Talk:Keith Windschuttle/Archive 2

Number of Aborigines killed
Text along the lines of Windschuttle "argues that Aborigines had the better of the conflict with no more than 118 Aborigines killed by settlers as plausable, considerably less than the number of settlers killed by Aborigines" misrepresents the supposed source, i.e. Windschuttle. He found records from which he estimated that there were about 118 deaths (revised to 120 in the next reprint and 121 on his website) for which there is some kind of plausible account that he has located. Not that this was the maximum number killed, just that he had found plausible accounts for about this number. There is a difference.

Has expressly stated that he does not claim to have located every plausible account and that the number can and will be revised as and when other plausible accounts emerge.

However he also notes that in all of Whitewash, only one plausible account about the death of one Tasmanian Aborigine which he had not discussed in the revised edition of Fabrication, was presented. James Boyce went on for pages in his chapter of Whitewash about all the evidence Windschuttle supposedly ignored but didn't actually produce much of anything to back up the claim that all this 'evidence' exists. Still hasn't.

Windschuttle does not argue that there weren't more deaths for which there is no surviving account but goes into the issue of how do or should historians deal with deaths for which there is no record.Webley442 (talk) 12:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The text "argues that Aborigines had the better of the conflict with no more than 118 Aborigines killed by settlers as plausable, considerably less than the number of settlers killed by Aborigines" is a clear misrepresentation of the alleged source. Read the book for a change or at least the linked article before inserting unsourced personal opinion. Webley442 (talk) 12:52, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I only have Windschuttles book so just because something in it has since been altered does not make including the original data personal opinion. His own website is not a reliable source so the book itself should stand. There is no misrepresentation, the edit you deleted (posted in entirety below) covers everything you said anyway:"His review focuses in large part on the Black War against the Aborigines of Tasmania and argues that Aborigines had the better of the conflict listing 118 Aborigines killed by settlers as plausable, considerably less than the number of settlers killed by Aborigines. (note)Windschuttle counts only deaths reported in government documents and some undisputed reports as 'plausable'. Those deaths detailed in contemporary diaries, biographies, journals, newspapers and letters without official support are considered 'less plausable' and generally not included in the final tally. For example, John Batman's journal account of an incident in 1829 lists two Aborigines killed in the encounter and estimated up to 15 to have died from wounds. Although Windschuttle admits in Fabrication that the two deaths were likely, neither those two nor Batman's additional estimated deaths were included in the 118 listed as plausable in Table 10. Windschuttle admits he may have missed a killing or two indicating that he does not consider that he had located all existing accounts of killings, writing 'This figure is not absolute or final'.(/note)" If you are concerned that it has no reference I will add one. This is not a fan site. If you compare it to a page for other fringe historians (David Irving for example) you can see that this one is excessively positive and requires much more critical treatment.Wayne (talk) 14:01, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

This article is a biography of a living person and the edit you are attempting to include is potentially libellous. Suggesting with your text that Windschuttle was setting an upper limit on the number of Aborigines killed - which would include all recorded and unrecorded deaths, when what he was doing was tabulating and estimating deaths RECORDED in available accounts, looks like an attempt to attack him & his professional reputation by imputing ridiculous claims to him, ie that he had established the upper limit of the deaths of Tasmanian Aborigines by settler violence. Comparing Windschuttle to David Irving is just another potentially libellous attack. If you persist, I will be requesting sanctions against you. This is not a fan site nor does it exist as an opportunity for you to defame the person who is the subject of the biographical article.Webley442 (talk) 22:37, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Where in the edit is anything libelous? Can you point out exactly where I suggested Windschuttle was setting an upper limit? If you persist in personal attacks and edit warring to push your own POV you can be banned from editing. Please argue for your edits in a civil manner or people wont take them seriously. Wayne (talk) 03:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You seem not to realise the implications of your own text, perhaps unintentionally. Perhaps you worded what you mean badly?. It can be read as though KW is making wild exaggerated claims of what he can prove, that his table proves that no more than 118/120/whatever aborigines were killed by settlers, not that there are about that number reported in written records. That is a damaging claim. An equivalent would be to edit a scientist's bio to have him/her apparently making the claim that they had achieved cold fusion when all they say is they have studied aspects of it. Text must accurately reflect the sources. As per the header of this page, potentially libellous material must not be included.The Schoolteacher (talk) 03:56, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

The proposed text does strongly lend itself to a potentially libellous interpretation. Perhaps the best resolution of this is to cut out all the reference to the numbers and have it end at " that Aborigines had the better of the conflict." Then the next sentence can be the one about the British rule of law.203.202.43.53 (talk) 04:33, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You have me confused now. My edit reads listing 118 Aborigines killed by settlers as plausable which is exactly what fabrication states. The edit specifically says that other deaths are listed as less plausable (Windschuttle actually says implausable which is even more restrictive) and goes on to say the list is not complete or final. If it is what Winschuttle himself says how can it be libellous. The numbers need to remain because this is one of the points most heavily argued by third parties. Wayne (talk) 05:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It is difficult to believe that something this basic could confuse anyone. Your text reads as though Windschuttle had claimed to have established the maximum or total number of Aborigines killed by settlers, that is that no more than 118 were killed, including those for which there are no surviving records or accounts of their deaths. That would be something that would be impossible for anyone to determine and making it appear that he claimed that he could is (a) false, not even close to a reasonable summary or paraphrasing of the text in his book, and (b) potentially libellous, an attack on his reputation by imputing that he makes false or exaggerated claims. All Windschuttle claims is that, in the still existing records or accounts, there is some plausible evidence for approximately 120 deaths. He does not argue that there were zero deaths for which there are no records or that he found every record. Webley442 (talk) 09:05, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Good to see your friends in Canberra supporting you. Pity all three of you dont understand libel and are still unclear about what claims are actually made in Fabrication. My edit is what Windschuttle claims and I have made it more prominent that the total is not final which Windschuttle himself does not make clear, refer to Fabrication (2002) Chapter 11 page 398 where he implies that 118 is the maximum. Wayne (talk) 10:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, I am very familiar with the elements of libel under both Australian and UK law. You must have the older printing of Fabrication, in the more recent one that I have, he has revised the figure up to 120 and it is very clear in the text that he is not making a general claim about the total number of killings but only about those getting specific mention in some record or another. Try reading what he says about the unrecorded death toll, in my printing it's pages 358 to 360 and then on the empirical evidence for killings, pages 361 - 364. You still aren't getting what everyone else who looks at your text seems to understand. Your edit goes far beyond what Windschuttle claims. Your text converts his claims about what is in the recorded accounts (he states on page 363 expressly that Table Ten is an "attempt to record every killing of an Aborigine between 1803 and 1834 for which there is a plausible record of some kind.") into a broader and more general and unsupportable claim about a total death toll. Webley442 (talk) 12:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Even if you don't personally believe that it is libel, Wikipedia has rules about potentially libellous material. Beyond that, your proposed text is not an accurate representation of what Windschuttle wrote. So even if you could persuade administrators that it's not libellous or potentially libellous, it still doesn't belong in the article. To quote an friend: "Text must accurately reflect the sources."Webley442 (talk) 12:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hellooooooo listing 118 Aborigines killed by settlers as plausable. Overlooking that my copy says 118, are you denying that Windschuttle states in table 10 that 118 are plausable and that the rest he documents there are implausable? If you have an updated edition that says 120 then you are welcome to alter that, but the rest of the edit accurately reflects the source and expressly states it is not total death toll.Wayne (talk) 14:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Your own text is that Windschuttle argues "that Aborigines had the better of the conflict listing 118 Aborigines killed by settlers as plausable, considerably less than the number of settlers killed by Aborigines." 118/120/121 is an estimate of the deaths for which there is a plausible record of some kind not that there were only that many plausible deaths or a claim that it is implausible that there are deaths for which there were no records. You are implying that the source says the opposite of what he actually says. Your text implies that he is talking about a total death toll and nothing in the rest of your text clarifies that he is only referring to the deaths for which there is some plausible record. Just the opposite, it implies that he does not accept that there were no plausible deaths for which there were no plausible record or account.


 * Plus there are major problems with the rest of your text. For example: "Those deaths detailed in contemporary diaries, biographies, journals, newspapers and letters without official support are considered "less plausable" and generally not included in the final tally." If you have read Fabrication, you must know that is factually inaccurate. His list is derived almost entirely from reports contained in contemporary diaries, biographies, journals, newspapers and letters. Some he did reject as implausible for good reasons and if you have actually read Fabrication rather than just skimmed through it looking for bits you can use out of context, you should be aware of all this. He also "rejected" those reports contained in other historians' books which, when he checked out the sources footnoted, turned out to be fiction.


 * Where is your evidence for your unsourced claim that he "generally" did not include "deaths detailed in contemporary diaries, biographies, journals, newspapers and letters without official support"? As I mentioned above, it has been claimed that Windschuttle missed or ignored evidence contained in always unspecified sources but, as another author has commented, the easiest way to prove Windschuttle wrong would be to produce all this evidence, all the plausible records of deaths that he has supposedly ignored. Well, where are the papers listing these plausible documents? I've seen some of the implausible ones recycled with the elements that make them implausible not mentioned or carefully edited out. In Whitewash, supposedly the academic refutation of Fabrication with 19 or so contributors plus who knows how many research assistants, all they were able to come up with was a single diary account of the death of one Aborigine that Windschuttle hadn't come across, a couple of diary entries by angry colonists expressing what they would like to do, if they could, to the Aborigines who had been attacking settlers' homes and killing defenceless women and children, plus the Rosalie Hare account which is an implausible one, a mixture of 2 events that Windschuttle did discuss. All these accounts that he "generally" didn't include...where are they? They don't exist. Webley442 (talk) 04:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I was about to suggest that, rather than argue interminably over this, it might be best to take 203.202.43.53's suggestion and eliminate the discussion of numbers altogether, and have the text run "His review focuses in large part on the Black War against the Aborigines of Tasmania and argues that Aborigines had the better of the conflict. Windschuttle argues that the 19th century evangelical revival within the Church of England combined with Britains rule of law had a profound effect on colonial policy and behaviour which made the claimed genocide culturally impossible." It has occurred to me that I don't recall Windschuttle writing along the lines of "Aborigines had the better of the conflict", (I have an idea that it may have been Henry Reynolds who said something along those lines) or that Windschuttle used the phrase "culturally impossible". Are there page references for these? Windschuttle did argue that they were better adapted to the bush than the settlers and soldiers and those who tried finding, following or attacking them were at a disadvantage and almost invariably unsuccessful. That's not quite the same as having the better of the conflict. As for the "culturally impossible", I don't think he used anything that strong, just arguing that the Colonial Administration and most of the settlers had more enlightened attitudes than say, the Spanish conquistadores.Webley442 (talk) 05:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you and 203 have discussed this at length and I could tweak the edit a little but overall it is factually accurate. Let me quote directly from Fabrication:"It (table 10) was compiled in the following way. I started with Plomley's 1992 survey...I also included those recorded by Aborigines that did not make it into any colonial documents. These are all the incidents from Robertson's diaries....There may well be some reports that Plomley, Robinson and I have all missed. As it stands now, the table lists a total of 118 Aboriginal deaths in this period...No matter how the figures might be revised in the future, the overall conclusion appears inescapable.....more than twice as many whites (187) were killed as blacks."Windschuttle makes many remarks that the Aborigines suffered less than the colonists so "the better of the conflict" is just expressing his views more clearly. It was Boyce who said "culturally impossible" which was his interpetation of Winschuttles comments and can be reliably sourced. Leaving out Windschuttle's numbers will appear to be an attempt to reduce the denialist appearance of his fringe views so it would be better to include them and let the reader decide. Wayne (talk) 06:28, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Very clever, you found a bit of careless phrasing by Windschuttle which, by carefully editing out huge swathes of the surrounding material ie the sections covered by the repeated ....'s and by ignoring all the other discussion in his book about recorded and unrecorded deaths and how that should be dealt with, allows you to pretend that he was setting 118/120 as a total of the Aboriginal deaths rather than discussing it as a total of the recorded deaths and as an indicator of a low level of conflict. You really don't expect to fool anyone who has actually read the book and who know what's in the surrounding material with these kind of semantic games, do you, or is this directed at fooling people who haven't? If we go down that track, and in response other cites from Windschuttle are needed so that a casual reader isn't fooled, it will just wind up blowing out the size of the article and making it unreadable.

If you want to use Boyce's quote, fine, just clearly attribute it as a statement by one historian, not as something Windschuttle said or as some broad statement of fact.

If ""the better of the conflict" is just expressing his views more clearly" how about just using what he said, not your own personal interpretation of what he said? Some people seem to like to 'clarify' other people's point of view until it becomes unrecognisable as anything that was originally said, which, of course, is the intent. Since he argues that the full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigines died out through a combination of factors including introduced disease and the effects of what conflict there was, I'm pretty sure that summing up his overall view as saying that the Aborigines got "the better of the conflict" isn't really very accurate.

As for leaving out the numbers, it is looking more and more like the best option because an adequate discussion in the article of Windschuttle's use of the these estimates and the reasoning that he expresses would run to many pages and isn't suitable for a biographical article. Are we going to include every issue in Fabrication in the article as well as the various arguments over them? I really don't want to turn this into an edit war in which the article gets swamped by the addition of more and more material just so that someone can use it to vent their own personal opinions. Webley442 (talk) 10:48, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * So now it is careless phrasing and not what your hero really meant? And it's my fault for leaving out huge swathes of the surrounding material ie the sections covered by the repeated ....'s. Ok..here's some of what I left out where those ....'s are: "The only previous historian who has made a credible attempt to calculate the total number of casualties in Van Diemen's Land is Brian Plomley (This is revisionist BS for a start. Plomley himself states in his book (p.97) that he was only concerned with recording casualties from attacks on whites by blacks and that it was not accurate for black casualties. This is shown by his failure to include in his own book black deaths from Robertson's journals, which were his main primary source. Windschuttle tries to spin this by saying he is puzzled as to why Plomley declined to include a tally of black deaths which only goes to show his incompetence as Plomley actually explains why in his book). Table 10 is therefore an attempt to record every killing of an Aborigine between 1803 and 1834 for which there is a plausable record of some kind. The sole objective of the table is to produce as accurate a count as possible (more BS as Windschuttle ignores almost all primary sources, no matter how reliable, from before the 1820s)."I'm almost positive the better of the conflict or something similar has been used by other sources and it is far better than quoting a dozen paragraphs of Windschuttle to say the same thing and it is clear we are talking about the conflict not disease. I have no intention of fooling anyone, I hope to avoid spin intended to make Windschuttle look like a mainstream historian. As for turning the artical into an edit war, I can only rely on your GF to not war factual content.Wayne (talk) 14:14, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

What? More selective use of the text, more personal opinion on what Windschuttle 'really means' and more game playing? If you've read Fabrication and aren't just skimming it looking for useful bits that can be be taken out of context and used to make it appear that the author was saying something entirely different, you must be well aware of all the other text in Fabrication that, taken IN CONTEXT, makes it clear that your proposed text is not a accurate summary of Windschuttle's arguments. There are tens of thousands of words in the book on the issue of the Aboriginal death toll, discussing the reported deaths which Windschuttle indicates can be fairly closely estimated and the unrecorded death toll which can't. The 118/120 estimate is purely and simply an estimate of what's in the surviving accounts. He argues elsewhere that the unreported death toll as a result of direct violence by settlers would be much lower than other historians have claimed but not that it was zero.

You highlighted the wrong section of this bit: "Table 10 is therefore an attempt to record every killing of an Aborigine between 1803 and 1834 for which there is a plausable record of some kind."

Windschuttle's arguments in this section of the book are around the fact that there are a finite number of surviving plausible accounts and he's indicated that he is fairly confident that he located most of them. Who knows, that might change if someone discovers, hidden away somewhere, a previously unknown 'treasure trove' of diaries, journals and letters, but that hasn't happened yet.

If you are "almost positive the better of the conflict or something similar has been used by other sources", try citing it as a statement from those sources, when you can identify them, and don't attribute it to someone who never said it.

If you want to edit Wikipedia responsibly and aren't just looking to express your personal opinions, you can't just pick out tiny sections of a book and spin them to suit yourself. This article, after a very long time during which it was used as a platform for anonymous and often libellous attacks on the subject, has settled into something resembling a NPOV. You shouldn't expect that material that doesn't accurately portray what the subject of a biographical article said won't be re-edited to make it more accurate or removed entirely if it contains potentially libellous implications. Webley442 (talk) 03:07, 5 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you read Fabrication? Your arguements make no sense as they are basically OR interpretations of what you think Windschuttle is saying. I'll stick to Windschuttles own explanations and use the terminology he uses along with secondary sources which from what I've read so far say much the same as I do. I will add that he claims the unreported death toll would be much lower than other historians have claimed although I will have to check it to kkep the wording neutral. I expect Windschuttle to revise his death estimates in the future anyway now that genetic testing has indicated the population was likely 20 times higher than he claimed so I wont be too hard on him.Wayne (talk) 08:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)


 * "OR interpretations of what you think Windschuttle is saying"? You've got to be joking. Windschuttle makes the point over and over, in the sections of Fabrication that we are talking about, that he was making an estimate of the deaths for which there is a plausible record of some kind. You found one sentence in that section where he didn't include that 'disclaimer', and have been trying to suggest that he claimed that there was a total death toll including unreported deaths of not more than 118.


 * Perhaps you are being mislead by the 'secondary sources' that you are relying on? It's been a standard tactic of many critics to misrepresent his arguments and then criticise him for something that he actually didn't say. It's easier than proving him wrong on the evidence.


 * I don't have a problem with anything that accurately reflects what a source, in this case Windschuttle, says. My problem has always been with your OR interpretation of it. Your text reads like Windschuttle was saying that the total death toll including unreported deaths was 118. Fix that extremely misleading element and perhaps we can agree on something.Webley442 (talk) 02:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Attribution
The text falsely attributed the use of the term 'pimps' to Windschuttle. My text accurately portrays what Windschuttle did say on the subject. If you want to use the term 'pimps' properly attribute to whoever did use it.Webley442 (talk) 12:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Expansion
Windschuttle's book is long. How much of it can be included, esp. parts that can figure as cameos of his idiosyncratic views up the page, when they have been torn apart by specialist historians? Example (I have excerpted this dubious expansion from the page, in Webley's edit today)


 * "'Windschuttle refers to accounts by the French anthropologist Francois Péron, others in the journals of George Augustus Robinson and by historian James Bonwick, of the violence and cruelty with which many Tasmanian Aboriginal men were observed to treat women and argues that this contributed to the willingness of some Aboriginal women to associate themselves with sealers and settlers rather than their own people, so reducing the full-blooded Aboriginal population's ability to reproduce itself. Windschuttle argues that the willingness of some Tasmanian Aboriginal women to engage in prostitution with convicts, sealers and settlers and the Tasmanian Aboriginal men who ‘actively colluded’ in the trade in their women aided in the transmission of venereal and other introduced diseases to the indigenous population."

Put that in, and of course you have to answer it. The answer would run, in just a briefest of glances at the historical criticism directed at the casual slipshod method Windschuttle employed to fudge this interpretation, something like this:-


 * Boyce dismisses Windschuttle’s argument as ‘uninformed slander’ based on a failure to read the only documentary sources that matter, the journals of French and British explorers. Examining Windschuttle's use of sources for the view women were treated like slaves and drudges, Boyce notes it comes from just one work by Ling Roth, 'written at the height of Social Darwinist orthodoxy' (1899), and that Windschuttle selectively quotes only two of Roth's sources: one from Péron, who noted scars on women, and interpreted them as signs of domestic violence, which he however never witnessed. Others interpreted this scarring as a cultural practice. James Cook had noticed Aboriginal men and women’s bodies were both incised with scars in the same manner. Péron was less sympathetic than other first observers on the d’Entrecasteaux expedition. Their observations, including those of the captain Baudin, do not support Windschuttle’s claims. Even Péron records an encounter at Port Cygnet with the Aborigines who shared a meal of abalone with the French explorers and, according to Péron provided 'the most striking example we had ever had if attention and reasoning among savage people’ Péron would have disagreed, Boyce believes, with Windschuttle's’s claim than ‘Traditional Aboriginal society placed no constraints on the women’s sexual behaviour with men,’ for he was repeatedly rebuffed when he tried to make physical contact with the Aborginal women. The captain Baudin believed that no one on his ship managed to have sexual relations with the women on Bruny Island. The behaviour adduced by Windschuttle from the other, late report by J.E.Calder (in 1829) is ‘self evidently a product of the extensive disruption of traditional life that had occurred by then.
 * "’Only someone who is totally blind to the impact of changing power relations, of declining choices, of the profound impact of cultural disintegration and recurring violence and abuse, let alone the simple imperatives of survival, could cite the unfolding tragedy at Bruny Island in this period as evidence for the sexual mores and domestic relations of pre-invasion Aboriginal society.’ Boyce, in Robert Manne, pp.65-66"

Evidently, if we start writing in extenso about every piece of Windschuttle's stillborn thesis, this article will balloon out endlessly. The other books he wrote have yet to receive coverage. (b) if this is to go in, the whole exposition will have to be reformatted, so that for every idea propounded by Windschuttle, immediately after, the comments and criticisms of academics pertinent to that matter would have to follow. (c) Remember Webley, this is a self-published book by a minority voice, with no doctoral qualifications in the historical period he descants upon. It is questionable whether the detailed coverage you now appear to wish to give is warranted by the book, especially since it is only one of several volumes W. intends to publish. It is noteworthy that you have chosen to expand the section where effectively Windschuttle argues Aborigines were womenbashers, happy to be sailors' molls to escape from their own kind's putative brutalty.' Perhaps the most execrably decontextualised part of his book, since it is constructed blithely with an almost total disregard for what was going on in the roughouse of white society there at the time. Nishidani (talk) 12:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

And yet funnily enough you seem to find room for every criticism of his work that you can find, including the ones which are frankly quite ridiculous? Does the term NPOV ring a bell? How about balance? I really don't think that you can get away with arguing that we can't have an accurate portrayal of what the subject of a biographical article has actually written and that only his critics' claims and distorted misrepresentations of his arguments should be mentioned. Are you seriously arguing that Fabrication isn't a credible source for what's in Fabrication?

As for Windschuttle arguing that the Tasmanian Aborigines were women bashers, he has accurately cited sources including eyewitness observers of a level of brutality towards women so extreme that it attracted the condemnation of early 19th century men. Don't put too much reliance on what Boyce claims, he has a history of making claims that are provably way off the mark. There is quite extensive mention in Robinson and Bonwick about it, so it's hardly Windschuttle's invention and Bonwick in particular goes into some detail. Ling Roth's interpretation is one thing but it is contradicted by other sources.

No-where does Windschuttle make the claim that the the brutality and the sexual exploitation of women was a universal practice of all Tasmanian Aborigines, just that it is documented as happening to some degree and it had serious implications, particularly with respect to disease.

As mentioned above, Windschuttle doesn't use the term 'pimps', attribute such a claim to the source who made it and don't slip it in amongst things you are alleging that Windschuttle said or argued.Webley442 (talk) 13:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

If you keep removing accurate statements of what Windschuttle argues and substituting what someone else claims he really meant, this is going to get to be a problem.Webley442 (talk) 13:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Answer my previous remarks, point by point. I am not expunging your text. I am asking how long an exposition of details in that long book are you thinking of producing, in your synthesis.
 * The imbalance you protest is in the sources, since Windschuttle is near-fringe, as far as I have been able to discover, and almost all area scholars in the subject are dismissive of him. If you can adduce more material favourable to him from competent sources, and not businessmen like Dawson, who shouldn't even be mentioned, by all means include it.
 * Developing a thread on who's right and wrong is immaterial to the project.
 * Grieves is a university historian, and describes Windschuttle's position as one depicting TA men as pimps. That is now clear in my edit. The text does not attribute that claim to Windschuttle but to one of his critics. Perfectly normal practice. Nishidani (talk) 14:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've thought out a compromise solution. We have the general theory section. If you wish to expand on specific points, add them to the new section, where the response of mainstream scholars can be then added underneath each issue. Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Clumsy language in lead
'falsifying and inventing the degree of violence in the past'

You can perhaps 'falsify the degree of violence'. You cannot 'invent the degree of violence'.

Suggestions as to how to rewrite it are welcome.Nishidani (talk) 14:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

NPOV/poor article
This whole article is WAY below Wikipedia standards. It is very sophomoric in its POV. Seems to be written by a Lyndall Ryan toadie. Who are you to judge a schoalrs "motives?" Are you a mind-reader? Also what is a "move sharply to the 'right?' What is "right wing" about exposing scholarship so deceitful that it would result in a jail sentence in any other profession? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.185.83.35 (talk • contribs), 28 April 2006.

Windschuttle taken in by hoax.
Keith Windsucker has been scuttled by this hoax. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.102.149 (talk) 12:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Windschuttle, it appears, has been hoaxed. 123.50.141.89 (talk) 04:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC) Yes, I've put it in, citing both crikey and the Australian (which reports his response). --Rosabibi (talk) 09:52, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Cool. It's important that him being revealed as total right wing douche-nozzle this most essential arc of his career is noted in this esteemed journal of record. :D 123.50.136.11 (talk) 13:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Yawn...or perhaps, so what? Every editor takes the risk that someone will slip a hoax by them, especially if the subject area of the hoax article is a field in which the editor doesn't have specialist training. Webley442 (talk) 08:46, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Not a forum, asshole. 123.50.143.110 (talk) 07:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * And yes I know, WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. 123.50.143.110 (talk) 07:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

My point, for those too dense to work it out, was that someone slipping a hoax by the editor of a magazine is too trivial for inclusion in an article on that person. Otherwise, what else would we be considering worthy of inclusion: spelling mistakes he may have missed, punctuation errors? Webley442 (talk) 09:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

There is a vigorous debate going on in the press at the moment as to whether the hoax was "trivial" or not. But regardless of the arguments either way, a story that makes national headlines for several days (and has received coverage in the international press) is worthy of inclusion. Spelling mistakes and punctuation errors don't often get that kind of publicity. (although I note that Quadrant's sloppiness on those kinds of details has rated mention in recent stories...)--Rosabibi (talk) 14:19, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The commission of the hoax (and the insistence of some on including it here) seems more like desperation and malice on the part those who are offended by the fact that he proved widespread fabrication, misrepresentation and exaggeration in the field of Aboriginal History. Unable to bear the fact that his critics couldn’t come up with credible evidence that he was wrong there, someone creates a hoax article (being very careful to make sure it is in a highly technical area that Windschuttle isn’t trained in) and submits it to a small magazine he is editor of, knowing that the magazine does not have its articles peer-reviewed (nor do any similar magazines; Quadrant isn’t a scientific journal like that in the Sokal hoax). Those exulting in the success of the hoax obviously seem to think it proves something. It doesn’t. Windschuttle’s criticisms of Aboriginal History are that the AUTHORS of various books and articles falsified their work, not that the editors (who were not historians who were experts in the field) failed to catch the falsifications. Webley442 (talk) 23:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with your opinion of the either the hoax or Windschuttle himself, but that is really not relevant to whether or not it should be included in the wikipedia entry. It sparked a high-profile public debate and it makes not sense to leave out the occasion on which Windschuttle received such a huge degree of public visibility, coming to the attention of people who had not previously followed his career. I suspect that in a few years time, people who would not be able to name a single one of Windschuttle's books will remember this particular event. Peer review is not about this kind of basic fact-checking. Basic ethics would dictate a phone call to the CSIRO inviting them to respond to the allegations made in the article - not much work and would have avoided the whole debacle. I would have thought that would be prudent from a legal point of view, apart from anything else. --Rosabibi (talk) 11:21, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The reason there is a public debate is that it is what the Americans call a "cheap shot". Some people are pointing that out and others are scrabbling to defend it.

Fairly obviously you are not a lawyer. There is nothing in the article which would support a legal action against the publisher, i.e. Quadrant. The hoax parts of the article say that the CSIRO abandoned plans to do various things with human genes for perceived moral or ethical reasons. You can't sue someone for saying you chose not to do something out of a concern for moral or ethical issues as it isn't a statement that would be perceived as capable of causing you any detriment/harm/loss. You wouldn't get into a courtroom with a case like that. And if you'd ever dealt with the CSIRO, you'd know a phone call doesn't get you very far. Actually finding out who is or was in charge of particular projects and THEN finding who is authorised and willing to speak to outsiders about potentially controversial research is like finding your way through a maze, as a colleague of mine found out when he tried to ask what he thought were some fairly innocuous questions about nuclear research a few years ago. Webley442 (talk) 12:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The article didn't say the research was abandoned for moral or ethical reasons but for the public perception of such issues - a percpetion which the article said was entirely misplaced. If you publish false claims about an organisation you could expect to find yourself in court - I don't imagine it will happen in this case because the false claims have been so publically debunked that there is no need for the CSIRO to do so. But anyway, this conversation is beside the point - the fact that we (and so many others) are bothering to have this argument is evidence that the event is noteworthy and therefore should be included in Windshuttle's bio. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosabibi (talk • contribs) 14:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

It was the author of the article saying that the moral or ethical perceptions were misplaced; she wasn't saying that the CSIRO claimed that it was misplaced - just that they abandoned it because of the perceived issues. Try asking a solicitor or barrister with experience in civil litigation about the article. He/she will tell you that there isn't anything in the article which would give the CSIRO a cause of action against Quadrant. Saying that an organisation merely considered or planned at one point to do some research along the lines of research being done around the world (and researchers around the world are currently involved in research on using human genes inserted into bacteria, plants and animals)isn't actionable. You need to be able to demonstrate that the false statement caused you some harm or loss. Webley442 (talk) 23:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The article did not cause harm or less because it was swiftly revealed to be a hoax, and the whole thing became a joke - not something that Windshuttle foresaw at the time of publication. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosabibi (talk • contribs) 13:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Windschuttle didn't need to forsee that it was a hoax to be certain that Quadrant couldn't be sued for publishing the article. All he needed to do was to read the article and see that the article didn't accuse the CSIRO (or anyone else) of doing anything illegal, immoral, unethical or of doing anything incompetently or outside its charter. All the article "accused" the CSIRO of (falsely as it turned out) was deciding NOT to do something for reasons a considerable proportion of the general public might agree with. The article also argued that that it shouldn't have made that choice. That amounts to mere opinion, nothing actionable in a court. The author of the hoax seems to have done a very careful job of crafting her work. She put nothing in the article which was actionable so Windschuttle didn't need to be concerned on that account and do further checking. As someone who has had past experience in getting things published, she had to know that editors don't obtain copies of every article or document footnoted in an article (if they did, nothing would ever get published as the checking process for one edition of the magazine would take forever), so she must have known that no editor was going to locate a copy of the Plant Biotechnology Journal for July 2003 to check her footnotes. The best any editor is going to do is check that there is such a Journal and since it and every other source mentioned in the article do exist, along with all the people mentioned in the article with the exception of the author, "Sharon Gould", an editor has to take the contributing authors at face value and assume that they are being honest with their footnotes. As far as I'm aware Windschuttle has never critised any editor for failing to verify footnotes. It's something an editor wouldn't do unless he/she had foreknowledge that a particular author was inclined to provide false or incorrect footnotes. His criticism has always been of authors who create false or misleading footnotes, not the editors. Webley442 (talk) 14:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the claim without citation that Windschuttle criticised editors for not checking all footnotes. If anyone wants to restore it, they should come up with a citation that supports the claim. See my comments above regarding the criticism Windschuttle has made with respect to footnotes. Webley442 (talk) 02:10, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

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Responses to the critics
This section has several problems. Too many quotes and far too long. KW is not an anthropologist or he would realise that much of what he writes about Aboriginal behaviour in reply is discredited. Another problem is that the entire section is sourced from his own website. If his replies to the critism were notable they will be mentioned in reliable secondary sources which should be used here as well as KW's own. Per WP:UNDUE, as a fringe view, most of that section can and should be summarised rather than being a quotefarm and I see no problem with getting it down to at least half or less of the current length.Wayne (talk) 05:37, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The Responses section is considerably shorter than the sections containing the criticisms and that section is fairly heavy on quotes, too. Perhaps start by trimming the criticism down to a more reasonable size first?


 * As no restrictions have been placed on the space given to criticisms of Windschuttle, whatever direct responses there are to a particular point of that criticism have to be adequately represented. I see a considerable problem in trimming the section to half or less its length. It seems to me that the only reason that anyone would want to do that would be to bias the article by allowing the criticisms to stand as though they could not be answered, to give the critics the final word when, in fact Windschuttle's responses show much of the criticism lacks any merit, eg Boyce's claims that he failed to consult the accounts by the French and British explorers.


 * There is a reason why the previous version of the article settled into the form that it had, in which only limited mention of the criticisms levelled at Windschuttle were made. It avoided the article blowing out in size as detailed mention of criticisms require detailed mention of the responses.


 * The links are to the website which contains copies of his responses as previously printed in newspapers and elsewhere. The notion that a direct response by the subject of a criticism to the issues raised isn't appropriate in a biographical article and that we need a use a secondary source which mentions the response is a ludicrous proposition. It is not standard practice for any encyclopaedia.


 * Your claim that "much of what he writes about Aboriginal behaviour in reply is discredited." is your personal opinion or OR. My OR shows that there is in fact considerable anthropological support for his position. Depends on which anthropologists you read. Either way, it is irrelevant.Webley442 (talk) 08:42, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The section indeed does have problems, and I'm trying to arrange some compromise, by making sections on specific points. It's clumsy as it is. One point. This is about the 'Fabrication' vol.1, Webley. You have stuff about his response to Inga Clendinnen, where Windschuttle is citing her for Tench's comments on the Aborigines at Sydney Cove, something that has nothing to do with the Aborigines of Tasmania, at least in the minds of serious scholars, unless it is Windschuttle's position that all 'Aboriginals' are the same, and what is said of them in the 17th century by Dampier in the North West is a valid gloss on Taswegian aboriginals in the 19th century. Sir James Frazer thought like that. A century of anthropology tells us otherwise. So that is to be chucked out, as immaterial. I'd appreciate a precise source for both Windschuttle's citation of the passage from Breen, and a ref to the pages where Breen makes those comments.Nishidani (talk) 12:06, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * One problem, Webley, is that you had Windschuttle introducing remarks about a critic, Shayne Breen, for one, who hadn't been mentioned in the criticism section. This means I'll have to add Breen's remarks to that section to make his reply comprehensible contextually.Nishidani (talk) 15:23, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What Windschuttle said in respect of Clendinnen and Breen is pretty clear to every person that I know who has read it. It is that the critics employ a double standard. When Clendinnen wrote about the level of violence amongst a particular group of Aborigines, there was no criticism made of her comments but, because Windschuttle disputes the genocide theory, when he wrote about the level of violence in another group of Aborigines, the Tasmanian Aborigines, the critics line up to dispute it with some pretty shallow arguments and resort to appeals to emotion by calling him 'pitiless". The fact that it was two different groups of Aborigines is pretty much irrelevant to that point. No, all Aborigines weren't the same, but violence toward and repressive treatment of women were widespread practices. There have been a number of studies indicating that in male-dominated tribal societies it was the primary means by which men exercised control over women. Similarly with Breen, I left the specific criticisms that Breen made out because they weren't particularly relevant to the point that Windschuttle was making, which was that Breen was able to refer to the Tasmanian Aborigines' practice of using women as trading commodities without drawing any criticism. When Windschuttle referred to the same practice, he was condemned. Much of the criticism is in the same vein. Unable to properly address the specific issues he raised such as the extensive misrepresentation of sources, the critics resort to irrelevancies or ad hominem.Webley442 (talk) 10:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually what Windschuttle does there is shoot himself in the foot, and then dangle the mangled limb to the gallery, and I thought my edit at least saved him some embarrassment. You do not, in the serious world of academia, justify an interpretation of what Tasmania aboriginal culture was about, in Otway or the Derwent, by documenting the abuse of women in Sydney Cove. Windschuttle has some claims to the historical profession, but, unlike most ethnographic historians, he has not updated his awareness of what occurred in anthropology after 1914, when Sir James Frazer's work was demolished critically. Frazer illustrated one custom in Tonga, by referring to a report about Patagonians and referencing a note on the Scythians in Macrobius. You just don't do that anymore, unless you are Windschuttle.
 * Methodologically, he displayed a second error. He eliminated all of the context for both Clendinnen and Shayne, and by selective quotation snipped only the bits that allowed him to buttress his own view. He objects, as you do in your edits, if this is done to his work, but that is precisely what he has done here. He elided clear contextual evidence about Aborigines maltreating their women exactly as whites did at the time, which neither Clendinnen nor Shayne did. By this operation, he can then make his pseudo-paradox to claim victimhood, which he hates aborigines claiming. That is clear to 'to every person that I could ask for a neutral opinion of it'. Nishidani (talk) 11:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "The fact that it was two different groups of Aborigines is pretty much irrelevant to that point. No, all Aborigines weren't the same, but violence toward and repressive treatment of women were widespread practices."
 * Numerous frontier historians compare the violence of the convict and soldier settlements' men to their women, who were treated as sluts, and traded, to what reports from some aboriginal societies say of their men's attitude to women. I.e. the settler gender relations were marked by violence, as were those of several groups of Aborigines. Unlike sophisticated historians, who can see the problem in rhetorical simplifications, Windschuttle's book brims with a contrast between the high enlightenment paternal ethics of British settlement, and the raw primitive savagery of the colonized. That is why, as opposed to Shayne and Clendinnen, he is not taken seriously by specialists. He is a hangover of the 19th century, who cannot see what every first-rate historian of the 20th century is trained to see - the problem with the categories he adopted naively from the past, as if they were 'empirical' and not just a construction of the self-justifying world of Empire, which always framed its violence as a civilizing mission. As any anthropologist would tell him, 'Aboriginal society' like 'African society' or Amerindian society' is an empty term. Read Margaret Mead's 'Sex and Temperament' (1935). She's not my idea of an anthropologist, but the principle there, of discerning distinct and contrasting cultural patterns between three native New Guinea tribes all within a couple of hundred miles of each other, sharing a similar ecology, holds for Australia. You cannot apply what is said (in partisan accounts) of one social group, as a generalization to even contiguous tribes, without risking going beyond the evidence. (which in any case has been destroyed). Webley, this is elementary sociology, Ist semester, year one stuff. I know it's not popular with tabloids or blogs, but please refrain from pretending this is not obvious.Nishidani (talk) 12:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks like Webley never bothered to respond to this last, can't blame him, probably got bored, but having read it, I feel it's worth a comment or 2. One of the obvious flaws in the above is that, as Webley says above it, Windschuttle wasn't claiming that poor treatment of Aboriginal women by Aboriginal men in the Sydney area was evidence of poor treatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal women by Tasmanian Aboriginal men. He was simply stating that, desperate for something to criticise him about and not having actual evidence in their favor, his critics attacked him when he discussed ill-treatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal women by Tasmanian Aboriginal men but they hadn't attacked/criticised historians in the orthodox school who described mistreatment of Aboriginal women by their men (in the Sydney area or elsewhere) because those historians work within the context of the 'accepted' genocide paradigm while Windschuttle disputes it. Like most of the criticism, they find a spurious ground on which to attack him and then beat it up for all its worth. Another flaw is the comparison between poor treatment of women by Aborigines and that by whites. There is one huge practical difference that applied to Tasmania. The Aborigines were in a precarious position with a crashing population. Ill-treatment of women contributed to that population crash. The white population wasn't in that position so whatever they did to their own women, tragic and horrifying though it was, wasn't relevant to the issue at hand, which was what happened to the Tasmanian Aboriginal population. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.149.192.133 (talk) 02:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)