Forum:Woo, crank, hokum, etc

Seems you're doing yourself a disservice by using those words. It would appear resorting to ad hominems and blanket statements is not a really good-way of debunking stuff.

Maybe you could actually address un-scientific stuff by scientifically disproving it, and don't address at all stuff that makes absolutely no sense?

But then, everyone needs a hobby and talking garbage about others to make themselves feel good :^) &mdash; Unsigned, by: 85.179.169.85 / talk 12:39, 25 February 2015‎


 * See tone argument. Alec Sanderson (talk) 14:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * We're taking increasing pains not to talk garbage about "others"(i.e. people) lately, but the words you mention describe garbage ideas.  And sorry, pseudoscience is shit, dog.  If there's someone who we're criticizing in that way, please let me know.  I'm trying to help fix those problems.  Ikanreed (talk) 14:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not an ad hominem to describe someone as a crank for holding crank ideas. An ad hominem would be to claim that they are cranks and that therefore their ideas can be dismissed. If someone promotes pseudoscientific ideas in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence, then designating them as cranks is simply an accurate description. It doesn't exactly help matters that crankery (or woo, for that matter) tends to go hand in hand with conspiracy theory (as the "explanation" for why everyone else are wrong). Part of debunking is that you don't really have to keep debunking PRATTs or PIDOOMA. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Regardless of whether it's an ad hominem or not, we're still trying not to call any people cranks. Ikanreed (talk) 15:12, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Then you'd better mozy over to the crank article and delete its list of "Famous cranks", or...? ScepticWombat (talk) 15:46, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Fuck. Ikanreed (talk) 15:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * And possibly this section of the crank magnetism article, too (though I guess it could be argued that RW simply lists these people as exhibiting crank magnetism while not explicitly calling them cranks) ScepticWombat (talk) 15:53, 25 February 2015 (UTC)