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lhsi writes:
A petition on Change.org was created: "Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia: Create and enforce new policies that allow for true scientific discourse about holistic approaches to healing."
Jimmy Wales
responded.
No, you have to be kidding me. Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful.
Wikipedia's policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately. What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheloniousToady on Tuesday March 25 2014, @05:25PM
I've long held the theory that all successful charlatans must believe in what they do to some extent - otherwise they wouldn't be successful at it. In effect, they must engage in some sort of doublethink. In that regard, charlatans are distinct from con artists, who, by definition, do not believe in the snake oil they're selling.
The same sort of thing applies to politicians: you can't be truly successful at lying unless you believe your own lie. Or, as the old saying goes, "The key to acting is sincerity: if you can fake that, you've really got it made." In that regard, it's not so surprising that a B-movie actor, Ronald Reagan, turned out to be quite a successful politician. I think he was better at believing his own lies than just about anybody.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hatta on Tuesday March 25 2014, @08:52PM
I've long held the theory that all successful charlatans must believe in what they do to some extent - otherwise they wouldn't be successful at it. In effect, they must engage in some sort of doublethink. In that regard, charlatans are distinct from con artists, who, by definition, do not believe in the snake oil they're selling.
In the first sentence you assert that one must believe in what they're selling to be successful.
In the second sentence you assert that con-artists do not believe in what they are selling.
Are you arguing that all con-artists are unsuccessful?
(Score: 2) by TheloniousToady on Tuesday March 25 2014, @10:09PM
Good point. I retract the comment.