Talk:Christian Science/GA1

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GA Review

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Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 03:14, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to take this review. In the next few days, I'll do a close readthrough of the article, noting any initial issues that I can't easily fix myself, and then go through the criteria checklist. Thanks in advance for your work on this one. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:14, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Unless anybody objects, I'm going to hold off on reviewing this one for a week or so, since the past 24 hours have seen a few content disputes; I'd prefer to let those play out and review the resulting version. Thanks to everybody for their work on this one, it seems to be coming along well. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, as one of the disputants, I'll hold off on involvement in this article/Talk page for a week or two to help it to settle down for review. Thanks for giving your time to this Khazar2.Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:51, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'd encourage you to work out anything you see as still deficient! I've got no problem waiting till there's consensus on these points. We'll give it a few days in any case. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm OK with the article at the moment, more-or-less.Be-nice:-) (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Cool, good to hear. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that I haven't forgotten this article, but am still holding off for now, as it looks like we've had a few reverts in the last 24 hours. This article has seen an enormous spike of activity in the past few months (3 of the 5 talk page archives are from just the last six months!) and I'd like to see how stable the current version is. Again, I hope editors will read this note as encouragement to keep working on any issues, not as a request that editing stop! I'm happy to wait. Thanks everybody for your work. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Initial readthrough

It looks like this article has indeed reached an island of stability, so I'll start with my review. Since this article has proved more controversial than any GA I've previously undertaken, I'll follow my close read for prose and sourcing issues with an attempt to review issues others have raised on this talk page. I've made minor tweaks to the prose as I went, so please double-check me and feel free to revert anything you disagree with.

Here are some comments on the first half; I'm hoping to get to the second half shortly.

"Eddy wrote that "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."" -- since the later footnote cites several passages, it would be helpful to follow this quotation with a more specific footnote citing it more specifically.
"Christian Scientists believe that this opened up practical possibilities" -- what does "this" refer to here-- God's relationship with humanity, or Christ's proof of this relationship?
I switched a few instances of "man" to "humanity" to try to use more gender neutral language. However, I assume that the original (and perhaps the current) language of Christian Science was "God and man", so if the other seems more accurate to you, feel free to revert me.
"David Weddle writes ... " This present-day writing on Eddy is described in the present tense, whereas Stein and Rescher were described in past tense. I think either solution is okay, but this should probably be made consistent.
Not a GA point, but just wanted to comment that this article makes excellent use of block quotations to give the flavor of Eddy's words as well as the content.
"thinking whatever would be said were he present" -- would all the practitioners be men? If not, it's probably best to use to the awkward he or she, or to make practitioners plural and use "they".
"The first church was erected in 1886 in Oconto, Wisconsin" -- this threw me for a moment, since the previous sentence mentions she founded a church seven years earlier. But I assume one is the church as organization and the second as building? I wonder if it would help to say "first church building" to clarify that for other easily confused readers like myself.
"The church boasts one of the world's largest pipe organs, built by the Aeolian-Skinner Company of Boston." -- as a superlative claim, this should probably have a citation
"A project is currently under way " -- It would be helpful to add an "as of" here instead of currently, per WP:REALTIME
"individuals claiming to have been healed through Christian Science prayer" -- how about stating instead of claiming here, per WP:WTA -- Khazar2 (talk) 07:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments on "Reception" section:

" Pamela Klassen wrote that " -- again flipping to the past tense for a modern-day commentator. It's probably worth making it more explicit in-text that Klassen is writing in 2009, also, since the paragraph is about other commentators on CS.
"gigantic heresy," -- is this comma in the original quotation? If not, it should be moved out of the quotation marks per MOS:LQ.

My impression on my first readthrough is that this is a solid and well-written article: clear, concise, and well sourced, with no immediately obvious neutrality problems. Thanks to everybody who worked to get it to this point. As a next step, I'll take a look at some of the supporting sources and other discussions on this page to check for completeness and neutrality. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I've addressed all the points you raised above, except three. (1) The article doesn't use LQ because it looks awful (in my view), is rarely used by publishers, and it means having to find the original quote, which is unnecessary work. (2) I haven't yet gone through and ironed out that we sometimes say "she writes" and sometimes "she wrote," but I will do that, and add dates when appropriate (she wrote in 2009, etc). And (3) the whole pipe-organ paragraph is unsourced, so I'm inclined to remove it; it's detailed information about a church building, rather than about Christian Science itself. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:58, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks good. MOS:LQ is a guideline but not among the GA criteria, so it's not an issue here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I've fixed the writes/wrote issue, and removed the unsourced pipe-organ paragraph. I've also fixed a couple of refs that weren't formatted consistently, and moved the paragraph about church services into the sub-section about the church, rather than placing it with the members. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:20, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Much appreciated. I think the only remaining issues are those I noted in the checklist below. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I removed the image of Gray, and replaced the one of Crawford with one of Val Kilmer. The Asser/Swan and Sugerman source issue is resolved. The only remaining issue is that I'd like to restore the sentence "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue" (or words to that effect) to introduce the paragraph about vaccination. I'm just waiting for Collect to respond on talk. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Khazar, if you don't mind I'd like to restore United States throughout, rather than US. Seeing US in a list with United Kingdom, for example, doesn't look quite right. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Don't mind at all. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, done. Just to let you know that I've added a new version of the vaccination paragraph that doesn't rely on the Swan/Asser or Sugarman papers that Collect objected to. I've referred to another paper by Swan in a footnote, because the secondary source I used (Fraser 1999) relies on it, but it's a different paper that is specifically about Christian Science. Collect objected to the Swan/Asser paper because (I believe) it was about religions other than Christian Science too.

No response yet from Collect, but so far as I know nothing in the paragraph is contentious (i.e. I believe the facts are not in dispute), so I'm hoping it will be okay. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Where Fraser is the source, Fraser's words seem not to comport with the claim made, so I used a direct quote from that source. I am concerned about the use of "3" which is a "statistically small number with a very high statistical standard deviation" being cited as evidence of a very high death rate - the source does not say that - it only says the number is being investigated. Collect (talk) 00:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The CDC says what my edit says: "The very high apparent death-to-case ratio (2.3%) is unusual in the United States, which usually has a reported death-to-case ratio of 0.1% or lower." You seem not to want to use the CDC as a source; you even removed it in an earlier edit. But it's a good source for this point.

Your latest edit. There is no need to quote Fraser for such an obviously true point. It now looks as though only Fraser says it. What she says is: "The public image of the church was also damaged by a number of outbreaks of infectious diseases at its schools and camps (many Scientists decline to have their children vaccinated)." This is not in any way contentious; I can find scores of sources for it if you want. I first summarized that as "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue" back in January before you nominated it for GA, so I don't know why it has suddenly become an issue. When you objected, I swapped the source to Fraser 1999, and changed it to "The avoidance of vaccination has been another issue that has caused public concern." But it doesn't need a source or quotation marks or in-text attribution, and in fact looks strange now. It is "the sky is blue."

And to say that "affected" does not mean "infected" is just odd. How else do you imagine they were affected if not by catching the disease? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:38, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I've reported what Fraser said – without quotation marks as though there's something unique about the words. And I've added quotes in the footnotes from the CDC, Fraser and the Associated Press to make it clear that people were infected, not affected in some other way. Hopefully these quotations can be removed at a later date, because they're not necessary, but for now they're there to show that "affected" means "infected":

Fraser writes that the church's image has also been damaged by outbreaks of infectious diseases at its schools and camps.^[1] Many Christian Scientists do not have their children vaccinated, and are less likely to self-report illness to physicians, so infection may remain undetected.^[2] In 1972 128 students at a Christian Science school in Greenwich, Connecticut, contracted polio and four were left partially paralyzed. In 1982 a nine-year-old girl died of diptheria after attending a Christian Science camp in Colorado.^[3] In 1985 128 people were infected with measles at Principia College, a Christian Science school in Elsah, Illinois, and three died. The death-to-case ratio was 2.3 percent; the usual rate in the United States is 0.1 percent or lower.^[4] In 1994 190 people in six states were infected with measles spread by a child from a Christian Science family in Elsah, after she was exposed to it on a skiing holiday in Colorado.^[5]

[1]
Fraser 2003, p. 268.
[2]
Novotny 1988; Fraser 2003, p. 268.
[3]
Fraser 1999, p. 303; for the polio outbreak, Fraser cites Swan 1983.
[4]
Fraser 1999, pp. 301–302; for the death-to-case ratio, see Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1985.
[5]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1994: "From April 16 through May 19 [1992], 141 persons with measles (age range: 1-24 years) were reported to the St. Louis County Health Department, and 49 persons with measles (age range: 4-25 years) were reported to the Jersey County Health Department ...
"All cases met the measles clinical case definition and were epidemiologically linked to the boarding school and/or college. Fourteen cases were serologically confirmed by detection of immunoglobulin M antibody. All cases occurred among persons not vaccinated before the outbreak. Eighteen prospective students from outside St. Louis County attended a carnival at the boarding school on April 16; eight developed measles after returning home (three to Maine, two to California, and one each to Missouri, New York, and Washington). Two cases of serologically confirmed measles occurred in persons outside the Christian Science communities. One case occurred in an unvaccinated 35-year-old physician who attended a tennis tournament on April 30 where students from the affected college competed. The other case occurred in a 9-month-old infant who visited a restaurant on April 30 where the college tennis team was eating."

Fraser 1999, p. 303: "Measles returned to Principia in the spring of 1994, when a fourteen-year-old girl, a Christian Scientist from Elsah, Illinois, contracted measles while on a Colorado ski vacation. From this one case, measles spread to over 150 people in six states. Like the Elsah girl, most of the victims in Missouri were students at Principia's elementary and upper school, in St. Louis. The victims in Illinois lived in Elsah. Those in other states – New York, Maine, California, and Washington – had contracted the illness while visiting Principia; those in Colorado had contracted it from the Elsah girl."

Also see Associated Press, May 8, 1994: "One of the 25,000 skiers who spent spring break in Summit County, Colo., apparently started a measles outbreak that has hit at least 176 people in six states, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday."

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Further comments

Most of the other neutrality debates on the page appear dormant or resolved, but if there are any I'm missing, feel free to bring them to my attention.
The studies of increased morbidity among Christian Scientists seem worth including; these appear to be peer-reviewed articles on a relevant topic for this article. Is there a reason these were cut?
Be Nice raises an interesting question as to whether the child deaths section may be a little long, but my personal opinion is that the length of this section is reasonable--this was a major national controversy that lasted for some time, has numerous reliable sources, and includes some significant religious-rights/parental-responsibility court cases. (I'd even venture to say that for a generation of Americans like myself, these cases are--fairly or unfairly--what the religion is best known for.) Anyway, five paragraphs on this issue doesn't seem to me to violate neutrality to a level that concerns the GA review, but of course I'll be guided by consensus if others disagree. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The "increased morbidity" included Amish et al and did not further separate the statistics (other than having 16% of the cases related to CS) - making tham problematic, alas. We also have no stats on overall increased morbidity on CS believers. Did anyone find actual "life expectancy" data at all? I also removed the names of children as not being of actual encyclopedic value here. And the "vaccination" claim which did not directly connect to CS is a problem - we nly really have the polio and measles anecdotes. I think this overall improves this article a hair. Collect (talk) 14:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. I suppose my own preference as an editor would be to give a sentence to this. But looking more closely--and realizing the CDC and JAMA are both talking about the same study here--it certainly doesn't fall under a "broad aspect" that needs to be covered to meet the GA criteria. A check of Google Scholar doesn't immediately turn up additional literature. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The only study I found is one for Principia College -- but it is barely more reliable than anecdotal for life expectancy - it found CS to have double the cancer mortality rate, but in too small a sample for statistical purposes, and too small a sample to account for other factors. The only area which is of concern is childhood disease, but with that church changing its rules, it seems contrary to logic to focus too highly on past practice now. Collect (talk) 15:18, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Khazar, the section on morbidity/mortality study was based on a primary source and it seemed weak. For example, the study compared meat-eaters to vegetarians; the latter would be expected to have less chronic disease because of diet, not because of other religious practices. Ideally we would need secondary sources (review articles) before adding a section like that. See discussion here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:05, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense. Definitely not an issue for the GA review in any case. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Checklist

More information Rate, Attribute ...

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Prose is clear and excellent; spotchecks show no sign of copyright issues.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	All issues appear to be resolved.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	File:Early gray.jpg and File:JoanCrawfordByYousufKarsh.jpg are copyrighted and lack fair-use rationales for this article. Since these subjects are of only minor interest to this article, these images should probably be removed.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Pass

On hold till 2/17

I think this is ready to go as a GA in all other respects (though I do want to re-read it now that it's been revised), but it concerns me that three weeks into this process, the article is still seeing content disagreements and reverts between its two most prolific recent contributors. I'd like to give it another ten days to see if it can reach a reasonably stable version, and see where we're at then.

As before, I don't at all want this review to pressure anyone into a hasty or suboptimal resolution to these legitimate content issues, and I realize that an article with a topic this controversial and popular will always be in flux to some degree. But I do want to be sure that immediate concerns about accuracy and neutrality have been resolved, and that the article's not going back and forth daily. Hope that sounds fair to everybody. Again, thanks to all concerned for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 05:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Haven't forgotten this one, just have a sick kiddo and haven't been doing any real editing the past few days. Will get to this tomorrow probably. Thanks all for your patience. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:39, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

All right, I've done a readthrough of the new draft and all looks good; the talk page controversies also seem to have died down to reasonable levels. Thanks everybody for your work during this long review process! -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Medical Criticism

Content selectively being removed.

I see that mentions of vaccination have been removed down to a single line from to the current article. I see the content on increased morbidity has been removed. The well sourced content that she was infleunced by Quimby has been removed (Christian Scientists don't accept the actual history) . All mention of Christian Science being made to look like science has been removed (possibly due to a misunderstanding that in the 19th century "science" meant the general search for knowledge, which was not the case in 1872). The mainstream viewpoint is being watered down and removed. Compare what was there: to what is now there at Christian_Science#Health_and_healing. A positive spin has been put on that section by going back to primary sources again (S&H), and by overly relying on the nytimes, while discarding academic sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Contrariwise, the article is far more balanced now than it has ever been. The issue of changes over time to CS are now addressed, and the use of pejoratives have been removed. Material abiut deaths is clearly given, and given due weight per WP:CONSENSUS. I would like to note that "Christian Scientists don't accept the actual history" would appear, on its face, to be a POV claim ab initio. As for the importance of Quimby - that is an editorial decision, not a POV decision. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I guess from your perspective of having not looked at the academic sources it would seem like I'm asserting it ab initio. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:25, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The article is now in much better shape than it was a few weeks ago. The evolution of the article in its present form, including sources cited, has resulted from consensus editing. (BTW, I don't know what "actual history" means and neither would any contemporary historian, or philosopher of history for that matter.)Be-nice:-) (talk) 09:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh please. Is this some sort of "everyone's version of history is equally valid" crap? What practitioners claim happened with the history is completely different what the reliable sources say; mostly because it's unflattering. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Collect is not interested in any reliable sources. See the talk page on the Christian Science article, he claims every reference I have listed breaks "NPOV", but the references I listed were written by reliable scholars such as Timothy Miller and Catherine Wessinger etc. SlimVirgin seems to have got the message and this user is now using some of the references I put on the talk page but this user seem to think they "own" the article, and any edit I or others make they revert, so I am just watching and we will see how their new edits go. Fodor Fan (talk) 23:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Kindly note the actual talk age discussions where I note that making a long list of critical articles without any balance at all does seem to be a WP:NPOV problem. The talk page discussion, moreover, makes clear that I exert no "ownership" of an article which I have very few edits on. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV for you means to exclude anything critical of Christian Science. It just happens that the so called "critical" sources are the reliable ones published by scholars or in scientific papers, take a hint Christian Science is nutty fraud, why? Becuase that is what the sources say! Find me a single reference published outside of the Christian Science Church that is supportive of Christian Science? The 90% of references will be critical of Christian Science, there is no reason for a "balance" when the 10% are Christian Science sources published by Christian Science publishers. You are confused about WP:NPOV, with your logic every pseudoscientific article on wikipedia would be supported without any criticism, but if you look round you will see this is not the case, we don't need to balance articles when the majority of sources are against a specific subject. If the reliable sources say Christian Science is nutty fraud and filled with criticisms then that is what should be put on the article, not the nonsense claims from the tiny minority of CS sources... Infact there is no problem in using some CS sources (many are on the article) but to argue for a balance is just totally wrong.

If there are a million reliable sources against Christian Science and only ten in favour of it, are you really going to argue for a "balance"? :) Fodor Fan (talk) 00:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

OK -- if we postulate that CS is a "nutty fraud" as you aver from your own personal knowledge, we still have to follow WP:NPOV. I know this rankles crusaders agains "nutty frauds" but that is what Wikipedia is based on. When one editor comes up with twenty sources uniformly critical of a religion, and we have substantial sources from followers of that religion, we can not give excess weight to the critics. Else 99% of all religion articles would be filled with criticism of them as utter heresies as seen by all the other religions. Thus we neutrally pose the tenets of a religion, and list a few of the primary criticisms thereof. We do not list the thousands of books highly critical of Muhammed (for example) as a person in the article on Islam for very good reasons. What we do is present each side in some sort of balance. NPOV is not the same as "we state the absolute truth because we know what the truth is" it means we state what is stated on each side of an issue in reasonable balance for major views. Collect (talk) 01:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

No you are utterly wrong that we try and balance views as equal. We don't try and pretend that creationism is equal to evolution for example. Or that global warming denialists have an equally valid point to the climate scientists. What we do is describe them neutrally, but that does not mean we give them extra credibility where it's not due. You admitted that you are not assigning weight to points made by the majority of sources because you mistakenly believe that wikipedia treats two opposing views as equally valid. The only time we aim for balance is when the reliable sources are divided WP:BALANCE: "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both approaches and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint." What you are doing is rejecting the secondary and tertiary academic sources in the name of what you perceive to be balance. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I retract my previous comment about SlimVirgin, I thought we were making some progress but clearly not, this user yet again has deleted an edit I made and anyone elses edits. This user seems to think they own the article, they deserve a topic ban. Fodor Fan (talk) 02:06, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The aim is to use WP:CONSENSUS to make a "Good article". If your desire is to make the WP:TRUTH be in the article, I rather think you are in the wrong place - that is not how Wikipedia works. As for topic bans - generally the person who is never accepting of consensus and compromise is the one banned. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:36, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

My aim was to go with what the reliable sources say collect, but no matter how many times you are told this, you don't seem to get it, and keep spouting nonsense. We will just let the Christian scientist SlimVirgin delete all the criticism and conclude Christian Science is valid on the article then! Indeed that is what this user has been doing, and they revert anyone elses edits. You got what you wanted. I am not wasting anymore time on this. Fodor Fan (talk) 14:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

AFAICT, SV is not a Christian Scientist, nor am I one. Enjoy editing elsewhere if you are leaving - I think the article is worthy of the GA seal now. Collect (talk) 15:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Collect, since you have based your edits on your own personal reasoning (such as claiming that science didn't mean natural science in the 1870's), you don't really have a leg to stand on complaining about others wanting what the academic sources say to be in the article (which you have removed in favour of the new york times). IRWolfie- (talk) 11:15, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The bit about "science" being used in a different context in the 1870s was from a reliable source - I do not have any personal experience of the 1870s, really, nor do I make assertions not found in reliable sources. My edits on the article have been based on Wikipedia policy only, and not on any personal biases whatsoever, and I regret your attempt to personalize this discussion. It does not appear to be of any utile value whatsoever. shows some of the still-current disparate definitions of "science". states the changes over time - including discourse on the meaning of "science" in the Constitution (also found in law books if you really wish to discuss this in depth)

At the Framing of the Constitution, ―science‖ meant a system of knowledge that comprises distinct branches of study or categories of knowledge. ...

1 WILLIAM F. PATRY, COPYRIGHT LAW AND PRACTICE 123 (1994) (―The term ‗science‘ as used in the Constitution refers to the eighteenth-century concept of learning and knowledge.‖); L. RAY PATTERSON & STANLEY W. LINDBERG, THE NATURE OF COPYRIGHT: A LAW OF USERS‘ RIGHTS 48 (1991) (―[T]he word science retains its eighteenth-century meaning of ‗knowledge or learning.‘‖); WALTERSCHEID, supra note 1, at 125 (―The use of the term ‗science‘ [in the Copyright Clause] is straightforwardly explained by the fact that in the latter part of the eighteenth century ‗science‘ was synonymous with ‗knowledge‘ and ‗learning.‖‘); Oliar, supra note 1, at 1809 (―[T]he eighteenth century meaning of ‗science‘ was close to the meaning of ‗knowledge.‘‖); Solum, supra note 1, at 47-56 (analyzing meaning of science at time of Framing); Malla Pollack, Dealing with Old Father William, or Moving from Constitutional Text to Constitutional Doctrine: Progress Clause Review of the Copyright Term Extension Act, 36 LOY. L.A. L. REV. 337, 376 (2002) (―‗Science‘ means ‗knowledge‘ in an anachronistically broad sense.‖); NEIL WEINSTOCK NETANEL, COPYRIGHT'S PARADOX 106 (describing the overriding purpose of promoting the ―progress of science‖ as broadly understood to include all products of the mind‖) (2008). For a discussion of judicial instances of construing science to mean general knowledge see discussion infra Part II.C.2 and infra notes 15 and 226.

I trust this indicates that it is not my "personal belief" that the word has had different meanings over time, or that I would give "personal beliefs" as a reaon for edits on Wikipedia. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:42, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Small history lesson. The US constitution was written nearly 100 years before Christian Science came about. Secondly, Why are you relying on a pdf on the J. Reuben Clark Law society page by this guy ? Why are you looking at what a professor of law thinks about the US constitution rather than a relevant historical researcher? But since you did it, ok now I'll show you your cherry pick: "Modern courts and commentators teach that science at the time of the Framing meant general knowledge. ... But this teaching is entirely mistaken. All evidence indicates that the modern interpretation of the original meaning of science is anachronistically incorrect. The evidence suggests that neither the Framers nor the public of that time would have ever intended such a broad, and for all practical purposes meaningless, meaning of science." Your very source dismisses your own definition. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:57, 20 February 2013 (UTC)