Talk:Microchimerism

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Sibling Microchimerism

The Microchimerism section on the Chimera page says "some people also have some cells genetically identical to that of their siblings (maternal siblings only, since these cells are passed to them because their mother retained them)", but this is not mentioned anywhere on this page. I think it should be added.

Weak source

I have removed the section on "Tripartite Conflict." The section was based on a reference from Medical Hypotheses. This is not a peer-reviewed journal, it publishes what can be politely referred to as "speculative" papers. Moreover, the paper in question was written by professors of taxonomy, and it was rather inappropriate for the passage to imply that this applied to humans. There were two small paragraphs below the main paragraph of the section that were fairly vague ("medical science claims...") and did not appear to be supported by the citations offered ("...but this does not explain" when the paper did explain, in great detail).

If someone wishes to rewrite this section, please find a more acceptable source than Medical Hypotheses, preferably a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Hyperion35 (talk) 14:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Decision based on prejudice

Hyperion35, it seems that your decision is based on prejudice. Two points to consider:

Firstly, Medical Hypotheses is a pretty good scientific journal with a huge number of valuable works published in it. It was (is) a reviewed journal although reviewing hypotheses (editorial review) is a process different from reviewing descriptions of experiments (invited reviewers). The journal's rejection rate was (is) comparable or higher than that of most other journals in medical sciences. The great fuss about the journal was due to a single ms that was withdrown from publication. The majority of other journals also has events like that in their history but we do not usually question their validity as a whole.

Secondly, contrary to your claim the athors are not taxonomists. They never published an article in taxonomical journals. The 1st author published papers in Medical Hypotheses and in Annals of Human Biology, the 2nd author is active in animal ecology, parasitology, zoology and also in bioweapons history. Otherwise, are taxonomist excluded from medical sciences as a whole? Is it a priory forbidden for them to develop relevant medical ideas?

The paragraph you have deleted was fair in the sense that it clearly indicated to explain a hypothesis rather than to tell a fact. Hypotheses in general are useful and not excluded from encyclopedias.

Think it over please.

--Ludovika26 (talk) 08:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

--I agree that hypotheses are useful, and they are the bedrock of scientific research, certainly. However, my concern is simply that encyclopedic content must be verifiable. Certainly it is verifiable that this hypothesis exists, yes. It is verifiable that these two individuals have put forth this hypothesis. However, what I would prefer is to see peer-reviewed data that validates this hypothesis. The problem with the "review" policies of Medical Hypotheses is that they do not give us any independent verifiable review of evidence presented that supports the hypothesis. Publishing a hypothesis is not much better than publishing a grant application. It's the very beginning of the research process, and it does not provide independent verifiable evidence as to the validity of the hypothesis. All that it provides is, well, evidence that there is a hypothesis.

I do apologize if it appeared that I was impugning the work of biologists and taxonomists. Obviously biological research is very valuable to human medical science even if it involves non-human animals, and obviously there are plenty of biological mechanisms that are fairly similar across species, genera, even across an entire phylum. My point was that the paragraph would benefit if one could also find published evidence tying these biological processes to human medical pathologies if it is intended to discuss these biological processes as they relate to human medical pathologies, and there are a wide assortment of peer-reviewed medical journals around the globe that would be excellent sources.

I guess I'm not sure how best to explain a hypothesis, especially where the only citation is to an infamously non-peer-reviewed journal like Medical Hypotheses while adhering to the WP:Verifiability guidelines. Hyperion35 (talk) 16:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

--You seem to dislike the journal. I guess one should not judge a paper on the base of the journal. Read the paper itself and then decide whether it is good science or bad science. In the latter case, please delete this paragraph. You will see that the paper itself cites a huge number of experimental or correlation studies supporting the hypothesis. --Ludovika26 (talk) 18:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

--Can I revive this issue and ask for some learned attention to this section. The meaning of the title is unclear, and the information presented is unhelpful at best. At worst it is downright inflammatory: "...some mothers get pregnant only to improve their immune system and then to abort", "[fathers] also face the risk of wasting their sexual efforts due to selfish pregnancies of cheating females", "males may be capable of provoking microchimerism-induced autoimmune-like diseases in the mother in revenge of selfish pregnancies." It is also full of plagiarised copypasta from the cited paper. And while it appears to discuss human sexual behaviour and autoimmune disorders, that cited paper was written by animal ecologists and published in a journal with this stated objective: 'Medical Hypotheses will publish papers which describe theories, ideas which have a great deal of observational support and some hypotheses where experimental support is yet fragmentary' (my italics). It doesn't meet Wikipedia's policies that "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" or a neutral point of view.

If there is evidence that microchimerism from pregnancy is linked to autoimmune disorders, can a learned person add a section explaining that, and remove the speculation about selfish and revenge-motivated sexual behaviour? Or maybe move it to it's own page if it is that important.Smittee (talk) 01:37, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

--I'm newbie on Wikipedia, but Zahavi article do not talk about microchimerism at all, this 1979 year article is all about cuckoos! Removed this reference.188.93.104.117 (talk) 10:32, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

--Okay. This "tripartite conflict" section hasn't had any learned attention, so I'm making my first major edit and deleting it. See my comment above for reasoning. Smittee (talk) 14:00, 14 December 2012 (UTC)smittee

--Another observations about the Medical Hypotheses journal mandate: I instantly noticed that '...where experimental support is yet fragmentary' sounded suspiciously like 'an idea with no observational evidence' - but I missed that '...theories, ideas which have a great deal of observational support, ...and some hypotheses' also sounds a lot like 'an idea I had' + 'observations that haven't been analysed or tested' + 'some research proposals'. To be kind, this journal is a forum for floating concepts, and does not set out to publish peer-reviewed research. Smittee (talk) 05:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)