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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep.  Sandstein  20:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of asserted psychic abilities[edit]

List of asserted psychic abilities (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

There is no way that this page can ever achieve WP:NPOV because the most reliable sources on "psychic abilities" agree that none exist. The list should read: "There are no verified cases of psychic abilities ever existing". The only way to have such a list is to use poor sources that are not verifiable such as comic books, television shows, movies, crazed lunatics babbling in the street, etc. Clearly not an encyclopedic enough topic for our use. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:56, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak Delete leaning toward Delete:Per Nom. Rgoodermote  00:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The title is appropriate for a list of notable subjects such as Telekinesis, Clairvoyance, etc. There is a good article for Psychic that mentions some abilities but does not list them. The article should be completely rewritten with a single lead paragraph that succintly explains the lack of scientific evidence, followed by a bullet-point list of notable psychic abilities. A need for rewriting is not a valid reason for deletion. Ryan Paddy (talk) 00:39, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    What reliable sources determines what is a legitimate psychic ability? How do we demarcate such a list? Where do we draw the line at sourcing? ScienceApologist (talk) 00:41, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The same kinds of sources that we use to cite Intelligent design, for example. Things don't have to be true in order to be notable and verifiable. Ford MF (talk) 15:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Hi. There is no need to determine whether psychic abilities are real in order to list them. Given that Clairvoyance and Psychic have articles because they are notable subjects, and the "legitimacy" of the subjects are discussed in the articles, a list of notable psychic abilities is suitable for an article per WP:LIST. The article can mention the discourse over whether the listed abilities are real, in the lead. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Difficult to source doesn't mean impossible to source. I don't see anything here that can't be solved on the talk page. --Phirazo 01:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Smerge into psychic as a list, pure and simple - many of the listed items already have separate articles (Automatic writing, Clairvoyance, +c); those that don't probably should have. Grutness...wha? 01:25, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Wouldn't creating a bullet list of abilities in Psychic, which is a nicely written article, be quite fugly? Psychic could just link to this list under See Also, once this list is improved. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete This is an anti-science list. There is no scientific evidence that supports the concept of "psychic powers". This list is written from an anti-science point of view. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 02:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Sorry, that's no more a rationale for deletion than saying atheism-related lists ought to be deleted for having an intractable anti-religiosity POV. Ford MF (talk) 15:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Sorry, but any sourcing for this would be in serious POV trouble itself. If the main Psychic article does not list the powers claimed for such things, it should.  RGTraynor  03:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Please review the article, I've rewritten it in the fashion that I suggested. This is the Wikipedia article that the title "List of psychic abilities" properly denotes, a stand-alone WP:LIST. Ryan Paddy (talk) 04:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- brewcrewer (yada, yada) 04:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep As re-written by Ryan Paddy. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, whether psychic abilities are confirmed has nothing to do with whether the article should exist. The abilities have names, and they have been discussed academically and popularly. WillOakland (talk) 09:15, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per WillOakland's comments. There exist a set of things that are defined as being psychic abilities. Whether they have ever been observed in humans or are possible according to physics is an entirely separate issue, perhaps warranting prominent discussion in the article, but these do not lead to good arguments for deletion. NoDepositNoReturn (talk) 10:24, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and rename List of psychic powers. Lists and categories complement each other. Whether or not any person actually exhibits these powers is irrelevant when it comes to having a list of them. These topics can still be written about in an encyclopedic manner and the articles can be grouped in a list. Wikipedia is not paper and is not just an encyclopedia of scientific topics. --Pixelface (talk) 11:31, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and rename per Pixelface. Disbelief in the existence of psychic powers is simple positivist bias; the fact that unicorns are unlikely to exist doesn't justify deleting an article on them. Categories do not make lists irrelevant or redundant. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:42, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • What source do we use for what is and isn't a psychic power? If we had a list of unicorn powers, what source would we use for that? ScienceApologist (talk) 15:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • There are plenty of sources on psychic abilities that definitely cannot be dismissed as "comic books, television shows, movies, crazed lunatics babbling in the street," such as Martin Gardner's Science: Good, Bad & Bogus. So, can you please explain why you think it is such a problem to maintain this article? WillOakland (talk) 18:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and most definitely rename. I think we want something more like "List of paranormal phenomena in which the source of the paranormal phenomena is human". But not that, because that's a horrible title. But what I mean is that when the list says "psychic powers" (since some things on the list are debateably "psychic") what it really means is paranormal things people have been said to do, as opposed to ghosts or aliens or bigfoot or whatever. I can't really think of a good way to phrase this, though. Any help? Ford MF (talk) 15:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • How about List of comic book superpowers? ScienceApologist (talk) 15:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you're trying to convince me of how biased you are with regards to this article, I was already there. But your input is appreciated nonetheless. Ford MF (talk) 19:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I think you have to be squinting pretty hard to assume that "list of psychic abilities" denotes anything other than a list of abilities claimed to be possessed by psychics. I don't see why it needs to be purely human abilities either, it could cover the whole "dogs who know when their owners are coming home" malarky too. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:14, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There are lists of psychic abilities, and you could, for example, use this to source the ability as "psychic." ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 20:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would mostly agree with you except I think the number of ordinary folks who'd claim to have had an experience with a psychic power or phenomenon vastly outnumbers the number of people anyone would describe as a "psychic", probably in roughly the same ratio as people who believe in astrology : astrologers. Ford MF (talk) 04:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep for many of these abilities it shouldn't be hard to source them being psychic, although the above attempted link by Martinphi is at best extremely POV and would be highly problematic to be used a reliable source under any circumstances. However, I suspect that SA's comments about comic books point to a likely source; there are many secondary sources about comic books and movies involving powers like these. They will often term them "psychic". JoshuaZ (talk) 21:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Who are you going to use as a source for what is a claimed psychic ability? A professional skeptic? Someone who has no interest in psychic abilities, and therefore hasn't written about them? A third party observer who claims that there are claims that abilities are psychic? In such a case where we are only trying to source that a claim was made, the primary source is as good as any other. And a nice list is the cat's meow. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:03, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When in doubt we should turn to reliable secondary sources and if we use only primary sources it as best very hard to argue that such a list is at all notable. Finally, note that parasych.org has its own biases about what to include or not include. Moreover, many of the items on that list are clearly not generally regarded as psychic such as lucid dreaming. JoshuaZ (talk) 08:36, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good points. It's still a valuable source, but it isn't the only one you would want to use. But if you wanted to source, say, PK as psychic, it might be ok. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 21:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • KeepNeeded as a listing of claimed (real or not) psychic abilities, such as the ability to read minds(telepathy), to fortell the future (precognition), or to move objects (telekinesis). These have been the subjects of academic inquiry or many decades, as well as the matter of fiction. Collectively (and perhaps individually) they are highly encyclopedic. Edison (talk) 04:16, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This page was a lot better before people made a bunch of changes to it and made it a list of links, taking all my material out. It cites to several books and there were more cites on the way. It's true that a lot of people believe that psychic abilities don't exist, but a lot of scientists have studied it and claimed to have found statistically significant evidence of it. Many prestigious universities such as Duke have supported psychic research and created sub-departments or chairs for it, and many prestigious scientists throughout history have believed the evidence. There are many articles on Wikipedia about psychic abilities and there is even a Wiki started just to deal with paranormal topics. It's for anyone to say whether this stuff is real or not, but the US government really did recruit and train psychics for over a decade, try to use them to obtain intelligence for the military and other parts of government for over a decade, and congress kept secretly reapproving their funding every year, so congress seems to have been impressed with their results, at least for a while. The government including the CIA leaked and verified to the press that this project was going on, and this is very easy to check out (Stargate Project, leaked in the late '90s). A bunch of people who were involved with the project wrote books on it, including Ingo Swann, Joseph McMoneagle and Lyn Buchanan. Two or three of these people-- as you can expect out of any dozen or so people-- are of poor character or pretty kooky, and the rest appear to be different shades of normal. They are not being really pushy or trying to be smarmy about obtaining notice for themselves. It at least seems possible that they really believe in the stories they've told about the project. Swan Mc (talk) 20:33, 17 June 2008 (UTC)Swan Mc[reply]
  • My ultimate point is this: So many people who are otherwise treated as credible have claimed belief in, experience with, or interest in investigating psychic powers, that it's worth knowing about just for that fact. There have been literally thousands of scientific studies, including many published, about the same powers I wrote about in the article. Universities have given scientists livelihoods just off of studying this stuff. Sure there are atheists who don't believe in God, but we still have Wikipedia articles about Christianity and Buddhism, right? I myself don't really believe in psychic abilities at all, but am open to the possibility that evidence could one day prove that very slight psychic powers exist in very few individuals, and I think the reports and alleged evidence of psychic abilities are just interesting to read and know about. Swan Mc (talk) 20:48, 17 June 2008 (UTC)Swan Mc[reply]
  • Comment For example, Dean Radin is a Phd who does work, publishes journal articles, and writes books on psychic abilities, and he has done research on psychic abilities for Princeton, Edinburgh University, University of Nevada, and SRI (a really important, prominent American think-tank). He was also one of the scientists who worked on the U.S. government Stargate Project. But there are many others- it's a little field, just like any other in science, that does experiments, refines its experimental techniques, and publishes articles in journals. Even really top-of-the-line journals for disciplines like psychology have published articles or sponsored events and the like for this stuff. Swan Mc (talk) 21:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)Swan Mc[reply]
  • Keep and rename to "List of apparent psychic abilities" or "List of reported psychic abilities"; although many sources may say that psychic abilities do not exist, many people claim to have psychic abilities. Whether or not there really is such a thing as a psychic is for the individual to decide and believe, but there is no doubt that psychic abilities are claimed to exist. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 20:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep How is it not possible to maintian neutrality? The article does not need to, nor should it purport that psychic powers actually exist. Yetas long as there is a widespread interest in the subject across society and throughout history, it is a notable enough to include...and yes, there are reliable published sources regarding psychic powers. These sources do not actually claim that these powers exist, and it is not even necessary that these sources be concerned with verifying or debunking the existence of such powers. All these sources need to deal with is psychic powers as they are percieved in society, because it is a sociology topic, and yes, there are books on the subject (there's an entire decimal for them). So just as it is possible to have reliable sources about the subject of alien abduction, who neither affirm nor refute the validity of such phenomena, and it is possible to have a great deal of information about bigfoot, even though he doesn't actually exist, it is possible to have an article that lists the phenomenon of psychic powers wthout actually claiming they exist. Just remember that we must treat it as a social phenomenon, and not scientific one, and we're good to go. Calgary (talk) 21:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There is no way that the content of the page can stand as it existed before the AfD started, and as it has been reverted to now. Leaving aside the whole business of it being hugely biased towards a fringe POV, it isn't appropriate for a stand-alone list. There is far too much commentary. Such commentary is not appropriate to a stand-alone list, it's only appropriate for normal articles such as Psychic. Any reliable references from this article can be moved to Psychic. The version I created is an appropriately formatted stand-alone list. The prior main contributor should have a look at some other "List of" articles on Wikipedia and see how they're done, e.g. List of business theorists. However, the fringe POV is just a content issue and doesn't effect the deletion decision. As I've demonstrated, it's possible to write an appropriate article for the title. Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment This is a response to the comment from Ryan Paddy, above. There is no reason why forms should be elevated over substance just for the sake of the forms, when the substance isn't done justice by them. Previously, Wikipedia organizers may have envisioned templates such as for a stand-alone list or for a normal article. They certainly intended these forms as guides for contributors, not as some kind of formula (they cooked these templates up on their own, of course-- ad hoc to fit Wikipedia's need) that must be adhered to whenever someone writes an article to ensure that the content is sound. You might be interested to know that on German Wikipedia, stand-alone list articles aren't even allowed by the moderators! It's just another example that the way(s) we envision doing something are not always or only the best way(s). So, perhaps this is an example of a subject where something between a stand-alone list and a normal article is the best way to represent the subject matter.

I think it is, and I think many people who are interested in the subject matter will find my article helpful and useful. For one thing, the cutting-edge nature of the subject matter may lend it to a little more in-depth description on a summary page like "List of Psychic Abilities" rather than just a list of links to large articles. The "list" page is meant to familiarize people with what's out there as far as phenomena that have been claimed and tested, not to argue or repeat a bunch of (perhpas totally specious, and therefore a waste of peoples' time) claims about one specific psychic "ability" or another. When someone wants to know what psychics specifically have been claiming to do or been tested to see if they can do, they can refer to my page, and this will be the quickest, clearest way to understand this. It's just useful for people who are interested in the subject matter. Deleting the article will be like leaving a book without an introduction, that really does need an introduction for the reader not to get lost and to understand if the book will be valuable to him/her. Swan Mc (talk) 02:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Swan[reply]

    • Comment Finally, one more response to the original objection: The article as I wrote it used words like "alleged," "purported," and "claims" or "claimed" throughout. So the original objection did not even apply to the article as I wrote it-- it was indeed an article about alleged and purported psychic abilities, not an article advocating for them, and I included references. Therefore the deletions made to my article for reasons like neutrality and verifiability were completely unjustified. But I think we are over that objection about neutrality, since there have been a bunch of articles about psychic powers on Wikipedia for quite a while, as anyone can check out. Swan Mc (talk) 02:32, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Swan[reply]
      • Comment 1) I prefer a consistent encyclopedia following common standards, and your content is in too much depth for a stand-alone list in keeping with the English Wikipedia's standards. If there is in-depth material of value on the page then it should be covered in in-depth articles, and there's no use replicating it in this list 2) The existence of well-written, neutral articles on psychic subject matter doesn't make "your" article neutral. It ain't. But that's just content, which can be fixed, so it's not a reason for deletion. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:51, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete just an article about the editors' opinions. Presumptive (talk) 05:10, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete unless better inclusion criteria can be defined. The list of claimed abilities with all their variants and subvariants and various purported mechanisms (each of which would require a separate entry to avoid WP:SYNTH) is staggering. - Eldereft (cont.) 18:26, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If kept, we should take the Ryan Paddy version as the basis for building a list of the most notable abilities that are described as psychic. - Eldereft (cont.) 14:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Wikipedia:Lists (discriminate, encyclopedic, notable, unoriginal, and verifiable) and Wikipedia:Five pillars (notability to a real-world audience, consistent with a “specialized encyclopedia” concerning verifiable fictional topics with importance in the real world). Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 03:17, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, we both know perfectly well that everything on this list is bullshit, but it's still a perfectly valid list. Every "psychic ability" on this list is something that a person or multiple people have claimed to possess, and those claims can be referenced to reliable sources, even though their veracity cannot, obviously, since the claims were all lies and/or delusions. --Stormie (talk) 04:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also renaming would be good. Personally I quite like "List of claimed psychic abilities", to make it abundantly clear that these abilities have been claimed, not verified, an also to clarify that the focus of the list should be to record and reference these claims. --Stormie (talk) 23:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The subject is nonsense and pseudoscience, but the topic is valid as an article. Passes Wikipedia:Lists. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 19:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per above.Biophys (talk) 20:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- since some of the topics included in this list are clearly notable -- and, indeed, have articles describing them -- it's quite reasonable to have an overview. I have remedied possible WP:NPOV concerns by means of a bold pagemove. John254 02:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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