It seems, wading through the does-wikipedia-try-to-define-culture debates that this is a wrangle between those who think there was a neutral, 'objective' and 'accurate' way to write the Wiki up and those who think there isn't. Only 'subjective' ones based on personal beliefs more than on 'facts'.

But it seems to me that this is not the issue at all. (Hence new post.) Although facts, as Rousseau once said, should always be put to one side before starting a debate "as they will not affect the question" equally, in practice everyone with a POV will try to find the sources or the 'facts' to prop it up. Even if we do not have a POV but arrive at a position using various sources anyway, it is still subjective as we might well have arrived at a different conclusion had we used different sources.

If someone writes, as they do on Wikipedia at the moment, that Mao believed in imposing his political system through violence, the issue is not so much whether the claim is 'subjective', which it obviously is, as whether it is accurate. If someone points to his speeches and political writings to show that he believed in grassroots political education to act as the basis for Chinese Communism, then that is accurate but still 'subjective' as other evidence could have been chosen to support the reverse conclusion. It is of course no assistence at all to say that 'there are different views on whether or not Mao's political philosophy is rooted in violence or in democratic consultation'.

The reason is that you can write accurately but subjectively, and inaccurately but neutrally - and any other combination you choose!. For example, someone might write that Hitler had an obsessive hatred of homosexuals. Clearly this is not neutral language, but it is accurate. Or, you could say that Adolf Hitler's political philosophy as set out in 'Mein Kampf' is 'a controversial attempt to reconcile competing views of German national identity'. This is a claim which is both neutral in tone and essentially accurate, but may leave us feeling a little subjectivity was in order.

The point is, articles should present a POV which is a 'good' point of view, that is to say, fits into an overall worldview which is fruitful, humanist, attractive etc. The facts then need to be fitted into the POV, at which point, if they absolutely refuse to do so, the POV may need to be adjusted...

It sounds a bit mad, but isn't this essentially the 'scientific' model for knowledge too?

It's good to swim toward surer shores, if only you can suss them, but you have to begin from where you are, and that is somewhere in the middle of the ocean, with a frame of reference and a horizon that is whatitis.

Get used to it, get to know it, you have to be aware of what it is before you can wear it out.

Jon

It is impossible - I mean, truly impossible - to be objectively NPOV, anyway.

'Reliable sources' is a guideline. That means that things like fringe theories can be discounted by any editor with an agenda, for one, and also the problem of 'undue weight' allows much room for interpretation of what is accurate. Indeed, to assume that there is such a thing as NPOV, and that it is possible to obtain knowledge in the objective, philosophical sense of the exact NPOV stance on any issue is stupid, dogmatic and impossible.

To obtain a true NPOV, you'd have to have read every single thing considered a reliable source published on that topic, and to not incorporate every single one of those viewpoints makes NPOV impossible. On a topic as 'big' as global warming for instance, that's just impossible - there's so much literature about it that there is no 'knowable' truth about what the 'sum of human knowledge' is about that subject.

Do you get my drift? I mean, when there's so much written about a certain subject and only a certain amount of sources can be included in an article, it's at the editors' discretion entirely what to put in. The political or other bias can easily be masked by a supposed NPOV, and few are willing to do the investigative work to assess what truly is the truth about a subject, because obtaining objective knowledge of a summary of the truth about a large subject is, as I said, virtually impossible.

One thing that is hard when starting WIkipedia is the realization that science is not going to win as a basis for a point of view. I don't mean the type of science to discredit or to be anti-religion, I mean the simple self-evident science like gravity. We can't even put in Wikipedia a statement like "um, you pick up an apple, let it go, it falls." If you try, you get banned. You might as well quote Isaac Newton himself if you can find a secondary source made from any his journals.

Isaac Newton was brought up in the Astrotheology, but that was deleted by the crowd that believes astronomy is biology.

There are a bunch of sources about the whole issue. I seriously tried to find on the Internet any claim where "astronomy is biology," and I got two hits.

http://ccrsdodona.org/m_dilemma/1979/pis/forum.html:


http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=38828:


Careful, you might get called a troll, disruptive user, and even blocked if you attempt to find sources, and try to create NPOV.

The Science of Spirituality

George E. Vaillant, M.D., is a distinguished member of the Harvard University School of Medicine. His newest book, Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith, is a scientific study of spirituality.

Two days ago, he was the guest for the hour on NPR's On Point Radio with Jane Clayson.

The Science of Spirituality

Aired: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 11-12PM ET

On Point: Faith, Science, and "Spiritual Evolution."

Science and faith aren't at war with each other, says renowned Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant. They're just in different parts of the brain.

We're hardwired for faith, hope, love and joy, Vaillant says. There's more spirituality in our genes than perhaps even our Sunday School classes.

Does this sound like sacrilege? Or, solid science?

Either way, it's a big, bold controversial view. And Vaillant comes armed with data from the lab and his own pioneering research into adult development. We'll hear him out.

Guests

• George Vaillant, research psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School, he has directed Harvard's Study of Adult Development for 35 years. His new book is Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith.

• Peter Manseau, editor of Science and Spirit magazine and co-author of Killing The Buddha: A Heretic's Bible.

In science we strive for "useful" POVs (hypotheses, theories), where "useful" is defined as "predictive." Which is unpacked to meaning: "A clear algorithm for taking X initial conditions and turning them into Y predictions for future observations." In science, what Jimbo calls a "NPOV" is what Pauli called "not even wrong."

As for subjects like history, I can't help very much. Are there thesis statements which will help you, in predicting which historical documents you will find next, and whether or not what they say will actually agree and further support your thesis? That is, are there thesis statements which tie in known historical facts not only in a post hoc, ad hoc way, but manage to be SO useful that they predict actual results that will be found in future investigations, and subanalysis from same? If so, we want these!

"Useful" is a much more subjective word in other fields than science. But at least it's a step in the direction that we'd like for our POVs. Useful and fruitful. NPOV is never desired. NPOV is a abbomination, and there's no fixing it. Of course, we can't get WP to see this, as NPOV has become part of the sacred cannon there, like "dialectic" or "revolutionary" for Communists. We're not too sure what NPOV means by now, but anybody there at WP knows that they have to use it a lot, in order to be accepted into the power-circle.

M

For those like me who prefer to take our philosophical points in easy bites, here’s a kind of philosophical proof of the folly of having No Point of View.

Diogenes Laertius says that Wikipedians (philosophers) can be divided into just two types: “dogmatists and sceptics: dogmatists are all those who make assumptions about things assuming that they can be known; while sceptics (NPOV) are all those who suspend judgement on the grounds that everything is unknowable” (er.... except that...)

That’s paradoxical! And Soren Kierkegaard says that the ‘paradoxical nature of truth’ is its ‘objective uncertainty’: “this uncertainty is an expression for the passionate inwardness, and this passion is precisely the truth”.

And that’s why you have to have a point of view before you can try to be objective?

Well - yes.

This is not the sort of thing I've seen deliberated on Wikipedia however, which is why I see the claims of 'NPOV' as being so -well I hesitate to use the word 'dangerous'- but I can't find another term that encapsulates my fears.

On wikipedia, I do not see principles of reflectivity being practiced, no understanding of the philosophical issues such as you've all outlined here. They may be tucked away somewhere on a discussion board or even an article or two- but they are conspicuous by their absence throughout the 'encyclopaedia'.

As an aside- is anybody aware of the feminist academic work on these issues?

I kept up pretty well with the literatures on critical thinking, novice-expert shift, reflective inquiry, situated knowledge, and social epistemology all through the 90's, and that intersected with the "Whose Knowledge?" question at numerous points. Early in that decade I consulted on comp-dat-stat aspects of research for a School of Nursing, and all of these things were pretty hot topics in that context. Remember talking to Sandra Harding at a conference once, and Nancy Fraser's Unruly Practices is still sitting on top of a stack of books within arm's reach.

Jon

Wow John! If you don't mind me saying- that's fantastic!

One of the subjects I teach (mostly undergraduate but have done some post-graduate teaching also) is feminist epistemology/methodology etc. Another is the social construction of knowledge, ironically!

I guess you'd see where some of my own discussions is informed by some issues raised by feminist academic enquiry of the sort you've mentioned here then.

Is anybody else out there looking critically at Wikipedia as a producer of 'knowledge'- beyond WR I mean? I can't seem to find any- I'm surprised at the lack of such to be honest.

The problem with the academy in this regard is that what studies there are tend to be funded by the IT companies themselves, and they are generally not interested in epistimological questions of "knowledge" per se, but more practical questions of "trust" in terms of the presumed quality or consistency of the information system. Here is something at UCSC focused on this issue.

This topic looks to be topical again …

Jon