Talk:Antiscience

Anti-science not necessarily means anti-intellectualism t

It should be more objective to say: Anti-science is a set of attitudes involves a rejection of current science, or current scientific method, or current scientific practice, or current scientific consensus. Interestingly, Skepticism is consider one of important element in science. Science is evolving, one reject current science may accept future science, or vice versa. Cloud29371 (talk) 02:05, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

We can't reject future science, because we don't know what that will be. Science evolves, every learned person knows this.

But, to the point: highly intellectual professors, who are postmodernists, usually distrust science. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:20, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Possible AI generated text

Hi -- I've added the AI generated tag here regarding the edits by OliveTree39; while they're blocked for sockpuppeting and cannot be asked, several of their contributions including this one show several signs of LLM output and thus should be checked for tone and factual accuracy/source-to-text integrity. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:07, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Which part? The whole article or specific parts? Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 22:50, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

Risky Usage

I propose that a section be added called “Risks To Faulty Application.” This definition should not be used lightly, as it can restrict scientific research. Hear me out. In general, not everything can be explained by science. Here are some examples of things that do not originate from the scientific method: math, logic, hypotheses, new observations. You will notice that all of these things are necessary to come to new scientific conclusions.

I’m not trying to advocate for the rejection of science altogether, that would of course be ridiculous, but I believe that it’s important to note that despite how much science can explain, it does not necessarily explain everything. It is a tool in a toolbox we use to find truth, and some articles will use this definition to suppress unsatisfactory ideas without healthy discussion.

While it is true that some ideas are genuinely false and should not be given much merit at all, a call to ignore them altogether is not the right way to refute their claims. If we are trying to be scientific, it is important to let reason refute the claim, rather than simply slapping on an “anti-scientific” or “pseudoscientific” label and calling scientific heresy whenever someone mentions it. This is an encyclopedia after all, we are supposed to approach everything from an unbiased perspective and show all the objective facts while leaving decisions about those facts up to the reader, this stimulates more accurate debate which will further clarify truth, which is the only true way to avoid pseudoscience and anti-scientific behavior. NotAGrApe73 (talk) 13:45, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

You're not suggesting any edits, not citing any source. WP:NOTFORUM. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:49, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

I did suggest an edit. I suggested that a section be added warning against usage that restricts progress. I do not have to cite a source immediately, because this is not an article. Also, I don’t see how that shortcut applies here. It says “You … should resolve problems with articles on the relevant talk page,” which is exactly what I did. NotAGrApe73 (talk) 18:54, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, but it remains extremely vague. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:39, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Okay, so you don’t have any input regarding what I said. Then don’t give any. NotAGrApe73 (talk) 22:53, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

On Wikipedia neutrality does not mean without bias (see WP:NPOV and WP:FALSEBALANCE), but about proper summaries of sources deemed reliable (WP:RS). This means that you should begin by suggesting sources, or should attempt WP:BOLD editing including citations (WP:CITE). If edits get reverted, WP:BRD is a good guide. Comments on talk pages can help when they directly are related to improving the article, but I suggest to keep them concise. 206.248.143.75 (talk) 14:29, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Isn’t the point of the talk page to point out problems? After all, expecting everyone to have citations as plentiful as someone who spends all their time on Wikipedia, searching for people who agree with them is ridiculous and would discourage error reporting, which indirectly encourages erroneous articles. Everyone here seems to think that I have created an edit, but I want to clarify that this page, the one you are reading this on, is not the article, it’s the talk page, which is for providing suggestions when you don’t have citations because you have a life. Have you ever considered just finding citations yourself when we are talking about something that is true? (I’m assuming that you acknowledge that it is true, judging by the lack of objections.) Isn’t that why you are here?

Also, I’m getting two conflicting views on the quality of my suggestion, one says that it’s not detailed enough and the other says that it’s too lengthy. What do you expect from me? NotAGrApe73 (talk) 13:53, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

You rambled on without giving specifics. You stated you wanted a new section "Risks To Faulty Application" but gave no content for the proposed section. At a minimum give a paragraph complete with references that you want inserted in that section. Also where would you like the section. If lengthy use your sandbox to draft something and direct us to look there. See Wikipedia:About the sandbox (user sandbox). Erp (talk) 16:11, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

I never said I wanted to draft edits. All I said was that this page needs changes. Is that not what a topic on the talk page is for? It’s a suggestion, which anyone can fulfill. I don’t have time to draft a new section complete with solid citations, so the least that I can do is speak up so that somebody who cares about the truth can do what I simply don’t have the resources to do.

If it’s objectively true (which is undisputed, the only objections are based on technicalities), it shouldn’t be too hard for someone who has skill with citations to find a way to support it. All they have to do is state the point and then figure out a way to get that to be supported with irrelevant citations. That’s how any objectively true statement must be supported, given citations are only useful for displaying someone’s claims, not reality. Given how many articles deal in objective truth that doesn’t depend on what someone claims, that’s probably a necessary skill (otherwise math, language and logic pages wouldn’t exist).

I wrote this because I want others to consider undertaking that since I don’t have the skills for it, but it nevertheless needs to be done NotAGrApe73 (talk) 22:36, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Assessment

Possible improvements:

• The article reads a lot like an essay
• There is redundancy and it could be shorter
• Synthesis where some topics are linked by editors rather than by the citations, should be avoided
• It touches the topic several times in passing without directly addressing authoritarianism, which considers knowledge that can contradict its tenets threatening. Examples are discoveries questioning that humans are the center or purpose of the universe, those that expose social stratification as human imposed and defeat arguments of "natural order", etc. Science is work and a difficult path, authoritarians cater to the easy path by providing "answers" it does not like to question.

Thanks. 206.248.143.75 (talk) 11:48, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

It seems to me that you would like to add a section addressing authoritarianism, for the most part. That was the longest section of proposed improvements in your description, after all. I agree with you on this. However, I think it is important to explain this more generally, in order to explain why authoritarianism would be considered antiscience and to prevent oversight of forming authoritarian systems simply because they are not labeled as such. If the nazis had identified themselves as antiscience authoritarians, they never would’ve gained influence, after all.

By doing this, it also helps to prevent systems that claim to align themselves with science (like the nazis and their pseudoscientific eugenics) yet still brutally punish even the slightest disagreement or questioning of their ideology’s tenets, which may be overlooked due to claims of their truth suppression being scientifically grounded. NotAGrApe73 (talk) 22:49, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

German physics. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:27, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Other examples: Lysenkoism, Ahnenerbe, "Japhetic Theory", Palestinabush, Pavlovian Session, Stalinist Dialectic Materialism, Social Darwinism and eugenism; pseudoscientific creationism (where it is not inspirational symbolic mythology), pseudohistory; In the contemporary US, the interesting cocktail of antivaccination, antiabortion, tobacco corruption, oil corruption and climate change denial, evolution denial, AIDS denial, UFO mania, COVID minimization, confessional schools and homeschooling using flawed textbooks, ideological "biology" pseudoscientific arguments to enforce social stereotypes... There are decent sources about this, some pointing out that it is not only for general ignorance and manipulation to forgo one's rights for an elite, but also a partisan "anti-establishment" line for "loyalty", no matter the cost. Cultish extremist partisan recruitment with agglomerative alienation conspiracy theories appealing to the superstitious, millenarian and evangelicals (Patriot Movement, Satanic Panic, QAnon). Great replacement and invasion panic. Corruption conspiracies to divide and rule: 1, 2, 3. 206.248.143.75 (talk) 19:51, 29 October 2025 (UTC)