User talk:Syncategoremata/Archive/Draft/Evidence

Hello Syncategoremata.I´ve come across the lists Gun powder Ma,Steve McCluskey and you have made about Jagged edits.I wonder if you thinking about taking this to the administrators.Please reply soon and tell me how can I help.--Knight1993 (talk) 23:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for the offer.

If you have found any particularly bad use of sources, please let me know where and I can add them to the list I'm collecting. Don't worry too much about finding the exact diff or location in the history; but if you can identify any claims that are not supported by the reference given, that would be good to know. A lot of references can be checked via books.google.com or scholar.google.com. If you can't get access to a source, let me know: I can probably get hold of it here without too much trouble.

As for taking this to the administrators, I have no idea what the best thing might be. I've been asking various more experienced editors for their opinion. We shall have to see what people think.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 23:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Drop me an email, Knight1993, and I can show you how to collect diffs. It is not difficult once you've figured out how to do it. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thermometer

You got this one already?

That's the first thing I looked at when I started editing here. I've not included it in the list of misuses as the Briffault book does say that Avicenna invented it. People had challenged him about it (on the inventions talk page perhaps?) but no-one had ever collected the counter-evidence, so he didn't have any particular reason to delete the claim? I was trying to stick to issues where he was clearly misusing a source or using a clearly bad source; and I'm not certain that this case is covered by that. Let me know if you disagree.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 19:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quotation from Waheed

Your quotation from Waheed's ISLAM and The Origins of Modern Science in the Gravity section isn't accurate. Fortunately, the National Library of Australia (near which I live) has a copy of this obscure pamphlet. The actual text, with a little extra context, is:

'For instance, Sacrobosco (John of Hollywood) had drawn the material for his book (De Sphere [sic—correct would be "Sphera"] Mundi) from al-Battani (Albategnius of Europe), but the thing was ascribed to Ptolemy. According to the Historians' History [sic—the actual full title is The Historians' History of the World] it was from Ibn al-Haitham's Twilight that the illustrious Kepler took his ideas of atmospheric refraction: "and it may be that Newton himself owes to the Arabs rather than to the apple in his archarat [sic—the word in The Historians' History is "orchard"] at Woolsthorpe, the first apperception of the system of the universe, for Mohammed Ben Musa [sic—The Historians' History has "Muhammed bin Musa"] seems, when writing his book on the movement of the celestial bodies and on the Force of Attraction, to have had an inkling of the great law of general harmony". '

Apart from the relatively minor errors marked, and the unmarked omission of a citation for the information about Muhammed bin Musa, the quotation from The Historians' History of the World is accurate. I have provided a copy of the actual text in one of my posts to the Astronomy in medieval Islam talk page.

Thus, this is a case both of citing an unreliable source and of egregiously misrepresenting that source.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 06:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Given the way that this editor operates, it's very possible that he has never consulted Waheed's pamphlet at all, but rather picked up the citation to it from the web. Thus it might not be the editor himself who is directly responsible for the egregious misrepresentation, but the author of some other uncited source from which he has dug up the misinformation.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 06:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I had seen some comment on this by you but I had lost track of where, so I had decided to move that entry off until I found it again. Then I discover you've already added it here for me. Many thanks!

I'll rewrite the section to use this and move it back to the main page, but only once the coffee has kicked in.

–Syncategoremata (talk) 09:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gravity

— 19:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

This edit added the following exceptional claim:

During the 9th century, Muhammad ibn Musa (800-873) [...] discovered that there was a force of attraction between heavenly bodies.

The source cited was:

K. A. Waheed (1978). Islam and The Origins of Modern Science, p. 27. Islamic Publication Ltd., Lahore.

This claim is extremely implausible, not just for the reason that it is impossible that anyone in that period could have "discovered" such a thing. (As far as I understand the work of that philosopher, what he did was to suggest that the celestial bodies theoretically could be made of the same four elements as is true in the sublunar world, and if so they would have an inherent principle of movement towards the centre of the earth, i.e., they would act in exactly the same way as the other Aristotelian elements.)

But for such an exceptional claim, we get a very unreliable source. As far as I can find, the original quote from Waheed's work is:

Isaac Newton derived the notion of gravity, not from a falling apple, but from the earlier work of Muhammad Ben Mousa who spoke about the force of attraction between the heavenly bodies.

So, not only one implausible claim (about ibn Musa) but also an obviously false one (about his being a direct influence on Newton).

Presentation of material

How do we do that? My proposal: we obviously start with the petition (includ. Syncats summary), then my edit pattern, then our collected diffs sorted by user. I have arranged my material (minus the see also section) so that it can either be moved to its final page or copied & pasted. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:59, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't had the time to actively contribute to this Rfc, but I support the line its taking, and have been following its progress. This comment should be taken as a general observation more than a suggestion- I personally find Spacepotato's User:Spacepotato/Examples_of_original_research_in_Wikipedia page to be formatted in a way that is quickly digestible to someone like me who does not have a background in the history of science, and wonder if the model used there:

1 Example 1

1.1 The source
1.2 The edits
1.3 What is the difference between the source and the edits?
1.4 Is the claim in the edits true?

might make it easier for Admins to parse the ideas at hand in all subject areas.

Dialectric (talk) 02:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The present layout of beginning with a problematic edit, and then turning to the way the sources don't support its claims is at least as convenient as that used by Spacepotato.

As a practical matter, it would be very difficult to rewrite the whole page now, given the effort that has gone into collecting and organizing these diffs.

The one substantive problem with Spacepotato's outline is that the final item raises that prickly word "true". Remember that in Wikipedia the concern is verifiability, not truth. Thus we should not address whether the editor's claims are true, but whether the editor has verified them by providing reliable sources.

For these practical and policy reasons, I'd stick with the present layout.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 12:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am sympathetic to the idea of re-formatting the evidence page: partly because it has grown very large; and I also agree that Spacepotato's format might be easier to read. I'm not sure on this and I'm also worried that it would just make the page even longer again.

As Steve mentions, the focus here is not on truth or even on verifiability really: it's on the misuse of a cited sources, which to my mind is a clear and obvious abuse. I have lots of examples where dubious sources are used to make claims that are not true, but that can happen with good faith to all of us: just because there are twenty other books in the library saying the opposite, if the text we have in front of us seems trustworthy enough, we follow it. (If we are challenged and the other twenty books pointed out to us, and we still persist in our claim, then that's another issue.)

In any case, I've convinced myself that I need to do one another pass over the evidence page and copy edit it, just in case; I'll see if I can make sure that the formatting is as clear as possible as I go along.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 13:48, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SteveMcCluskey makes some good points, and I had overlooked the importance 'verifiability, not truth'. The current structure conveys the necessary ideas, and a total restructuring does seem like a lot of work. Dialectric (talk) 15:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dialectric, I've just copy-edited this (in part to answer the sort of worry you had): do let me know if you think this is now sufficiently clear for an "outside" editor.

All the best. -Syncategoremata (talk) 17:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Continuity thesis

Syncategoremata,check this article if you want.It was tagged as OR and SYN.It has islamic propaganda all over.Guess who´s the main contributor to it?? --Knight1993 (talk) 19:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Problem is solved: Talk:Continuity thesis Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I also noticed some weird claims in the philosophical skepticism page,regadring descartes amd al-ghazali.It was made by our good friend also.Is this guy Sami Najm a trustable source?--Knight1993 (talk) 20:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for spotting that, Knight. I had found one example of that claim (see here) but I'd not noticed the others (and I've yet to have the chance to deal with them anyhow).

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:10, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,sorry to bother you again.You may want to have a look in the Mulla Sadra article.It has the presentist and revisionist claims we are looking for(claiming that somehow this guy developed existencialism before Kierkegaard or Sarte).Our good friend has contributed a lot to it(second place). I also deleted some things regarding Avicenna and the ontological argument.There was a section dedicated to him written by you know who,that was posted in some other philosophy articles.I deleted it becuase it had nothing to do with the real argument developed later by St Anselm.You may want to check the older version to look for more distortions.--Knight1993 (talk) 03:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I haven't had time to look at that page right now though I notice that your deletion was reverted by another editor, since the deleted material (at least appeared to be) supported by sources.

It wouldn't surprise me if there was some (near?) equivalent of the ontological argument in Islamic philosophy, though I don't remember reading about one before now. I'll add it to my list of things to look at some time. In the meantime, perhaps you could find the sources mentioned there and see what they do support?

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit pattern

I really believe that this section is best placed at the top because it provides the uninformed reader with the most important information in a concise way. Namely, it shows that the user is a) prolific, that b) his edits have been widely recognized as problematic and tendentious and c) that he has an agenda. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's true. I'm getting a little bleary again. I'll move that section back and then leave this for tonight.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Final (?) copy edit

I've just done a thorough copy edit for consistency (of format and of approach) throughout this entire page (as some of you have probably already noticed). I'm going to leave it there for the moment and take a rest. I still need to fix some of the links from the draft RfC/U to this page, as I over-zealously changed some of the section titles, but after that, I'm just about finished with this. I also have yet to look at Spacepotato's collection in detail: I may pick up some things from there if possible.

One thing to mention is that I have tried to stress factual and easily documented issues: i.e., that this is not an issue of content but of the systematic misuse and falsification of sources, in clear violation of Wikipedia policy. I hope people think that this is appropriate and the best route to getting a satisfactory resolution to this pile. (This is an issue that DJW raised in an email to me; I hope this goes some way to settling his worries.)

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 17:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to mention that I have also moved some sections back and forth between the major and minor misuses sections. I've done this not on the basis of how important the claim is, but on the level of misuse of the source. That is, if the source flatly denies the claim or if the source has been falsified in the way it has been misquoted, then it's a major misuse. This also makes the items in the "major" section perhaps easier to understand.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 18:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Page deletion summary

GPM noticed that I had removed the "Islamist agenda" part of his claim from here that these page deletions happened "for violating WP:SYN, WP:NPOV and WP:OR in support of what many editors saw as an Islamist agenda".

It wasn't entirely clear to me how many editors took that position, and it didn't appear to be a majority. I've also been trying to steer clear of that issue and to keep to the much simpler one of the misuse of sources. I'm still not entirely clear that I agree with the claim as it stands, but I'm happy to go with whatever is agreed here.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 18:02, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think its wisest to avoid claims that can be disputed; Islamist agenda is just such a claim. It may be right, but in Wikipedia motives are less important than clearcut misuse of sources. I concur on the removal. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok then. However, I will raise the issue in the debate when the appropiate time comes, as I remember clearly how and why the AfD came about then. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Medicine in medieval Islam

See the talk page last section. A lot of lies posted by Jagged.--Knight1993 (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's an impressive list of stuff you've sorted out. I expect that some (or many) of the references you give would not be considered reliable by Wikipedia standards: but I don't think that is an issue, as they give you reason to remove the material until someone can provide a good source for any of those claims (which they would not be able to do it seems).

By the way: I had never realised that inoculation and vaccination were used to refer to different things. That is one thing I love about Wikipedia: it's hard not to learn something every time I'm here.

Also: personally I would avoid the "Islamic bias" comments. Whether that accusation is true or not, the fact that bad material has been added is itself sufficient reason to remove it (and to be extremely upset about it, as I also am). Accusations of bias will only tend to stir up opposition to what people want to achieve here, that is, informative, accurate and well-sourced articles.

All the best and many thanks for your time on this. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah,maybe I was a bit too harsh.I´m a bit hot tempered.I´ll try to control myself next time.Thanks for checking it.--Knight1993 (talk) 17:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]