Talk:Haim Eshed

Anonymous unsigned comment
This guy has never been mentioned anywhere on the internet until a week ago, nor has his book. Check Google trends. Impossible if he had any public presence at all at his place of education. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.167.168.105 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Not a professor
Dr. Eshed is and never was a professor at the Technion. See the talk page of the Hebrew Wikipedia article about him. Basically this issue was discussed there since 2008 and noone was able to come up with any evidence of him being a professor. Tzafrir (talk) 13:17, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As I can see, there's issues with the University itself not listing him as a Professor (should they list everyone?), but he's mentioned in other University presentations as such, and in multiple WP:RS. Because of that, WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS applies until his credentials are put into question by reliable sources, remember WP:VNT.


 * EDIT: With a quick Google search I found this official govermental piece, which links to these articles calling him professor  , there's also this  --Loganmac (talk) 22:31, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Response from authorities to Galactic Federation
We need not include “Following the story, NBC News reported "The White House and Israeli officials did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment“ (As if “non-immediate” response is suspicious, indicates they may be hiding something, etc.) Reporting a running tally of who has commented so far and who has not isn’t required, per WP:NOTNEWS. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:22, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree. On the current edit, reporting that the Pentagon have not commented is not really news. I thought it was the White House previously anyway. I'm disinclined to revert as there is a bit of edit warring going on. AussieWikiDan (talk) 15:30, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Copying my comment from WP:FTN:  — Paleo  Neonate  – 15:41, 26 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Yeah, implying something about a non-response is problematic (might as well say "did not dignify the query with a response"). Alexbrn (talk) 15:59, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Extravagant claims
There seems to be some concern that the description of Eshed's claims as "extravagant" is somehow a WP:WTA. I think it is rather charitable, but perhaps there are synonyms which are better. What I think we need to indicate, however, is that these claims are hyperbolic and well-beyond those which would be made by most normal people. He even seems to admit that himself, so it's not as if this is disputed. jps (talk) 17:13, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Unless reliable sources are characterizing the claims with some adjective, it's editorial to add one ourselves. Are reliable sources simply stating he claims these things, or are they labelling those claims? If they are labelling the claims, what label(s) are they using? Schazjmd   (talk)  17:51, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Most of the non-clickbait sources just report his claims. I don't think we need the adjective. The extravagance of the claims is self-evident. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The Haaretz source we are using adjoins the adjectives, "harder-to-believe" and "bombshell" to the Eshed's claims. Cannot "extravagant" be a decent synonym for such? jps (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "Bombshell" is a sub-headline so not really RS. A synonym for "harder to believe" would be "implausible" or "unlikely", although I agree with that an adjective isn't needed.  Schazjmd   (talk)  19:19, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "implausible" is fine with me. I thought "extravagant" was more NPOV. jps (talk) 19:25, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , why must there be an adjective at all? It's sufficient to state the facts. Schazjmd   (talk)  19:31, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It is a fact that his claims are hyperbolic and extravagant. We have the sources that show this. It is just a means to describe the context. jps (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Again, which sources are characterizing his claims in that way? One reference to "harder to believe" isn't much. Obviously the claims are ridiculous, but we don't say that unless RSs do. Schazjmd   (talk)  20:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the sources are pretty clear that these ideas that aliens stopped nuclear war are over-the-top. How we indicate that is the question. I'm not of the opinion that simply calling them "claims" really gets at the reason they are in the article in the first place. They are here because they are ridiculous and I think it helps the flow of the prose to recognize this explicitly. An alternative might be to remove this claim altogether. jps (talk) 23:23, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I note that the edit-warring on that sentence is continuing despite the lack of consensus here (and the failure of one of the editors involved to engage in this discussion). Taking another look at the article, the sentence in contention is In the book, Eshed makes (disputed adjective) claims that include stories of how aliens prevented potential nuclear disasters, including an unspecified nuclear incident during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. I suggest either deleting it, as suggests above, or reword to The book includes stories of....  Schazjmd   (talk)  15:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the first would remove an informative part of this article and the second would confuse the author's intention as fiction. Maybe if enough of us choose a word here we can just stick with it and revert edits by whoever waltzes by without checking first. I edited before to: "widely derided claims". AussieWikiDan (talk) 15:22, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * OK, well I took the time to read the cited sources in depth (which I'd only skimmed before). For example, the two sources being cited for the sentence in question (Jüdische Allgemeine and Haaretz) both treat the subject mockingly, satirically, and not seriously. And while they don't literally include a sentence that prefaces Eshed's claims with an adjective - the surrounding context quite clearly communicates to the reader that Eshed's claims are goofy, over-the-top, not to be believed, etc. So yeah, "widely derided" would work here. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:41, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

In case it can be useful, the Times of Israel source citing Ben-Israel describes the claims as "too-far", unconventional, etc. — Paleo  Neonate  – 19:20, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Fact that there is no scientific evidence for ET life
I don't know what to say about this one. It is simply a fact that there is no scientific evidence for ET life. I'm not sure why anyone would argue otherwise. jps (talk) 17:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * NASA stated there is as of yet no scientific evidence for extraterrestrial life, which is an uncontroversial fact, so I'm not sure what the problem is or why it's constantly being reverted. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:25, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed... — Paleo  Neonate  – 19:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)