Talk:Institute of Economic Affairs/Archives/2021

NPOV Intro

I added the POV flag to the page because of the intro section. I think it is clear that, as it stands, this does not represent a neutral point of view. It uses weasle words like 'describes itself' and 'claims' to cast aspersions on the IEA's self-description, while giving undue prominence in the introduction to issues like tobacco funding or cash for access. This section should be significantly re-written to be more similar to that of other think tanks like the Fabian Society.

Here is the intro as it stands:

• The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a British charity[1] and right-wing think tank[2][3][4] associated with the New Right.[5][6] The IEA describes itself as an "educational research institute".[7] It says that it seeks to "further the dissemination of free-market thinking", and claims it does so by "analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems."[7][8] The IEA subscribes to a right-wing[3][9][10] and neoliberal worldview and advocates positions based on this ideology,[11] including climate change denial, and total privatisation, in effect abolition, of the National Health Service (NHS).[12][4] The IEA is known to be funded by the tobacco industry (although it does not reveal this),[13][14] and IEA officers have been recorded offering "Cash for Access". The IEA is headquartered in Westminster, London, England.[15][16]
• Founded by businessman and battery farming pioneer Antony Fisher in 1955, the IEA was one of the first modern think tanks,[17] and promoted Thatcherite right-wing ideology, and free market and monetarist economic policies.[18] The IEA has been criticised for operating in a manner closer to that of a lobbying operation than as a genuine think tank[19] due to the overtly political nature of the organisation's campaigning, and reluctance to disclose its sources of funding.[20] The IEA publishes a magazine (Economic Affairs), a student magazine (EA), books and discussion papers, and holds regular lectures.[21]

I don't have time for a full re-write, but I would consider something like this to be more appropriate:

• The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a British charity[1] and right-wing think tank[2][3][4] associated with the New Right.[5][6] The IEA describes itself as an "educational research institute"[7] which seeks to "further the dissemination of free-market thinking" by "analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems."[7][8] Founded by businessman and battery farming pioneer Antony Fisher in 1955, the IEA was one of the first modern think tanks,[17] and promoted Thatcherite right-wing ideology, and free market and monetarist economic policies.[18] The IEA publishes a magazine (Economic Affairs), a student magazine (EA), books and discussion papers, and holds regular lectures.[21]

--Larklight (talk) 16:34, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

While your proposals which reflect consensus policy (removing "claims") are appropriate, the notion that it should be similar to articles on institutions such as the Fabian Society is not appropriate. They are entirely different, not just in their political position, but in the nature of their activities and the methods they employ to affect policy. There is no basis for your assertion that it should be significantly rewritten to look like an article on an entirely different subject, with little similarity between the actual substance of the two institutions or what sources write about them. Cambial foliage❧ 17:08, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

As I think that I introduced the wording "describes itself as", I'd better comment. At the time there was a slow edit war between different editors using "is": "is a libertarian think-tank", "is a right-wing organisation". So I put the indisputable "describes itself as" in, and it has remained for a long time. If a better, non-contentious, form of words can be found, great. ("Claims" I will get rid of.)

The purpose of the introduction is to summarise the article. Relevant are brief mentions (always with good sources) of what the IEA says it is, what others say it is, its stated purpose, any information on unstated objectives, the good it does, and things it has been criticised for. In particular, to take a statement that has been deleted from the introduction a couple of times, it is relevant that it is a charity, and has taken money from the tobacco industry, and has lobbied government ministers in favour of the tobacco industry (all sourced in the article). Specific positions such as " climate change denial, and total privatisation, in effect abolition, of the National Health Service" (quoted from the article's introduction) also seem relevant to summarising the article. Best wihes, Pol098 (talk) 17:25, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree the intro to the article should reflect the overall article. However, an important component of this is that the main article itself as to be NPOV. This seems to be clearly not the case here. Consider for example this line:

* The IEA has been criticised for operating in a manner closer to that of a lobbying operation than as a genuine think tank due to the overtly political nature of the organisation's campaigning, and reluctance to disclose its sources of funding.

The criticism the first sentence references is by the Shadow Chancellor at the time, an ideological opponent of the IEA, so at the very least the biased province of this criticism should be made clear, but it is very unclear to my why the first sentance is notable at all; merely being criticised by a politician is not sufficient to warrant inclusion. The second sentance is even worse. The source is not reliable, because it is an Opinion piece, not journalism. As such Wikipedia:RSEDITORIAL suggests it is not a reliable source for anything other than statements directly attributed to the author. But if all this source is proves is that Monbiot criticised the IEA it then it will fail notability. I've just highlighted this one sentance, but a huge fraction of the article has similar issues. Essentially all the page space is dedicated to criticisms of their work, and in particle to the criticisms in that single Opinion piece, out of all proportion to their significance. Larklight (talk) 01:04, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to simply "summarise the article" without considering the accuracy of claims from others? We should be concerned with what is accurate and what is not. We may say that "others have described them as" as that is accurate, but to simply accept claims without considering their merits changes the page from fact to opinion. Timalmond (talk) 21:01, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Timalmond (talk) 20:53, 17 July 2021 (UTC)An edit, which I made, removing the claim that the IEA are climate change deniers has been undone. There is no evidence, beyond a claim by the Guardian of a "history of climate denial" that the IEA take this position and this is therefore inaccurate. Mark Littlewood of the IEA has specifically stated that there is a process which can be reproduced in a laboratory to prove this. I will not be reverting the undo. I will ask editors to consider their role in maintaining accuracy and to restore my edit, or explain why they have not done here. It is unacceptable for editors to make edits as a way to grind their axe politically and abuse Wikipedia.

Occasional editors are reminded that removal of sourced material presented in a neutral way is disruptive. Cambial foliage❧ 21:16, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not yet ready to edit further, but I've looked at the IEA article linked re climate change, and have looked at other articles on the IEA Web site. The IEA rebuttal essentially says that there should be a debate on climate change with all viewpoints represented, and that it does not dictate the opinions of its members. Looking at Web pages, the attitude which seems to be consistently presented is that climate change does seem to be happening, that the 2C figure that has was published some years ago (which is beginning to seem optimistic) is not that bad, that we can adapt rather than mitigate or change our economic system. The implication seems to be that continuing to use fossil oil is the lesser evil, disrupting our economic system would be worse. I found no exceptions which recommended changing our energy usage and so on; there did not seem to be a variety of opinions. I encourage looking at the site in detail rather than taking my word for it. A useful search term is ["climate change" site:https://iea.org.uk] and variants. There are plenty of what seem reliable (non-IEA!) academic references to IEA as linked to climate change skeptical networks.
Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 21:49, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

In that case, how can you describe the IEA as climate-change deniers? They do not deny climate change. They argue for mitigation. It would therefore be accurate to describe them as climate change mitigators rather than deniers. Can we agree to use that description instead? Also, what are some of these links to climate change skeptical networks, so I can check them? Timalmond (talk) 09:55, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Can we agree to use [climate change mitigators] instead [of deniers]? It's a matter of seeing what usual usage is. I'm not really up-to-date on the detail (this is a Talk page, not an article, so that's OK), but I think that the current opinion is that, given the increasing evidence that climate change is happening, those described as "deniers" have moved from denying that change is happening to the "mitigating" approach detailed in my previous comment. The common element is that both "denying" and Timalmond's "mitigating" avoid any attempt to stop emissions, and are supported covertly by the fossil fuel industry. what are some of these links to climate change skeptical networks, so I can check them? I quoted that from a long article, which gives the source as Cockett, R., 1995. Thinking the unthinkable: think-tanks and the economic counter-revolution, 1931–83. London: Fontana Press. I think some of the sources in the Wikipedia article support the substance of this (for organisations, rather than networks explicitly).

Interestingly, I was able to view the full text of the article I quoted previously last night without logging in. Today I got a message requiring payment or login. Could this be in response to the article being cited in a controversial discussion? Seems unlikely. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 10:42, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

If they have moved from denying climate change to mitigation, they are no longer climate change deniers. By your own words, you are now stating that they are no longer climate change deniers. You may perceive this as serving the interest of the oil companies, you might find it objectionable, but in terms of verifiable fact, they are no longer climate change deniers, so this description should be removed. Perhaps a reference to alliances with oil interests should be written instead. Timalmond (talk) 11:44, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia follows usage, not editors' opinions. As Hob Gadling (below) suggests, find out what the usage of "climate change denial" is (e.g., from the Wikipedia article). My opinion is quite irrelevant, so I'll say no more. Pol098 (talk) 12:14, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

There are two ways to write Wikipedia articles: the right one, basing the article on reliable sources such as the Guardian, and the wrong one, looking at the matter yourself, drawing conclusions, and basing the article on that. The second way is how you are trying to do it. You make an assumption about what the term "climate change denial" means - the assumption is wrong, see climate change denial - and conclude it does not apply. This simply won't fly. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:01, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

No, the two ways to write a wikipedia article are as follows: the neutral, unbiased way, basing the article on a broad consensus spanning all opposing points of view and drawing unbiased conclusions thereof, or the biased way insisting only on sources of one particular persuasion and position to the exclusion of all others particularly personal independent ones. It comes as little surprise to me that Wikipedia's co-founder Larry Sanger no longer trusts his own website now thanks to people like you who'll stoop to openly lying even about wikipedia's own deeply biased articles since you have just lied about mitigation being a part of what is considered climate change denial. In reality a brief overview of the page fully supports Timalmond's observation, the only definition of climate change denial that uses the word 'mitigate' is as follows "to accepting all these but denying that humans can mitigate or reduce the problems". As such, being for mitigation of climate change is anathema to being a climate change denier in direct contradiciton to your false assertion. MrPreamble (talk) 04:21, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

You told several untruths in that contribution. First, this is not Sanger's "own website". Second, I have not even mentioned mitigation, let alone "lied about" it. The Guardian, a reliable source, says they are deniers, and also say,

• The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has issued publications arguing climate change is either not significantly driven by human activity or will be positive.,
• the IEA’s publications throughout the 1990s and 2000s heavily suggested climate science was unreliable or exaggerated
• Three years later the group published a book of essays called Climate Change: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom that described climate scientists as having established a “false consensus”.
• The group has also hosted a series of shorter papers, articles and blogs questioning climate science, including an article celebrating “20 years denouncing the eco-militants” in 2013, and blogposts recycling allegations of academic fraud against climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that were subsequently disproven.

All those things clearly fall under the heading of climate change denial. It is possible that they are backpedalling now and try to pretend they have been on the side of science all along, but that does not matter. This is not Orwell's 1984, and we will not rewrite history to retrofit the ideas of some dishonest greed preachers.

Furthermore, it is not Wikipedia's fault that one of the two big American parties and their supporters in the media have turned into a big untrustworthy sack of lying shit during the last four decades or so. Wikipedia has no choice but reject sources with "opposing points of view" on science when those sources turn out to be consistently wrong on certain scientific subjects. It may be surprising to you, but one can actually tell if a journalist's story about science is true or not, if one checks the original scientific sources. People have done that, and as a result, Wikipedia will not accept, for instance, a Wall Street Journal article on climate change at face value. Another thing that may be surprising to you: Climate change is a scientific subject, not a political one, and therefore, scientific sources must be used to determine the scientific status of climate change.

And of course, your "broad consensus spanning all opposing points of view" would consist of one group agreeing with science, plus about seven heavily overlapping groups of denialists randomly denying one aspect or another, all for the purpose of rejecting the scientific consensus by one means or another, because accepting the consensus would mean regulating the market as well as rejecting the childish idea that the free market can magically solve all problems while not creating any new ones. That would be WP:FALSEBALANCE and not really a feasible method of truth seeking.

So, fuck off, liar. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:47, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

You spun several untruths as truths in that response. First, in denying that as one of wikipedia's co-creators the site is not in fact Larry Sanger's own, when ownership depends on creator status of a product. Second, your denial of Timalmond's point that Pol097's recognizes IEA now seeks mitigation of climate change meant you denied the validity of this in ignorance.

The Guardian, merely one of many reliable, but not infallible, news outlets is an outdated and biased source material on the company and it's present stance with a history of hit pieces based in lazy opinion over fact regarding this thinktank which is easy enough to believe given it's history of tailoring and omitting truth, to name a few examples such as,

• The nine-hour detention in Heathrow Airport of David Miranda.
• Claiming to be a trust when in reality they're a limited company.
• Peddled politically correct lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
• Published claims about wikileaks without acknowledging evidence from Craig Murray pointing to the contrary.

But of course thats all neither here nor there, since you started this pointless defense of the guardians dated opinion of IEA without consideration of their present stance. And while wikipedia won't rewrite history, it is neither Orwellian or retrofitting to 'update' wikipedia's articles to better reflect the reality of the present. Unless of course you're a prejudiced reactionary who refuses to change their hostile view of something and wants to just cling to inaccurate outdated information about something you personally don't approve of.

We're not talking about the GOP, we're talking about the biased dismissal of reliable news sources. Like your response regarding 'mitigation' this is ignorant. And wikipedia most certainly does have a choice. It can choose to vet each and every article individually irrespective of source via independent investigation. But instead it makes sweeping biased preferences irrespective of how dissident sources can hold expert credentials in terms of factual knowledge and experience of skill. And this might surprise you, but climate change, while definitely a scientific subject, is still not a precise science. There is, inspite of an orthodox consensus of evidence on some basic facts regarding it, a large amount of grey uncertainty in how severe it is or how best to approach tackling it. And that is where the need for dissidence comes from but is stiffled on wiki by activist bias.

And finally, no actually, my "broad consensus" would consist of all groups agreeing with science but from different approaches each according to the individual sources WP:DUE weight in the matter and not dismissed due to the unreliability of other unrelated individual sources simply from the same source provider as this is neither an approach which respects WP:PROPORTION or being unbiased.

And fucky bye bye to you to, ignorant lazy actual liar. --MrPreamble (talk) 03:11, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that interesting contribution. The Guardian is considered a reliable source by long-standing consensus on this website. If you wish to change that you will need to do so at the central RS noticeboard, not on the talk page of a fringe provincial lobby and cash-for-access group. Cambial foliage❧ 04:34, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thank you for that entirely unsarcastic and not narrow cherry picked response, however you may have missed the fact I'm not contending the Guardian is a reliable source, only that it is not infallible and that its claims are subject both to review and update merely in response Hob ignoring this point made by Timalmond and falling back on biased opinion pieces which he falsely made out have a monopoly on facts and truth in reaction to the need this article has for being updated, which is itself unconstructive to this talk. MrPreamble (talk) 12:06, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

The only source you've cited for your inaccurate claim – that the paper is outdated and biased source material on the company and it's present stance with a history of hit pieces based in lazy opinion – is the blog of a neoconservative lobbying and special interest group (whose board includes the ex-chairman of oilfield-services conglomerate Halliburton). Therefore it would be wise to take care about accusing others of falling back on biased opinion pieces. You might also consider using more than one sentence. You have apparently neglected to understand the meaning of the phrase cherry picked before deciding to employ it – I haven't presented any evidence, only the policy of this website. I replied to the part of your post that was relevant; the rest of your wall of text did not merit a response. Cambial foliage❧ 16:31, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

If Wikipedia were built only on "infallible" sources, it would be empty. The trick is to separate the sources which try hard to be reliable, such as the Guardian, from sources which have the purpose of misleading the public, such as the IEA. You can screech and distort facts and wave your arms and stamp your foot as much as you want, we will continue to use the former. Sanger is not part of this "we" because this is not his website anymore, except in your daydreams. If you still want to exclude the Guardian, this is the place you should go, not here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:26, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm seeing acknowledgement of background on said inaccurate source, but no actual refutation of its content or the logic of it's point. Which you have rather conveniently demonstrated yourself actually by simply skimming over it. And considering I only used that source to demonstrate the laziness by Guardian hit pieces, you coming back in such a shallow way about the sources background doesn't exactly deflate my point about lazy bias obscuring this talk page. And while you have presented the policy of this website, you've still done so in response to what you considered relevant cherry picked points of my responses ignoring their context. As such you're not really one to judge their pertinence, particularly since I only used such a response to a similar chunk-o'-text defense that didn't contribute to the talk or Timalmond's point. MrPreamble (talk) 20:51 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad to see you think so, but using outdated and inaccurated opinion pieces by sources you think only tried to be reliable in relation to the IEA are no longer the case given it's shifted position on this issue. Because the reality is there is no "trick" to ultimately deciding if any given source is unreliable save for independently investigating each articles claims and rhetoric individually to glean their factuality from fantasy. And it really doesn't matter how much you scream and try and twist what I'm saying to claim I'm against all usage of the Guardian till you're blue in the face, since I never made such a point. And Sanger, as the co-creator of this site, is far more a part of this "we" then you are, particularly given that you now also agree to be appropriating it from his intention of unbiased information to your own lazy dismissive bias. MrPreamble (talk) 21:29 29 July 2021 (UTC)

If your claim about lazy bias constituted a point, or had any merit, I would have responded to it. Cambial foliage❧ 22:01, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

References

Lead sentence

The lead sentence should be rephrased to better describe what the IEA is, in order of what it actually does. When the IEA is referenced in most sources, it is as a think tank, not a charity. Starting its description as "a British charity" is therefore the least significant and informative aspect of the organisation, because it tells the reader absolutely nothing about what it does, just how it is funded. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 09:32, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I would expect a market-fundamentalist group like this to be offended when someone calls them a charity, since their ideal, the homo oeconomicus, acts only out of self interest. Nobody calls them that because it is probably just a legal facade. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:00, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Multiple RS, including but not limited to several that are cited in the article, refer to the subject as a charity. CC is cited because where we can cite the official legal confirmation of a fact we should do so. There is no policy and no good reason to preference what it does, but that's beside the point. "Think tank" (a noun) is a description of what it *is* – just as "charity" is a description of what it is. So the premise of this discussion makes little sense. Cambial foliage❧ 11:26, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Hardly. A charity can do thousands of things. A Think Tank is much more specific. The lead sentence should get to the point. Consider how how the IEA primarily describes itself; "The IEA is the UK’s original free-market think-tank, founded in 1955.".

No-one is disputing the content, just the order it appears in the lead.--Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 17:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Since Cambial Yellowing doesn't appear to have any response, I will repeat my improvement to the article. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 15:35, 21 August 2021 (UTC)