User talk:Cyrano125

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Hello, Cyrano125, and Welcome to Wikipedia!

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September 2019

Welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate your contributions, but in one of your recent edits to Hitchens's razor, it appears that you have added original research, which is against Wikipedia's policies. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. You can have a look at the tutorial on citing sources. Thank you. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:51, 7 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

September 10, 2019

Cordless Larry, you removed my recent edit to the "Hitchens's razor" page, on the basis that my remarks allegedly fell within the category of "original research". For the following two reasons, I do not agree with the removal of my edit.

  1) From what I've seen, the so-called "Hitchens's razor" is more often than not mis-applied. As stated in my original edit, the proper use, and usefulness of Hitchens's razor depends on the way the claim is framed. For example, Hitchens's razor is often used in discussions concerning the existence/nonexistence of God. However, the “debate” over the existence of God is not one group making an assertion, and a second group disputing that assertion. It is two groups making mutually exclusive assertions (God exists versus God does not exist). In an argument such as this, where neither side can prove its assertion, Hitchens's razor applies to each of the mutually-exclusive assertions, and therefore nullifies itself. This is not "original research", but rather the straight-forward application of logic.
  2) There was no citation provided to support the definition (and/or existence) of the so-called "Sagan Standard" - and yet it has not yet been removed, nor has there been any request by any editor for a citation to be provided. I don't understand why an un-cited concept is left unchallenged, while a simple application of logic is removed.
  I am a new editor of Wikipedia, so I will not reinstate my edit on my own, but I would like to appeal its removal through whatever process Wikipedia provides to its editors.  Thank you. ````

Thanks for notifying me about your reply, as I likely wouldn't have seen it here otherwise. You phrase your reply starting with "From what I've seen...", and that's the problem - WP:VERIFY requires that readers can check that article content is based on reliable, published sources, rather than editors' personal experience (however correct their views might be). It might well be the case that there is other unsourced content in the article. If so, please do feel free to remove it pending addition of a source. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:51, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]