Talk:Terence McKenna

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Terence McKenna article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: 365 days

The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to pseudoscience and fringe science, which has been designated as a contentious topic.

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.

Arbitration Ruling on the Treatment of Pseudoscience

In December of 2006 the Arbitration Committee ruled on guidelines for the presentation of topics as pseudoscience in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The final decision was as follows:

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.
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 justification.
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.

Biography: Arts and Entertainment

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the arts and entertainment work group (assessed as Mid-importance).

Psychoactive and Recreational Drugs (defunct)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychoactive and Recreational Drugs, a project which is currently considered to be defunct.Psychoactive and Recreational DrugsWikipedia:WikiProject Psychoactive and Recreational DrugsTemplate:WikiProject Psychoactive and Recreational DrugsPsychoactive and Recreational Drugs articles

Neopaganism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Neopaganism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Neopaganism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.NeopaganismWikipedia:WikiProject NeopaganismTemplate:WikiProject NeopaganismNeopaganism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Occult Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Occult, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to the occult on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OccultWikipedia:WikiProject OccultTemplate:WikiProject OccultOccult articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Altered States of Consciousness Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Altered States of Consciousness, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of altered states of consciousness on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Altered States of ConsciousnessWikipedia:WikiProject Altered States of ConsciousnessTemplate:WikiProject Altered States of ConsciousnessAltered States of Consciousness articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

"Novelty theory is considered pseudoscience"[edit]

This phrase is in the lede, but only supported by no-name sources that probably violate WP:RS. I have the inclination to remove this statement from the lede, due to lack of WP:RS. I shouldn't have to say this, but I believe the statement to be true, or "true enough" as Terence liked to say, but we are here to follow WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NPOV. Find a RS that supports this statement. MarshallKe (talk) 00:53, 23 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that niche pseudoscience isn't going to have explicit criticism by WP:RS as they simply won't bother. A lot of credible science doesn't even get critical evaluation. Novelty theory is in "not even wrong" territory, it relies on false descriptions of history, misapplications of mathematics, denial of physics all to defend an illogical premise. I think that by looking at this we can see that it easily meets the requirement of "Obvious pseudoscience". JSory (talk) 02:06, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I'm not even certain calling it pseudoscience is enough given that it was barely scientific to begin with. TBase2 (talk) 15:08, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The bias and general hostile tone of the sources [10, 11] is suspect and not illuminating. Grammatical errors and repetitive insults (prophet of nonsense) undermines the value of these "sources." I do not think the statement "novelty theory is pseudoscience" is backed up effectively at all by the sources indicated. 2600:8800:7299:6E00:C1BD:FED:360A:4235 (talk) 17:00, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 12 October 2023[edit]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Thank you for reviewing. Terence directly addresses concerns his views may be considered "mystical" in the clip linked below (fast forward to the end), as he currently is labeled "a mystic" in the first sentence of this Wikipedia article:

"Now I've been accused of mysticism... ... ... And worse."

Is it accurate to label McKenna a mystic, given his frequent criticism of gurism of all kinds, including "Swami Contempo or Guru Garagekey"? Walkingsocialcatalyst (talk) 19:01, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not letting me link to McKenna recordings on YouTube here Walkingsocialcatalyst (talk) 19:28, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Pinchme123 (talk) 04:03, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please remove "mystic" as a label because McKenna was not only not a mystic, but also he mocked being thought of as a mystic (search YouTube for the Peculiar Humor of Terence McKenna (Part 1). 143.178.181.54 (talk) 22:02, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To remove the label, you would you have to be convincing that NO sources labelled him as such. We don't decide he is a mystic or not, the sources do, we just print what they print. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:31, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]