Fyslee (Paul Lee) (BullRangifer) ("Brangifer")

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• Arbitration partly dealing with Fyslee
• Evidence for Arbitration partly dealing with Fyslee
• List of prominent skeptical Wikipedia editors

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Fyslee on Wikipedia

"It is proposed that pro-science editors refrain from editing all controversial scientific and health articles from February 1 until March 1, 2008. Let the cranks, kooks, and fringe editors have a field day. This demonstration should make the front page of the New York Times..."

Fyslee on CAM

"CAM is a misleading, oxymoronic misnomer, consciously or unconsciously created to give a false impression, get political clout and win undeserved confidence and respect...Any talk of cooperation is a smoke screen for a Trojan horse mentality...There can be no question as to the real intent of the practitioners of CAM and the enormous industries supporting them: the total eradication/domination of EBM [Evidence Based Medicine]...It would be more correct to use the term COST (Competing, Opposed, and Supplementary Therapies) than CAM... What they end up believing is dependent on who gets to them first: the quacks with their emotionally very appealing anecdotes, or the skeptics with their solid, logical facts, which effectively inoculate the potential victims from being infected with nonsense...Once infected with alt med nonsense, they become immune to cognitive dissonance."

ScienceApologist on Fyslee

"I don't want to see him blocked or banned ever."

Fyslee on Homeopathy

"Homeopathic water isn't just ordinary water. It comes with a royal pedigree...illusions can be powerful things. Just like faith, they can move mountains - mountains of money!... when free fantasy gets run through the alt. med. spinning wheel, it becomes an elaborate, sometimes enticingly beautiful fabric, which can be sold. It's no longer free. Now fantasy costs! And since nobody in their right mind would dream of paying for fantasy, their cognitive dissonance plays them a trick. They excuse themselves for doing something so dumb, with the rationalization: "It worked for me. That's proof enough"....We need to get Cosby, Seinfeld, etc. to work up a series of homeopathic jokes!"

BullRangifer is the Wikipedia username of Paul Lee, PT, a physical therapist and skeptic who was for many years an anti-quackery activist, but who has slowed such activities in recent years. His primary interest as a skeptic is alternative medicine and health fraud, especially the field of chiropractic. Although a skeptic of the paranormal, he rarely deals with paranormal subjects. He has shifted his focus of interest from activism on websites and discussion groups to editing Wikipedia. He has never been a member of any skeptical organization, but does receive the Brights movement newsletter, as well as the Consumer Health Digest, Randigram, and some other email newsletters.

Personal background

He was born in Tokyo, Japan, the son of Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) missionaries. His grandparents were also missionaries, and he is a fourth generation SDA. His disbelief in the paranormal may partially stem from the fact that SDAs do not believe in an afterlife with disembodied spirits, but believe that the dead are unaware of anything, and simply await a resurrection from the dead at a future point in time.

He was raised in a vegetarian home and lived as a vegan for many years. He has stated that he was raised in an extremely conservative manner, and his parents (unwittingly) attempted to shield him from certain real life disputes (such as evolution vs. creation and the age of the Earth) by sending him only to religious schools in order to keep him from doubting his inherited beliefs. They ultimately failed:

"As an adult, my confrontation with the real world has caused me to do a lot of thinking, becoming somewhat of a skeptic, not only as regards many aspects of my upbringing and beliefs, but also regarding claims made in the pseudo-scientific arena."

He is a strong believer in religious liberty and the separation of church and state, rights which are guaranteed in the US Constitution. He is an alumnus of San Pasqual Academy class of 1970. He attended San Bernardino Valley College, Riverside City College, and later Pacific Union College in Angwin, California from 1975-77. He then spent several years working at Weimar Institute, which offers "innovative health care and faith-based high school and collegiate education programs." He and his wife are educated as Physician's Assistants (but never licensed or worked as such), and later as Physical Therapists. He enjoys travel, having lived in six different countries and visited at least 28 countries.

Skeptical activities

He is a skeptic of the quackery and scams that commonly occur in the alternative medicine arena, which he sarcastically terms so-Called "Alternative" Medicine (sCAM). For a time he was the ringmaster of the Anti-Quackery Ring and the Skeptic Ring, as well as a participant on the Healthfraud Discussion List, but hasn't participated for a number of years. He also has a website and a blog which he rarely touches, choosing instead to use his time at Wikipedia. They are a repository of information, some of which isn't available elsewhere.

Wikipedia

As User:Fyslee, and now as User:BullRangifer, a username chosen because of his interest in reindeer, he is one of many scientific skeptics at Wikipedia, active mainly in CAM articles and with a specialty in the subject of chiropractic, though he is interested in different aspects of "chiroquackery, sCAM, homeopathy, etc."

In early 2007 he was a party in an Arbitration Committee case, Barrett v. Rosenthal (BvR). On 27 March 2007 he was cautioned "to use reliable sources and to edit from a NPOV." He was "reminded that editors with a known partisan point of view should be careful to seek consensus on the talk page of articles to avoid the appearance of a COI if other editors question their edits." He was also noted for incivility and personal attacks.

Fyslee's use of Quackwatch (QW) and similar partisan sites was originally found questionable. The Committee later amended the finding, saying that "all editors are reminded of the instruction in the policy page on Neutral point of view that they should "give precedence to those sources that have been the most successful in presenting facts in an equally balanced manner", that Quackwatch is a site "whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct", and is therefore explicitly not giving a balanced presentation." Until that amendment, some editors mistakenly assumed that Quackwatch should never be used. As one of many who does so, Fyslee has successfully continued to defend Quackwatch as a source, saying on 4 April 2009:

"A cardinal sign of an editor who has motives that are destructive to the way Wikipedia presents fringe theories and beliefs is when they attack QW."

When evaluating the case, it is essential to read the "Principles" section in conjunction with the "Findings of fact" section just below it, which include the finding that Fyslee is a health activist and the finding about his use of Quackwatch as a source. Having said these things, the Committee originally cautioned Fyslee about his use of "unreliable" sources. This finding was considered misleading and a later amendment revised the wording by removing the word "unreliable" from the heading. This vindicated Lee's use of Quackwatch as a source, and (by removing the description of it as being "unreliable") also vindicated the careful use of Quackwatch as a source when other, unbiased sources are unavailable:

(Section 1.1) That the header of the finding "Use of unreliable sources by Fyslee" (3.2) in the Barrett v. Rosenthal case be changed to "Sources used by Fyslee".

In the same Arbitration case which cautioned Fyslee, the Arbitration Committee banned Ilena Rosenthal from editing Wikipedia for one year (no stronger sanction is used in ArbCom cases). During the same proceedings she was also indefinitely banned by the Wikipedia community.