Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science

Do we need a "History" section in scientific articles ?

Quite a few scientific articles contain a history section. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I tend to skip them when reading an article. I prefer to have the historic reference embedded in the text: it makes the reading more enjoyable. What do you think ? Pcarbonn 20:08, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

History and ordering issues

Documenting the history of a scientific concept is certainly quite valuable, and eventually, the encyclopedia should and no doubt will grow to do that for pretty much everything. Some people will be coming to the article looking to find out who forumlated a particular theory or who discovered a particular somethingorother. Most people will probably be trying to understand the concept or phenomenon itself. Some of them may be technical folk, but many will be members of the general public. Which is why it's good to put the part of the article accessible to the general public first - otherwise, they'll immediately be either confused or bored, and most likely stop reading.

By the way, the introduction to Temperature does not do a good job of engaging the part of the public that doesn't really know much about it. It needs to start with an explanation that heat is related to the vibration of atoms, and move on from there. (The article certainly has lots of useful facts, though, yay.)

I fully agree that the Temperature article needs improvement. I have now clarified what we mean by "article in focus". Pcarbonn 14:41, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The dangers of presenting the history of a scientific concept come in when you start to talk about theories that we know are no longer true. It's important not to confuse the lay reader between the current theory and those known to be false or incomplete. Presenting the current theory as the logical conclusion to a train of improvements on pre-existing theories is often confusing to the novice and historically inaccurate. (I assume you've all read Thomas Kuhn's *Structure of Scientific Revolutions*.) Even diving into the genesis of the most-recent theory can be a little misleading because often there have been many refinements since the original discovery. For example, it took hundreds of years to work out all the implications of Newton's laws, and the notation and vocabulary has changed a lot over that time.

I fully agree that the history of science is not made of a continuous sequence of logical improvements, and we have to avoid giving that impression. I recommend instead to relate the theory/experiment/... to previous and subsequent ones so that the reader understand its significance and limitations. Pcarbonn 14:41, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

On the other hand, presenting the history of a simple scientific instrument, like a barometer, might be good to do up front. Primitive versions of instruments are often simpler and can be used to more clearly show how they work.

Reference articles on scientific topics might best leave history to separate articles altogether. Biographies also require a completely different treatment.

So it seems to me that if we are going to define standardized formats for articles, several different layouts are needed, for different types of article. And I guess this project only focuses on archetypes applicable across all the sciences, not specific things like how to do an article on a particular species or element or fundamental particle.

As for coming up with a standardized format for theories, I like the order in [Quantum mechanics]. Public-friendly explanation first, followed by applications (the next-most interesting section to the lay public, most likely). The public-friendly explanation should include things like relationships to other theories, limitations, and whether or not the theory is known to be incomplete (like Newton's laws, QM or relativity). Brief mention might be made of the primary contributors to the theory and *contemporary* competing schools of thought, if any. After that, I would put the full-blown technical information, followed by a proper history which discusses any previous, defunct theories, and fuller coverage of how the modern theory came to be. For longer pieces, I recommend separating the history section into a separate article. This would also help categorize articles more cleanly, considering they'll be the "science" category hierarchy, the "history" hierarchy, the "French science of the 1800s" category, etc.

Please update the proposed structure directly in the article as you see fit.Pcarbonn 14:41, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

--Beland 05:21, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Accuracy

In corresponding with the fellow who scanned Image:Boyle'sSelfFlowingFlask.png which replaced the Monty Hall image in the front-page article Paradox, he complained of inaccuracies in articles and a lack of quality control. (He is a professor and has used correcting errors in particular articles as class projects, so he's a part of the QC system.) He cited twelve errors in the short article on centrifugal force, though I would guess they were fixed by his class or someone else since his count. I would posit that we could use a strong emphasis on accuracy in scientific articles. -- ke4roh 03:09, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)

IUPAC spelling policy

I would like to propose that using the IUPAC standard names become policy on science related articles. There seems to be a consensus in preference to them, as I have been changing archaic spellings for some time with no objections.

The IUPAC currently recommends:

• Aluminium instead of aluminum
• Caesium instead of cesium
• Sulfur instead of sulphur

Reference

PDF HTML

Darrien 05:12, 2004 Jul 20 (UTC)

No objections here. In Australia, the 'proper' spelling is sulphur, but even textbooks don't use that much any more - sulfur is much more common. - Mark 07:40, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science might be a better place to propose this, and if it is accepted, a note should be made under the spelling spection of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Angela. 21:43, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC) [was originally at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines]

"Caesium" and "aluminium" look horribly wrong to my American eyes, but who can argue with standardization. My only request would be that any major alternative spellings be listed on the respective article pages, to eliminate any confusion that these weird new things aren't actually the good old-fashioned elements we know and love. -- Beland 03:06, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm for it. No objections - do it. -Vsmith 20:45, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Done. Comments? Next: Manual of style -- maybe wait a bit for reactions here?? :) -Vsmith 21:25, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have proposed this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style where ther has been considerable discussion about sulfur/sulphur. Please view my proposal and comment there. Thanks, Vsmith 22:48, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 15:24, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)) I strongly disagree with this and have restored the policy to chemistry only.

I understand that Mr Connolley disagrees and has very strong feelings on this, but the change made by him without discussion amounts to vandalism.

-Vsmith 15:56, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 16:02, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)) Accusations of vandalism are serious. Stop abusing the term if you want to be taken seriously. You inserted the disputed text on 10th oct whilst fully aware of the unresolved objections at Talk:Global warming. This was not straight of you. And its Dr Connolley to you, if you don't want to use my username or WMC.

OK, WMC, Leave it alone until discussion resolved then. It was proposed here back in July and discussed. The action here was not connected to the dispute in Global Warming. And changing an accepted standard in one group because you are arguing elsewhere without discussion here appears to me as vandalism.-Vsmith 16:25, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Question on "Proposed structure of articles"

Regarding, "the first part of article should be targeted to the general public, while the second part should be targeted to the scientifically inclined," and, "start with 2 or 3 paragraphs for the general public, using daily life examples", shouldn't the whole article be useful to the general public? Hyacinth 22:11, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would think that some theoretical explanations could not be understood by the general public because of the mathematical concepts they are based on (differentials, for example). Yet, other people will be very interested to see those mathematical formulations. Pcarbonn 05:56, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Pcarbonn. IMO the standard should be "something for everybody", not "everything for everybody". The later would be a low standard, with the possible negative side-effect of driving away readers that might otherwise become usefull editors--Nabla 12:06, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

I agree too, I'd like to see articles progrssively technical as they go on so that people can stop reading at their own comfort levels, yet everyone get something out of the page. theresa knott 20:44, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Applying format to Brain

The proposed format doesn't really fit brain, and, I'm afraid, other biology articles very well. In general I agree with most of the proposals PCarbon put on the brain to-do list, but "Brains on Earth" is just awkward and inexact as a subheading. Can anyone think up a similar term that would be better? Some of the other subheadings would be a bit weak: "in everyday life" and "in industry" won't have a whole lot - maybe one should be changed to "in medicine." I'm posting this here rather than on the Brain:talk page since it will probably be applicable to other biology-related topics. Sayeth 20:40, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

It looks to me like the wrong format has been applied. The brain is more of a discovery than a concept. Actually, I think a new format designed specifically for biological entities would be appropriate. (Formats for e.g. chemical entities and medical conditions already exist.) There is no biology or anatomy WikiProject to punt to, so someone here should probably propose one. -- Beland 05:53, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, I was not very comfortable using the proposed format for the brain article, and we could probably face similar issues with heart, virus, ... So defining another format for biological entities would be fine with me. It should probably keep the 3 major sections: introduction, in practice, in theory. Pcarbonn 14:09, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have now updated the proposed structure and the to-do list for brain. Is it OK now ? Pcarbonn 11:06, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Much better! Thanks! Sayeth 14:15, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

What is a "scientific reference article"

I would think that we have already quite a few types of articles. I'm not sure what is left... Could someone give an example ? Pcarbonn 18:03, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Naming convention of sections should not be applied rigidly

I agree with the spirit/idea of having the basic practical information first and more technical later , but the names of these sections should be tailored to the specific article, as noted in the discussion on brain above. "Cells in theory/practice" just doesn't sound right for the cell (biology) article, because for the cell there is no simple distinction between "in practice" and "in theory", the real distinction should be between an overview and more technical detail. I am undergoing a major edit/revamp of the page right now. --Lexor|Talk 09:22, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I fully agree. I have used other section titles in the water article too. Pcarbonn 09:57, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Eye on Collaboration of the Week

I thought everyone here would like to know that eye is up for nomination on Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week. This article meets our criteria for a WikiProject Science article and really needs some work. I think it would be a fun collaboration since physicist, biologists, and others could all contribute something. If you're interested, go vote. Sayeth 23:14, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Please stop mangling articles

A recent edit to mass pretty much mangled the article, inserting a bunch of bogus one-liner sections and a totally wrong section on mass-energy equivalence (which the originally article already dealt with correctly), for the sake of "conforming" to the structure of "what a science article should be". A similar thing was done a couple months back to quantum mechanics; that was reverted too. Please stop damaging perfectly good articles. -- CYD

While I agree that you have a point here, CYD, I think there are a lot of issues mixed together.

• First, I'm sure Pcarbonn did not intend to "damage [a] perfectly good article". :-) However, AFAIK, the section on mass-energy equivalence (I'm guessing it's this line: " The mass of an assembly is the sum of the mass of its part: thus, mass measures the amount of matter contained in an object."; correct me if I'm wrong here.) is wrong, and it's good that you caught it.

Indeed, I want "mass" to be an excellent article, because it is a popular one. I guess that the issue is how best to get there, and whether amateurs like me are allowed to contribute (they are, see Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections#Amateurs).

I have read the quoted statement many times in physics book, and I don't understand how it would be wrong if we use mass to mean "rest mass" in a classical mechanics sense. However, I suggest that we move this specific discussion to the talk page of mass. Pcarbonn 06:54, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the correctness of that specific section, agreed it should be one the Talk:mass; but I think there are also issues about WikiProjectScience mixed up in here still. JesseW 07:13, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Second, you objected to "bogus one-liner sections"; I assume you meant the regoranizing of the ToC by adding the section "Overview" and moving some text from the intro to the section "Types of Mass". I must confess I don't see how the changes that Pcarbonn made helped fit the article into the form suggested by WikiProjectScience; Pcarbonn, could you clarify this?

"one-liner sections" : I believe that wikipedia policy has nothing against it. The way I see it (and I agree this is not public policy), one-liner sections are like stub articles, but within an article, and are a signal that more should be written to cover this topic. In my view, it is important to discuss the units of mass further, and how mass is not conserved when matter is annihilated (="behavior/property of mass"), hence the 2 new sections I have added. Now, I do not claim to be an expert like CYD, but we have to start somewhere...

The mass article falls in the category "scientific object / concept". The guideline is to have a section called "Types / classification of object". (we could also move the description of "rest" mass vs "relativistic mass" there, because it is an important one). I agree however that the structure does not have to be used rigidly: this section title only makes sense when we also add the section on "units" and "behavior". Pcarbonn 06:54, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying this. JesseW 07:13, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think the best way to prevent the mangleing of "perfectly good articles" is for people fixing articles to make it clear what's wrong with an article before fixing it. Then, in cases of "perfectly good articles", someone like you could explain why they are mistaken about the wrongness of the article, and we would be saved from the confusion of unexplained changes and angry reverts. I hope this helps to clarify things. JesseW 03:26, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks JesseW for your facilitation of this discussion. I'll be happy to try "prior-discussion" next time. Indeed, I have checked again the be bold policy of wikipedia, and I understand that it should be used with sensitive articles (I had no idea that "mass" would be so sensitive...). Pcarbonn 06:54, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome. As for sensitive, on the other side, if an article has reached "perfectly good article" status, it would probably be good to mention on the Talk page something like: "I don't think this article needs changes; if you do, please add some explanation prior to making your changes. Thanks. - User:J.Random.Editor" JesseW 07:13, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a good idea. While we should be proud of the contributions we make to Wikipedia, we should always be ready to see someone come and bring good articles to a still higher level. Pcarbonn 19:55, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I quote:

Mass is now considered as one form of energy, i.e. mass can sometimes disappears into energy, and some energy can be converted to mass.

This is what I mean by a "totally wrong section on mass-energy equivalence". The article already points out the following:

Historically, the term "mass" was used for the quantity E/c². This was called the "relativistic mass", and m called the "rest mass". This terminology is now discouraged by physicists, because there is no need for two terms for the energy of a particle, and because it creates confusion when speaking of "massless" particles.

The issue is not one of whether amateurs are allowed to contribute to science articles; of course they are, but I should hope that they take the trouble to make sure the contributions are actually correct! -- CYD

I happen to believe that this statement is "perfectly good" and publishable, although it may not be perfectly phrased (remember, it's coming from an amateur, and amateur are allowed to edit). The statement is substantiated by the Einstein article, for example, which says: matter and energy are simply different forms of the same substance, and A simple calculation using the mass of the uranium nuclei and the masses of the products of nuclear fission reveals that large amounts of energy are released upon fission. But this discussion really does not belong here, so, let's move it to Talk:Mass. Pcarbonn 18:31, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Best way forward ?

After a few weeks of activity, and in view of the debate on the Mass article, I would appreciate some input on the best way forward. Here are some questions I have :

• do we generally believe that the Target articles need significant improvements to make them interesting to all public ?
• if yes, can a WikiProject help improving them ? Which part of this WikiProject do you find most useful ?
• while some find the recommended structures useful, others reject them. Should we stick to them ?
• is there a natural sequence for a scientific article, as the current recommendations suggest ?
• is it better to replace the structures by check lists, i.e. lists of questions that articles could answer in the order that best suits them (emphasizing the content, not the order of its discussion).
• any other idea to reach the stated goal of the WikiProject ?

Thanks in advance. Pcarbonn 20:14, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think that for some science articles, clarification for a general audience is vital for a general encyclopedia. Of course, not all science articles need this and not all need to be changed in quite the same way. Most articles on wikipedia grow organically, so trying to impose an outside structure on them ruins the flow of the article. Other articles have crept in length with randomn bits of trivia thrown in until the article is almost unreadable. These articles do require restructuring. For these articles and articles which do not have much to begin with, Wikiproject science provides a helpful framework for writing. Not all headings apply everywhere, and the structure laid out here should be thought of as prompts for writing rather than as rules. I think we need to be more careful in deciding what articles should be put up for improvement. We shouldn't be choosing articles based only on whether or not they conform to some arbitrary (but helpful) structure, but as Pcarbonn suggests, whether or not they answer certain questions clearly and completely. That's my two cents. Sayeth 19:23, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with all of Sayeth points, especially on the heading issues. It's good having a suggested layout, but they shouldn't be taken too literally, as they have on one or two occasions. I also think that sections shouldn't be added simply as placeholders until there's enough material to fill them, otherwise it starts to fragment articles, a formerly nice article all of sudden has a bunch of stubby sections, which should be avoided. I sugggest they can be added as HTML comments, however, which clues in the editor without detracting from the article for the reader. --Lexor|Talk 12:35, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

possible problem with proposed sturcture of Atom

I believe that there may be a problem with the proposed structure of Atom, so i would like the advice of the other WikiProject Scientists. please see my remarks at Talk:Atom#problem with proposed structure. thanks, Whosyourjudas (talk) 22:17, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)