Category talk:Longevity myths

My initial thought
My initial thought is that this is a category masquerading as an article, or vice versa, and should decide what it is intended to be. It cites no sources and is therefore, as it stands original research. However, I don't think it's beyond rescue, in some form or another. Certainly, longevity is treated in the Bible, with people like Enoch & Methuselah, but once people start to write things down, rather than rely upon oral tradition, facts become more verifiable, but not necessarily so. In short, needs some work. Rodhull andemu  00:22, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This is a POV religious fork that seeks to support the idea that humans can live hundreds of years, both now and in the past. That is against scientific consensus and is best kept at church, not on what is supposed to be an encyclopedia. Ryoung 122 10:19, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * How can scientific articles that (radically) suggest humans are living longer today than ever before be used to justify past claims of longevity? It can't. It actually weakens your point. Ryoung 122 10:23, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A few assumptions would be invalid. First, this is not a new category but an unobjectionable WP:MOVE of the category "Longevity narratives" from early last year. (The objections are not about narrative v. tradition; they are about the WP:CFORK between tradition v. myth, even though WP:RNPOV forbids the latter in this case.) Second, this is not masquerading as an article, but is simply per WP:SUMMARY providing enough context to distinguish it from the similar category "Longevity claims" (not to mention "Longevity myths" for now). Third, the sources for virtually everything are properly cited in the "Longevity narratives"/"myths" article, again per WP:SUMMARY; they can be cited here but there is no necessity to overburden the category description. Fourth, since GWR was cited by name, the lack of page number (here) should not be treated as citing "no sources". Fifth, the assumption that this is somehow about Biblical longevity rather than longevity in all traditions would be belied both by the article itself and by the list of Sumerian kings that I just haven't gotten around to adding yet. Sixth, WP:VERIFIABILITY is not about whether someone lived a certain age but about whether primary or secondary sources say so, and neutrally reporting that. Seventh, I don't do WP:OR, but am happy to address any specific charges to the contrary.
 * Eighth, a category about traditions should contain "traditions" as its WP:BOLDTITLE, not "myths". Ninth, an accusation of "misuse of information" should not be performed by deleting (what the deleter knows to be) WP:Verified content, but by raising the specific objection to the sourced info, which has not been done. (When this deleter mentioned other related sources, I quoted and cited properly in the article, and now here as well, even though he didn't bother to.) Tenth, I do not create content-fork articles (I have only removed OR and added sources to the "narratives"/"myths" article because the deleter refuses to abide by WP:RNPOV and rename the article); while I suppose that a contested category move could be considered a content-fork category, the problem happened in 2007 when the deleter first created the invalidly titled "Longevity myths" category (then contrary to WP:WTA also) and insisted on its retaining certain favored nonmyth articles. (If you want to do some serious OR-tagging in category descriptions, do that one. So far I've declined to.). Eleventh, WP:OR above, about what the fork "seeks to support", what the scientific consensus says, and where this advocacy is best kept, is invalid for making encyclopedic judgments; while I'd agree that WP is WP:NOT for advocacy, actual accusations of advocacy should be specifically tied to demonstrable OR rather than sourced science. Twelfth, the deleter has one source that states Swedes are living longer in recent decades, in which the authors make no broader conclusion, but the added OR, that this constitutes multiple "articles", that this is radical, and that this extends to all modern humans, and that this weakens some point about longevity, is again invalid. Thirteenth, applying today's research to historical longevity is a classic WP:SYNTHESIS of the research with the (admitted) uniformitarian assumption, which assumption is stated by no source. Fourteenth, the deleter's beliefs about what my point is constitute even further OR, as he has been repeatedly warned.

In short, Rodhullandemu, please pardon my overlong explanation of reliance on policy authority, and I trust your judgment in that you did not necessarily make any of these invalid assumptions, but my concern arises from a long history of WP:WALLEDGARDEN abuses that have taken much editing to remedy and that are still unappreciated by the wider WP community. (And if you really have an emu, congratulations!) JJB 15:30, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * JJBulten's "original-research fork" is what happened here. This was, and should, be the category longevity myths as established by reliable sources outside Wikipedia, not Bulten's personal opinion. Ryoung 122 10:37, 17 December 2010 (UTC)