Talk:Madeleine Cosman

NYTimes obit Brimba (talk) 03:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Racist Comments
I moved the quote about sexual predators to the criticisms section. It was introduced into the article by 74.135.199.5, who got it from the Democracy Now transcript of 4 Dec 2007. But then,75.179.153.110 recast the quote to suggest that Cosman was simply making a point about sexually violent predators who happen to be illegal immigrants. Contrary to what 75.179.153.110's edit suggested, Cosman's next few sentences make it clear that Cosman in the quote is suggesting that they are the way they are because of their Mexican origin, since, according to Cosman, in Mexico "rape is ranked lower than cow stealing". 75.179.153.110 did (helpfully) find a Youtube version of the quote here Her tone in the Youtube audio makes her sarcasm chillingly clear. Let's not be so naive to think that Cosman, whether in fact racist or not herself, did not hope that her remarks would lead her listeners to a prejudicial fear of Mexican men. TruthPolice (talk) 19:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Let's not be so naive as to assume we know what she hoped her remarks would lead others to believe. Wikipedia has gotten into serious legal trouble in the past for making unsubstantiated claims about living people.  Dr. Cosman only recently died and writing this article to promote unsubstantiated mud slinging rather than proper scholarship is putting Wikipedia at risk once more.  I am reverting your edits for the following reasons.

1.) Dr. Cosman had a J.D and taught medical law for three decades at City College of New York. This is substantiated by other sources in the article. A J.D. is a doctoral degree.  Her title as a doctor is relevant to her statements on medicine as her statements were about medical law. 2.) Dr. Cosman's statement "Leprosy, Hansen's disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy." could be taken to refer to the cumulative increase in the incidence of leprosy rather than, as the CNN reporter interpreted it, that there has been 7,000 cases in the past three years alone. If you wish to rewrite the section so as to present both interpretations neutrally, be my guess. 3.) Wikipedia policy does not allow either one of us to make assumptions about what Dr. Cosman's hopes were regarding her statements about SVPs. Therefore, any comments which depend on such assumptions is against policy (its original research).  The source provided does make clear that her comments are about SVPs, not illegal aliens in general. 4.) The "whackjob" comment is being removed because it depends on a dead link for a source. -75.179.153.110 (talk) 19:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Your comments here cannot defend a wholesale reversion of my edits. The simple fact that you or someone else is able to respond to some or all of the criticisms in the Criticism section of the article doesn't mean that those criticisms should be removed from the article.  Your claim that the "wackjob" comment depends on a dead link is false.  I don't doubt that "Dr." is a perfectly correct title for Cosman; but, given the context, it is misleading, not to mention superfluous and overly deferential for an encyclopedia article.  As long as her degrees are mentioned in the article, why do you want her to be referred to as "Dr." throughout the article?  Could it be that you want readers to be misled into thinking her credentials are greater than what they are?  Could it be for the same reason as the one that prompted you to remove the entire Criticisms section?  Maybe you'd like to add a Response section (with documentation of course), instead of simply removing the contributions of others based on your own personal bias toward Cosman.  TruthPolice (talk) 20:01, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The comments in the Criticism section don't put Wikipedia at any more legal "risk" than do the comments of Amy Goodman and Lou Dobbs on the Democracy Now broadcast (cited in the Criticism section) put Democracy Now or Lou Dobbs at risk. The section is simply reporting their criticisms, not making up new ones. TruthPolice (talk) 20:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Before I go into the guts of what you wrote, I want to set a couple of things straight. One, if I had wanted to mislead readers as to Dr. Cosman's credentials, I would have either a.) lied and said she had an MD or b.) not listed her degrees near the top of the page where they are easily and quickly referenceable.  Your accusations against me (that I'm trying to be deceptive in how I edit this article) are not productive.  Two, I tried three different times on three different days to call up the page that you link to where Dobbs' calls Cosman a "Whackjob".  The link has never worked.

Now, as to the "Criticisms" section, here are the problems with it as it currently exists. "Critics have objected that many of her controversial claims on immigration and medicine are not authoritative due her lack of credentials." What critics, where? You don't provide a source. "In discussions of medical issues, she is often referred to as 'Dr. Madeleine Cosman', though her doctorates were in literature and law." Not NPOV in tone. Should probably mention that she has taught medical law at City College for three decades among her other accomplishments. This is an issue, but I want to shelve it for later discussion. "The title, though technically accurate, has led some to the mistaken impression that she has a medical degree and therefore medical expertise." "some"? Who is "some" here? Again, where's your source? You mention the CNN reporter as an example of someone who was confused into thinking that she has an M.D., but the reporter never says she was so confused. "For example, a reporter on Lou Dobbs' CNN program[16] had cited as facts Cosman's claims that there were recently, over a period of three years, 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the United States and that many of these were the result of illegal immigrants bringing the disease into the country." Cosman did not say that there were, over a period of three years, 7,000 new cases of leprosy. She says that there used to be only 40 over many years, now there are 7,000. She doesn't say that these are new cases. The statement can easily be interpreted as meaning 7,000 cumulative. Dobbs has since rejected these claims as unsubstantiated, calling Cosman "a wackjob".[17] As I said, your source doesn't work. "Cosman has also been accused of making racist claims in her criticism of immigration." She has, in fact, been accused of making racist claims in her criticism of immigration. "For example, railing against Mexican immigrant men, she made the following ominous warning:" She does not say that this applies to all Mexican immigrant men. The YouTube source which you removed (note that I'm not making any insinuations about you personally regarding how the YouTube source happened to disappear from the article - I'm going to assume it was an accident) makes clear that she's talking about SVPs specifically. "She goes on to attribute the behavior to allegedly lenient Mexican laws concerning rape." Yes, she does, though you removed the source. So this is one comment about her (once the source is restored) which I support remaining in the article.-24.210.218.136 (talk) 23:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * "Critics have objected..." You ask, "What critics, where?  You don't provide a source."  You're mistaken; I did provide a source:  the Democracy Now transcript of 4 Dec 2007.  The critics are Amy Goodman and also Lou Dobbs himself - remember, the guy who called her a "wackjob"?  (By the way, I don't know what you mean when you say my source for the "wackjob" quote "doesn't work"; the link seems to work fine for me.)  I said, "The title ['Dr.'], though technically accurate, has led some to the mistaken impression..."  Of course, Lou Dobbs' reporter, as you point out, "never says she was so confused"!  But she did say, "I was quoting Dr. Madeline Cosman, a respected medical lawyer and medical historian writing in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons."  Evidently, the reporter herself or Lou Dobbs or both believed that Cosman's claims were trustworthy because of her expertise in medicine; the whole point is that it's questionable whether Cosman had any real expertise in medicine.  People did call her "Doctor", they did call her a "medical" lawyer; but it's not clear that the claims of her medical expertise come ultimately from anywhere other than Cosman herself.  Another example of someone who was confused on this issue:  Fred Abdella, a writer for the New York Times interviewed Cosman in 1989 for an article in which he says that she "holds a Ph.D. in medical law from Columbia University."  Now how would he have gotten that idea, unless Cosman had told him as much?  Keep in mind, this was before Cosman had any degree in law, never mind "medical law".  So the reporter either was given misinformation or was confused as to the nature of Cosman's doctoral degree, which at the time was in literature.  I have even seen sites elsewhere on the internet that list "M.D." as one of her degrees (the most interesting of the sites is surely this one); so surely "some" have been confused, just as I said.  The remainder of your comments seem (again) to constitute a defense of Cosman against the charges outlined in the Criticism section.  My feelings about this one way or another are irrelevant here (and I think yours are too).  As I said in my earlier comments, I am simply reporting these charges; they were made by others, and I have cited the relevant sources; if you'd like to include a Response section, you are free to.  I think the charges are relevant for the Wikiarticle on Cosman simply because much of the notoriety she now enjoys is due to Dobbs' using her as a source and the subsequent criticism he received for it.  TruthPolice (talk) 01:51, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * "'Critics have objected...' You ask, 'What critics, where? You don't provide a source.' You're mistaken; I did provide a source: the Democracy Now transcript of 4 Dec 2007. The critics are Amy Goodman and also Lou Dobbs himself - remember, the guy who called her a 'wackjob'? (By the way, I don't know what you mean when you say my source for the 'wackjob' quote 'doesn't work'; the link seems to work fine for me.)"

I have just now for the first time been able to access that link. It does not show that critics have objected that she lacks credentials. It does show that Dobbs called her a wackjob. "I said, 'The title ['Dr.'], though technically accurate, has led some to the mistaken impression...' Of course, Lou Dobbs' reporter, as you point out, 'never says she was so confused'! But she did say, 'I was quoting Dr. Madeline Cosman, a respected medical lawyer and medical historian writing in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.' Evidently, the reporter herself or Lou Dobbs or both believed that Cosman's claims were trustworthy because of her expertise in medicine; the whole point is that it's questionable whether Cosman had any real expertise in medicine. People did call her 'Doctor', they did call her a 'medical' lawyer; but it's not clear that the claims of her medical expertise come ultimately from anywhere other than Cosman herself." You seem to be confusing a whole bunch of issues here. Cosman never claimed to have an M.D. She had a J.D. (that's "Juris Doctor" or doctor of law) and was a medical lawyer. In fact, "For nearly 30 years, Dr. Cosman taught medical students medical law, medical business and medical history at City College of City University of New York." That fact has been established. So, yes, she was an expert in medicine. "Now how would he have gotten that idea, unless Cosman had told him as much?" I don't know. What I do know is that speculation on your part should not be part of the article's content. Do you have a source which states that he was told that by her directly? That's something that could be used. "I have even seen sites elsewhere on the internet that list 'M.D.' as one of her degrees (the most interesting of the sites is surely this one" Other than this one, where? That may be a source we could actually use (depending on how noteworthy that source is - Wikipedia doesn't deal with stuff that isn't noteworthy). "As I said in my earlier comments, I am simply reporting these charges;" If that were all you were doing, I wouldn't have an issue with it.  But you are doing a great deal more than that. "I have cited the relevant sources" You still have not 1.) Provided a source which claims that "Critics have objected that many of her controversial claims on immigration and medicine are not authoritative due her lack of credentials." 2.) Given a source which states that some are confused about whether she has a medical degree. 3.) "Cosman's claims that there were recently, over a period of three years, 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the United States" You haven't provided a source for Cosman having made such a claim. 4.) "For example, railing against Mexican immigrant men, she made the following ominous warning:" Your source supports the claim that she has been so accussed.  The YouTube source, (which you still haven't readded after it was pointed out that you removed it) supports the claim that she was talking about SVPs specifically. In order to prevent edit warring, I am recommending that this issue be taken up as a request for comment.  Do you agree?-75.179.153.110 (talk) 03:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You claim that the Democracy Now 4 Dec 2007 transcript "does not show that critics have objected that she lacks credentials", but that it does show "that Dobbs called her a wackjob". Of course, the term "wackjob" by itself doesn't necessarily mean "lacking in credentials"; but it's clear to anyone who reads that transcript that when Dobbs called her a "wackjob", he meant, in part, that she lacked the appropriate credentials (i.e., ones that would have made her claims trustworthy) and that, though she lacked credentials, she believed that she had credentials.  Also, Amy Goodman in that transcript said, "She actually is not a medical doctor. She’s a Renaissance author and scholar of sorts."  It's difficult to make sense of this unless Goodman was calling into question Cosman's authority on the leprosy issue and on the issue of the psychiatric state of the alleged immigrant "predators".  (It's noteworthy that Dobbs calls Cosman a "wackjob" immediately after Goodman's remark that Cosman wasn't a medical doctor, proving that Goodman and Dobbs were on the same page as far as Cosman's medical credentials go.)  Concerning my point about Fred Abdella of the New York Times who claimed Cosman had a degree in "medical law": I agree with you that my "speculation" as to how he arrived at the claim shouldn't part of the Wikiarticle's content, and I haven't made it so.  As to which other sources (besides the Objectivist Center website cited above) claim that Cosman had an M.D., I don't know; I can't recall; and I don't know that it matters if there are others (though I think the Objectivist Center one is pretty significant inasmuch as she was actually a lecturer at one of their own conferences not too long ago).  My only point was that it's clear that "some" are getting confused about Cosman's credentials.  You suggest that I need to provide a source for the phrase: "...Cosman's claims that there were recently, over a period of three years, 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the United States."  You may be right that this needs rewording (since those weren't Cosman's exact words), but the point had more to do with Lou Dobbs' and his reporter's treatment of her claim, the fact that they were misled by it, and the fact that her claim by itself was ambiguous at best.  (In the article, I have removed the words "recently" and "new" from the phrase; now it is an accurate paraphrase.)  Finally, I agree to your final recommendation; I just wanted to respond to what I thought warranted response.  TruthPolice (talk) 04:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought this is relevant: I just rediscovered a video in which Cosman claims (at 01:44) that "medical law" has been her "field...for forty years."  This is a mysterious claim given that, at the beginning of the stated time period (circa 1965), she had no formal training or education in either medicine or law; she had in fact just finished her Ph.D. in English and comparative literature.  Maybe, she meant that medical law was among her areas of interest (maybe a "hobby") for the past forty years.  But, given the context, "field" - and particularly "my field" - is an odd expression for area of interest; doesn't "field" usually mean area of expertise?  In any case, her claim is at best misleading, suggesting, as it does, that her main field at the time was not in fact medieval and Renaissance literature.  TruthPolice (talk) 05:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)