Talk:Scientific method/Draft

Revert

I reverted the work of Gareth Leng. Altough it is a nice work, I think it is too poetic. The earlier version was more factual.

--Matthias Brendel 16:44, 26 December 2006 (CST)

Just as an example. The first sentence I find very bad is "This simple account begs many questions. What do we mean by ‘facts’? "

1) This is out of the blue, since the "facts" were not mentioned before. So how does the kknowtion of "facts" come here? 2) Then there is an unnecessary dispute about how we can trust facts. We should not start to explain the scientific method by this dispute. 3) The dispute about the basis of scientific knowledge was repeated later as the protocol-sentence debate. So quoting here Bacon is very outdated. If somebody wants to present this question, then let him quote the latest accounts on this! Even the protocol-sentence debate is outdfate I think.

--Matthias Brendel 16:52, 26 December 2006 (CST)

This I think is not how we work at Citizendium. We do not bulk revert in this way, but gain consensus civilly and seek understanding. In particular, this is a new CZ article in progress, and it is replacing a deeply flawed ungainly repetetive and inaccurate WP version (Bayesian inference is not a way of generating hypotheses; Einstein's theory was indeed a refutation of Newton's, and the idea that it represented progress was questioned by Kuhn, who commented that Einstein's theory was closer to Aristotle's than either was to Newton; alchemy was characterised by very precise measurements; Lakatos is unexplained but introduced as though he was a Kuhnian when in fact he was a Popperian etc etc). As for the lead, facts refers directly to the introductory quote from Darwin. Understanding the nature of facts, and how they depend on a theory, is central to the understanding of the importance of theory in science and hence to understanding the incommensurability of theory. Gareth Leng 17:04, 26 December 2006 (CST)

So you just write a new article instead of an existing. This is also a reverting. And your version is just your opinion, there are serious NPOV errors in your article. All of ypour statements here are dispoted by seroius thinkers. You even mention Kuhn. Lakatos was not a Popperian. So I just se a deeply flawed article.

--Matthias Brendel 06:22, 15 January 2007 (CST)

I am "rollingback" this article to the version Dr. Gareth Leng wrote. I base this decision on the fact that Mr./Dr. Brendel used a reversion and a "semi-protection," to freeze this article in the form he preferred. As the template explains, such a semi-protection has the purpose of stopping vandalism, or anonymous, unregistered, or new users from editing an article. Dr. Leng is none of these. Nevertheless, this "semi-protection" is not functioning properly; it is stopping Dr. Leng from editing. Mr./Dr. Brendel, please do not use tools that are misfunctioning.

I do not want to see revert wars. You are both Editors. Please discuss a compromise.

Chief Constable, --Ruth Ifcher 00:00, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Many thanks Ruth. This is Citizendium, not Wikipedia; the article that Mathias reverted to is the Wikipedia article, I would certainly not arbitrarily revert original Citizendium contributions; this is vandalisn as is made clear in the policy document. I suggest therefore Mathias that you detail any specific criticisms of the Citizendium article here, perhaps starting with any dispute about any factual statements, any errors in repoting opinions, or any miscitations? If there are any, let's start by correcting those.Gareth Leng 05:38, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Matthias, we do value your contributions, but you are expected to work with people here, and not simply revert to a version you prefer. That may be all right on Wikipedia (it certainly wasn't in my day!), but it isn't here. Also, the name for our neutrality policy is not and never will be "NPOV" but "the neutrality policy." We are a different community. So I support Ruth Ifcher's action here as Chief Constable, which concerned the behavior of reverting wholesale, not the merits or demerits of any version of an article. I do hope you will work with us here, in any event! --Larry Sanger 12:14, 21 January 2007 (CST)