Talk:Man After Man

Controversy
Can someone cite a source for the Wayne Barlowe \ Dougal Dixon controversy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.210.246.103 (talk • contribs)


 * Only thing I could find was this Usenet thread, which reports that:
 * But, lo, near the end there is a single page entitled "Future Man". The caption says (paraphrased) "These sketches are from a book I proposed in 1984, about the future evolution of mankind. Unfortunately, it's a book that will never be created, since the sketches were plagiarized and used by another author."
 * Couldn't find any independent confirmation of this. Rpresser 15:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm going to remove the term "controversial book" from the start of the article, because there are no sources on the supposed controversy, and the section on it doesn't seem to justify that name at the start. --Hibernian 22:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

2012 Update : There's a few citations we can use at this point. The rec.arts.sf.written posts have quite a bit. For example, Robert J. Sawyer confirms that Barlowe's complaint against Dixon was noted in the trade press at the time. This would serve as independent confirmation. Also, there's this website which contains scans of Barlowe's sketches. These can be compared to this, as an illustration of one of the purported plagiarized images. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 19:19, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Removed an editor's opinion under "Controversy"
I have removed the following under "Controversy":

"The question of why humans, as one of the most adaptable and evolutionarily successful species on the planet, would turn themselves into such highly specialized subspecies is not addressed in the book."

The obvious reasons for this deletion are twofold:

- Mainly, **this is not a controversy**. This is an editor's opinion, and I hope it will stay gone (as I see someone else tried to remove it awhile back, and it was re-inserted, presumably by the editor who *wrote* it to begin with).

- Secondly (and it is beside the main point that Wikipedia is meant to contain information citable from other sources), evolution takes millions of years. Genetic engineering is within mankind's grasp. Thus, it is believable that man would wish to attempt genetic engineering sooner than waiting 25-30 MILLION years for it.

Sheesh.


 * "Sheesh", you completely missed the point. Does the quote say anything at all about genetic engineering? It talks about biological specialization, just as described in the book; differentiating the human species into plains-only and forest-only, etc., dwellers, when we can already live in those places without modification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noclevername (talk • contribs) 04:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * True, but introducing humans was not the point of the modifications... replacing the extinct fauna was. - Salkafar, 1-24-11 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.56.206.246 (talk) 21:55, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Man after Man.JPG
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BetacommandBot 08:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

HEY!
Does anyone know if there have been german or french versions of this book, and how many exemplaries there were? I searched the whole net for more infos but wikipedia waxs the only source with more than two lines. There could be more illustrations, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.44.73.112 (talk) 19:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy Errors
In conclusion, this article needs a slight rewrite.Rex Imperator (talk) 15:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I just read Man After Man, and I noticed a few factual errors:
 * Socials eventually evolved into Hivers, and Socials, according to Dixon, seem to lack a hive mind while Hivers do; the editor mixed up information on the two species.
 * The editor also seem to mixed Symbionts and Hunter Symbionts, and also mixed information.
 * " " " fails to note the relationship between Socials and Seekers was the reason of their "undoing"
 * The introduction is very unencyclopedic and sounds like a review.

Update

 * I re-wrote the article myself, and I made the following changes:
 * Clarified the difference between Hivers and Socials.
 * Re-arranged the Species section so that rather than what appears to be almost completley hazpazard, it is chronological.
 * Moved Homo Menproavordorum to Species article: note while Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo sapiens machinadiumentum, and Homo Sapiens Accesiomembrum all have "Sapiens" in their classification, the Memory People do not.

Farther Changes
There are a few things that could still be changed: Rex Imperator (talk) 22:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Adding the Desert Runners to the species list.
 * Noting that the Parasites were descendants of the Islanders that discovered Tundra Dwellers.
 * How the Aquatics created a gel-like substance to travel on land to find food.
 * Adding the Tazonomic Name for Hivers
 * Adding a template to the article.

This book is fantasy
This book is fantasy, the science in it is utter garbage. I'll say so in the article if I can find refs, but as yet I've only found BBS discussions. When I first found this book, I wondered if it was the work of a creationist trying to scare people away from evolution. Algr (talk) 20:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I know you made this post over a year ago, but I think you missed the point of the book. It's not really about "how humans might evolve", that concept is just used as a backdrop for examining what it means to be human; which is a totally understandable mistake considering that his two other similar books were about "how might animals evolve if X" --69.41.206.198 (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Is the online version of the book a violation of copyright?
I'm not very knowledgeable about how copyright laws work, but i would assume it is. Although the book has been out of print for many years now, would that change anything? The links to the online versions of Dixon's other speculative biology books have been removed, should the same be done here? 50.195.51.9 (talk) 18:12, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

NPOV of second paragraph
It was already pointed out that the second paragraph sounds like a review. It states:

"It is satirical and gloriously Scotch in its character, in its wry irony combined with hidden humour. It is a poke at the complacency of humanity. Fiction with a sobering semblance of that which could be our future, if we continue in our arrogant exploitation of our planet."

Having recently read the book, I would not describe it as "gloriously Scotch", or even notably so. Its humor is not hidden. And it's the opposite of sobering.

The paragraph also asserts that humanity is complacent and arrogantly exploiting of "our" (whoever that is, it's not mine) planet, something of dubious factual accuracy.

That's my opinion, and it's no less valid then the above paragraph. My opinion doesn't belong in the article any more than this one does.

I think its important to note the satirical nature of the book in the opening, and have no strong feelings for what should replace this, but it's really jarring to read this glowing review at the head of whats supposed to be an encyclopedic article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:5081:4E00:691B:8D9B:EF9D:DCAE (talk) 06:12, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The Barlowe controversy
Just going to note here for future reference that the idea that Man After Man plagiarized ideas for a similar book by Wayne Barlowe is an interesting detail that would be worth mentioning, but there are no WP:RS sources we can use to add this to the article - sources for this include Barlowe's own 1995 art book, which states that his designs were plagiarized by "another author", not mentioning a name, and internet forum threads, which do not count as reliable sources. It is also worth keeping in mind that Dixon himself does not like Man After Man, and the concept changed considerably from his original vision - there is no concrete information on what went on behind the scenes. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:37, 13 July 2021 (UTC)