Talk:Atropa belladonna

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[edit] Wait a second

In this series of edits, Levine2112 has restored the passage "Belladonna has been used in the preparation of homeopathic remedies for acne, boils, and sunburns. There is no experimental evidence to support its use in this way." In this diff, Levine2112 claims that the Oxford Book of Health Foods is "now a very strong source." I'd like to know how Levine2112 arrived at this conclusion, because the discussion on this talk page has indicated that there's quite a bit of disagreement about whether this source justifies mentioning homeopathy in this article. Since I'm not a big fan of edit warring, I'm not going to remove the sentences that Levine2112 added, but I see no consensus that this material should be in the article. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Levine2112 is falsely claiming consensus again. I removed the sentences because I think he is gaming the system. We are still waiting on the results of the research by Stephen, for example. ScienceApologist (talk) 12:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
WP:RSN determined that the Oxford Book of Health Foods is indeed good source for including this information. What other issues need to be addressed? -- Levine2112 discuss 23:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Even if there was consensus at RSN, consensus can change, and I don't think that the Oxford book justifies the inclusion of the information. Regarding your point about consistency below, let's remove the bit about detoxification too. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, consensus CAN change but that doesn't mean it has changed nor that it will. Dlabtot (talk) 14:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Instead of arguing about consensus, why not try to find a source that argues for the prominence of homeopathy with respect to deadly nightshade? ScienceApologist (talk) 02:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Because there is no corresponding Wikipedia policy. It's simply a link to WP:UNDUE. Dlabtot (talk) 03:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
That isn't preventing people from finding such sources. ScienceApologist (talk) 03:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What's wrong with this picture?

The article talks of Belladonna extract used in the detoxification of alcoholics based on the WP:RS the AA "Big book" by anon author (Bill W.), but Belladonna's use in homeopathic remedies for various conditions in man and animals is not, despite 24 peer reviewed journal articles about it found using the search terms belladonna and homeopathic on PubMed. Ward20 (talk) 09:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

If the editors opposed to including the homeopathic usage had any consistency (or perhaps just interest), they would remove the detoxification of alcoholics information as well. Apparently they only seem to be targeting the removal of Deadly nightshade's well-documented use in the preparation of homeopathic remedies. I have yet to see any good, policy-backed justification for its removal. -- Levine2112 discuss 23:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
{{fact}} should be added, or the content removed if you consider it unreliable. Other stuff exists is not justification for inclusion. Justin chat 00:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I have gone ahead and added {{fact}} where I deemed a source was necessary (which is pretty much the entire article). I hope this doesn't come across as making a point, but it does show had little we source in this article and puts the reluctance to include the well-cited homeopathic use into perspective. -- Levine2112 discuss 01:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
It's not a question of reliability, it's a question of how important the information is. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
How are we to determine "importance"? -- Levine2112 discuss 00:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
WP:WEIGHT:

An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

Ward20 (talk) 07:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, WP:WEIGHT tells us how to treat information once importance (significance) to the subject is determined. My question was: How do we determine "importance"? -- Levine2112 discuss 18:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Through discussion. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Are you saying that it is at the editors' consensual discretion to determine how important an aspect is to a subject? -- Levine2112 discuss 18:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Basically, yes; the editors of a particular article make arguments about whether a piece of information is significant, or not, and hopefully develop a consensus about whether the information should be included in an article. This situation is a bit more complicated, because this discussion isn't just about deadly nightshade--the underlying issue here is how homeopathy should be covered on WP, in particular whether it should be mentioned in the articles for every plant that is used in homeopathic remedies, a selection of those plants, or none at all. That's why a centralized discussion would be helpful--we could come up with standards for inclusion/exclusion that would apply to the whole range of articles instead of fighting it out on each and every one. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
So essentially - after all the bickering about sources, NPOV, fringe and verifiability - it comes down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Meaning, it would seem that the only accurate way to describe the main rationale for exclusion seems to be: I don't like homeopathy, it isn't important, and therefore information about it shouldn't be mentioned in article foo. Is this basically it?
If we were to centralize discussions, where could we do that? Mediation? An RfC? -- Levine2112 discuss 18:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
"Basically, yes; the editors of a particular article make arguments about whether a piece of information is significant, or not, and hopefully develop a consensus about whether the information should be included in an article." I agree with the statement as it follows weight and consensus guidelines. However, I do not understand how establishing exceptional standards for homeopathy applied across multiple articles can be supported by WP policy or guidelines. "how homeopathy should be covered on WP, in particular whether it should be mentioned in the articles for every plant that is used in homeopathic remedies, a selection of those plants, or none at all.", sounds a bit like censorship to me.
Why complicate the issue? In this article weight seems to be fairly straightforward. Description > Toxicity (although I don't know why Atropine is treated with so much detail concerning the nervous system since someone can follow the link for that information) > Cosmetics (should probably be history but is interesting) > medicine (Where homeopathy should be included. One measure of significance is peer reviewed journal articles, 24 for belladonna and homeopathic on PubMed Vs 12 for Donnatal. They are even similar in that efficacy is disputed for both.) > Recreational drug > or = Folklore > or = Belladonna in the Media. Based on that simple analysis, (there are obviously different ways to approach it) homeopathy in the article belladonna should have slightly more weight than Donnatal. Ward20 (talk) 20:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Ward20, your logic here seems very reasonable; measuring relative "importance" by a topic's appearance in conjunction with the article subject in reliable sources (both amount and quality). I agree that the sheer amount of research which has gone into studying the homeopathic effects of Belladonna certainly establishes its relative "importance" to this article. Additionally, reliable sources such as the Oxford Book of Health Foods which dedicate a significant amount of space to discussion homeopathy on its page about Belladonna also can be used to judge weight. So where do we stand now? Where do we take it from here? It seems as though no matter how many sources we provide, no matter how many arguments we negate, no matter how many editors agree to inclusion, there will always be several editors opposed to inclusion on the mere basis that they don't like homeopathy and therefore don't think it should be mentioned in this article. (As a side note, I am skeptical about homeopathy. Currently, I am of the mindset that it is bunk. Regardless, I don't believe that my personal beliefs should have any bearing on content inclusion.) -- Levine2112 discuss 21:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
As you say, Levine2112, importance is relative. 24 articles is really not a lot, in comparison to the total number of articles that mention deadly nightshade. If you search on PubMed for "belladonna", you get 1180 results; 24 is a small fraction of that. A google scholar search for "belladonna atropine" turns up some 3180 articles, many of which look like they're in peer-reviewed journals, and I doubt that most of them have to do with homeopathy. I don't claim that google searches are the best guide to what should and shouldn't be included in an article, but these results suggest that the homeopathic use of deadly nightshade is not a prominent feature of scientific discussion about the subject.
Unless I'm wrong, I thought that the Oxford Book of Health Foods devoted one sentence to homeopathic uses of belladonna. No, wait, it's half of one sentence. That's not "a significant amount of space".
I thought Stephen B Streater's plan to look in a number of plant reference books to see what they say about deadly nightshade was a good one. Further up on this page, he says that he looked in three books, and they didn't mention homeopathy; but certainly there are many more books that could be consulted. When there are disputes about what to include and what to leave out, I often think that looking at the way other reference works handle a subject is helpful. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Please review the Oxford Book of Health Food again [1]. On such a short page of information, it discusses homeopathic preparations made from Deadly nightshade twice. And while 24 studies out of 1180 studies mentioning Belladonna may not seem like a lot, it is a notable sum indeed. That's 2% of published studies/mentions of Belladonna. Too notable to write off as mere trivia. By this rationale, 2% of are article (or at least the scientific sections) should be dedicated to discussing the homeopathic usage. I would guestimate that the two sentences proposed (along the lines of mentioning the homeopathic usage and then the lack of scientific support) would qualify as equal or less than 2% of this article. -- Levine2112 discuss 21:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Another google scholar search on "belladonna homeopathy" turns up 1,060 articles. Using that analysis, since I count 9 sentences with atropine in them, approximately 3 sentences could/should have homeopathy in them. There are two sentences using Donnatal, so that correlates fairly well with the other analysis using peer reviewed journals where it appeared that homeopathy should have slightly more weight than Donnatal.
I am also skeptical homeopathy is efficatious, but the information is what it is and we should report it that way. Ward20 (talk) 23:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The issue is whether homeopathy is prominent with respect to Belladonna. The Oxford Book of Health Foods does not establish the prominence of homeopathy with respect to this plant. I encourage the diligent scholars here to find a source which does reliably and independently make such an assertion. At that point I will clamor for the inclusion of homeopathy at this page. Until then I will clamor for the exclusion of homeopathy on this page. I am not opposed to excluding the mention of the supposed cure for alcoholism since the source is also dubious. ScienceApologist (talk) 02:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Please consider that over 2% of all scientific research conducted dealing with Deadly nightshade is involved in studying belladonic homeopathy. Prominence of homeopathy with respect to Belladonna is established by this. The Oxford Book of Health Foods discussing homeopathy twice on such a compact page of information also establishes the prominence of homeopathy with respect to Belladonna.
Nowhere in Wikipedia policy does it state that a reliable source is needed to make a direct assertion of prominence of one subject to another. Yet, this is what you are requesting us to find. Rather - if we read WP:WEIGHT carefully - we see that prominence is determined by how much weight reliable sources give one subject in a discussion about another; and from the weight given to the subject in the reliable sources, we should in turn give proportional weight in our Wikipedia article.
So what do we have? We know that at least 2% of scientific belladonic research deals with homeopathy. Do we translate that to mean that weight-wise we can allocate 2% of our article to homeopathy? We know that the Oxford Book of Health Foods allocated a couple of sentences to homeopathic preparations on its compact Deadly nightshade page. I'd estimate that the Oxford article is about a third-to-a-quarter of the length of our Wiki article. Does that mean we allocate 6-8 sentence to homeopathy here?
Well, what has been proposed and accepted by many here are simply two succinct sentences: one to describe DN's homeopathic use and another to tell of its scientific acceptance (or lack thereof). I really believe that inserting there simple two sentence into this article is entirely reasonable and well within the policy guidelines set forth by WP:WEIGHT. -- Levine2112 discuss 02:59, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
2% is pretty small. The Oxford Book of Health Foods is only one source, and a specialized one; the general plant references that have been consulted so far give no space to homeopathy. That makes me think that we don't need to, either. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Since you think that 2% is pretty small, then you shouldn't have an issue with us dedicating 2% of this article to discussions about Deadly nightshade's verifiable homeopathic usage. -- Levine2112 discuss 03:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
We know that at least 2% of scientific belladonic research deals with homeopathy. What utter nonsense. Using your same "method" for this determination, at Google Scholar, I found that .07% of all scientific papers on "Belladonna"[[2] also reference "homeopathy".[3] And the majority of those are either sourced by "homeopathic" journals, or show that such remedies are ineffective beyond placebo. None of them assert the prominence of homeopathy to Belladonna, and if the percentage is indicative of anything, it's that homeopathic remedies have virtually no relevance to this plant, or the article. Justin chat 04:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually what your link above shows is a Google search which elicits 14800 results of "belladonna" in scholarly works. Now, let's perform a Google Scholar search for belladonna homeopath and we get 1070 results of instances of "belladonna" and "homeopath" (homeopathic, homeopathy, etc). That's over 7%. Over 7% of scholarly works discussing "belladonna" also discuss "homeopathy". 7%. Now that's relevant. Please try it for yourself. -- Levine2112 discuss 08:09, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
P.S. I did a Google Scholar search for "deadly nightshade" and one for "deadly nightshade" homeopath; 1,470 versus 123 results respectively. That's over 8%! -- Levine2112 discuss 08:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Just a quick point without taking sides; you can't rely on such multiple searches as your second one in Google Scholar. Your search will pick up anything in Scholar that contains the two strings, even if they're in completely different sections of a 300-page paper. Black Kite 15:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

After reviewing the 24 PubMed articles, I read the largest double-blind randomized controlled trial ever conducted for homeopathic proving (as of 2003) was done with a Belladonna 30C dosage, and it concluded ultramolecular homeopathy has no observable clinical effects.[4] That seems significant enough in itself to be in the article. Why not say something like, "Belladonna is used in the preparation of homeopathic remedies,[1] and among other articles on homeopathic Belladonna, a large double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled 2003 study with ultramolecular homeopathic Belladonna found no observable clinical effects"?[5]

There is a large sentence about belladonna and witches,[6] two sentences on belladonna and the devil in Folklore,[7] and a rather large paragraph on Belladonna in the Media.[8] Based on the amount of coverage on these other topics (with almost no sources), it would certainly seem there is enough weight in RS publications for a sentence about Belladonna homeopathic use and a notable Belladonna study. Please consider WP:NPOV, Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial, and Information suppression:

* Editing as if one given opinion is "right" and therefore other opinions have little substance:

    • Entirely omitting significant citable information in support of a minority view, with the argument that it is claimed to be not credible.
    • Ignoring or deleting significant views, research or information from notable sources that would usually be considered credible and verifiable in Wikipedia terms (this could be done on spurious grounds).

Not that I consider anyone doing anything spurious. Ward20 (talk) 19:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Again, if we were dealing with an actual Fringe Theory here, we would have more than enough asserted prominence to include information. As we are not dealing with a theory but rather a fact - homeopathic remedies are in fact prepared with Deadly nightshade - all of these bonus citations are merely icing on cake - a three-tiered extravagant cake made with reliably sourced flour, verifiable eggs, independent third-party milk, and NPOV sugar. :-) Prominence - if that was ever really required by some policy - has long been met and exceeded. Now let's eat some cake. -- Levine2112 discuss 23:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
No you haven't even come close. Google searches (for what they are worth) provide a reference, but nothing more. Simply because the two terms are used in a paper, no matter how often, doesn't indicate prominence. The citation that supposedly proves its use is prominent to Deadly_nightshade is nonsense. It says nothing about prominence. Disregarding that, you still have no consensus to add that information, so I ask that you self-revert instead of making broad claims about what has or hasn't been met. Justin chat 23:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Please consider the actual amount of research we have pointed to, rather than highlight the Google searches which was merely meant to counter an argument which you made. Now then, I have found yet another piece of scientific research studying the effects of immunology and homeopathy with regards to preparations made from Deadly nightshade. Though I wasn't specifically looking for one, this study actually supports the positive effects of homeopathic remedies made from Deadly nightshade:
Other Homeopathic Medicines
Atropa belladonna and Echinacea angustifolia have been tested for their effects on leukocyte migration and macrophage activity induced by experimental peritonitis in vivo (23). Mice were injected (i.p.) with lipopolysaccharide (1.0 mg kg–1) and treated (0.3 ml per 10 g per day, s.c.) with different forms of these medicines. The association of A. belladonna and E. angustifolia in a formulation containing various potencies produced a significant increase of polymorphonuclear cell migration and a decrease of mononuclear cell percentages. The proportion of degenerate leukocytes was lower in the treated groups, compared to a control group. The treated groups showed increased phagocytosis, mainly in preparations containing high potencies. The authors suggested that A. belladonna and E. angustifolia, when prepared ‘in accord of potencies’, modulate peritoneal inflammatory reaction and have a cytoprotective action on leukocytes.
The homeopathic medicine A. belladonna was tested on the in vitro contraction of isolated duodenum (85). It is noteworthy that low dilutions of Belladonna (1c and 5c) showed inhibitory effects, as expected from the spasmolytic effect of atropin, while highly diluted and dynamized solutions (30c and 45c) showed stimulatory effects. Non-dynamized solutions were inactive.
Full text
Effect of Atropa belladonna and Echinacea angustifolia in homeopathic dilution on experimental peritonitis
Atropa belladonna and Echinacea angustifolia have been used in homeopathy as modulators of inflammatory processes, in simple potency or ‘accord of potencies’, as recommended by homotoxicology. We evaluated their effects on leukocyte migration and macrophage activity induced by experimental peritonitis in vivo. Mice were injected (i.p.) with LPS (1.0 mg/kg) and treated (0.3 ml/10 g/day, s.c.) with different commercial forms of these medicines. Echinacea angustifolia D4—a simple potency preparation—and Belladonna Homaccord®, Belladonna Injeel®, Belladonna Injeel Forte®, Echinacea Injeel® and Echinacea Injeel Forte®—all in ‘accord of potencies’—were tested.
The association of A. belladonna and E. angustifolia in ‘accord of potencies’ produced an increase of polymorphonuclear cell migration (Kruskal-Wallis, P=0.03) and a decrease of mononuclear cell percentages (Kruskal-Wallis, Pless-than-or-equals, slant0.04), when compared with control, mainly in preparations containing low potencies. The proportion of degenerate leukocytes was lower in the treated groups, compared to a control group (Pless-than-or-equals, slant0.05). The treated groups showed increased phagocytosis (Pless-than-or-equals, slant0.05), mainly in preparations containing high potencies. Our results suggest that A. belladonna and E. angustifolia, when prepared in ‘accord of potencies’, modulate peritoneal inflammatory reaction and have a cytoprotective action on leukocytes.
Abstract
Do you consider discussion in MedLine significant?
Belladonna (Atropa belladonna L. or its variety acuminata Royle ex Lindl)
Most research has evaluated belladonna in combination with other agents such as ergot alkaloids or barbiturates, or in homeopathic (diluted) preparations.
Homeopathic doses often depend on the symptom being treated and the style of the prescribing provider. Dosing practices may therefore vary widely. Usually, a homeopathic product is diluted several times. For example, belladonna may be diluted by 100 (one teaspoon belladonna added to 99 teaspoons water) in the first round, and this new, dilute mixture may be diluted 30-fold (1 teaspoon of the dilute mixture added to 29 teaspoons water).
Article
How about The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products?
Atropa belladonna L., synonym Deadly nightshade, is a plant species of the family Solanaceae. The mother tincture of Atropa belladonna is prepared by ethanolic extraction of the whole fresh plant at the end of the blooming period without the ligneous parts of the stalks according to the German Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia (HAB). The dilution 1:100 is containing a maximum of 1% of the original plant material. The degree of extractability of the plant constituents by homeopathic manufacturing procedures is not known. However, due to the provisions in the pharmacopoeia (HAB) the maximum alkaloid content in the mother tincture is not allowed to exceed 0.1%, calculated as hyoscyamine base. The use follows the principles of homeopathic therapy where animals are diagnosed on basis of the individual pattern of clinical signs.
Atropa belladonna is used as a diluted extract not exceeding one part per hundred prepared according to homeopathic pharmacopoeias with an adjusted total alkaloid content below 0.001%, atropine the main belladonna alkaloid has already been recommended for inclusion into Annex II of Council Regulation (EEC) 2377/90,
Atropa belladonna is used in a small number of individual animals for non-regular treatments in accordance with the principles of homeopathic therapy the animals are unlikely to be sent for slaughter during or immediately after treatment, the Committee for Veterinary Medicinal Products concludes that there is no need to establish an MRL for the homeopathic preparation Atropa belladonna and recommends its inclusion in Annex II of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2377/90 in accordance with the following table...
PDF
Exactly how much research on this do we have to find before you are convinced that Deadly nightshade's homeopathic usage deserves mention here? -- Levine2112 discuss 23:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
(ec) How about a reliable source (not a number of "homeopathic journals" like you've cited above) that state "A common use of belladonna is in homeopathic remedies"? The problem is, you won't find such a source because homeopathic remedies aren't widespread or widely used. The use of belladonna in homeopathic remedies is, by definition, fringe. The numbers I presented previously show that about 1% of the total global population (or less) have used homeopathic remedies in any given year. I think its safe to assume that not all of them used a remedy containing belladonna.
Thus far you've presented a variety of homeopathic journals, and a few secondary sources that says it's used, but not relative to anything else. There are many reliable sources that claim the Time Cube is an erroneous attempt at physics. By your definition of what can and can't be in an article, we should then put a reference to the Time Cube in the article on the Theory of Everything. The fact remains that homeopathy is WP:FRINGE. While some fringe theories are notable enough to have their own articles (such as the Time Cube and Homeopathy), they don't belong in other articles which should be based on relevant information. Justin chat 00:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

More than 2% of the articles on PubMed would be nice. It would also be nice if you paused to see if you've convinced anyone but yourself before restoring the material in the article. We're supposed to try to build a consensus when we edit. As for the quoates you've added, they don't seem to change what we already know. We all know that belladonna is used in homeopathic treatments. What we don't know is how significant that is in relationship to all of the uses of deadly nightshade; and the material you've quoted here doesn't say how common the use of homeopathic belladonna is. I will say, though, that the Medline article is a good type of source for the question here; it's on the NIH website, and so seems to be a pretty decent source, and the page that covers different aspects of the medicinal use of the plant, so it sets the homeopathic use of the plant in a broader context. But this is only one source, and against it we have the botantical reference books that Stephen B Streater consulted, which give no coverage to the homeopathic aspect. At this point, I'm not convinced that the homeopathic material should be in the article. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

One good source is more than enough to establish that homeopathic use is worthy of mention. But in fact we have Medline, Oxford Book of Health Food, and several non-homeopathic scientific journals all discussing the usage of Deadly nightshade in Homeopathy. Ask yourself if you've convinced anyone else that it should be left out before deleting the material again. Don't forget, that it is more than just myself and several other editors supporting inclusion; it is also the regular editors of this and other plant articles who see nothing wrong with mentioning the homeopathic uses. So far, I have only seen about four editors against inclusion and their best arguments - other than refusing to recognize sources which RSN recognize as reliable - amounts to WP:IDONTLIKEIT (IOW, they don't like homeopathy and thus don't think it should be mentioned here). -- Levine2112 discuss 23:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Is it time for an RfC? Or is that pointless considering how it was ignored at Thuja? I don't understand why the probation basically hasn't changed anything. Dlabtot (talk) 00:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Levine2112, you seem to be mistaken about several things. Saying that my objection to including the homeopathic material amounts to WP:IDONTLIKEIT mischaracterizes my position, and is an assumption of bad faith. I hope that you will refrain from such mischaracterization in the future.
No one disputes that belladonna is used in the preparation of homeopathic treatments, or that the Oxford Book of Health Foods meets WP:RS. But, as the verifiability policy states, verifiability is a threshhold for inclusion. There's plenty of verifiable information that doesn't get included in Wikipedia, and that's because Wikipedia is not an indiscrimate collection of information. You keep on mentioning the Oxford book; but one source is not enough to establish that this is an important fact about deadly nightshade. Especially not when other editors have found other sources that don't mention the homeopathic use--Stephen B Streater mentioned several above. Here's another. This book, Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs, doesn't mention homeopathy, but goes into greater detail about the medicinal uses of atropa belladonna than the Oxford Book of Health Foods. So far, I don't see evidence that the homeopathic use of belladonna is regularly mentioned in botanical reference books; that makes me think this isn't an important aspect of belladonna, and therefore it doesn't need to be mentioned in the article. I'm perfectly willing to change my mind if someone can show that plant encyclopedias regularly mention homeopathy. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Akhilleus, sorry about the IDONTLIKEIT insinuation. The truth is, I don't know how you feel about homeopathy. (Personally, I think it is bunk, but that is no reason to exclude information about it.) However, if the entire basis of your argument now rests with, "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", then I must urge you to read that policy. As I read it, WP:IINFO provides no justification for removing the homeopathic usage information. This policy applies to following (of which the belladonnic usage of homeopathy does not apply): Lists of FAQs, Plot Summaries, Lyrics Database, Statistics, and News Reports.
Further, there are no policies which I know of which support your other rationale; essentially that mention of a topic in a reliable source about the main subject can be nullified by other sources about that main subject which make no mention of the topic. If you know of such a policy, please point me to it. After all, the same "Rondale" Google book you point us to makes no mention of the opthamological use of Deadly nightshade nor of the generic FDA approved pharmaceutical Donnatel nor of its pseudoephedrine-like qualities nor of its use to counteract chemical warfare poisoning. Basically, this logic of lack of mention in once source canceling out a mention in another source would effectively wipe out the entire "Medicine" section (not to mention the disastrous effects it would have to the rest of the article; for most of the information contained here is not found in the Rondale reference). Again, if this rationale is supported by some policy, please point us to it.
I think it is pretty clear why your two rationales either don't apply here or have no backing in actual Wikipedia policy. Is there some other rationale based on a Wikipedia policy anyone would like to point out to justify the removal of the homeopathic usage from this article? Otherwise, please let's either include this information or move on with a form of WP:DR such as starting a WP:RFC. Sound reasonable? -- Levine2112 discuss 17:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
The "homeopathic information" doesn't belong in this article until we can find enough sources of a high enough quality to justify the prominence of homeopathy with respect to this plant. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Will this assertion become more persuasive with additional repetition? No. Dlabtot (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. The assertion that we need to "find enough sources of a high enough quality to justify the prominence of homeopathy with respect to this plant" has no backing with any real policy in Wikipedia. If you disagree, please cite the policy and give the exact sentence which justifies this assertion. -- Levine2112 discuss 20:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Levine, you remember awhile back when I compared this to some example from chemistry; gosh, I don't remember, the extreme one (a reductio ad absurdum) was water. Water is essential to everything. The article on sulphuric acid should mention its ingredients, sulpher and water; and the article on sulpher should mention sulphuric acid (it does, and it mentions disolving sulpher in water). However, the article on water does not mention sulpher. Why not? I think that SA is right that a principle (of pertinence) applies, so it's a matter of degree that we dispute (how pertinent is homeopathy to belladonna), right? Else why doesn't Water mention sulphuric acid? Pete St.John (talk) 20:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
In your comparison, you are comparing Water to Deadly Nightshade. However, since the homeopathic remedy made from Deadly nightshade contains water (some might argue that it is 100% water), why not compare Water to Water here. That would mean that the products of these combinations with water are analogous: "Homeopathic Remedy" and "Sulfuric Acid". And what is combined with the water in both of these examples are also analogous: "Deadly nightshade" and "Sulfur", respectively. IOW, Water is to Water; and what is added to the water (Sulfur to Deadly Nightshade) can be compared, and thus the products of the combinations with water can be compared (Sulfuric Acid to The Homeopathic Remedy). Thus, since you agree that the Sulfur page should contain information about Sulfuric Acid; shouldn't by the same reasoning the Deadly Nightshade page contain information about the Homeopathic Remedy? -- Levine2112 discuss 23:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I was hoping you'd concede the point that something like "relevance" is relevant, and it's a matter of degree; and then we could discuss where the dividing line should be, particularly if homeopathy sufficiently pertains to belladonna, as we agree belladonna sufficiently pertains to homeopathy (that is, we agree that Homeopathy should mention belladonna because homeopathy considers it an important ingredient). Conceding points, even small ones, helps us converge towards consensus, IMO. That said, yes, the analogy was a reductio. Better would have been for me to say that while an article about the practice of egging houses on Halloween might mention sulpher (the source of the bad smell, which is one of the desired effects of the egging), the article about sulpher probably need not mention egging houses. Even the article about eggs probably should not mention egging houses. X can be pertinent to Y without Y being pertinent to X. Pete St.John (talk) 18:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I would say - judging from the limited understanding I have of the plant and of the profession - that homeopathy is more relevant to Deadly Nightshade than Deadly Nightshade is relevant to homeopathy. I would expect that Deadly Nightshade would mention its homeopathic use where I would be surprised if the homeopathy article mentioned Deadly Nightshade if but as an example. I am not following your egg analogy, and I think the Sulfur + Water = Sulfuric Acid analogy was more apropos as we are dealing with a substance plus water equaling some potion and agreeing that the potion should be mentioned in the article about the substance though not in the article about water. Applying this model here, we ought to recognize that Belladonna + Water = some Belladonnic homeopathic remedy and such a remedy should be mentioned in the the Belladonna article (given a reliable source verifies such). This is a 1-to-1 relationship between the two analogies. -- Levine2112 discuss 08:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

This is all just tendentious argumentation. Let someone who has a reliable source that asserts the prominence of homeopathy to deadly nightshade produce it. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

If you feel it is tendentious, please feel free to abstain from participating. Reliable sources that assert the prominence have been provided in the form of the Medline article and the Oxford Book of Health Food. I understand that you are demanding a source which spells out what percentage of a Deadly Nightshade harvest is used in homeopathy (or something to that effect), however there are no Wikipedia policies that I am aware of which would require such a ludicrously high expectation from a source. I have asked you this many times, but here it is once again: If you know of such a policy which outlines such a specific requirement of a source to spell out an exact prominence of information to the article subject, please provide us with a link to such a policy and a quote from the policy which outlines such a requirement. We have asked this of you from quite some time now and several articles' discussion pages, and you have yet to provide us such a policy. I know you feel that WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE state this, but as far as what I have read, they do not state such a requirement from the sources. If they do, and I am just missing it, please spell it out for me here by quoting exact text from these (or any other) policies. Thanks. -- Levine2112 discuss 08:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The problem with abstention is that twice when I abstained you made false claims of consensus as justification in article space for your edits. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I am not going to address your false accusation. I am, however, still waiting for a policy which expresses your rationale for keeping this material out. -- Levine2112 discuss 18:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Toxicity citations

I would have preferred marking the section "toxicity" for needing citation, rather than marking each of many related points. We want to focus on what facts need to be supported, and not get distracted by things we can agree on; particularly, that belladonna is poisonous. Anyway I found a ciation for the simple fact that those alkaloids (specified in the article) appear in the leaves, stem, root etc of the plant, so "every part" seems fair (but maybe the alkaloids don't appear in the mitochondria or the ADP, what level of structure scale is meant? But we really don't want to make ourselves crazy, right?) Pete St.John (talk) 20:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It would be fine and perhaps better to mark each section needing references with a section template rather than marking each individual piece of information. With exception to common knowledge items, I do believe that everything in this article needs to be verified by a reliable source. -- Levine2112 discuss 21:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Well we improve the article by finding the citations, and on the merely botanical points that's not so hard, so that's OK. But for example, ordinary material can have one general source per section; e.g. "2+2 = 4 (cf Algebra I)" instead of "2 (cf Nonnegative Whole Numbers) + (cf abelian additively-denoted operators) 2 (cf Nonnegative Whole Numbers) = (cf Arithmetic Equality and Other Equivalence Relations) ..." etc. We don't want to be pedants. Well some of us do. Pete St.John (talk) 21:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. But for the mere sake of mentioning it, with regards to your example "2+2=4", no source would be necessary since this is common knowledge. :-) -- Levine2112 discuss 21:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Inline citations are proper for controversial issues certainly. I personally like them for anything which doesn't constitute general knowledge. However, you wanted to make your point by tagging nearly every sentence with {{fact}}. I'm not going to go to battle over it, however, you've made the article look absurd and that is a disservice to the entire Wikipedia community. If you decide to self-revert, great. If not, so be it. In the mean time, you might consider that your actions give the appearance that your more interested in making a point than you are writing an encyclopedia. Justin chat 04:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I actually made it clear that I was not making a point. Whether you believe me or not is a matter of WP:AGF. As a result of my request for sources, editors are already verifying content which laid un-sourced for quite some time. Net result: the article is already improving. What I find absurd is an article with virtually no attribution in an encyclopedia (our encyclopedia) which prides itself on policies such as WP:RS and WP:V which make up a very pillar of Wikipedia's core foundation. And our attempts to bolster this pillar in this article is what you describe as doing a disservice to Wikipedia. I'm sorry, but I simply disagree. Regardless of this difference in opinion of what constitutes article improvement, if you want to revert my edit, please be bold and do so. I'd much rather you just said, "Thank you". -- Levine2112 discuss 08:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No one has yet produced a source which asserts the prominence of homeopathy to this plant. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

That is because no one has produced a policy which demonstrates that inclusion of this content warrants such a source. -- Levine2112 discuss 08:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Please consider WP:REDFLAG. Find a better source. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't see anything in REDFLAG which applies here. Can you cite a passage from REDFLAG which does and let us know how? Thanks. -- Levine2112 discuss 18:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disruptive, misleading, and counterfactual edit summary

This edit summary is misleading, claiming something happened on this page that did not. We are still waiting for good sources regarding the prominence of homeopathy to this plant. Since this user has not only failed to provide this but has resisted any attempt to adequately source this sentence for inclusion, I have removed it. Please do not act so disruptively. Future actions in this regard will be reported to administrators for appropriate action per the terms of the homeopathy probation. ScienceApologist (talk) 02:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Prominence has been shown according to WP:Fringe where mention of a fringe topic in a mainstream source is sufficient to "firmly establish" prominence and relevance. Given that no fringe claim is made in any event, this more than meets the criteria of that guideline. No convincing case has been made here for any other policy or guideline which would warrant exclusion and various policies and guidelines have now been cited which support inclusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.212.242.242 (talk) 02:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
How about WP:CONSENSUS? Before this turns into an edit war, have you been involved in this discussion and forgot to login? I'm assuming so, since your contribs don't show very much editing at all, and it helps to know who's who in these debates. Justin chat 04:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Prominence has not been shown. Still waiting for a source claiming that homeopathy if prominent with respect to this plant.209.249.65.142 (talk) 04:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Anonymous user, could you please explain what you mean by 'prominent with respect to this plant'? Such a principle does not exist within Wikipedia policy. So, what exactly are you talking about? Dlabtot (talk) 19:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Prominence is found in the WP:WEIGHT clause. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Are you the anonymous user to whom this question was directed?
BTW, although the word 'prominence' does appear in WP:WEIGHT, it would be a falsehood to claim that WP:WEIGHT says anything about "prominence with respect to the subject" as a condition for inclusion. WP:WEIGHT says: "Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements." and it also says: "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;". Could you please quote the part of WP:WEIGHT that supports your arguments? Arguments which were so uncannily echoed by 209.249.65.142, even using precisely the same words? Dlabtot (talk) 18:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
No, I'm not the anonymous user, but anyone is allowed to comment on talkpages (see WP:TALK). It's clear that WP:WEIGHT demands that we consider the prominence of the material suggested for inclusion to the subject of the article. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll just note that you are unable to quote any portion of WP:WEIGHT to support your position and you are simply asserting something that has been demonstrated to be false. Dlabtot (talk) 19:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I think there's something about a "tiny minority" in that policy. However, I really wish that people would stop hair-splitting about the exact wording of policies. It should be clear that there's no policy that mandates including material just because there's one source that mentions something; moreover, it should be clear that normal editorial processes include deciding what material is important enough to include in an encyclopedia article. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
This is not a matter of hair splitting - it's a simply matter of WP:WEIGHT neither saying what SA claims it says, nor implying it; in fact there is no support at all in WP:WEIGHT for his claim. If you disagree, I would like to know what section of the policy does support this claim.
On a side note, if you wish to talk about instances where there is "one source that mentions", it would be more appropriate to do so about an article where that is actually the case. In this case, there are a multiple sources. Dlabtot (talk) 19:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The proof is in the pudding:

“ Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all. ”

In this case, homeopathy is the tiny-minority view that "may not" be included at all.

“ We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. ”

Since this is not an article devoted to homeopathy, it does not deserve mention here.

“ To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. ”

This is the rationale for excluding homeopathy here.

“ Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. ”

The homeopathic view has such a minority representation among experts as to be evaluated as being tiny enough for exclusion here.

“ Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. ”

For example, the Oxford University text is unduly weighted by cherry-picking quotes without regard for the prominence of the quotes.

“ An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. ”

In other words, since homeopathy is insignificant with respect to this subject, it deserves exclusion.

ScienceApologist (talk) 19:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The undisputed - even by you - fact that these quacks use Deadly Nightshade, is not a 'viewpoint'. Dlabtot (talk) 20:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
“ Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. ”
Good try. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Touché. So the question is whether this brief mention, verified by multiple sources, gives undue weight to the undisputed fact that these quacks use Deadly Nightshade in their bogus 'remedies'. If the goal is to excise information about homeopathy from this encyclopedia, the answer would seem to be yes; if the goal is to provide information, so that readers can learn for themselves that homeopathy is complete BS, the answer would seem to be no. Dlabtot (talk) 20:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
This piece of the debate is surreal to me; it may be that SA, Dlabtot, and Levine are all mad at me (expressing themselves in divers ways of course) and somehow reflect three differing, mutually antagonistic views. Pro-science, anti-science, pro-alternatives, anti-alternatives, anti-anti-science, anti-anti-science-with-guns...? But maybe the "if-else" suggested by Dlabtot is a clue to converging to something that might sustain consensus: how about we agree that mention of homeopathy may be excluded, but need not be; and then seek wording that suits, such as "Belladonna is sometimes used as a homeopathic palliative". That would be neither "Homeopaths cure many maladies with belladonna" nor "There is no such thing as homeopathy", neither sentence really serving anyone's purpose. Pete St.John (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you understand the nature of the problem. The only mention that is acceptable is no mention. Anthon01 (talk) 21:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I take it you mean, the only mention acceptable to anti-anti-science (whoever they may be)? I was noting that Dlabtot may be willing to accept the pedagogical purpose ("if the goal is to provide information so ..."). You and he may have different hopes for what the user will ultimately learn ("Homeopathy is Evil", "Homeopathy Cures All", "Homeopathy is a complex socio-political-historical-medical syndrome that encompases folk-medicine palliation, outright fraud, and ill-documented supersitions, among many other things"...) but we maybe can agree that some brief well-worded mention would be OK for five or six of the seven or eight sides. Pete St.John (talk) 21:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
How about something like this NIH source? MedlinePlus

There are few available studies of belladonna alone for any indication. Most research has evaluated belladonna in combination with other agents such as ergot alkaloids or barbiturates, or in homeopathic (diluted) preparations. Preliminary evidence suggests possible efficacy in combination with barbiturates for the management of symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome. However, there is currently insufficient scientific evidence regarding the use of belladonna for this or any other indication.

Ward20 (talk) 21:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd accept that. I'd hotlink the word "homeopathic" so that it need not merely be construed by the casual reader as a synonym for "diluted". SA, Levine? Pete St.John (talk) 21:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Seems very incidental to me. Not enough to justify inclusion of homeopathy. The problem is that people seem to be inventing research to include homeopathy. I think mentioning homeopathy in mainstream articles is fine. I encouraged the mention of homeopathy, properly framed, at domestic sheep. Here, however, it seems artificial to say the least. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) That doesn't solve the issue at hand. The question right now isn't the legitimacy of homeopathy, it has none. The question at hand is whether or not homeopathy is relevant to deadly nightshade. This has been the same argument by any number of people, and it's either been ignored or simply avoided. The simple fact is: homeopathy has absolutely NO relevance to deadly nightshade. Relevance of content is an important aspect of Wikipedia. Although it's only an essay, we as a community do it all the time (see handling trivia for a more specific example). We have to be discriminant in what we include in articles. Otherwise, WP is nothing more than a collection of information. Justin chat 22:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Would you expand that please? The many RS sources presented talk about making, testing and consuming belladonna (deadly nightshade) homeopathic preparations so it it hard for me see understand why homeopathy has absolutely no relevance to deadly nightshade. Ward20 (talk) 22:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The sources provided certainly show that deadly nightshade is relevant to homeopathy. But that in no way proves that homeopathy is relevant to deadly nightshade. The fact remains, purely based on the numbers (which is WP:SYNTH, but I'm not advocating adding it to an article) that a TINY minority of people in the world used a homeopathic remedy in a given year. It's unlikely that 100% of them used this particular plant extract, however, evening assuming they did it still constitutes an extremely small (proportionally) use of the plant.
Homeopathy gets press because their claims seem plausible to the untrained, but are so outlandish various medical organizations (and journals) deemed it necessary to prove how ineffective they are. In the broad picture, that is what this debate is about. Should a pseudoscientific theory, with a tiny following, be crosslinked on various scientific articles, simply because the medical field publishes reports discounting it? It's counterintuitive. Homeopathy has no meaningful relevance to any of the plant articles (like Astrology does to the planets or stars, or Alchemy does to Chemistry). Justin chat 22:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes the amount of use of the plant for homeopathy is probably small. But, an estimated 500 million people use homeopathy (P.N. Kaul, Alternative therapeutic modalities. Alternative medicine. 1996). Which I calculate at about 7/1000 people worldwide. If that many practice what science considers pseudoscientific... well it is what it is, such as Stars in astrology and Planets in astrology. I don't believe in this material, but I don't think restricting information about it from RSs is the best policy. Ward20 (talk) 00:29, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Reworded: Most studies have tested belladonna in combination with other agents such as ergot alkaloids or barbiturates, or in homeopathic preparations. Preliminary evidence suggests possible efficacy in combination with barbiturates for symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. However, presently there is insufficient scientific evidence regarding the use of belladonna for any indication. Ward20 (talk) 22:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Not liking it. What qualifies "most studies"? Where were these studies published? Why are they significant? etc. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Simply the conclusions of second source MedlinePlus. Arguments for or against their conclusions unless it is by a RS specifically addressing their conclusions on this particular subject is OR. Ward20 (talk) 22:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It's an anecdotal remark not necessary to the conclusion. I don't think it supports the prominence of homeopathy with respect to this plant. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
SA, first, regarding "sheep" above, I don't get it. Made me curious about the odd spelling I'd never noticed before ("Aries" instead of "Ares", but I guess just English phonetics explains it) but perhaps you could be more specific about the analogy. Second, I agree that predominately homeopathy does not pertain to belladonna (certainly less than belladonna pertains to homeopathy), however, it's not clear to me that the pertinence is flatly zero. Medicinal applications of plants are pertinent. Belladonna does seem to have some (limited, because it's toxic, but toxicity is dependent on quantities, even ricin) medicinal application. While the metaphysical basis as tradtionally espoused by homeopathy may be utter hokum, incidental success of a technique, in a complex system, may be meaningful. I think in this case, a small aptly worded reference may quell a great deal of smoke at very little expense in light. Sure, if I were writing the article I'd omit homeopathy. But I'm not a democracy. It's a wonder when democracies reach any solutions at all, it's so inefficient; and maybe the perfect is the enemy of the good. Pete St.John (talk) 23:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
If this were a democracy this discussion was over almost two months ago. WP works by consensus, or near consensus. Just an editor or two can frustrate the will of 10, as you can see. Anthon01 (talk) 23:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I am willing to say that homeopathy may be relevant to this plant, but some source has to explain the relevance. Simply saying that studies have been done on homeopathic remedies that claimed to have belladonna or using the OUP source which mentions homeopathic preparations off-handedly in an ancillary fashion does not rise to the WP:REDFLAG standard that would satisfy the conditions of WP:WEIGHT. What we need is a source that establishes something along the lines of "most people are familiar with belladonna in its homeopathic incarnation" or "25% (or some other number) of all the belladonna harvested in the world is purchased by homeopathic companies". Something that establishes the prominence of homeopathy with respect to this plant is all I want. Simply finding sources that off-handedly mention homeopathy in isolated sentences without making a direct connection between the subjects is not enough. I can find plenty of weird combinations of words (it's called googlewhacking). It's not necessarily relevant to our encyclopedia. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It's prominent enough to be prominently mentioned in research about belladonna by the RS. That should give it enough WP:weight to include the material proposed. Ward20 (talk) 23:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Off-handed mention is not good enough and is not prominent. The cited material does not deal with homeopathy except to mention that belladonna has been studied. In what fashion they do not say, but I'm willing to bet they are referring to fringe journals which means that this discussion is rightly excluded here. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
You are correct. Perhaps this debate should be continued with an mediator. SA: The term claim in studies have been done on homeopathic remedies that claimed to have belladonna is disingenuous. If we are talking about ultra high potencies then have no material is left. There is not claim of belladonna present in this dilutions, only that belladonna was used in the intial dilution. I don't think you need 25% of belladonna is used to make a case for the inclusion. I think 1-2% is sufficient, as this is not a paper encyclopedia. I think mention under "uses" in a scholarly books or databases is sufficient. I think you are stonewalling. Anthon01 (talk) 14:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
If belladonna is not even in the stuff, then it is not relevant to this article at all. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
It is. Why? Because it is used to make it. Anthon01 (talk) 14:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Too oblique of a rationale. We don't mention homeopathy on glass for example, even though homeopaths use glassware to make their snake oil. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

←
Not Oblique. Direct. Anthon01 (talk) 14:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Saying this does not make it so. If your justification for inclusion of homeopathy on this page is "homeopaths use it in preparation" then you'll have to do better. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Homeopaths use it in making preparation. Anthon01 (talk) 14:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
And children use it in making tree houses. What's your point? ScienceApologist (talk) 15:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
There are no scholarly sources discussing "tree houses." You're stonewalling. Anthon01 (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps you're right. After you read through the 5900 possibilities you can let us know. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
You are a smart guy. Why are you sending me to search? Shouldn't that be your responsiblility at least to make the initial effort, since you are making this "claim?" BTW, treehouse "deadly nightshade" is a better search with 223 hits. Knock yourself out. You're stonewalling. Anthon01 (talk) 16:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh, you flatter me. You misspelled "responsibility". ScienceApologist (talk) 19:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
ROFL. Please. It is not necessary to bring talk pages to publishing standards, so there is no need to correct typing errors, grammar, etc. It tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting. I must say this is much milder form of incivility then I'm use to from you. So you can't win the argument so you try a spelling dig? I commend you. Anthon01 (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I've already won the argument. There is no spoon. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
SA, you mispelled "If we both concede specific points of fact eventually we can establish a mutually acceptable common basis for a consensus". In fact the hamming distance between what you typed, and what you meant, is so huge that I'm not honestly sure it's what you meant by "I've already won". Pete St.John (talk) 00:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
It was closer to a Hubble distance. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slashdot; science vs pedagogy

NB: If we can be Slashdotted, maybe they can be Wikified. Anyway, Slashdot has an item from an AAAS conference; here some quotes:

We're all familiar with news talk shows where two individuals, both with impressive credentials, argue for completely incompatible positions. Unfortunately, these sorts of arguments aren't limited to social or political issues, but have increasingly extended into the scientific and medical realms. Aside from providing an indication that you can find someone with an M.D. or Ph.D. that's willing to say nearly anything (see infomercials for further evidence), these disagreements are likely to leave the public confused over where to find credible scientific information...
...The importance of quality information was driven home by a recent study that revealed a tendency for false or misleading information regarding breast cancer to appear on web sites devoted to alternative medicine. So, how is the public supposed to identify quality scientific information? The recent American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting included a session devoted to understanding how the public receives and evaluates scientific information...
the conclusion later is the novel part:
The clear message of the session was that a command of facts is never going to be good enough to convince most segments of the public, whether they're parents or Congress. How the information is conveyed can matter more than its content, and different forms of communication may be necessary for different audiences. As became clear in the ensuing discussion, most of the public act as consumers of information, with journalists acting as middlemen. To connect with the public, scientists have to work with the press to ensure that two things happen. Reporters have to overcome their ingrained aversion to the uncertainties of science, and have to avoid presenting uncertainties as a matter of balance that's addressed via material from crackpots with credentials.

I want "scientists" (here, the Pro-Science camp) to work with "journalists" (here, general editors, some of whom may have various aversions). We're not doing that right now. I think ScienceApologist (for example) would be completely on board with "avoid presenting uncertainties as a matter of balance" but might benefit from introspection regarding the "how the information is conveyed can matter more than it's content". Pete St.John (talk) 17:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

And what can Anthon01 benefit from? Or Levine2112? Or yourself? ScienceApologist (talk) 19:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The take-away for me was the point I meant to concede, "avoid presenting uncertainties as a matter of balance"; where I said "I think SA would be on board..."? That part seemed, to me, to enunciate your own view. You could have written it. So a discussion at the AAAS confirms the trend you have been trying to identify and resist. Right? But they also make a point that it's not good enough (for the purpose of diseminating information to the public) to get the facts right. It's necessary to convey; we, as scientists, are to help the "press" overcome aversions, as well as undue weight. Reaching a consensus about the wording in the article would be a victory for all of us. That doesn't mean we have to pander to fraud; it means we have to acknowledge pedagogy as a motive, as well as facts. Let's help the science-deprived overcome their aversions, as burying them would be too much work. Plus Anthon plays chess, which you don't. Pete St.John (talk) 21:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
How do you know I don't play chess? ScienceApologist (talk) 23:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I was hoping to trick you into admitting you do, then I could crush you like a bug. But you out-smarted me once again; how humiliating, for a chessplayer. Meanwhile, what do you think of the pertinence of pedagogy to consensus, as I construe from the AAAS material? 1. e4. Pete St.John (talk) 23:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
While pedagogy is the reason I am here, Wikipedia's function is not to teach but to report. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:11, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Reporting is conveying the truth; nearly a synonym for teaching. If pedagogy were irrelevant, the New York Times would publish lists of facts instead of sentences. A good text book has the facts, but also the words to convey them effectively. Neither textbooks nor encyclopedias are handbooks. Pete St.John (talk) 00:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Not all journalists are teachers. Not all teachers are journalists. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I concede that journalism and education are not logically equivalent. I believe the encyclopedia is definitely and putatively educational, and that good pedagogy is necessary to both (responsible) journalism and (effective) education, anyway. Pete St.John (talk) 00:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know. You might want to run that by WP:ENC. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I quote: [a]n encyclopedia is a written compendium aiming to convey information on all branches of knowledge. Note that "information" denotes "truth" (false statements aren't information in the journalistic sense, but disinformation) and "convey" denotes moving the information so as to be received (e.g. if the text were in undecipherable code, it would not be conveyed, because the information would not be received). The AAAS item suggests that conveyance of information requires pedagogy (as I interpret "how the information is conveyed can be more important than the content"). Pete St.John (talk) 01:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Levine2112 discuss 01:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
People on both sides disagree with me; I must perfoce be the biggest fool here :-) Anyway, it might seem that WP:ENC contradicts WP:V. I would suggest the solution is that verification (that is, citing sources; not literal verification which, in fact, literally means establishing truth, from the latin veritas)-- that verification is the process we use, as a practical matter, to establish truth. Just as "no reasonable doubt", "precedent", etc pertain to the Jury determining truth (and possibly getting a different result than a scientist would). The Content Preceeds the Policies. Our aim is promulgating truth, and the purpose of the policies is to enable us to pursue that effectively. In particular, I think we as contributors should seek verifications for truths. We can believe the truth for any reason we like (e.g. Received Inspiration) but that is just motivation for us to seek the verifications, the reliable sources. Pete St.John (talk) 19:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Also from WP:V: "Verifiable" in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. So, in essence, "verification" is not to show a values judgment on content - it's not to show if the information in truthful - but rather to show that the information exists on a reliable source. So to bring this back to the article and topic at hand, the information about Deadly Nightshade's use in homeopathy has been verified to exist by the Oxford Book and by MedlinePlus. What's more, no one is arguing that the information is false. Even those against inclusion agree that Deadly nightshade is used in the preparation of specific homeopathic remedies and that such remedies aren't backed by any science. So, WP:V is completely met here. I don't think that is the hang-up ScienceApologist has with inclusion. Rather, he feels that inclusion somehow violates WP:NPOV (or more specifically WP:UNDUE). However, he nor anyone else has been able to pinpoint any part of that policy which would prohibit inclusion. SA maintains that in order to include information about the homeopathic usage of a plant in an article about that plant, one must provide a source which shows that homeopathy is "prominent" to the plant. For some time now, I have asked for a quote from NPOV which supports this rationale and still none has been given. -- Levine2112 discuss 20:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
(outdenting) Sure Levine, it's UNDUE, and we've gotten nowhere there. I argued that pertinence is pertinent (in that water, sulpher thing), where I wasn't able to get you to concede anything; and I've argued for pedagogy, that while the reference (to homeopathy) is not required it's acceptable (since it's referenced, and belladonna has lots of merely interesting bits, and the suggested references were pretty modest), but SA won't concede a point either. Seems hopeless to me, frankly. In short: it's weak material (I agree with SA) but it's not flatly irrelevant (I disagree with SA), not because homeopathy is good science, but because homeopathy is a real and significant social and political process. Homeopathy is real even if the principles of homeopathy are hokum. It's impossible to acheive consensus without common ground, that is, people agreeing to things, on which they can build with logic. I have no clue for progress, myself, but I'm glad that at least here, we aren't calling each other names. Except, of course, that SA is a closet patzer :-) Pete St.John (talk) 22:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll do you one better, Pete. I'll concede that homeopathy may be relevant to this page if anyone gives me a source that asserts a prominent relevance. I actually have no opinion on whether homeopathy is irrelevant to this plant or not. All I will say is that it is certainly possible that it is relevant, but no one has provided evidence to this effect that satisfies the stringent requirements delineated at WP:WEIGHT. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Peter, If it is any consolation, I completely agree with you in that homeopathy is a real and significant social and political process even if its principles are hokum. So there is some common ground. As you may know, I am not a believer in homeopathy. I am a scientific skeptic and frankly the science which would support homeopathy's effectiveness hasn't convinced me yet. However, I do recognize that a huge amount of people do use homeopathy (we are talking about hundreds of millions of people around the world!) and thus factual and verified information about homeopathy can be entirely relevant to subjects such as Deadly nightshade. For instance, let's say that there was a major world religion (100 million faithful worldwide) and that in this hypothetical religion they regularly burned incense made from Deadly nightshade as one of their prayer rituals to cleanse the soul. Even though there is no scientific evidence that burning this incense does cleanse souls, wouldn't the inclusion of such material be of notable interest to this article? Especially if the fact that this ritual exists was detailed in several reliable sources?
SA, can you quote "the stringent requirements delineated at WP:WEIGHT" you allude to which warrants that a source is need to assert a prominent relevance? -- Levine2112 discuss 23:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Please see the previous section. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
The previous section is rather huge with lots of tangents. Can you just make things simple please and provide here a quote "the stringent requirements delineated at WP:WEIGHT" you allude to which warrants that a source is need to assert a prominent relevance? Please keep in mind that the use of the homeopathic remedy made from Deadly nightshade is not a viewpoint but a fact; while a statement saying that such a remedy is either effective or not is a viewpoint. Thank you. -- Levine2112 discuss 02:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Look for the cquotes. They're impossible to miss. ScienceApologist (talk) 02:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay, all of those apply to "viewpoints". As we all agree on, we are not dealing with any viewpoints here other than the scientific mainstream which view belladonnic homeopathy as ineffective. Otherwise, we are dealing with non-viewpoints. As a reminder, here is the text we would like to include: Deadly nightshade is included in homeopathic preparations for acne, boils, and sunburns despite the absence of scientific support for its use. Is there a minority viewpoint there which you feel is given too much weight? If so, what? -- Levine2112 discuss 02:46, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
While we wait for your answer, please be aware that I have posted a request for clarification at the newly created NPOV Noticeboard. I would like to see if we can get some neutral opinions from some experts there. -- Levine2112 discuss 03:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
No, they also apply to things other than viewpoints. It says so explicitly in WP:WEIGHT: "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints" and even User:Dlabtot had to admit that I was correct in this regard. You really do need to reread the policy. ScienceApologist (talk) 03:26, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
No, I get that. We are to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. I maintain that the Medline and Oxford Book sources demonstrate an amount of significance warranting inclusion of the one sentence. I think the difference in our opinions comes down to you requiring a source which explicitly quantifies its significance to Deadly Nightshade; whereas I see that prominence is established by mere mention in reliable source (and with that mention, we are able to determine just how much weight we give the subject). Is the difference in our opinion accurate as I have stated it to be? -- Levine2112 discuss 03:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that specific "quantification" of significance is necessary. I only want an assertion of significance (that is, beyond the anecdotal). Mere mention is not enough for my editorial tastes. If the connected idea really is that significant to the subject of the article as the people arguing for inclusion say it is, they should be able to find a source that firmly establishes the prominence of the connected idea to the subject. Fair enough? ScienceApologist (talk) 03:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Again, the sources already provided establish this prominence. BTW, I am NOT saying that the homeopathic use is EXTREMELY prominent to deadly nightshade, but rather prominent enough to give a mere mention in a singular sentence. If it were extremely prominent, I may be thinking it deserves a paragraph or a subsection or an article of its own. I don't think it is all that prominent to mete out that much weight to it. However, given the multitude of mentions in sources such as the Oxford Book of Health Food and MedlinePlus, certainly prominence enough for a one sentence mention has been established. -- Levine2112 discuss 18:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
The standard should be higher for fringe subjects than other trivia. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
It seems fair to me to reduce fringe wrt trivia. However, if we agree that it's a matter of degree, perhaps some brief sentence would be sufficiently mutually acceptable, so that we could dispose of one article? We agree that all competitors have the endurance and fortitude to not give in to mere obstinacy, so one of us could make a small concession without appearing weak :-) Pete St.John (talk) 17:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I have not objection in principle to a sentence as long as someone shows me a source which indicates that homeopathy is prominent with respect to this plant. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Well Answers.com gives about a third of it's material to medical uses, and maybe half of that is roughly homeopathic. This may be an example of where a small (less than dangerous) dose is measurably beneficial (as opposed to, obliterative dilution for mystical reasons). So I'm just pointing out that a competing encyclopedia gives it more than brief mention, in the article on belladonna. So I'd consider something like: "Belladonna, while dangerously toxic, may have medical application in small doses, and is used in homeopathy" with links. Pete St.John (talk) 19:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Subsection significance, pertinence, relevance

Just for ease of editting I made this subsection.

I want to emphasize the assymmetry here: there is an important difference between the pertinence of belladonna to homeopathy, and the pertinence of homeopathy to belladonna. We agree (or anyway accept) that belladonna is pertinent to homeopathy, as a major ingredient. The question is whether homeopathy is sufficiently pertinent to belladonna, to merit mention in this article. If L will agree that it's somewhat a matter of degree (as in, sulpher is sufficiently pertinent to egging houses --because sulher dioxide provides the desired noxious smell-- but egging houses is not pertinent to sulpher-- because sulpher has zillions of applications and egging houses is a trivial one), then we can address the specific question, is homeopathy sufficiently pertinent to belladonna? Merely agreeing to that question as a guide would be progress, IMO.
And P.S.; the above from L, "...I am not a believer in homeopathy..." --and no, I didn't know-- surprised me. For the first couple sentences I thought SA was writing and it just about brought a tear to my eye that he would be so kind :-) but it amazes me that we can be so close on so much but otherwise want to strangle each other. I think we should have a group hug, and then go strangle Spoa (permute cyclically). Pete St.John (talk) 18:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I still don't think that your "egging a house" analogy applies as directly as the "Water + Sulfur (the ingredient) = Sulfuric Acid (the result)" analogy. Here we recognize that the ingredient probably won't be mentioned in the Water article, and Water may or may not be mentioned in the ingredient's article. However, the result will more than likely be mentioned in the ingredients article (IOW, Sulfuric Acid is more than likely mentioned in the article on Sulfur, just a the homeopathic belladonna remedy should be mention in the article about belladonna).
I am glad that you recognize that I don't believe in homeopathy. I have stated this multiple times. Please know that I am not trying to promote a pseudoscience or push some anti-science POV. To the contrary, I want to include the fact that science does not support the homeopathic use of belladonna. -- Levine2112 discuss 18:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
L, I've always thought you were working for consensus, I'm glad that we are even more on the same side, but there is good (hidden, obfuscated) in homeopathy. So you don't need to be non-pro-homeopathy (I would, however, insist that we all be pro-anti-anti-consensus! :-) I even agree that water+sulpher was a bit better than the egg-house but you had (as far as I could see) passed on conceding that point, but you're making plain now that you endorse the assymmetry concept. So the question is: does homeopathy sufficiently pertain to belladonna?
Pro: many plant articles mention (and should) medicinal uses. I was able to learn about the putatively "homeopathic" palliative for nicotine addicts "Smoke-Ease" by looking up its list of ingredients (once I found them!), e.g. Passion Flower (which has anti-depressant properties), Skullcap (sedative), etc. It's easy to see that the accumulative effect of the ingredients could be amelioration of the anxiety that accompanies nicotine withdrawal; also expectorants (the first week of tobacco withdrawal includes cold-like symptoms). But none of that is particularly homeopathic; since the ingredients are plants, it's maybe USDA but not FDA. It probably can't legally be marketted as a medicine in just this form; so it's cheaper this way. I'm sympathetic with people sacrificing the safety (and expense) of FDA approval of pharmaceuticals to get cheaper "all natural" remedies. The differences are marketting and law, and have nothing to do with homeopathic principles in se, e.g. dilution to zero (which is hokum but still not obvious). So I'd certainly favor a broader approach to homeopathy (as comprising something more complex, and not always mere hokum, than just the tradional theo-philosophical principles) and in particular, I'd favor mention of (even "homeopathic remedy") medicinal uses of those plants, they add to the importance of the plant.
Con: Belladonna is dangerously toxic and shouldn't be promoted as a medical thing without darn good reason. Its use in dilution-to-zero is not very meaningful and doesn't pertain to the plant much IMO.
My sense is that it could go either way. Any solution without rancor is progress to me. Pete St.John (talk) 19:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Sulfuric acid? ScienceApologist (talk) 19:14, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
That's an allusion to further up; the article on sulphuric acid mentions water (as an ingredient) but the article on water doesn't mention sulphuric acid. Example of "relevance" as directional; so homeopathy should mention belladonna, but maybe belladonna need not mention homeopathy. Pete St.John (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I just removed two external links per WP:EL Links normally to be avoided. They were fairly obvious I believe. Another one is borderline so I am asking for comment if this one should be removed or not:

Ward20 (talk) 21:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Added links to recreational and use in tea

I removed the citation needed twice under where it talks about recreational use and use in tea. I hope this is ok. --CrohnieGalTalk 17:29, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

One of those sources was SPAM - known as a "doorway page" - basically a search engine optimization tactic where as page is made that looks like a resource but actually contains ecommerce type links. (You also did something weird in your edit where the ref was made into a section header.) The other source I have left; however, it is from a homeopathic website, so I am unsure whether it will fly as a WP:RS here. -- Levine2112 discuss 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry I didn't see the discussion above when I added these links, feel free to revert if I did a no-no. Sorry again everyone.--CrohnieGalTalk 18:31, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Like I said, revert if it is incorrect, I have no problems with being reverted. As for your other comments, I'm sorry I don't understand. As for the section header, I didn't catch it and obvious I didn't mean to do that so thanks for the fix. --CrohnieGalTalk 18:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I just looked at this header and I didn't go anywhere near this paragraph never mind make the header. I guess someone else did but I don't see that I did it. --CrohnieGalTalk 18:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Going through history I found it here [9] Apparently it's been here awhile. --CrohnieGalTalk 18:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure what that diff shows, but know that the header which you added contained a link to a spam source. Thus I removed it. -- Levine2112 discuss 20:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Toxicity section problems

While looking for sources I found a lot of material was plagiarized from here needs a rewrite. Ward20 (talk) 19:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Reading further, a lot of the article is lifted from this source. Ward20 (talk) 20:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't love a manufacturer in India as a source anyway, as the pertinent regulatory mechanisms are unfamiliar and manufacturers are selling, not teaching. I'd prefer sourcing academic botany and pharmacology materials if we could find it. Pete St.John (talk) 20:10, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you. However, at this point we have an article with major portions plagiarized verbatim from a commercial website with no references. Then in contrast, all this effort over a minor content issue (but a major POV issue) that may be causing editors to avoid this article like the plague... is frustrating. As the saying goes, what a way to build run a railroad. Ward20 (talk) 20:08, 1 March 2008 (UTC)