Talk:H. Allen Orr/Archive 1

Disservice
You (the contributors) have devoted more text to his views on Dawkins than his own contributions to science. You do Professor Orr a disservice by using him as a pawn to promote your perceptions on the book the “God Delusions”. Nothing subtle here. Did you even know he existed until you read his book review on Dawkins, I am guessing not. A scientist with numerous accommodations on his own accord and you truly think a book review is worthy of note. This is sad. If you have a beef with Richard Dawkins … take it to the Dawkins page. I strongly suggest you delete or de-emphasize the section on the “God Delusion” and instead note his contributions to science in the field of genetics. If you are unaware of any then stay off this page and work within you field of expertise.--Random Replicator 22:03, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I have just deleted the paragraph about the book review. Reasons as stated by Random Replicator. Snalwibma 08:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This has to be one of the strongest arguments I have seen on wikipedia. In some sense, Orr's review of Dawkins has had some popular notability, but I fully agree with Random Replicator, people should not be used as pawns in our edit wars. I will keep this in mind so I don't make the same mistake myself. --Merzul 15:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * From my observations of your efforts on cleaning up the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit; I would be both shocked and disappointed if you fell prey to such biased writing. You are in a league well above what was represented on this page. Not to worry.--Random Replicator 02:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Using people as pawns. I never thought about it that way but it is a highly cynical thing to do. I agree with the deletion and will have a look around to see if there is anything I can add about Orr that is about him and not just to score points. Sophia  06:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Against consensus
This edit is clearly against the consensus above that we are not going to use Mr. Orr as a pawn in our games. If we want to express his standpoints on biology and religion issues, then the focus should be on H. ALLEN ORR, giving equal weight to all his statements and reviews! His career highlight was not writing a critical review of Dawkins, and his full range of views on biology and religion is not reflected by this either. NBeale, this is very serious, if you don't respect this, then there is no choice but asking the community to comment on your behaviour. It seems I'm not able to get through to you. --Merzul 21:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Look, NBeale, in addition to all that has been said before, this man is an incredibly lucid writer, his reviews are well worth reading, I strongly object to giving this one-sided view that he is a Dawkins-basher by picking the most biting personal attacks on Dawkins that he used. I'm considering we maybe should remove even the one-line summaries because they do serious injustice to his reviews. I follow a one revert rule, so please think this through before you put back the "details" from the Dawkins review. --Merzul 17:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Reviews
Hi Merzul. I'm v pleased that you have linked into some of his other reviews (I wanted to but when I tried his website was down for some reason). His comments on Behe are very pertinent and well worth recording, including his reference. No-one is a "pawn" and no-one is playing a "game". The way to balance is to add relevant material and record it all in NPOV. I think it's fair to say that his Dawkins review has been the most controversial and covered. Orr Dawkins Review gets 93k GHits. I also wonder whether the somewhat hectoring tone you adopt is really appropriate or productive, but that's your problem not mine ;-) NBeale 17:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I leave it to your conscience to decide whether a prominent biologist should be known to the world for some of the finely picked ad hominem arguments against Richard Dawkins. I don't like this at all. --Merzul 18:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * NBeale - do not readd the reviews to push some agenda of your own. If you choose to use this guy in your anti-Dawkins campaign then due to WP:BLP concerns I will raise an RfC about your present conduct. Sophia  18:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Sophia. You really must stop trying to censor views you disagree with. This is at least the 20th time I have seen you do it and it wont do. NBeale 20:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * NBeale - again please read WP:BLP. If you wish bring the RfC against me - I have no objections which way round this is as long as this current situation gets outside attention and advice. This littering of cherry-picked anti-Dawkins quotes must stop. Sophia  21:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Book Review
Can you imagine an article on a notable scientist such as Einstein, Watson, Crick, Darwin, ect... whose most notable contribution to the scientific community is a "Book Review"? Such a scientist would be unworthy of an entry in an encyclopedia. Orr would be upset to note that his primary contribution to science appears to be a book review of someone else’s work. The reality, NBeal is you stumbled across this guy when you were researching Dawkin's critics and decided to create this entry. You do not have a clue what he has done professionally. This insidious form of vandalism is not acceptable. If you have knowledge of Orr’s professional contributions worthy of noting in an encyclopedia, then by all means continue. If you wish to portray him as the Gene Siskel of Science text … then stay away.

If you truly wish to represent him accurately and fairly on this page I suggest you familiarize yourself with his work and stop obsessing over his book reviews: You can start with these. --Random Replicator 00:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Orr, H.A. 2003. Theories of adaptation: what they do and don't say (for joint publication in the book The Genetics of Adaptation, R. Mauricio, ed. and special issue of Genetica).

Presgraves, D.C., L. Balagopalan, S.M. Abmayr and H.A. Orr. 2003. Adaptive evolution drives divergence of a hybrid inviability gene in Drosophila. Nature 423:699-700.

Orr, H.A. 2003. The distribution of fitness effects among beneficial mutations. Genetics 163:1519-1526.

Orr, H.A. 2003. A minimum on the mean number of steps taken in adaptive walks. J. Theor. Biol. 220:241-247.

Orr, H.A. 2002. The population genetics of adaptation: the adaptation of DNA sequences. Evolution 56:1317-1330.

Orr, H.A. 2001. Some doubts about (yet another) view of species. J. Evol. Biol. 14:870-871.

Orr, H.A. and M. Turelli. 2001. The evolution of postzygotic isolation: accumulating Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities. Evolution 55:1085-1094.

Orr, H.A. and S. Irving. 2001. Complex epistasis and the genetic basis of hybrid sterility in the Drosophila pseudoobscura Bogota-USA hybridization. Genetics 158:1089-1100.

Orr, H.A. 2001. The "sizes" of mutations fixed in phenotypic evolution: a response to Clarke and Arthur. Evol. Dev. 3:121-123.

Orr, H.A. 2001. The genetics of species differences. Trends Ecol. Evol. 16:343-350.

Orr, H.A. and A. Betancourt. 2001. Haldane's sieve and adaptation from the standing genetic variation. Genetics 157:875-884.

Orr, H.A. and D.C. Presgraves. 2000. The origin of species: forces, genes and molecules. BioEssays 22:1085-1094.

Orr, H.A. 2000. The rate of adaptation in asexuals. Genetics 155:961-968.

Orr, H.A. and s. Irving. 2000. Genetic analysis of the hybrid male rescue locus of Drosophila. Genetics 155-225-231.

Turelli, M. and H.A. Orr. 2000. Dominance, epistasis and the genetics of postzygotic isolation. Genetics 154:1663-1679.

Orr, H.A. 2000. Adaptation and the cost of complexity. Evolution 54:13-20

Hi RR. If this were a Scientfic Encyclopedia then we might want to go into this in much more detail. However WP is not solely about science. The fact is that his contributions to the wider cultutal and philosophical debates are specifically cited as an important part of his work. By all means contribute more about his specialist scientfic work if you are qualified to do so. NBeale 07:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed - WP is not solely a "scientific encyclopedia" - but an accurate representation of science is an important part of it, and it is also about balance and representing a person's work fairly, and not distorting it to the point where it seems his main claim to fame is as a member of the Anti-Dawkins brigade recruited by NBeale. I have just yet again deleted all that stuff about the book reviews. No doubt there is an important connection between Orr's work and the wider cultutal and philosophical debates - but it is not up to you to decide how important it is, in breach of WP:OR and WP:BLP. Please discuss here before dumping it back in. Snalwibma 07:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The specific problem here is that WP:BLP rightly excludes this idea that somebody eventually will add the science work: "Biographies of living people should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. While a strategy of eventualism may apply to other subject areas, badly written biographies of living persons should be stubbed or deleted." The biography must develop in an organic way so that it is neutral and balanced at all time. We can accumulate material on the talk page, and use it in the article when there is enough on his science writing not to skew the main text. --Merzul 09:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It really is quite amusing how desperate some people are to Defend Dawkins from any criticism. The statement that Orr's reviews are an important part of his work is properly sourced. His review is widely cited. The idea that you can supress well referenced facts by procedural quibbles (eg that we can't cite any of his book reviews unless we simultaneously have a full discussion of his scientific work) is fascinating. NBeale 10:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * NBeale, this is nothing whatever to do with defending Dawkins or "suppressing" "well-referenced" facts (though I would eagerly defend John Polkinghorne or the Man in the Moon if they were subject to the same sort of sustained assault that Dawkins has been prey to). It is even more amusing how desperate some people are to attack Dawkins, even to the extent of apparently creating articles about people they have never previously heard of, and whose work they do not understand, just in order to use them as pawns in a personal vendetta. I refer you, and others, to the admissions in your blog that you are attempting to use WP as a means of attacking Dawkins . But the point here is in any case quite different - it is about achieving balance in the article about Orr. Let's do it - but let's work together to achieve it. Snalwibma 10:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have just redone the summary of the God Delusion book review. Seems to me that mine is just as valid and useful a selection of (mis)representative quotes as that which I have replaced, and I challenge NBeale to demonstrate otherwise. Now - if (if...) the book reviews are worthy of inclusion, can we please discuss them here? Snalwibma 11:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This is indeed just as bad, thank you for making the point very clear :P (it was in this case quite a useful exercise.) It is therefore that I think the one-line summaries are more accurate than picking quotations. I think we can all agree Orr wasn't impressed by the book, do we need all the "mission to convert", and "fails to reason philosophically"?? --Merzul 11:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Yes, I know I was disrupting the encyclopedia to make a point, and I should discuss rather than just go and do it. I apologise. This is precisly what I have been asking NBeale to do, after all! But I didn't see any other way of getting the point across. And hey - you'd hardly argue that my version is any worse than what was there, would you?! Snalwibma 11:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It was a good point, so you ignored the rules and made it quite clear. Drastic times, requires drastic measures, so your apology is accepted. :) --Merzul 12:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The serious problem with these judgements like the one I remove is that while these have a place in the reviews, they are not the central message of the review. These statements are carefully substantiated by Mr. Orr, who goes into depth showing what is wrong in Behe's interpretation of evolution. The reviews are not nearly as polemical as these isolated quotations imply. --Merzul 16:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Extensive quotations
While the addition of other sections is a good step forward, they were added in a bit of haste, and much of it is copy-pasted, sometimes without indicating that we are quoting the material, e.g. "studying speciation is largely synonymous with studying reproductive isolation", this makes the reading very difficult. Sometimes, less is more. --Merzul 11:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC) (I should add that I have no idea what I meant with "less is more", I think I was thinking about the level of technical detai...)


 * The lead section of the article is also copy-pasted verbatim (almost) from the University of Rochester site - and may indeed be a copyright violation. Needs looking at, and (I suggest) rewriting by someone who knows the subject area. Snalwibma 11:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Review in Science belongs in Scientific section
The review in Science belongs in the Scientific section. Science is not a "publication such as the New York Review of books"! NBeale 11:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Absolutely not, Science, Evolution, Mind, etc all publish book reviews, they don't become scientific articles because of that. --Merzul 12:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the hasty response, I see your concern about "publication such as the New York Review of books". A review in Science could be called an academic book review, but it still falls in the category of commentary, and is often solicited (or commissioned) by the editors of a journal, so the editorial process is of course different from research papers. The intro to the review section should be amended to include academic book reviews. Note that his review of Dennett also originally appeared in Evolution. --Merzul 12:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

In any case, I removed now the summaries of the reviews, until we can find some consensus on what to do, and how to describe his religious views. I'm going to leave this page to cool down. --Merzul 18:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)