Skepticism, Science & Pseudoscience

1) Has the APA issued a statement changing their position? I did a (admittedly quick) scan of the search on APA website prior to my previous post and did not find anything. Yes its old, but so is the theory of evolution. So did the APA redact their statement?

2) Do the papers he reviewed meet the required criteria? If so, the standards are not the problem and do not need to be lowered, rather the editor needs to be made accountable.

3) Again, has the APA redacted their previous statements? Why is it hard for CEU's to get accepted? There are climate change scientist (~1%) who get published and belong to climate societies. This does not mean acceptance does it?

4) The danger in alternative medicine is that someone may hear about it and forgo proven and accepted medicine in favor of the unproven treatment. Using both under the watchful eye of a physician is a different story. The former, as opposed to the latter would be my concern and why high standards would be advisable. This is especially true for a site like wikipedia.

Im aware of the practice of offlabel usuage. However, those medicines also go through testing before being used in such a manner. Offlabel usuage also has its own controversies, abuses, regulations and may not be used for new indications without FDA approval.

http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/ucm126486.htm

And since this is about wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-label_use

5) All the more reason for not lowering the standards they do have correct? If the research does meet the required standards, again that means the editor is at fault and not the standards in question. Why change the rules is they are not the problem and risk allowing less reliable research though as a consequence? That said, according to the page on energy medicine the active editor is also a physician.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Axl

Of course, it is entirely possible that is entirely made up. But that is the risk with anything over the internet.

6) I have no issue if it meets the standards. But I do object to just any hypothesis being given equal footing with proven and accepted science. I don't think Flat earthers should be given equal time with those saying the world is a global, or creationist time with evolutionists.

Psuedoscience will often try and portray itself as real science and the only way to combat that is rigerous standards. In fact, occasionally climate change denialist get papers published and creationist have been trying to sneak creationism into peer reivewed journals. The only way to combat this, and determine if something is pseudoscience, fringe science, or legitimate is through rigerous standards.

The main issue (arguably the only issue) of this article at its core is this:

Is the standards of having research validated by an independent and well respected peer-reviewed journal too stringent?

I believe that is a good standard. If research that meets this standard is not getting through, it is not the standard that is wrong. Rather that means the editor is being biased. The standard could be lowered and it would STILL not get the research through.

The petition, if taken at face value, is pushing for the wrong solution to the wrong problem. Taken at the opposite value it endangers increasing the odds that unproven or illegitimate science will be weighed equally with proven and accepted science.

This risks convincing people so gullible that they would take the advice of a wikipedia article over that of their physician of possibly discontinuing traditional medicine for what could possibly be crank science. Yes, somethings that were originally thought woo were proven true. But they were proven true with the scientific method and meeting the required standards.

Skeptics never assert anything other than standards of proof. Having high standards has never stopped creativity. People are free to run and try these experiments to their hearts desire. What this does do, however, is prevent a spacious argument as being presented as being as reliable as a proven one.