Talk:List of pseudoscience topics/Archive 20

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RFC on listing historical materialism as pseudoscience

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Several persons remarked that the question was malformed. Fortunately the resulting discussion was useful and seem to point at the real issue: the scope of the list and its "statute" inclusion criteria. --Altenmann >talk 15:11, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

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Should the historical materialism be listed as pseudoscience? --Altenmann >talk 01:48, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

As Bon courage points out below, this is the wrong question. The article is "List of topics characterized as pseudoscience" not "List of pseudoscience topics".

By way of analogy, the article List of music considered the worst does not require or claim that any of the entries are actually the worst music, only that they have been described that way in reliable sources.

Now, perhaps this article should be "List of pseudoscience topics" since many readers will interpret it that way, but currently inclusion on the list is not predicated on a topic actually being pseudoscience, only that it has been characterized that way in reliable sources. Perhaps that question should be the subject of the RfC instead since that seems to be the gist of many of the NO !votes. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:46, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I am starting this RFC because in the previous section #Historical Materialism failed to carry out proper discussion, i.e., based on Wikipedia policies. --Altenmann >talk 01:48, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Poll

• No unless it is described as such in WP:RS. What is more, since this is a WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim, the argument must come from nonpartican reputable scholarly sources. If such sources are found, the corresponding discussion must be included in the article in the fisrt case. Outherwise this inclusion creates a nasty WP:FORK. --Altenmann >talk 01:48, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

  I think you mean a POVFORK. WP:FORK is about forks of Wikipedia. Polygnotus (talk) 04:19, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

  I meant WP:CFORK: a single issue "whether A is B" usually must be discussed in a single place (reasonable exception: views on "A" of different persons presented in their articles as their views). And yes, CFORK may easily lead to POVFORK. --Altenmann >talk 01:47, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Yes. Since the main article says it has been so characterised, and cites good sources to verify that, this article has to be in sync with that. Seems kind of obvious? Bon courage (talk) 02:52, 24 April 2026 (UTC)
  • The "main article" does not say so. If you have Karl Popper in mind, he criticized historicism (in his The Poverty of Historicism), which is a different thing. Regardless, reference to Wikipedia is an invalid argument. You have to supply reliable sources' that say "HM is pseudoscience" or something similar.--Altenmann >talk 03:48, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

    See also WP:BLUD. Bon courage (talk) 04:06, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

    See also WP:CONSENSUS. --Altenmann >talk 04:53, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

• Historical materialism is not a pseudoscience because it doesn't claim to be a science. And before anyone asks, Dialectical materialism is also not a pseudoscience for the same reason. Polygnotus (talk) 07:06, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Oh god and then I read a bit of the actual book and of course the Wikipedia article is wrong.

Criticism of Marxism says: Popper has argued that both the concept of Marx's [[historical method]] as well as its application are [[Falsifiability|unfalsifiable]] and thus it is a pseudoscience<ref>{{cite web|title=Science as Falsification|url=http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html|website=stephenjaygould.org|access-date=22 November 2015|archive-date=2 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180502201044/http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html}}</ref> that cannot be proven true or false:

So according to Wikipedia, Popper called it a pseudoscience. But if you look at and p.37 that is not what Popper says. Popper says Yet instead of accepting the refutations the followers of Marx re-interpreted both the theory and the evidence in order to make them agree. In this way they rescued the theory from refutation; but they did so at the price of adopting a device which made it irrefutable. They thus gave a 'conventionalist twist' to the theory; and by this stratagem they destroyed its much advertised claim to scientific status.

In reality Popper did not say "it is pseudoscience", Popper said (to summarize) that followers of Marx destroyed its much advertised claim to scientific status.

The word pseudoscience is not even in the quote.

"Its claim to scientific status was destroyed by followers" and "it is pseudoscience" are not the same claim. Polygnotus (talk) 07:37, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Reminder, this article is not a list of pseudosciences, but of "topics that have, either currently or in the past, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers". (Thus strictly speaking the question asked in the RfC, and its result, will have no effect on the inclusion of this topic in the list). Bon courage (talk) 07:40, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

@Bon courage Then its probably best to close the RfC as a waste of time.

If all topics that have ever been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers then we can just redirect the article to everything. As a researcher I characterize all concepts as pseudo-scientific. Polygnotus (talk) 07:42, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

The rider is that "Detailed discussion of these topics may be found on their main pages"; in practice WP:RS and WP:NPOV constrain the list. I don't think duvets have been categorized as pseudoscience e.g. (taking for example what I'm looking at right now). Bon courage (talk) 07:49, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

And this is the major problem with the scope of the list: "characterized" maywell mean a disparaging polemic blurb. What actually is needed, is the list of topics argued to be pseudoscience, i.e., someome actually presented arguments to support this claim. And the arhuments must be two-pronged: (1) the topic is described as scientific by its proponents and (2) its opponents argue that it lacks scientific method. As it was already argued, prong (2) alone is insufficient. --Altenmann >talk 07:53, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Let's add the heliocentric model and continental drift. Pretty sure there were academics/researchers who argued they are pseudo-scientific at some point.

But this RfC is moot since I have removed the false claim that Popper said that it was pseudo-scientific. So unless anyone can name another academic/researcher who described Historical materialism as pseudo-scientific we are done here. Polygnotus (talk) 07:57, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I added one such. Bon courage (talk) 09:02, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for that, Machan used the term. But I would argue it wasn't really a rigorous academic argument, but just a label he mentioned in passing.

Is that and should that be enough? I dunno. But I think the more interesting discussion for this RfC is what should be done with this article (what is in scope, what is not, why). Ideally we can deal with both. Polygnotus (talk) 11:03, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I removed it for now, but feel free to add it back if consensus for inclusion emerges at some point. Polygnotus (talk) 11:13, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

So ehm... Note that Darwinism has never been called pseudoscience by Karl Popper; looks like pure and unabashed POV-pushing trying to add or defend that item. and look at it in all its glory: . Not sure what to extrapolate from these two datapoints but it is interesting. The article about him notes: he famously stated "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program—a possible framework for testable scientific theories." Polygnotus (talk) 18:28, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

And the article used to say Others who shared a similar view were ... and sociologist Ernest van den Haag. which is interesting because the source contains the word "materialism" only once, and he doesn't describe it as pseudoscience. He was also famously a terrible person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_van_den_Haag#Life_and_career The source given for Russel does not support the claim at all. Polygnotus (talk) 02:18, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

• (summoned by bot) No. As stated above, for something to be "pseudo" scientific, then it would be expected that supporters of such would purport it to be scientific. Otherwise, just claiming something to be pseudoscience could reasonably apply to anything, and as such the scope of this article would become unbounded very quickly. Unless there are WP:RS from people who claim it is scientific, it's probably not enough just to call something pseudoscience without the existing claim to be scientific in the first place. That doesn't make it correct or anything, but for the sake of not potentially inflating the article by drastically expanding the scope, it's best to restrict it in that way. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 14:41, 24 April 2026 (UTC)
• No. The main source for this appears to be Rothbard and Reason, which is largely opinion and isn't academics or researchers (and which, as a journal of an ideologically created specifically to oppose Marxism, is as WP:BIASED as it is possible to be on the topic; it is absurd to treat its opinion as usable for unattributed statements of fact here.) The other sources don't call it pseudoscience. It certainly has its critics, and I wouldn't say it's particularly treated as a useful model, but this isn't list of topics that have been criticized by anyone for any reason in any terms. --Aquillion (talk) 14:51, 24 April 2026 (UTC)
• No. Historical materialism is a theory of historiography and is therefore not a science nor does it claim to be a science. You may be thinking of scientific socialism, which is making a claim to be scientific (though in context it really is supposed to mean something more like "empirical") which is dubious compared with the modern scientific method. But even there I'd like to see some good sources for that description. Loki (talk) 17:27, 24 April 2026 (UTC)
• This book at least uses the term pseudohistory in a chapter on Marx and Engels. This book says that Karl Popper evaluated it (and two other ideas) as "reinforced dogmatism", which this book equates with "effectively being seductive and insipid pseudo-sciences". So... maybe yes? One reason for this surprising (to some) situation may be that "science" in some cases means something closer to mere "knowledge" or Wissenschaft than "chemistry, or another field of study like it". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 24 April 2026 (UTC)
• Hardest "NO" I could possibly give. This question should not even be entertained. Historical materialism is a core social science widely used in academia (and no, not just left-leaning academia either). Also, the reasoning the OP is giving is... certainly something. No, finding a single source in a different Wikipedia article (and misinterpreting it) absolutely does not give you a free pass to start putting whatever you believe it said in WikiVoice on different articles. 296cherry (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  Huge ^{[citation needed]} on the claim that historical materialism is a "core social science widely used in academia". ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 07:32, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

  Exactly. This claim would also undermine an argument made by many in this RfC: that it cannot be a pseudoscience, because it is not claimed to be a science. Slomo666 (talk) 11:55, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

• Irrelevant discussion. We do not determine whether something is or is not a pseudoscience here. The WP:LSC for this list is topics that have "either currently or in the past, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers" with a hidden note "notability should be established at the main article first, using RS". So the question is - does Historical materialism meet that LSC? Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 01:40, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, that's what I and Bon Courage have been saying. Much of the discussion above is not relevant the list selection criteria. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 02:10, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

  There something about pseudoscience as a kind of trigger word. On hearing it, many a wiki editor forgets all the WP:PAGS they are convesant with, their body stiffens, their eyes stare and they flatly intone "it's only pseudoSCIENCE when there's SCIENCE and people in white coats" (or somesuch). No matter that out there in the wider World, for better or worse, the term has had a wider outing. Its origins are before my time on Wikipedia, but AIUI one of the reasons why this article has such an odd scope was to circumvent discussions about whether something "is" or "is not" (in the opinion of editors) a pseudoscience. All this article does is record subjects "that have, either currently or in the past, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers". And okay, that's kind of a stupid topic. But it is what it is. Maybe a 6th AfD is warranted? Bon courage (talk) 03:22, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

  There something about pseudoscience as a kind of trigger word. On hearing it, many a wiki editor forgets all the WP:PAGS they are convesant with, their body stiffens, their eyes stare and they flatly intone "it's only pseudoSCIENCE when there's SCIENCE and people in white coats" (or somesuch).

  There is a guideline, Wikipedia:Fringe theories, which says:

  • Y Pseudoscience (Non-scientific statement claiming to be scientific): String theory proves that running water emits electricity when the quarks are aligned with the stars.
  • N Not pseudoscience (no claim that it's scientific): Santa Claus has magic reindeer that can fly.

  It also says:

  Articles about hypotheses that have a substantial following but which critics describe as pseudoscience, may note those critics' views; however, such hypotheses should not be described as unambiguously pseudoscientific if a reasonable amount of academic debate still exists.

  And MOS:LABEL, which is part of the Words to watch guideline, says Value-laden labels – such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, sexist, terrorist, or freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion – may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution.

  We currently have no evidence of academic debate if historical materialism is pseudoscience; just one guy asserting it is. And the term pseudoscience is not "widely used by reliable sources" to describe historical materialism. So it looks like the PAGs are on the side of "only describe something as pseudoscientific if the academic debate has been settled" and "best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources" and not "if one academic/researcher claims something is pseudoscience then list it on List of topics characterized as pseudoscience"...

  The title and first sentence of the article and the hidden comment are just some editor's opinion of what it should be. You can edit 'em if you want. They do not override the PaGs. A topic is not automatically suitable for inclusion on this list just because one source has called it pseudoscience.

  that's kind of a stupid topic. Agreed. But it is what it is. We can change it to whatever we want. Maybe a 6th AfD is warranted? 6th? Do you mean 4th? Polygnotus (talk) 04:02, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

  I would not support an AfD effort. I would, however, support changing the name and list selection criteria to make this a list of pseudoscience, instead of a list of things that have been called pseudoscience by someone in some reliable source regardless of whether there's any consensus among those sources for calling it that.

  There's clear criteria at WP:FRINGE/PS and WP:FRINGE/QS for when to identify a topic as pseudoscience, and the current list selection criteria allows for topics to included that run afoul of WP:FRINGE/QS. So, my take is to follow that. i.e. adopt the following as the list selection criteria

  • The topic must meet the criteria at WP:FRINGE/PS and WP:FRINGE/QS for being identified as psuedoscience and
  • It must be described as such in a topic article, with cites to reliable sources that establish it meets the criteria at WP:FRINGE/PS and WP:FRINGE/QS

  If we do that, the current debate would seem to be moot.

  Regardless of whether we adopt this change, we'll be left with the issue that this list duplicates Category:Pseudoscience, which is a very long list, probably too long for an article. My guess is that this article was intended to highlight the most widespread or common pseudoscience topics, and perhaps was started before Wikipedia had that many articles; I don't have a good solution at the moment for language we could add to the list selection criteria to implement this notion in a workable manner. I'm open to suggestions. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:47, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

  There's also Template:Pseudoscience which links to this article, although there doesn't appear to be any mechanism or manual attempt to keep the two in sync. Probably worth considering all three ways that Wikipedia enumerates pseudoscience topics when discussing changes like the above. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 02:53, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

  Good idea. The "characterized as" workaround was never gonna work long term. It may fool some but the PaGs usually contain good advice and, while there are exceptions, its a bad idea to just make this article exempt from the rules.

  In reality the article always had to conform to the PaGs, the title just obscured that fact. After 22 insertions and deletions of the string "historical materialism" (and god knows how many other editwars) it is time to put an end to that. Polygnotus (talk) 02:57, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes. My take is to drop the "characterizes as" and just list things that are pseudoscience as per the Policies and Guidelines (PaGs). If a topic is not clearly psuedoscience under WP:FRINGE/PS and WP:FRINGE/QS (such as the one under discussion) it wouldn't make the cut.

As it stands, the list selection criteria is not explicitly stated; what's in the lead is subject to interpretation, and the hidden note doesn't provide much guidance beyond "obey the PaGs" which would go without saying. I think we should craft an explicit inclusion criteria and feature that prominently on the talk page and with a popup when editing the article. (see List of Common Misconceptions for an example).

Ideally, we would adopt some criteria to limit the size of the page since if we included everything at Category:pseudoscience the list would be too long. Perhaps something like:

Where possible, topics should be combined to form a single entry, e.g. a single entry for Astrology instead of an entry for each variation of astrology.

and

The beliefs must be current, as opposed to ancient, or discredited/discarded scientific hypotheses.

I'm still trying to get my head around how this article interacts with the category and the psuedoscience template. But we should probably keep all three in mind. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:16, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

• (summoned by bot) No per nom and Mr. Swordfish, Polygnotus, and the article's own introduction. No offence, but I find it rather ridiculous we are even entertaining this.

These characterizations were made in the context of educating the public about questionable or potentially fraudulent or dangerous claims and practices, efforts to define the nature of science, or humorous parodies of poor scientific reasoning.

Which is not the case: historical materialism is merely a (fringe) theory, but not a pseudoscience as it does not describe itself as science. No "characterisation" was made "in the context of educating the public...".

The main article referenced by the one proponent of listing in this discussion as having reliable sourcing to support the characterisation only mentions a single statement by a single person and another on the article here (now removed as inaccurate), neither of which was "made in the context..." required for inclusion here.

This RfC is a major waste of time.

I would like to move to either: 1 close for do not include, 2 Close as Bad RfC, or 3 request closure ASAP if no other proponents of inclusion show up soon. Happy editing, --Slomo666 (talk) 22:17, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Yes per Bon courage. Whether it is or isn't it has been characterized as such. Now, while I think that is a ridiculous topic for a list, it is the topic of the list. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:24, 1 May 2026 (UTC)
• Eh. Certainly not just on the basis of a Reason article, but possibly Popper's critique merits inclusion. If it's included, it's worth being clear what about the subject has been characterized as pseudoscience. i.e. it's not materialist historiography/capital as a frame for history, but the predictions/laws that came along with it. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:53, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

  Popper did not describe it as a pseudoscience. Polygnotus (talk) 23:55, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

  That description is mandated by the description anyways: Each section here summarizes the alleged pseudoscientific aspects of that topic..

  That said: see what Polygnotus said: Popper did not. Slomo666 (talk) 23:58, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

  ? His whole point of bringing it into Conjectures and Refutations is to show its transformation into something unfalsifiable/pseudoscientific. The debate here isn't whether to call its original formulation pseudoscience, if that's the distinction you're both making re: Popper; the debate is whether to include the subject. And to that end I don't actually care that much, but there's a decent case for doing so. My bigger point was that if it is included, we should explicit about what's not called pseudoscience (e.g. the use of capital as a lens for history). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:26, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

  We can't, per the PAGs and the fact that Popper didn't call it pseudoscience. Polygnotus (talk) 06:58, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

• Refocus our efforts towards the core problem with this article. I know some other people have talked about this already but I'm going to add my two cents here. The list shies away from stating that the entries are pseudoscience instead of just being called pseudoscience, and I don't see that as beneficial at all. Sure, it makes it easier to add stuff to the list without massive RfC arguments in a contentious topic area is a pseudo but what matters is not what is beneficial to us editors but rather what is beneficial to readers. The list doesn't clarify for each individual entry if it's nearly universally agreed to be pseudoscience or not, and the result of this is that we open the door to reader speculation. They might think "Okay this is an entry on the list, but that doesn't mean it is pseudoscience, it just means some naysayers claim it is!" and that would perhaps be fine for an entry like historical materialism, if it were to be added, but it's a terrible thing to let readers have as the takeaway for something like climate change denial. On the other hand they might think "Okay, the list saying it's topics "characterized" as pseudoscience is clearly just being diplomatic/appeasing towards pseudoscience believers, the entries on this list are clearly going to all be obvious pseudoscience!" and the reverse goes here: fine for climate change denial, not so much for something like historical materialism. We can make the question we're answering here moot if we just address the core problem at hand. Change the article to be List of topics considered pseudoscience, or perhaps just straight up List of pseudoscience topics, and change the inclusion criteria to be the same level of WP:RS support as would be required for us to call something a pseudoscience in wikivoice on its article. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 08:18, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

  Thank you for that cogent, succinct analysis. You've identified the "core problem" and once that becomes clear, the solution would seem to be obvious.

  BTW, I couldn't help but notice that List of pseudoscience topics redirects to this article, which would seem to add to the confusion. Meanwhile, you have to read carefully to distinguish between List of topics considered pseudoscience and the current List of topics characterized as pseudoscience. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:50, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

  you have to read carefully to distinguish - ditto! That's exactly why I started this RFC. While many consider it malformed, I am glad that it had led to a sensibe discussion, despite inilial uncivilized attempts by some to stonewall it. One more stone into the pile: the word "considered" is WP:WEASEL word beging the tag {{by whom}}. --Altenmann >talk

  Yeah you're right. I was just trying to come up with some word that was more authoritative. The best option is likely to just say List of pseudoscience topics and say in the lead it's not an exhaustive list but rather a list of topics that are widely agreed by scholarship/science to be pseudoscientific. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 15:11, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

• Section #Historical Materialism is an extremely poor kind of discussion, lacking references both to policies, and to sources, i.e., an exchange of noncorrobrated opinions of Wikipedians. In the section #List items I tried to start a generic discussion about adherence of this page to our most basic policy of verifiability, but my appeal was dismissed. --Altenmann >talk 01:48, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

• By the way, google's AIntelligencies tell me what I suspected for a long time: philosophy is not science. Just the same, I do not see that HM is described as "science". We do not call religion "pseudoscience" do we? --Altenmann >talk 03:54, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

  For debates if Scientology is, or should be described as, pseudoscientific (or even a religion) please see Talk:Scientology. Polygnotus (talk) 07:59, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

So ... your !vote was based on what Gemini told you? ApLundell (talk) 19:00, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Back to basics:

1. For this list, we don't give a flying fuck whether an entry is or is not "pseudoscience", only whether it has been "described as" pseudoscientific.
2. Normally list entries (and this applies to all list articles) should have their own articles, or be part of an article, obviously with good sourcing. If not, the entry needs multiple RS.
3. Wikipedia is based on what's written in RS, so that includes mentions ("described as"), not scientific absolutism. Many cases are edge cases and we are not here to decide whether every topic is absolutely "pseudoscience". We are here to document mentions made in RS without adding an absolute judgment.
4. Any comment, RfC, or AfD that ignores these inclusion criteria should be ignored, removed, or the thread closed as it's asking the wrong question.

As one of the creators of this list article, I urge everyone to keep it on-topic, IOW don't give a flying fuck about whether an entry really is "pseudoscience". We leave that to each main article. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:49, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

5. We generally follow the PaGs, unless we have a good reason not to, which in this case we do not. Polygnotus (talk) 23:03, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

A) There are times when we say in Wikipedia's voice that something is pseudoscience. Examples include Creation science, Acupuncture, and Lysenkoism.

B) There are other times when we attribute that description to someone else. Examples include Feng_shui, Psychoanalysis, and Eugenics.

There are clear policies at WP:FRINGE/PS and WP:FRINGE/QS regarding when we can do A; for B we only have to follow the general P&Gs, so it's a much looser standard.

The problem as I see it is that our readers may think that inclusion on this list implies A and not just B. Yes, if you read the title and the introduction, that only B and not necessarily A should be the takeaway, but it appears even many of the Wikipedia editors who commented on the RFC don't seem to understand this - perhaps it's due to the poor wording of the RFC, but I think it goes deeper than that.

Agree that many of the items in this list are "edge cases". And when we list them here, we run the risk of implying that they are not edge cases. Hence the suggestion above to remedy that by only including entries where the topic article employs A.

Additionally, there are a fair number of entries in category C:

C) There are entries where the body of the topic article does not include the word "pseudoscience" at all - perhaps it's stated using some circumlocution, but a quick text search comes up empty. Examples include: Christian Science, Exorcism, and Scriptural codes.

Regardless of whether we change the list selection criteria, there appears to be more cleanup to do. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:27, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Question: What are the inclusion criteria for this list? It's called list of topics characterized as pseudoscience but obviously not everything that someone has called a pseudoscience goes on here. How strict are we meant to be? Is it enough if one published paper calls it a pseudoscience? Maybe even just a newspaper article? Or do we need a somewhat significant scholarly camp to view something as pseudoscience? The answer to the RfC depends on which one of these editors want the article to use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maltazarian (talk • contribs)

This article lacks an explicit set of selection criteria, so we have to go on the first sentence of the lead which says:

This is a list of topics that have, either currently or in the past, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers.

My reading is that a single instance of "academics or researchers" characterizing it that way would suffice, although Wikipedia's policies discourage using primary sources so a "published paper" might not. A newspaper article quoting "academics or researchers" would be a better (i.e. secondary) source. I don't see anything about a "significant scholarly camp" being required, or that the topic meets the criteria at WP:FRINGE/PS for us to call it "pseudoscience" ourselves.

My take is that we need a better, more explicit set of inclusion criteria, which I have proposed. But so far there hasn't been support for that change.

There's more re selection criteria in a hidden comment at the top of the article that says:

NOTE ON SOURCES AND INCLUSION:

• WP:RS states that sources must be generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand.
• WP:V states that [t]he appropriateness of any source always depends on the context.

Please note that due to the controversial nature of the label "Pseudoscience", we must demand a reliable source from an appropriate source in order to include it. If something seems to be obviously pseudoscience, then either such a source likely exists somewhere or it isn't notable enough to warrant inclusion.

The inclusion criteria must necessarily be strict enough that notability should be established at the main article first, using RS.

UNSOURCED entries WILL BE REMOVED in order to keep this list clear of original research and possible NPOV violations.

For more clarification, see the top of the talk page.

The material at the top of the talk page is a FAQ, but it doesn't really satisfy the need for an explicit list selection criteria. Likewise, the hidden note mostly just reiterates general Wikipedia policies and guidelines, along with a single sentence saying something about what the inclusion criteria must be instead of saying what it is. We can, and should, do better.

Regardless, the question posed in the RFC is orthogonal to the selection criteria in its current state. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:39, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

This article lacks an explicit set of selection criteria, so we have to go on the first sentence of the lead This is incorrect, as was already explained; we have to follow the guidelines unless we have a good reason not to.

The title and hidden comment cannot overrule the guidelines, which have a widespread consensus behind them. Polygnotus (talk) 15:05, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

So, where, exactly, is this "explicit set of selection criteria"?

I've been looking for something similar to what's at the list of common misconceptions, which states:

1. The common misconception's main topic has an article of its own.
2. The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.
3. The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.
4. The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete.

and I'm not finding anything like that. Am I looking in the wrong places?

Agree that we need to follow the policies and guidelines (PaGs) for this and any other article; we can't overrule the guidelines, but simply restating the more relevant ones doesn't provide any additional information re which topics to include. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:36, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

@Mr swordfish It was the causal link and the second bit of the quoted sentence that is incorrect. Polygnotus (talk) 15:40, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

From WP:LSC:

Selection criteria (also known as inclusion criteria or membership criteria) express the characteristics required for entries to be included in an article. The criteria may be presented in the article lead, the article body, or on the talk page; consensus at the article level decides which. Mentioning them may be omitted in cases where the article title provides all the necessary information; however, even when seemingly obvious, explicit criteria are often helpful both to readers and editors.

This article presents the selection criteria in the lead. That satisfies the guidelines, but I would agree that a more explicit set of selection criteria would be "helpful".

Of course, we'd have to reach consensus to adopt a more explicit list, and at this point it seems like the majority of editors don't even understand what the current criteria are. So, I'm skeptical. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:31, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Generally speaking there is no need to add "oh and you have to follow WP:V and WP:NPOV" to the criteria because people see that as a given. But on this particular article, because some people don't seem to grok that the PaGs still apply, it is wise to explicitly mention 'em. Polygnotus (talk) 16:21, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Alright my bad for not responding guys but it appears I forgot to sign the comment and subscribe to the thread so I just didn't get any notifs. If the list aims to include topics that have been characterized as pseudoscience by WP:RS then it does appear objections to historical materialism being added to the list based on it not being a pseudoscience aren't relevant; those objections should be refocused to target the inclusion criteria for the list being way too relaxed to serve as a useful list of pseudoscience topics, because it allows for what would otherwise be considered WP:FRINGE claims. I will have to evaluate if there are reliable sources calling it a pseudoscience. Either way, the situation with these inclusion criteria end up being a bit funny. In some sense what we have here is a list about WP:FRINGE that very clearly leaves the door open for potentially WP:FRINGE claims about what qualifies as a WP:FRINGE theory. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 07:26, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.