Talk:Reincarnation research/Archive 4

Lead and plan
At the moment the lead section seems to have some problems... For example, the definition is given as "Reincarnation research is a branch of parapsychology.". Shouldn't there be a mention of reincarnation too? Let's say, "concerning reincarnation"?

Then follows "Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, investigated many reports of young children who claimed to remember a past life.". This sentence seems to have no connection with the first one. The third and fourth sentences ("He conducted more than 2,500 case studies over a period of 40 years and published twelve books, including Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. Stevenson retired in 2002, and psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker took over his work and wrote Life Before Life.") also seem to have no connection with the first one. Maybe it is possible to rework them into something, but at the moment it is probably best to remove them, leaving "No line of research has conclusively demonstrated the existence of reincarnation. Skeptics and the scientific community in general consider reincarnation research to be pseudoscientific." after the definition.

Then there is also a problem with overall plan of the article. Currently it goes on like this:


 * 1) University of Virginia
 * 2) Children's memories
 * 3) Corresponding birthmarks
 * 4) Stevenson's conclusions and reception
 * 5) Other researchers

I don't really see what is the point of having the sections "University of Virginia" and "Other researchers". They should probably be merged into section "Researchers" or, perhaps even more accurately, "Proponents".

Second and third sections should probably be made subsections of some section "Methods".

Finally, the fourth section should be at least renamed - "Stevenson's conclusions and reception" seems to be a rather strange grouping... Even "Conclusions and reception" would be a strange way to make a section.

Actually, the version of the article before the last major restructuring seems to have a slightly better plan than the current one...

And, on an mostly unrelated note, is there a reason why the table of contents in this article has been aligned to the right? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 20:16, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Have placed the TOC in the usual spot, as I think that is better too. I don't have a particular problem with the Lead and Plan of the article, except that it should be expanded, and perhaps that would provide some of the clarification that you are looking for. Johnfos (talk) 11:36, 28 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, I guess some sort of expansion might help too - at the moment the article doesn't seem to give much attention to the fact that, er, the reincarnation research is not universally taken seriously... Some questioner at the forum of "Catholic Answers" even used this article as supporting the claim "There is overwhelming evidence that reincarnation is real."...
 * But first things first - it is much harder to write a good article without a good plan. And if you find no particular problem with it, while I do, let's start from the definition. Is there some reason why some sort of addition specifying that reincarnation research has something to do with reincarnation (I don't know what verb would fit best) would be inappropriate? It would also seem to be a good place for internal link to the article about reincarnation... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 17:21, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * As a first step, I have expanded the article with some material from Reincarnation article, to help orientate reader; please revert if you don't think this helps. Johnfos (talk) 04:04, 29 July 2012 (UTC)


 * ? Well, I don't think all this text helps here, with exception of the link to the article "Reincarnation", where it (the text) is given in the proper context... For example, leaving "Feature films, such as Kundun, What Dreams May Come and Birth, contemporary books by authors such as Carol Bowman and Vicki Mackenzie, as well as popular songs, regularly mention reincarnation." here almost ends up implying that the scientific rigor of this research is similar to the scientific rigor of "popular songs"... That's a little too much...
 * So, back to the definition: once again, is there a reason why it would be inappropriate to add "concerning reincarnation" (or something similar) to it? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 13:19, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I see that the plan itself has already been changed . Thank you. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 13:55, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

As I see, no definite objection about the proposed change of the definition has been given thus, presumably, it's going to be OK to make that change..?

Now, next to the rest of the lead. After the definition we have "Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, investigated many reports of young children who claimed to remember a past life.". It doesn't say what all that has to do reincarnation research. Furthermore, that's just one researcher - and, as far, as I understand, while he might be the most important (still, we should avoid saying that in the voice of Wikipedia), he is not the only one. Thus I suggest to remove this part (including a couple of further sentences) and leave just "Reincarnation research is a branch of parapsychology concerning reincarnation. No line of research has conclusively demonstrated the existence of reincarnation. Skeptics and the scientific community in general consider reincarnation research to be pseudoscientific.". It says what the subject is and that it is not taken seriously. All other details can be left for the rest of the article. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:40, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your continuing interest, but the lead must summarise the article per WP:lead, so ideally a lead of a couple of paragraphs is required. One of the most common errors in WP articles is that editors write leads that are too short. Johnfos (talk) 08:53, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Sure, having a really good lead is better than having the lead I propose. But we do not have a really good lead. And I happen to think that the shorter lead, while certainly improvable, would be better than the one we have now. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 10:36, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, about a week has passed without any unanswered objections... I am not sure if the one that was answered can be considered taken back, but maybe it has been... Thus I'll try to make the proposed change... But, since it is not clear that the change is unopposed, I will wait before the discussion of other problems with this article. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 18:51, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I see that, as it looks, "Johnfos" has essentially agreed with my position - although I'm sorry for not adding the tag myself... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 18:01, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I guess I was wrong. That edit has been reverted . No answer to any of my arguments seems to have been given... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 09:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Section "Conclusions and criticism" - undue weight and the like...
I guess it is better to start a new section for this, as the main problems with this article no longer concern the lead and the plan (most of those problems seem to be solved - ), but neutrality. As I have mentioned before, some questioner at the forum of "Catholic Answers" even used this article as supporting the claim "There is overwhelming evidence that reincarnation is real." - and that's a sign that something is wrong with this article. As the title of this section indicates, I will concentrate on the section "Conclusions and criticism".

However, the first problem is not really that strongly related related to any "pro-Reincarnation research" bias. The problem is that the section (and, to some extent, the rest of the article) reads as if it was a part of article "Ian Stevenson" and not "Reincarnation research". Perhaps the worst case is "[...] the journal's editor described Stevenson as [...]", followed by the list of personal qualities (by the way, the source says "a methodical, careful, even cautious, investigator, whose personality is on the obsessive side", while this article only has "a methodical, careful, even cautious investigator"). Such descriptions have to be removed.

Also, the last paragraph lists a couple of books. They could be useful for "criticism" ("reception") section of article "Ian Stevenson", but they seem to be written by others who work in this same field, thus do not constitute "reception" of the field.

Anyway, the first paragraph of the section describes the conclusions. There is nothing significantly wrong with that.

The second and third paragraphs seem to be meant to discuss reception of this field, but do so badly. The second paragraph starts: "Stevenson's work has received a mixed response.". First of all, the article is not about "Stevenson's work". Second, as the Stevenson's obituary in "Washington Post" (cited in the article) says, "But with rare exception, mainstream scientists -- the only group Dr. Stevenson really cared to persuade -- tended to ignore or dismiss his decades in the field and his many publications.". It is not a "mixed reception".

I guess that should be enough for now... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:39, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Since no one objected (for now, at least), I have tried to remove the most "offtopic" parts . --Martynas Patasius (talk) 20:02, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Have restored and expanded article; this is a short article which needs to be developed and expanded, rather than have material removed from it. If you wish to add more material that is critical of reincarnation research, please consider exploring the work of Paul Edwards, who wrote Reincarnation: A Critical Examination in 2001. Johnfos (talk) 23:43, 14 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I see that you have reverted my edits . Unfortunately, I also see that none of my arguments have been answered...
 * And, of course, I completely disagree with the idea that this article "needs to be developed and expanded, rather than have material removed from it". While some expansion might be reasonable, the first priority must be given to cleaning this almost hopelessly written article up. And yes, that does mean removal of material.
 * That leads to another point: the material I removed was not simply biased. It was badly written. After all, even the most biased propaganda can be written well and coherently... As you can see, I criticised the sentence "Stevenson's work has received a mixed response." but didn't remove or change it.
 * Finally, how exactly is the separate section "Reviews" supposed to differ from the old "Conclusions and criticism"..? For example, what makes the sentence "Paul Edwards, a philosopher and skeptic, has analyzed many of accounts of reincarnation, and called them anecdotal." more suitable to the new section than to the old one? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 10:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I have asked for advise in Fringe theories/Noticeboard. Maybe that will result in something good..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:34, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The article is an unnecessary fork of Ian Stevenson, I've re-merged it. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:28, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Anthon, you keep reverting but you have not engaged in any sort of discussion. I have merged this article because it is a fork of Ian Stevenson, it's title is not neutral and violates WP:FRINGE. Most of the content belongs on (and is present on) existing articles, leaving this as an unnecessary POV fork. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Failed RfC process
It is clear that the integrity of the above RfC process has been compromised, for the following reasons: As I say, it is clear that the integrity of this RfC process has been compromised, and it seems to me that the solution is to declare the RfC invalid and go to AfD. Johnfos (talk) 21:55, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Despite reassurances, some editors are still concerned that improper canvassing has occurred.
 * 2) The RfC was put in the wrong topic area, "Maths Science and Technology". It should be in something like "Philosophy and religion".
 * 3) The RfC was started some time after the Merge proposal discussion was started, without any notice. The Merge proposal was started here and some editors had already participated when the RfC was begun here.
 * 4) Several editors are now talking, not about a merge, but a simple redirect, which would effectively blank all existing material.
 * 5) Some editors are saying that the "article has already been merged", pre-empting the RfC outcome.
 * None of that prevents an admin weighing up the current consensus. Going to AfD makes no sense as deletion isn't being discussed. There is nothing wrong with editors talking about redirects. AfDs are for articles for deletion. No one is discussing deletion so AfD would not make sense. Parapsychology is put under Science for the purposes of the RfC (if it's actually religious then why do we have an article talking about experiments testing for it?). The RfC starting after the merge proposal is perfectly fine. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:10, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I guess we will have to agree to disagree on most of this. But I am pleased to hear you say that no one is considering deletion of the article. This is certainly news to me, as we have had several instances here of blanking through simple redirection, with subsequent loss of reliably sourced material. This needs to be avoided. Johnfos (talk) 07:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There was never any case where material was useful material was lost. Redirect is not deletion. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Right - even after the redirect is in place, you can still click on the blue text after "Redirected from..." and get to the actual redirect page - then click open the history tab to see all of the material that was ever in the article from before it was turned into a redirect. So it's never "Lost" if someone wants to pick it up and merge it in.  That said, it's likely that not all of this material would be inserted into the merged article. SteveBaker (talk) 19:13, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * That list sure looks strange... Let's see:
 * OK, so you did something that might have been slightly bad. And now you create an impression that you want to invalidate a result that you don't like because of that..?
 * First of all, it is not clear if the topic area is wrong - presumably, the ones who take this research seriously think that it is scientific. Anyway, if you think that another RFC tag would be beneficial, just add it. I don't think many will object.
 * OK, so the RFC tag was added after the merge discussion has started. And..? What exactly is supposed to be wrong with that? And where would one add any "notice" about, well, whatever you are talking about..?
 * It is related to the next point, but I don't see why the editors cannot offer different solutions.
 * That "article has already been merged", as far as I understand, simply means that now the material here duplicates the material somewhere else. It shouldn't be surprising, given that at least once (compare and ), and perhaps more than once, this article was expanded by copying text from another article.
 * So, I do not see what is supposed to be so wrong with this RFC... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:29, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Recent article expansion
User:EPadmirateur and others have done a good job of expanding the article over the past week, using reliable sources such as ''Mills, Antonia, and Steven Jay Lynn (2000). “Past-Life Experiences” in Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence, American Psychological Association, ISBN: 978-1-55798-625-2.'' Good work! Johnfos (talk) 07:42, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * From the lead and throughout the article still largely reads like a review of the work of Stevenson and Tucker. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * ....With no less than 4 links to "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation". - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 5, don't forget the link in the Reincarnation research template too (the majority of the books which are also Stevenson too). IRWolfie- (talk)
 * I can understand the work of people who have investigated anecdotal stories of reincarnation has a valid notability, but the promotion of Stevenson and his books at every opportunity, seems excessive. I also brought up this problem at Talk:Reincarnation after removing Stevenson from the article lead and being reverted. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. I have removed some overlinking and notice EPadmirateur is still adding non-Stevenson material. Johnfos (talk) 14:20, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, so, something has been added. Let's look what it is.

First of all, while we have a sentence "Other people who have undertaken research on reincarnation include Satwant Pasricha, Antonia Mills, Godwin Samararatne, Erlendur Haraldsson and H. H. Jürgen Keil.", it starts to look like the article is meant to give a complete list of everyone who did anything related... Adding the workplaces of them seems to be superfluous.

Second, we have a "method" called "Psychological and cultural characteristics"... The name of the section is clearly bad (characteristics of what? Of the ones who engage in this research? Or of the research subjects?)... At least it still describes something that can be called a method (in contrast to "Independent replication", "Reviews" or "Research protocols")... But it is not clear it those methods are methods of "reincarnation research" and not of something different. In the other cases the researchers compare the ones who claim to have been reincarnated with the ones who are dead. In this case no such comparison has been reported. I would say that it is a different field... But anyway, do we have an actual source that says what "reincarnation research" really is..? If we do not, all this article starts to look like original research (and perhaps even more original than some of the research reported in the article)...

Third, we have a section "Independent replication". Definitely a wrong name for a section, and in the wrong place (it is not a method). Anyway, if someone repeated what Stevenson did, the description of that work would not be (in principle) unsuitable to the article about Stevenson itself. Furthermore, the numbers of cases look rather unimpressive given the way in which those studies are described...

Fourth, a section "Research protocols". The section starts: "In 2000, Jim Tucker demonstrated the way in which the University of Virginia has used the ‘strength-of-case scale’ (SOCS) to sort and classify about 800 cases.". So, it describes the research protocols that Stevenson used (and maybe invented)? I don't see why they wouldn't be suitable for article about him.

Fifth, "Theories"... How are they supposed to be different from "Conclusions"..?

Sixth, "Bibliography"... We are not trying to list every article in a reliable (and, far more often, in less-than-reliable) source from this field, are we..? For if it is a real and notable field, such a list will be far too long, and if it is not, we wouldn't need such a list...

So, in short, I still see little that could justify a refusal to merge this article. Thus, for the editors trying to "save" this article: could you, please, find a source that says what "reincarnation research" really is..? What does belong to it and what does not? Assuming, of course, that such a source actually exists. Thank you in advance. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 16:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021001393.html?nav=hcmodule http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1542356/Professor-Ian-Stevenson.html and Douglas M. Stokes (1997). The Nature of Mind, McFarland & Company, p. 190. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:53, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Yet another massive change by irWolfie
Very cryptic edit summary, which perhaps irWolfie understands, but not the rest of us (I'm in the dark, certainly). Someone who blanks out the entire article, and then complains when someone constructively adds material--I mean, where are the admins? --Anthon.Eff (talk) 02:44, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * What is cryptic about it? The text inserted was a blatant copyright violation of and you re-inserted it. Don't do that. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:58, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I see very close paraphrasing:


 * original:
 * " Gopal mentioned Shaktipal's attempts to borrow money, information that only the family knew, and how this had contributed to the shooting."
 * edit:
 * " Gopal's mention of Shaktipal's attempts to borrow money, and how this had led to the shooting — information that was known only to the family"
 * }
 * Of course, this happens a lot when you are reporting raw facts. The solution is finding more sources about Gopal, read them all, make your own brief summary with your own words, and cite the sources. Hints: make your own narrative, choose a narrative that maximizes reader's understanding, make sure that you put only the explanations that will help the reader understand the history. Don't describe the facts in the same order as the source, think of the order of facts that will help readers understand better. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * }
 * Of course, this happens a lot when you are reporting raw facts. The solution is finding more sources about Gopal, read them all, make your own brief summary with your own words, and cite the sources. Hints: make your own narrative, choose a narrative that maximizes reader's understanding, make sure that you put only the explanations that will help the reader understand the history. Don't describe the facts in the same order as the source, think of the order of facts that will help readers understand better. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Guess I don't get it. Are you writing fiction, or writing an encyclopedia? If the latter, then makes sense that your words will follow closely upon the sources. How about citing some policy on this, if you disagree. Thanks. --Anthon.Eff (talk) 01:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * This doesn't just apply to wikipedia, see Plagiarism (which also links to PARAPHRASE). IRWolfie- (talk) 10:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Good sources will have blow-by-blow detailed accounts of events. Ideally, you read several sources and then you summarize the facts in your own words. You don't quote one of the sources word by word (*).


 * (*) unless you have a very good reason to do it, see examples in WP:QUOTE: when quoting statements of opinion in controversial ideas or when citing unusual sentences. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It's a judgement call as to when our article is "too close" to the wording of the original source - I agree with IRwolfie's change - this is far too close to being a copyvio. Endric has it exactly right in saying that we should collect together information from multiple sources and write something completely new based on the information found therein. SteveBaker (talk) 14:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It's also a well known issue with the editor who initially added the content, see Contributor_copyright_investigations/20120412. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:37, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Let's avoid the ad hominem crap Wolfie, please--IMO, JohnFos is an excellent editor. But seems that plenty of people agree with you on this edit, so it shall stand. JohnFos, could you do a bit more work on paraphrasing? That would appear to satisfy the opposition... --Anthon.Eff (talk) 00:37, 5 October 2012 (UTC)