Talk:Karl von Frisch

Point of View / Verifiability
This article contained some serious red flags (see WP:REDFLAG). As with all Wikipedia articles, please observe WP:VERIFY and WP:NPOV when editing this article. 154.5.187.200 (talk) 07:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps some of these concerns are now met with the incorporation of the German Wiki material. If not, please be more specific, so we can continue turning this into a quality article. Thanks. --Remotelysensed (talk) 10:32, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Talk
When a honey bee finds a source of food, then goes back to tell the rest of the bees where it is, why do the other bees beat him there?


 * I'm not sure whether I understand what you mean, but there is no particular reason for the first bee to return to the food source, though it could do so if so "inclined". After imparting the directional, intensity and food-type information to his hive mates it may be busy processing its load, or simply tired. --Remotelysensed (talk) 10:29, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

An image on this page may be deleted
This is an automated message regarding an image used on this page. The image File:1ofrisck002p1.jpg, found on Karl von Frisch, has been nominated for deletion because it does not meet Wikipedia image policy. Please see the image description page for more details. If this message was sent in error (that is, the image is not up for deletion, or was left on the wrong talk page), please contact this bot's operator. STBotI (talk) 17:54, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Translation now added
--Remotelysensed (talk) 10:22, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Odd German title
Über die ‚Tiersprache|Sprache‘ der Bienen

"On the 'Animal Language|Language' of the Bees"

Does this indicate confusion over the precise title in German? Varlaam (talk) 16:30, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The German title is: Über die ‚Sprache‘ der Bienen. "Sprache" was surrounded by inverted commas to make a point, and it was wikilinked to Tiersprache. Unfortunately, when the article was translated to English, the link became a bit too explicit.  It has now been corrected. Favonian (talk) 16:39, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That explanation had occurred to me after I'd finished writing it. Varlaam (talk) 16:49, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

J comp Physiol
Not every reader of Wikipedia is a professional apiologist. Some of us merely put honey on our toast.

That would be a Journal of Comparative Physiology possibly? Varlaam (talk) 16:47, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes indeed. Such drastic abbreviations are common in scientific bibliographies, though I believe upper-case "Comp" is preferred. Favonian (talk) 16:53, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, I know they are. But each of us got his degree in a different field. And then there are general readers. And our kids.


 * Many articles refer to a specific journal repeatedly, and really only need to cite it clearly once.
 * This is not such an article. Varlaam (talk) 16:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

picture "Interpretation of the waggle dance"
Has somebody ever noticed that the illustration of an insect in the picture "Interpretation of the waggle dance" does not depict a honey bee, nor a bee at all, but a hover fly (Diptera Syrphidae)? This is a pretty mistake! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.100.22.115 (talk) 08:09, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Schreckstoff
In Schreckstoff von Frisch appears an important figure, but it gets no mention here in the body of the article. Spicemix (talk) 16:12, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit-warring on undue use of primary source
- I am very disappointed to see you edit-warring by a simple unexplained reversion of my carefully-explained action. You used what is indisputably a WP:PRIMARY source - Karl von Frisch himself - and you ignored my stated opinion that the added material was probably WP:UNDUE given that it was a single event (indeed, in your own words, an "anecdote", hardly the core focus of an encyclopedic biography article) in a long and productive life as a scientist, and a significant percentage of the article's text. The default position here is that the article should go back to its status before your intervention, and your recent action constitutes a clear case of edit-warring rather than conforming to WP:BRD as would have been appropriate: you were bold, I reverted you, and you should then have raised the matter here in a discussion. I hope to hear your views on the matter and we can work something out. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:11, 9 January 2019 (UTC)


 * (moved from talk page to reunite thread)

The edits you made are unsupported by the history.

Karl Von Frisch himself does not attribute the actions against him by the Ministry of Animal Welfare to anti-Semitism. The incident occurred years before any questions arose about his ancestry. He attributes it to a "crass" position of the National Socialists supporting animal rights. Further, he was able to clear himself of the charges by showing that he had applied alcohol as a narcotic, and that due to the worm's primitive nervous system, it felt little pain. If the accused himself does not attribute the accusation to anti-Semitism, how are people 80 years later to make that accusation, except if it is to fulfill some agenda.

He asserts that he was accused of trying to hide his non-Aryan background in 1941. However, he showed that the ancestry of his maternal grandmother was unclear in 1937, not that his maternal grandmother was Jewish. The Nazi authorities relented. He remained with the University of Munich throughout WWII, even after the University was bombed and he was forced to relocate to Austria.

He was raised as a Roman Catholic by Benedictine monks. Although he had doubts about Catholicism being the only route to salvation, he never lost his faith altogether.

I find the entire article, before my editing, to be rife with errors and assertions of "fact" about his time at the University when the National Socialists were in charge to be unsupported by solid evidenceErosFaust (talk) 21:52, 9 January 2019 (UTC).


 * 1) : Thank you for discussing.
 * 2) We are talking about only one "edit" I made, namely a reversion marked "[Career:] probably undue in this context given length of section, also poorly sourced (primary, subject himself)" in response to your edit which was marked "Added anecdote from von Frisch's autobiography Memories of a Biologist." Plainly this "history" demonstrates that the reversion was to a greater or lesser extent certainly "supported by the history", though clearly other factors need to be considered. The mention of "undue" is a reference to WP:UNDUE, always a matter of judgement, but no article should ever be topheavy with respect to one section or incident, nor should it be dependent on an "anecdote" (your word) written by its subject. The mention of "primary" is a reference to WP:PRIMARY; Wikipedia severely (and rightly) limits what use can be made of sources written by subjects themselves.
 * 3) You then present 3 paragraphs above of uncited claims about the subject. Wikipedia works entirely (WP:V, WP:RS) on the basis of verifiable, cited claims, so all talk of "fact" in the absence of reliable secondary sources (i.e. not the opinions of editors, not citations to the article's human subject himself) is moot.
 * 4) You then assert, again without evidence, other than by repeating your mention of Von Frisch's autobiography (above), that the section of the article concerned with Von Frisch's interactions with Nazism as written was full of mistakes. It is poorly cited, and (so) your assertion may well be correct (I have no opinion on the matter); but the proof of that will be by rewriting the uncited parts of the article from multiple, reliable, secondary sources, not from Von Frisch's autobiography, a book which is unquestionably a primary source. I've separated out the material with a new section heading, which I'd accompany with the slogan "be brief" - the current material is far too detailed for this article, and seems to be pushing at least one point of view, perhaps two opposing ones: obviously an unacceptable situation.
 * I would urge you to familiarise yourself with Wikipedia's policy on the use of primary and secondary sources, as it is impossible to edit successfully without understanding the difference. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:10, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Eugenics
The section is relying on the source Du Und Das Leben, but I have not found any reference to his supporting Eugenics in any way, in fact I have found no reference to inheritable diseases within humans, and also nothing about sterilization. I can therefore only assume that a mistake has been made. I'll leave it for a very short while, but unless this incorrect sourcing can be fixed, or my mistake can be explained, then this entire section should be deleted. In the meantime I will delete the Source cited (twice) and request a citation, in the hope that someone can find one. Please use here to discuss this matter. Your participation on this matter would be greatly appreciated, as I can't understand how such a big mistake could be made. Bibby (talk) 21:22, 13 January 2019 (UTC)


 * The section seems to be wholly uncited? Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:28, 14 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks for assisting with this, so are we in agreement that this section should be deleted? Bibby (talk) 18:01, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I think yes ... I suspect the nonsense is due to someone confusing Ragnar Frisch with Karl von Frisch! Ragnar F. was a pioneering econometrician, one of the statisticians who got tangled up with eugenics in the 1930s. So deleting it now. I'd be even keener for something sensible to be done about the badly-written and poorly-cited Nazism section. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:03, 15 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that extra info. I was most perplexed, your explanation sounds reasonable. Thanks again. Bibby (talk) 00:14, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

To add to article
To add to this article: brief explanation of what "flower constant" means. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 06:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Unreliable sources
I don't think this or the previous source are WP:RS. Invasive Spices (talk) 21:34, 11 March 2023 (UTC)