Talk:Axial twist theory

Confusing

I found the text hard to follow in two different ways:

- Unless you're already familiar with the theory, at many points it's really hard to follow what parts are moving, and in relation to what others. For instance, from the introduction one would think the right eye originally starts as the left eye. it's also not clear how the brain itself does a complete rotation, rather than a half, if that's indeed what is being claimed. (I suspect not). Visuals would help a lot, the current ones fall short.

- On a separate note, if those movements have been actually observed and documented in embryo development, as seems to be claimed at some point, then it's not much a theory, it's data. A theory would explain the why or how, not the what. I think this should be clarified as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.114.74.196 (talk) 12:22, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Please help to improve Categories

I am unsure of how to use the Categories On moving there was the following note: "The page's categories have a sort key, and update it as necessary. Check and update the magic words DEFAULTSORT and DISPLAYTITLE." Marci68 (talk) 19:48, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

The article does not have sort keys in its category links, so no action is needed. -- Beland (talk) 00:31, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Tagged POV issues

This is a good article, and the theory is interesting to read about, but it isn't as neutral about the theory as it should be. It spends most of the time explaining why the theory is correct: given that the theory isn't generally accepted (as of 2019, according to my googling) the article should not present the theory as true. I added a source saying that it wasn't generally accepted after ending up here trying to find out if it was known to be true and noticing that the article didn't mention that. I think the article needs to be rewritten to mention some of the arguments against the theory as well as for it, and not give the arguments of one subgroup of scientists uncritically.

For example, the lead contains (as of this comment) the sentence "Axial twist theory provides a comprehensive explanation of various phenomena...". This is similar to the phrasing used in articles on things like evolution, where it's clearly known to explain certain things. But given this theory is not known to be correct it should be more like "This hypothesis would explain various phenomena...". On subjects that are debated, a source is needed that says "the consensus is X" or a review article should be cited to say that, to avoid presenting as truth one out of a couple valid arguments by different people.

The study I found is from 2019, but I imagine things probably haven't changed too much in 5 years (if they have and people mostly agree now, then probably a POV is not needed, but I assume they haven't). Mrfoogles (talk) 06:12, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Also @Marci68 you can put the youtube links in Further reading if you manually type {{Cite web}}. They're not supposed to go in the main body. Mrfoogles (talk) 06:14, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! Marci68 (talk) 06:30, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Mrfoogles, thanks a lot for all the effort in checking the page. This is really important and I hope that you agree that the page is much improved, thanks to all your comments. One minor disagreement: I did not find the many "would"s helpful. The theory does explain (in writing that it would explain one claims that it in fact does not explain). Whether all the arguments hold in the end, is a matter of scientific dispute, as for any scientific theory. Having revised all the stuff that you noticed, I have now removed the POV tag again Marci68 (talk) 00:51, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, it's not perfect but the status of the theory is much more clear now. Agree the POV tag is reasonably removed. Mrfoogles (talk) 04:26, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Tagged a couple more citation neededs (these aren't critical, I just noticed them): putting in a note that there's a "reason" field if you hover over the tags, which not everyone knows. Mrfoogles (talk) 04:25, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again, @Mrfoogles! All of them are now completed. I did not know about the hovering, and this is really helpful. Marci68 (talk) 21:12, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, just noticing that a lot of places have (See <Another section of Wikipedia>), pinging you you can't cite other parts of Wikipedia as a source, because Wikipedia isn't considered a reliable source. Mrfoogles (talk) 21:44, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

@Marci68: IMHO, the article is still too much written from the perspective of adherents of the theory; especially after again replacing the conditionals ("would explain" et cetera) with indicatives ("explains" et cetera). I disagree with your stated opinion supra that writing "would explain" actually contains a claim of falsehood. In my opinion, the conditional forms indeed are to be read as conditioned on the assumption that the theory holds. Thus, they convey precisely the information they should, i. e., that there is no consensus on whether or not this theory holds; but that if it holds, then we (would) have explanations for several phenomena.

You also write: "Whether all the arguments hold in the end, is a matter of scientific dispute, as for any scientific theory." Technically this indeed is true "for any scientific theory"; but that is not quite relevant here. Wikipedia distinguishes any theory accepted by a consensus of those 'in the know' from (in-field) disputed theories. Examples of the first kind include Newton's theory of gravitation, and the modern synthesis theory of evolution. (In both cases, you can find critics, such as adherents of the flat earth theory or the young earth creationists, who refute the respective theory, but not based on arguments taken seriously by the astronomists or biologists communities. You can also find serious criticism, such as the theory of gravitation within the general theory of relativity, which does not invalidate Newton's theory, but rather exlains it as a special case of a more general theory.) Wikipedia do not treat any scientific theory as a consensus theory, in spite of the philosophical problems with distinguishing the two types. This article still has too much of the 'consensus theory' character, I think. JoergenB (talk) 15:49, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Changed it back to "would explain" again per this Mrfoogles (talk) 18:50, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the latest changes by Mrfoogles, which I think were clear improvements of this (in itself rather interesting) article. JoergenB (talk) 15:28, 18 October 2024 (UTC)