Mod+ Wikipedia Wants to Delete My Page...

We tried for a while to change the wikipedia entry for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, to add in the mountains of evidence that the disease has a biological basis (the vast majority of which is currently denied in the entry). It became a futile endeavour...whatever we changed was soon changed back. Some people have "views" and they want that view to be the official story.
Ever since, I lost faith in their version or reality.
So, I wouldn't really worry what they want to do...
 
We tried for a while to change the wikipedia entry for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, to add in the mountains of evidence that the disease has a biological basis (the vast majority of which is currently denied in the entry). It became a futile endeavour...whatever we changed was soon changed back. Some people have "views" and they want that view to be the official story.
Ever since, I lost faith in their version or reality.
So, I wouldn't really worry what they want to do...
thx
 
The talk includes a discussion of how wikipedia (3:57) has been complicit in the problem. Wikipedia contradicted medical research 90% of the time (5:31).
Science is wrong about almost everything ... because many controversies are skewed to one side by moneyed interests who use media and internet savvy to create a false reality that fools most people including doctors and scientists who then spread the misinformation.

TEDx:



The talk includes a discussion of how wikipedia (3:57) has been complicit in the problem. Wikipedia contradicted medical research 90% of the time (5:31). She mentions the immunisation / autism controversy without giving details but implies the mainstream view is astroturfed.

The speaker suggests how to recognize propaganda and astroturf 8:55:


  • "Use of inflammatory language such as crank, quack, nutty, lies, paranoid, pseudo, and conspiracy."

  • "Astroturfers often claim to debunk myths that aren't myths at all. Use of the charged language tests well, pepole hear that something's a myth maybe they find it on snopes... and they instantly declare themselves too smart to fall for it. But what if the whole notion of the myth is itself a myth and you and snopes fell for that."

  • "Beware when interests attack an issue by controversializing or attacking the people, personalities and organizations surrounding it rather than addressing the facts."

  • "Astroturfers tend to reserve all of their public skepticism for those exposing wrong doing rather than the wrong doers. In other words, instead of questioning authority, they question those who question authority."
 
The talk includes a discussion of how wikipedia (3:57) has been complicit in the problem. Wikipedia contradicted medical research 90% of the time (5:31).

This video was an eyeopener for me. I did not trust Wikipedia already regarding all matters discussed on this forum, but that it was so bad as exposed by this lady I did not know.
Thanks for presenting this!
 
This video was an eyeopener for me. I did not trust Wikipedia already regarding all matters discussed on this forum, but that it was so bad as exposed by this lady I did not know.
Thanks for presenting this!
I thought Craig Weiler's book on the subject was very interesting too.
 
This video was an eyeopener for me. I did not trust Wikipedia already regarding all matters discussed on this forum, but that it was so bad as exposed by this lady I did not know.
Thanks for presenting this!

Here's the study: Wikipedia vs Peer-Reviewed Medical Literature for Information About the 10 Most Costly Medical Conditions

While I don't want to downplay the issue, we should note that it doesn't say that 90% of the information in Wiki medical articles are wrong. They studied 10 articles and discovered errors in 9 of them. The number of errors identified in each article varies.

Unfortunately, the study doesn't provide much in terms of detail about the nature of the errors. The authors note some of the limitations of this small study.

Limitations notwithstanding, this study confirms what I think most people hopefully already know: wikipedia should not be used as a reliable medical resource! Actually, the most shocking thing about this paper was not that there were errors found (that really doesn't surprise me much) but that apparently many physicians and medical students have used it as a reference source! Hopefully they did it just to look at the footnotes!
 
The talk includes a discussion of how wikipedia (3:57) has been complicit in the problem. Wikipedia contradicted medical research 90% of the time (5:31).
That is an amazing eye-opening and a hard slap in the face with a cold fish on just what a train-wreck public perception is being manipulated by throngs of non-academic and academic gate-keepers.

Everyone should watch that discussion.
 
That is an amazing eye-opening and a hard slap in the face with a cold fish on just what a train-wreck public perception is being manipulated by throngs of non-academic and academic gate-keepers.

Everyone should watch that discussion.

There is a bit of problem here. I recently heard that the lady in that video has lost some credibility, because it appears she is an antivaccinant.
 
There is a bit of problem here. I recently heard that the lady in that video has lost some credibility, because it appears she is an antivaccinant.

Her point is not about vaccinations but how information is communicated to the public. She could be right about astroturfing even if she is wrong about vaccinations.

But if you want to criticize her work, you should go through several of the points she makes and show if they are valid or not. Otherwise it is just rhetorical misdirection.

And I am surprised that someone who has to deal with arguments made by materialists criticizing NDE research would make a criticism like that. People are ridiculed and disregarded by mainstream scientists because of their interpretation of the NDE data. How is your statement any different?

Furthermore, I don't think the vaccination issue opens her to criticism. If the public could trust scientists it would be different. But people don't trust scientists and there are good reasons not to.
  • There is an epidemic of un-reproducible published scientific papers, and an epidemic of retractions (see below).
  • A CDC Whistleblower claims there is data linking autism to vaccines that was suppressed (see below).
  • There are a lot of other problems with vaccines (see below).
  • Science is politicized to the point that the public cannot trust what scientists or the government says (see below).
You might have a strong opinion about vaccinations, but how is the average person supposed to form an opinion? If someone doesn't agree with you on a point of science, that is not a good reason to assume they are wrong in other non-scientific areas. Scientists don't all agree on the vaccination question. How is the average person to decide?

People are right not to trust scientists because there is an epidemic of unreproducible research and an epidemic of retractions:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-...erlife.html#articles_by_subject_bogus_science
Most published research findings are false:
http://www.economist.com/news/scien...w-institute-has-you-its-sights-metaphysicians

Bad Science Muckrakers Question the Big Science Status Quo: "... inherent biases and the flawed statistical analyses built into most 'hypothesis driven' research, resulting in publications that largely represent 'accurate measures of the prevailing bias.'"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfre...ckrakers-question-the-big-science-status-quo/

Linus Pauling: "Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them." -Linus Pauling PhD (Two-time Nobel Prize winner)."
http://nationalpress.org/images/uploads/programs/CAN2009_Marshall.pdf

"The Lancet": The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."
http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(15)60696-1.pdf

"Nature": "Ridding science of shoddy statistics will require scrutiny of every step, not merely the last one, say Jeffrey T. Leek and Roger D. Peng."
http://www.nature.com/news/statistics-p-values-are-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-1.17412

Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers: "The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense."
http://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763

The New England Journal of Medicine: "In August 2015, the publisher Springer retracted 64 articles from 10 different subscription journals “after editorial checks spotted fake email addresses, and subsequent internal investigations uncovered fabricated peer review reports,” according to a statement on their website.1 The retractions came only months after BioMed Central, an open-access publisher also owned by Springer, retracted 43 articles for the same reason."
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1512330

realclearscience.com: "A study that surveyed all the published cosmological literature between the years 1996 and 2008 showed that the statistics of the results were too good to be true. In fact, the statistical spread of the results was not consistent with what would be expected mathematically, which means cosmologists were in agreement with each other – but to a worrying degree. This meant that either results were being tuned somehow to reflect the status-quo, or that there may be some selection effect where only those papers that agreed with the status-quo were being accepted by journals."
http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2016/01/11/why_cosmology_is_in_crisis_109504.html

University of Oxford: "Half the world's natural history specimens may have the wrong name."
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-11-17-half-worlds-natural-history-specimens-may-have-wrong-name

NYTimes.com: "Dr. Prasad and Dr. Cifu extrapolate from past reversals to conclude that about 40 percent of what we consider state-of-the-art health care is likely to turn out to be unhelpful or actually harmful."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/s...g-medical-reversal-laments-flip-flopping.html

Retraction Watch
http://retractionwatch.com/

I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How.
http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800

"Der Spiegel protested all of this discussion with the statement, that what they hear is that 'journalists want to earn money, whereas scientists are only seeking the truth.' This brought loud guffaws from all three [professors]. 'Scientists,' answered Dr. Fischer, 'want success; they want a wife, a hotel room, an invitation, or perhaps a car!'"
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/der-spiegel-discovers-the-truth-from-science/

The History of Important Scientific Discoveries Initially Rejected and Ridiculed.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-history-of-scientific-discoveries.html
Also see this thread on the politicization of science:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/video-on-the-politicization-of-science.2072/

Despite the title this is mostly about the politicization of science in society. It is not all about the current era or the current administration, or even entirely about the government. This video is not anti-science. It is about how science can be abused for ideological or political purposes.

Subjects include:

Appointmentt of Scientific Ideologues

"Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two Children?" John Holdren Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology​

Stretching The Scientific Data
Global warming alarmist claims (such as an increase of wild fires) that are not supported by science.
Coercive Utopianism
School lunch program that doesn't consider the needs of student atheletes or expectant mothers.​

Secret Science
EPA refusal to release data to .. people they don't like.​

Enlisting Science in the Culture War
President taped a introduction to a TV series that likened those who disagree with climate change to Nazis.
The Rise of Totalarian Science

Ecology
Coercive measures to control population. "The life of a newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog or a chimpanzee." Peter Singer
Medicine and Biotethics
NBC (tv network): "It's pro-science to abort children with genetic defects" when such abortions are a question of ethics not science.
Faith & Science
Professors use science to promote their anti-religious views. One researcher who thought design in nature is such an obvious inference that "Young children can be taught basic natural selection using a picture-storybook intervention.
Free Speech
Use of of terms like "heretics" and "anti-science" for anyone who disagrees with the mainstream scientific view. NY Times refusing to print letters to the editor disputing climate change when the tradition of printing letters to the editor exists to provide views that differ from the editorial policy of the paper. Calls for the prosecution of global warming skeptics. Canceling of an interdisciplinary class on the "boundaries of science" that included a week on cosmology and physics data that supported intelligent design. Campus speech code banning science and humanities professors from discussing intelligent design.This is in contrast to the previous point where atheists are free to use science to argue for their opinions such as the need to ban religion. A NASA scientists was fired for sharing information about intelligent design with colleagues. A "Free thinker" mob threatened to disrupt a non credit adult education course at Amarillo College on intelligent design causing the course to be canceled.​

http://nypost.com/2009/10/06/white-houses-botched-op/

obama1-300x300.jpg


OOPS! A crowd of 150 doctors gathers in the Rose Garden to support the health-care overhaul -- as White House staffers scramble to hand out camera-ready white coats to those who forgot their own.​

In my opinion, if science can be abused for political purposes that doesn't mean that science is inherently evil and should be abolished. The same argument applies to religion. Religion can be abused but that doesn't mean religion is inherently bad or that it should be abolished.


And these threads on the CDC whistleblower:
Why CDC whistleblower revelations about vaccines and autism never made headlines, and what that means for science |292|
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threa...never-made-headlines-and-what-that-mean.2688/

CDC Autism Whistleblower Admits Vaccine Study Fraud
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/cdc-autism-whistleblower-admits-vaccine-study-fraud.1217/
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1164046

William W. Thompson, PhD, Senior Scientist with the CDC has stepped forward and admitted the 2004 paper entitled "Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects: a population-based study in metropolitan Atlanta," which has been used repeatedly by the CDC to deny the MMR-autism connection, was a fraud.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14754936



Dr. Thompson has admitted the 340% increase in boys receiving the MMR vaccine "on time," as opposed to delayed, was buried by himself, Dr. DeStefano, Dr. Bhasin, Dr. Yeargin-Allsopp, and Dr. Boyle.



Dr. Thompson first called and spoke with Dr. Brian Hooker, who then revealed the information to Dr. Andrew Wakefield and the Autism Media Channel.



The video containing Dr. Thompson's recorded conversation can be found here, beginning at the 2 minute, 45 second mark.



http://vimeo.com/user5503203/review/103711143/91f7d3d4d8


...

Other problems with vaccines:
Dispelling Vaccination Myths, An Introduction to the Contradictions Between Medical Science and Immunization Policy (2002) by Alan Phillips:
http://www.vaccinerights.com/pdf/DispellingVaccinationMythsx.pdf

When I was a child, I got very sick after taking the polio vaccine. I had pain in my legs and I couldn't walk for three weeks. My father had to carry me to the doctor. I don't know if there is a link between autism and vaccines, but I do know that scientists, doctors, and the government are not always reliable sources of information. The public and elected officials would be well served to take the Attkisson's work seriously if they want reliable information.
 
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Her point is not about vaccinations but how information is communicated to the public. She could be right about astroturfing even if she is wrong about vaccinations.

If you want to criticize her work, you should go through several of the points she makes and show if they are valid or not.

And I am surprised that someone who has to deal with arguments made by materialists criticizing NDE research would make a criticism like that. People are ridiculed and disregarded by mainstream scientists because of their interpretation of the NDE data. How is your statement any different?

Furthermore, I don't think the vaccination issue opens her to criticism. If the public could trust scientists it would be different. But people don't trust scientists and there are good reasons not to.
  • There is an epidemic of un-reproducible published scientific papers, and an epidemic of retractions (see below).
  • A CDC Whistleblower claims there is data linking autism to vaccines that was suppressed (see below).
  • Science is politicized to the point that the public cannot trust what scientists or the government says (see below).
You might have a strong opinion about vaccinations, but how is the average person supposed to form an opinion? If someone doesn't agree with you on a point of science, that is not a good reason to assume she is wrong in other non-scientific areas? Scientists don't all agree on the vaccination question. How is the average person to decide?

People are right not to trust scientists because there is an epidemic of unreproducible research and an epidemic of retractions:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-...erlife.html#articles_by_subject_bogus_science

Also see this thread on the politicization of science:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/video-on-the-politicization-of-science.2072/



And these threads on the CDC whistleblower:
Why CDC whistleblower revelations about vaccines and autism never made headlines, and what that means for science |292|
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threa...never-made-headlines-and-what-that-mean.2688/

CDC Autism Whistleblower Admits Vaccine Study Fraud
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/cdc-autism-whistleblower-admits-vaccine-study-fraud.1217/


When I was a child, I got very sick after taking the polio vaccine. I had pain in my legs and I couldn't walk for three weeks. My father had to carry me to the doctor. I don't know if there is a link between autism and vaccines, but I do know that scientists, doctors, and the government are not always reliable sources of information. The public and elected officials would be well served to take the Attkisson's work seriously if they want reliable information.
Her point is not about vaccinations but how information is communicated to the public. She could be right about astroturfing even if she is wrong about vaccinations.

If you want to criticize her work, you should go through several of the points she makes and show if they are valid or not.

And I am surprised that someone who has to deal with arguments made by materialists criticizing NDE research would make a criticism like that. People are ridiculed and disregarded by mainstream scientists because of their interpretation of the NDE data. How is your statement any different?

Furthermore, I don't think the vaccination issue opens her to criticism. If the public could trust scientists it would be different. But people don't trust scientists and there are good reasons not to.
  • There is an epidemic of un-reproducible published scientific papers, and an epidemic of retractions (see below).
  • A CDC Whistleblower claims there is data linking autism to vaccines that was suppressed (see below).
  • Science is politicized to the point that the public cannot trust what scientists or the government says (see below).
You might have a strong opinion about vaccinations, but how is the average person supposed to form an opinion? If someone doesn't agree with you on a point of science, that is not a good reason to assume she is wrong in other non-scientific areas? Scientists don't all agree on the vaccination question. How is the average person to decide?

People are right not to trust scientists because there is an epidemic of unreproducible research and an epidemic of retractions:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-...erlife.html#articles_by_subject_bogus_science

Also see this thread on the politicization of science:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/video-on-the-politicization-of-science.2072/



And these threads on the CDC whistleblower:
Why CDC whistleblower revelations about vaccines and autism never made headlines, and what that means for science |292|
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threa...never-made-headlines-and-what-that-mean.2688/

CDC Autism Whistleblower Admits Vaccine Study Fraud
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/cdc-autism-whistleblower-admits-vaccine-study-fraud.1217/


When I was a child, I got very sick after taking the polio vaccine. I had pain in my legs and I couldn't walk for three weeks. My father had to carry me to the doctor. I don't know if there is a link between autism and vaccines, but I do know that scientists, doctors, and the government are not always reliable sources of information. The public and elected officials would be well served to take the Attkisson's work seriously if they want reliable information.


What's the fuss? I am not critizing anything. I am only mentioning what a few people told me. Does that imply that I agree? Come on!
As for vaccination, I am neither for or against it. When I was a child I had my vaccinations, and never experienced any problems.
 
And I am surprised that someone who has to deal with arguments made by materialists criticizing NDE research would make a criticism like that. People are ridiculed and disregarded by mainstream scientists because of their interpretation of the NDE data. How is your statement any different?
Being a pariah doesn't inoculate one from creating their own.
 
This is interesting, and it is something that I'm seeing a lot recently. I'm only using this as an example of something I'm observed a number of times in my own life in the past few months. I don't have strong views one way or the other about the topics being discussed here.

Often I am finding that no matter who it might be, my 'gurus', people I like and respect, have recently 'let me down', disappointed me for some reason. It seems that no matter what I thought of them, their true views on something or other threw me. Is it a lesson I have to learn or what? This may have been obvious to others, but it is a relatively new phenomenon to me. To give but one example, Jurgen Ziewe, someone I know (not well) and a recent guest on Skeptiko, is someone that surprised me by his reaction to a post, I thought it was odd.

Now I don't know Smithy but I have a sense that he is well respected, even admired here of the forum.(Generally) Here he has seemingly caused a bit of 'this doesn't make sense' type thing. He has an opinion on something that a group he is kind of a member of, seem to disagree with, when it 'being Smithy' we assumed might have his views been more in line with our own. It doesn't matter about his opinions, I'm interested in the psychology of it.

I am only making an observation, I hope no one gets offended. Usually no one does, but you never know! ;)
 
This is interesting, and it is something that I'm seeing a lot recently. I'm only using this as an example of something I'm observed a number of times in my own life in the past few months. I don't have strong views one way or the other about the topics being discussed here.

Often I am finding that no matter who it might be, my 'gurus', people I like and respect, have recently 'let me down', disappointed me for some reason. It seems that no matter what I thought of them, their true views on something or other threw me. Is it a lesson I have to learn or what?

The lesson is: our heroes are human. We are each fallible. We each have biases. Identifying what one thinks is the just, or the good, or the best way to live, or the desirable and being able to articulate it does not mean that one will always be successful in following that. When these folks preach, assume that they themselves are part of their intended audience.

You are perhaps putting unfair expectations on your heroes.
 
The lesson is: our heroes are human.

Yes, it probably is the lesson. Why did this wait until I'm 55 before it revealed itself in so many examples, I wonder ?

Is there anyone in recent history that didn't have some or other flaw? Who in the world comes closest to say Jesus, living now? Did he have human flaws?
 
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