Talk:Clairvoyance

Arbitration Ruling on the Treatment of Pseudoscience In December of 2006 the Arbitration Committee created guidelines for how to present pseudoscientific topics in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience. Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work.

The four groupings found at WP:PSCI Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more. Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience. Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized. Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

Of relevance to "Generally considered pseudoscience" The scientific consensus, as expressed by the National Science Foundation, has identified belief in ten subjects to be pseudoscientific beliefs. They are: extrasensory perception (ESP), that houses can be haunted, ghosts, telepathy, clairvoyance, astrology, that people can communicate mentally with someone who has died, witches, reincarnation, and channeling. (See Note 29)

Creepy/poor picture

The article's picture is extremely unsettling and poor quality, I suggest a replacement.--Sığe |д=) 22:55, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

September 2016

A recent diff (among other things) changed the capitalization of section headers. It's my understanding that section headers follow MOS:HEAD and should be in sentence case. I'll fix these if there's no objection.

Some of these terms for other flavors of clairvoyance seem unlikely to me. "Clairofactus", for instance. Do more reliable sources exist than some devotee's website glossary?  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 23:46, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Check out page and post Humm56700 (talk) 15:28, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

jmcgnh: Yeah, I undid that edit – I have no opinion on or rs's for that specific terminology, though. Debouch (talk) 15:59, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

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This article is too dogmatic

This article is too dogmatic in attempting to write the study of clairvoyance off as a pseudo-science - there must have been controlled experimental studies of the subject. Vorbee (talk) 16:44, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

I think "fringe science" needs to replace "pseudoscience" in this article and it--the article needs to chill on the rhetoric. Not the Britannica article on Clairvoyance it doesn't waste space and froth at the mouth about Clairvoyance's failure to be "proved." There has been researchers using established as of 2010 methods to research, though nothing conclusive was produced since as a result of his study, Dr. Daryl Bem's research entered psychology into an epistemological crises. Dr. Bem is still established as a researcher and still researching Clairvoyance (as of last year). Clairvoyance attracts therefore attracts serious research and has had findings published in a high factor impact journal by a well established researcher (Dr. Bem). Therefore "pseudoscience," while also being an oxy moronic term (please see my talk page) anyhow is inappropriate and overly strong language. I will edit the article to refelect and reference it differently--to the Encyclopedia Britannica article (less opinionated and one sided then the current references which are often simply individual opinions) and this Slate article <https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/06/daryl-bem-proved-esp-is-real-showed-science-is-broken.html> if no discussion ensues over the next week--He is who is silent is said to consent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GoatGod (talk • contribs) 04:34, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

You have been warned about WP:PROFRINGE and discretionary sanctions. Did a clairvoyant won Randi's (JREF) million dollars? No? I guessed so. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:40, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not Britannica. We follow our own editorial policies, not theirs. The relevant ones here are WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE, and WP:FRIND. These policies have been explained to you on your Talk page, and you've had ample opportunity to review them. It has been explained to you how these policies affect articles such as this one, and why it is appropriate that clairvoyance be referred to as pseudoscience. WP:IDONTHEARTHAT is not an acceptable response if you want to stick around Wikipedia for long. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:59, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

@GoatGod: While a very interesting treatment of the subject - into which both skeptics and believers can read support for their positions - that Slate piece does not appear to come up to the level of reliable source I would expect to be given weight in this article. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 15:03, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I might add that we go by the cumulative weight of reliable sources, which in this case, justify statements of fact using the word pseudoscience. It's not our job to find ways to make it sound more ambiguous so as not to discourage personal belief or research funding. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:31, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the "dogmatic" assessment above. The article empahsizes the skeptic view and is not objective. Compare it to this online encyclopedia which is more realistic and even-handed: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Clairvoyance — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.80.20.56 (talk) 21:30, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

No clairvoyant has ever won the million dollars from Randi (JREF)? I guessed so. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:04, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

You mentioned James Randi. First of all, he himself has said that maybe some paranormal events are real. Second of all, I do not know, nor do you I suspect know, the difficulty of actually obtaining the million dollars even if sufficient proof were demonstrated. What would count as proof? Imagine two people in a room demonstrated that one of them was telepathic, by having one simply write down the subvocalized sentence of the other. Say scientific controls were carefully set in place, and the ability was still demonstrated. Would most in the scientific community believe the psychic, or would they simply assume the absence of effective controls? Do you know with absolute certainty that such studies do not exist? Have you even looked? Will you?

Now, let me understand the policies - correct me if I'm wrong. Since the majority of the scientific community does not believe in something that is apparently extremely unlikely, there should therefore not be allowed either the discussion of, nor reference to, possible supporting scientific evidence, because such studies and evidence are not high impact. Is thst not circular logic, since it is possible the studies are not high impact exactly because most scientists are unwilling to review the evidence? Derwos (talk) 22:42, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

See WP:RGW. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:27, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Calling the study of clairvoyance a pseudoscience is the same as calling Religious Studies a pseudoscience. A scientific study on a topic is still a scientific study, regardless of whether the object of study does not appear to be real. That is, unless you want the article to state that studies showing evidence against clairvoyance are pseudoscience. Derwos (talk) 05:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The current understanding in mainstream psychiatry is that clairvoyance is hallucination. So, yes, there can be studies of hallucinations, it is just that such studies don't pretend that hallucinations aren't hallucinations. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:18, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

A scientific study pretends nothing, it records and objectively evaluates experimental data. Derwos (talk) 05:28, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Clairvoyance is WP:FRINGE/PS, there is nothing you can do to undo that. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:54, 19 February 2019 (UTC)