deep within our political, economic and even legal ideologies, one can find a similar debate. Rationalism takes the form of an attention to the process that leads to knowledge in opposition to afterthoughts after it is proposed. In a Wikipedia's setting, the process needs to give due weight to sources by actively seeking information. When various cultures, feminine vs masculine, African vs European vs Anglo-Saxon, etc. are involved, this progressivism becomes much more important.

The neutral point of view outside Wikipedia

This section shows using examples that, outside Wikipedia, "adopting the neutral point of view", "not taking sides" and "give due weight" describe a process of research of information, not a simplistic process that is an afterthought once we face the outcome of that research.

Presenting views that are taking sides as a tool to develop critical thinking

McGraw-Hill says that each book in its series "Taking Sides" covers a controversial issue "in a debate-style forma designed to stimulate student interest and develop critical thinking skills". In each of these books, different clashing views are presented. In its review of one of the books, Taking Sides: Clashing views on African issues, Andrew Newsham wrote:

William Moseley, its editor, executes with aplomb the role of the helpful guide who introduces the protagonists in each controversy with respect and, by and large, with admirable impartiality. Having an editor who deliberately does not take sides nicely balances the yes/no structure, thereby also serving as a reminder to students (and academics) to understand opposing viewpoints before formulating their own opinions about them.

The process described by “not taking sides” is the one that results in an introduction of the protagonists by the editor. The presentation of the protagonists is comparable to a very detailed attribution by a Wikipedian. The Wikipedian must carry out a different editorial process, but one which also requires a complex search of relevant information, such as arguments to include. The strategy adopted during the process is important: “with respect and, overall, with admirable impartiality.” The goal is also important: to enable students “to understand opposing points of view before formulating their own opinions about them.” These strategy and goal are not very different from those of Wikipedia.

Not taking sides in court of law

Hanna Panreck of Fox News wrote "'Courts work because people trust judges. Taking sides in this way erodes that trust,' Ponsor, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, continued, criticizing the Supreme Court." This extracts illustrates that not taking sides refers to the attitude of the judges. It is not about the final outcomes. This is clearer in the next extract.

The Nineteenth Judicial Circuit of Lake County Illinois says "A ruling by the judge does not mean he or she is taking sides." In this extract, it is clear that the details of the ruling is irrelevant: "not taking sides" describes the process that determines the ruling, not the ruling itself.

The lawyer Russell Alexander wrote : "Unfortunately, this is a misguided presumption: As a broad legal principle all judges are duty-bound to remain impartial as between the litigants that appear before them. So a judge cannot give the appearance of taking sides or actively advocating on one party’s behalf." The judge must even avoid the appearance of taking sides in his decision-making process. Not taking sides is used to describe proper ruling by a judge in many other sources.

Due weight in environmental policies

Geoffrey Hammond, Director of the interdisciplinary International Centre for the Environment at the University of Bath, wrote a correspondence piece in Nature about the fact that "Carbon footprint" is not the correct expression, because "footprint" means it is measured in area units whereas what is meant by "Carbon footprint" is measured in weight unit. The title of his correspondence piece was "Time to give due weight to the ‘carbon footprint’ issue". He was, of course, playing with words: the expected result of giving due weight, in that case, is the use of "carbon weight" instead of "carbon footprint". But, putting asides this play with words, "give due weight" in the title means "give more attention". This describes the process that leads to the decision (whether or not to use the term “carbon weight”), not the decision itself.

Due weight in court of law

Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says: "States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child." Again, we see that it is not a question of the decision taken, but of giving due weight to the child's opinion in the decision-making process.

Taking sides as do activists or by taking into account personal principles

This subsection is superficially about the opposite of the neutral point of view, but as a good thing, at the least as a human thing. It's about being an activist or taking into account our own personal principles, even our emotions. It raises the question whether neutrality or impartiality is an absolute that a wikipedian should seek, assuming that it can even be reach. It suggests that, on the contrary, one can only pass from one paradigm to another paradigm, each time guided by a language,  assumptions and the ideologies and emotions that go with those.

The site GoodReads, in its review of Sherine Tadros 2023 book "Taking Sides" wrote: "As a broadcast journalist for Sky News and Al Jazeera, Sherine Tadros was trained to tell only the facts, as dispassionately as possible. But how can you remain neutral when reporting from war zones, or witnessing brutal state repression?" Tadros explains that she felt that not reacting was taking sides with inaction. She switched side and found fulfillment in becoming an activist in the United Nations. Perhaps, the situation is similar in Wikipedia: one can only switch from one paradigm with an understanding of some sources to another paradigm with a different understanding of the same or other sources.

"Taking sides" by Gary Soto is a 1991 juvenile fiction telling the story of a Hispanic boy, Lincoln Mendoza, who moved to a white suburban neighborhood. His basketball team at his new school, in which rich and mostly white students are enrolled, faces his old team. The description of the publisher, Blackstone Audio, for the 1999 audio version says "How can Linc play his best when he's shooting against his former teammates? To find an answer, Linc will need to sort through a maze of emotions and some tricky moves on the court." Kirkus review wrote: "Sorting through these internal and external prejudices, Lincoln comes to realize that life isn't a matter of taking sides but of integrating the new with the old." This presents (to children) the positive view that one can reach a deeper paradigm that integrates an old paradigm. It is a good to present to children a positive view in which we progress toward a more complete and integrated view.

The 2003 movie "Taking sides" directed by István Szabó is about americans taking sides against an alleged nasist in a court case. The synopsis of the movie says: "Maj. Steve Arnold (Harvey Keitel) is charged with making an example of Furtwangler due to his status as a high-profile cultural figure, and pulls no punches in questioning him about possible ties to the Hitler regime. However, as Arnold presses forward, his assumptions about Furtwangler don't necessarily hold up." This illustrates that there are ways to take sides that should be avoided.

Conservatism/progressivism and the old empiricism/rationalism debate

Every discipline or school of thoughts has its own language and premises, which are needed to communicate meaningfully about its practical concerns. This creates boundaries between disciplines or schools. Human beings break these boundaries, because they have in common a same basic intelligence. Thomas Kuhn says this requires a paradigm shift. It does not come easily. This basic intelligence must transcend logic. It requires intuition and creativity. It is reason in Descartes, a priori or transcendental knowledge in Kant. Popper says it is awaken through critical discussions. The need for this basic intelligence to understand the world is proclaimed in rationalism, but rejected in empiricism.

Empiricists does not see their view as a simple opposition to rationalism. They positively claim that the source of knowledge is observations. In this view, the mind has an internal structure that is transformed by observations in accordance with fixed laws. Thus, empiricism says that the growth of knowledge is explained by fixed internal laws and observations. David Hume is well known to have explained problems that arise when we propose such laws, but it is more the fact that no such laws have been found in the last hundred years that made people abandon this search. At a fundamental level, we can say that rationalism won the debate. However, at a practical level, except during a paradigm shift, we simply go along with the existing laws and empiricism is usually the dominant view under which we develop new technologies and even new laws while denying their creative source. In practice, the distinction is not so clear, because empiricists will often say that, as do the rationalists, they use reasoning starting from observations. It is only that no fixed laws have been found to justify this "reasoning" from observations.

The empiricism adopted in between paradigm shifts can be generalized to any adoption of a language and premises that are used to explore the world. This conservatism is more general, because not attached to empirical observations. Progressivism in that generalized picture is the view that, on the contrary, there is a need to regularly use reason and adopt new languages and new premises to better understand the world.

An example of a conservatism/progressivism shift is the seventeen century scientific revolution that marked the end of Aristotelian scholasticism. Different forms of skepticisms, challenged the Aristotelian view, but these were not mainstream teachings: "From the time the works of Aristotle entered western Europe in the late twelfth century until perhaps 1600, or 1650, Aristotelianism provided not only the mechanisms of explanation for natural phenomena, but served as a gigantic filter through which the world was viewed and pictured."

It is not that the scientific revolution period was in itself progressive. Progressivism is seen in the rejection of the current paradigm. A scientific theory by itself is not progressive. It is the view that the previous theory was not sufficient that is progressive. Once we adopt and stick to the new theory, we are again a conservative. Descartes's notion of reason was his main tool to reject Aristotelian conservativism. It is a progressive notion, because it is not in itself any fixed law, but yet one uses it to find new mathematical laws. In opposition to the notion of probable propositions in Aristotelian dialectic, Descartes associated these laws with certainty, but he was aware that they were not the final words.

Descartes' notion of reason was progressive, but the scientific revolution period gave birth to a new form of conservativism. It was a time where we could use observations through telescopes, microscopes and even naked eyes to test new laws that could be expressed in the new mathematics of the time. The discovery of these laws required what Descartes calls reason, but the belief was that, on the contrary, they were discovered through a systematic process that was entirely guided by observations and nothing like Descartes' reason was needed. That was the view of empiricists such as Bacon and Locke. Even Newton claimed that his laws could be logically deduced from Kepler's laws.

A feature of conservatism is a rejection of the creative process that could challenge its fixed language and premises. The conservative says that new knowledge must be found in some external sources, not in internal creativity called reason or otherwise. This was clearly seen in the Aristotelian conservatism, which insisted that classical Aristotelian texts and commentaries must be used in University teachings. It was seen in a different manner in the conservativism of the empiricists who insisted that knowledge comes from observations (using some internal process, of course, but) without the need for some unexplained sources such as reason.

Another feature of conservatism is that it always reach a crisis either because it internally fails to establish its basis or because it is challenged by some successful new paradigm (or both) and this crisis leads to the recurrence of a progressivist perspective. The Aristotelian conservatism was challenged by the upcoming scientific revolution and led to Descartes' rationalism. The conservatism of the empiricists was challenged by David Hume who is well known to have presented the problem of induction in the "Crisis of the Enlightenment" and this led to Kant's rationalism. Approximatively one hundred years later, a similar crisis with logical empiricism led to Popper's critical rationalism.

The neutral point of view inside Wikipedia

In the restricted Wikipedia setting, the understanding of the world is replaced by our understanding of the sources: the world, for wikipedians, is the one seen through sources. In that restricted setting, a paradigm shift requires a deepening of our understanding of sources, and the conservative says that any deepening of our understanding must rely on sources only, not on reasoning.

From Descartes to Popper, progressivists always recognized the importance of empirical data. Descartes applied his method in optics, meteorology and geometry. Kant presented his philosophy as a synthesis of the old rationalism and empiricism. Experimental data is fundamental in Popper's refutability. Similarly, the progressivist in Wikipedia's setting says that verifiability in sources is necessary, but it also says that the need for reasoning cannot be escaped. It is needed to actively search for the relevant information.

Not taking sides has been a part of Wikipedia since its early times. The important point about not taking sides is that it is about the editorial process, not about the space used by viewpoints in the article only. Presenting the facts, no matter how much space is attributed to these facts, does not mean we are taking sides, just like a judge that applies the laws is not taking sides. Conversely, not presenting some facts could mean that we are taking sides. In a correct editorial process, we include the relevant information.

Rejecting information does not mean that we are taking sides

In 2003, because the "include-info" aspect of not taking sides or neutral point of view policy could be misinterpreted and misused to include theories supported only by an extremely small minority, perhaps even nonsense theories, such as the flat earth theory, the no original research (NOR) policy was added to complement it. In 2005, the section "Undue and due weight ...", which is based on the 2003 statement of the NOR policy, was added to the Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy. Just like a judge is not taking sides when he applies the laws, Wikipedia is not taking sides when it applies the NOR policy. However, the NOR policy is not saying that progressivism is not allowed. It only says that it must occur withing sources. There is plenty of room for progressivism and the use of reason within the NOR policy.

Including information as a way of not taking sides

Not all information is a theory to be rejected using NOR. In an article on Earth, one must give the information that "the Earth has the shape of an ellipsoid with a circumference of approximately 40,000 km." Not doing so would be to take sides or a refusal to accept one's responsibilities as a Wikipedian: not taking sides applies to a process and, if the process did not take place, it is because we refused our responsibilities as a Wikipedian. Including this information means accepting one's responsibilities as a Wikipedian while not taking sides.

Due weight outside Wikipedia and not taking sides in Wikipedia

The due weight notion used outside Wikipedia, say in court of law, goes well along the not taking sides principle. It means that the editors must give due weight, i.e., the required attention, to all pertinent view points in sources. As in the case of not taking sides, it is as much about including information as it is about excluding information. A lesson to be learned from the analogy with a legal context is that editors must simply read the sources carefully, giving them all the necessary attention in order to determine the proper place of each point of view.

The second meaning of due weight inside Wikipedia and its significance

Of course, english editors understand the usual meaning of "give due weight" and if they read "give due weight to all view points in sources", they understand that they must give proper attention to them, but in Wikipedia there is an automatic extension of the meaning to the outcome in the article: the editors also understand that the space given to the view points in the article must correspond to the importance of the view points in the sources. Unfortunately, this second meaning too often eclipses the original and important meaning.

This is similar to what happened when Geoffrey Hammond played with the meaning of "weight" in his title (see above). In one meaning, the usual one, it refers to the attention given to the issue. In another meaning, it refers to the weight of carbon. In Wikipedia, the second meaning is the space given to the viewpoint in the article. However, Wikipedia is not playing with words, because the second meaning is dominant in the explanation of the policy, whereas the usual meaning, the attention given to the view points, is only there in the background and, unfortunately often forgotten.

The dominance of the second meaning is highly significant. It makes a big difference, because the usual meaning refers to the attention given to view points in the editorial process, whereas the Wikipedia meaning refers to the final outcome in the article. In particular, because undue weight means too much space and due weight does not mean too little space, these expressions are only about rejection of information. In practice, in the text of the policy, these expressions say nothing about the editorial process, which, of course, is primarily about including information: the purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide information.

Principles to reject information are useful, but not enough

For more than 400 years, the main motivation of empiricism was to move away from the influence of religious (e.g. Descartes), a priori (e.g. Kant) or metaphysical (e.g. Popper) knowledge. In the Wikipedia's restricted setting, the corresponding goal is to move away from the ideologies of POV pushers.

The reject-info principles are well known and they are useful in a search for information, because they limit the search space. They are the no original research (NOR) policy, the verifiability (V) policy and the reliable sources (RS) guidelines. The UNDUE rule (including BALANCE, etc.) can also be used to reject information, but only when we have the proposed article, because it refers to the relative space used by the information. We can add the requirement that what is included must be pertinent in its context, though this is implicit in the fact that the reliable sources depend on that context. These have been added between 2003 and 2006. There has been no attention on patterns of neutrality since 2003. Except for "attributing opinions", no pattern of neutrality has been considered. The general principle for these patterns "describing debates instead of engaging them" has received little attention and in fact some patterns and explanations have been removed.

Editors of Wikipedia are all interested in including information, because it is the goal of an encyclopedia. In that context, how is it that all the attention has been on rejecting info and on explaining how important this is for the neutral point of view ? Not that it is incorrect. Of course, we want to reject theories that have no place in Wikipedia. But how come there is not a similar interest in patterns that help achieve a neutral point of view, which seems to be equally important if not more important? This last question is considered later.

The simple but vague principle of reliable sources offers little direction to guide a consensus

The requirement for verifiability in reliable sources, which is the concrete implementation of NOR, is a vague requirement in the following sense that it depends on what we mean by reliable sources. This vagueness is reinforced by the fact that what is meant by a reliable source depends on the topic. It is even further reinforced by the fact that the reliable sources for a topic are determined by consensus. The only direction offered to reject or not information is the vague notion of reliability and a consensus can interpret it in many ways. This creates an issue, because a minority has nothing to rely upon, except this vague notion of reliability, to build an argument in the process that determines the consensus. This issue is well illustrated by the recurrent debates regarding WP:NOTNEWS. Many people would like that Wikipedians avoid reporting current events, but the majority insists that newspapers can be reliable sources and the current NPOV policy provides no further directions. We see here that an overly simplistic way of rejecting information which itself is largely determined by consensus is a two-edged sword.

The role of sources vs the role of reasoning about them

A difficulty often mentioned is that anybody can edit Wikipedia and, thus, we do not have the competence required to do complex search in reliable sources. For many wikipedians, this suggests that an editorial process must ideally be restricted to a few "best" secondary sources on the subject, which we then follow. This is viewed as a way to avoid biases, which is referred to as POV pushing, in polemic subjects. This view is rooted in a basic perspective on the role of sources vs the role of reasoning about them.

Different forms of this rejection of reasoning

Besides a restriction to a few best secondary sources that we then follow, a request for a simple editorial process that minimizes the role of reasoning can take other forms. For example, for some reason, WP:SYNTH states "If one reliable source says A and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C not mentioned by either of the sources". This is logically problematic. For example, the logical conclusion A $\wedge$ B can always be drawn and it will not usually be found in either of the two sources. More generally, conclusions that are included in the natural understanding of A and B in the two sources might not be found in either of the two sources separately. There is certainly nothing wrong that the same conclusions are included in the understanding of A and B in the article. It is rather the opposite that would be wrong. There is a very simple solution to this difficulty: simply replace "either of the sources" with "the sources". Unfortunately, there are oppositions to this solution, because it suggests a more complex editorial process in which we must understand the two sources together. For those who like logical and simple rules, this particular way of insisting for a simple editorial process is very annoying.

Another form taken by this request for a simple editorial process is the suggestion that one can determine which viewpoints to include and how much space to allocate to them in the article by a simple method to analyse the sources, which would be more systematic and less biased than the usual reading and understanding of these sources. There are wikipedians that want to believe in such a magical method, because they are not comfortable with the natural complexity of the needed editorial process to find the relevant information to include. If a content is presented and the goal is to evaluate the importance of this particular content in the article, it is different, but even in that case there is no magical method, because judgment is needed to weight the reliability of the sources and other factors.

The most common form of this request for a simple editorial process is the claim that UNDUE, BALANCE, etc. together with a neutral tone is sufficient to describe the NPOV policy. This hides the complexity, because these rules apply to already proposed articles. When an example is proposed, often the antagonistic response is simply to show, relying on this superficial simplicity, that DUE or UNDUE allows to reject or to include the information. This suggests that the text of the current rule is sufficient, but the issue with that logic is that the rule applies to the final outcome only and says little about the editorial process per se.

The role of weight

The Wikipedia's concept of weight is not an issue as long as we accept that its evaluation requires and understanding of the sources as a part of complex editorial process. The challenge is to find an explanation of NPOV that unify the rational people who can possibly be unified: an explanation that considers, not only DUE, UNDUE, BALANCE, etc. on the final outcome, but also the different kinds of information that must be added in the editorial process.

Use cases

Use cases shows the conservative view dominates Wikipedia. This is natural, because most of the times, work to understand the world through sources is done under a fixed paradigm with no need for reasoning. Even when a paradigm shift is seen in sources, it is hard for wikipedians within a paradigm to do the same switch. This is not saying that the conservative view is usually correct. On the contrary, it is often incorrect, but that is another story. The key point is not to systematically oppose every fixed paradigm that we think is incorrect nor every transition phase from one paradigm to another through reasoning. There is a time for both. Concrete examples will be presented to illustrate this point.

The basketball inventor

James Naismith is famously known as the inventor of basketball. All encyclopedia with an entry on him says that. Yet, this is not like a scientific law that has been tested again and again, and is thus strongly grounded on technologies and associated observations. It is an isolated fact, which somehow has become important. The main premise behind that fact is that the original documents and testimonies that verify it can be trusted. If we don't trust them, every thing falls apart. In the case of a scientific law, anyone can repeat the tests, but not here. It is even more shaky than that, because there is no way to tell for sure that someone did not invent the same game before. Perhaps documents that show that someone else previously invented the game were destroyed. Another premise is that this did not happen. In accordance with these premises. the Wikipedia entry says that he is "the inventor of the game of basketball."

That story would not illustrate much, if it was not for the fact that sources are challenging the premises behind it. People in New York State, especially in Herkimer, have adopted a completely different paradigm: they rely on different sources with a different story. In that paradigm, it is simply wrong to suggest that Naismith invented the game alone. For some, the inventor is not Naismith, but Lambert Will in Herkimer.

A progressist gives due weight to the sources for the new paradigm, is not strongly attach to the standard paradigm and consider that sources could be wrong. His conclusion is that we should not suggest in Wikipedia's voice that Naismith is the sole inventor of the game and leave room for the view that he has done it with others. An extreme progressist, might say that he has not invented the game, but Lambert Will did.

A conservative points out that all encyclopedia still maintain the standard paradigm and that Wikipedia should do the same in accordance with Wikipedia (non standard) meaning of due weight. In the current version of the James Naismith article, this conservative approach has been applied in the introductory summary. The key aspect of conservatism here is that due weight is presented as a systematic rule that leaves no room for reasoning, just as the empiricists claimed that laws were discovered from observations without need for reason.