Talk:Rupert Sheldrake/Archive 20

"Pseudoscience" in the lead
The the third paragraph begins: "Members of the scientific community who have looked at morphic resonance have characterised Sheldrake's claims as being pseudoscience". To me, this gives the false impression that: "All scientists who read about morphic resonance, characterise it as pseudoscience". This is misleading, and is (a) not supported by sources (b) fails WP:BLP as contentious and disputed.

There is no doubt that some scientists have characterised morphic resonance as pseudoscience, John Maddox is the notable example, and it should be mentioned. But conversely we have some scientists who do not, and have also criticised Maddox. The notable example is Brian Josephson (a Nobel prize winning physicist), who I would argue is comparable to Maddox the science writer.

Per WP:BLP we must (a) attribute material likely to be challenged (this has been challenged on several occasions) (b) must be written conservatively (ie., not give the impression that the whole of mainstream science has decided the matter) (c) include balance in order to meet WP:NPOV. Doing so still meets WP:FRINGE. Not doing so may meet WP:FRINGE, but then fails WP:BIO and WP:NPOV.

I would propose the following start to the third paragraph:
 * "Some scientists have characterised Sheldrake's work as pseudoscience, whereas some other scientists and those outside of the scientific community have been sympathetic." (sources omitted).

In no way am I suggesting parity in the opposing views, nor that Sheldrake's work is in any way correct. --Iantresman (talk) 13:13, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * This is not a good idea in my opinion and one that is not supported by any reliable sources. Look again, because we have a tonne of reliable references on the article that claim Sheldrake's ideas are pseudoscience. List a single reliable source that claims the opposite? And Brian Josephson is also a proponent of pseudoscience like Sheldrake. Physicist Robert L. Park in his book Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science. Princeton University Press. p. 156 has written "Josephson has a long history of endorsing claims that most scientists would pass off as pseudoscience." I am not objecting if you want to expand on him in the correct section (Josephson is already mentioned), but I see no reason to put his minority opinion in the lead. Goblin Face (talk) 16:17, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I disagree that "we have a tonne of reliable references on the article that claim Sheldrake's ideas are pseudoscience". Looking at the Notes section as they appear now, referring to references:

Satisfactory references


 * Ref 16: Lewis Wolpert is a genuine biologist, reported in the Guardian (reputable). All looks satisfactory.
 * Ref 17: John Maddox, science writer, editor of Nature, reported in Nature. Looks satisfactory.
 * Ref 18: Prof Steven Rose in peer reviewed journal, Looks satisfactory.

Possibly Satisfactory references


 * Ref 19: Science journalist, but unfortunately I don't know anything more of the context. Perhaps?
 * Ref 20: David Jones is a chemist, book review The Times. Unfortunately I know no more . He writes that Sheldrake "gives it a proper pseudo-scientific name, the 'morphogenetic field'" and that "a test would not save the morphogenetic theory from being nonsense". In my opinion, this stops short of calling the theory pseudoscience, even though he alludes to it.
 * Ref 21: Jerry Coyne, biologist, personal blog. Perhaps.

Poor or inappropriate references


 * Ref 13: Gardner is not a scientist, his book is popular level, and Gardner says "Balderdash" which someone has interpreted as synonymous with "pseudoscience". In my opinion, that fails WP:BLP on three counts.
 * Ref 14: Ruchir Sharma is a "portfolio manager", writing a book about his "views on Emerging Markets" in which he provides no sources for his opinion. In my opinion, that fails WP:BLP on three counts.
 * Ref 15: Lawrence R Samuel is not a scientist (he has a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota), writing in a popular level book, who considers Sheldrake "theory of morphic resonance hogwash", which someone has interpretted to mean "pseudoscience". In my opinion, that fails WP:BLP on three counts.


 * So we have a minimum of three decent references, and perhaps another three, and I think that the poor references should be removed. I'm going to stop here, and not mention references such as the recent TED page (mentioned above), whose board of scientific advisers had described Sheldrake's work as pseudoscience, before retracting. --Iantresman (talk) 18:33, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The refs you list as "inappropriate" were not there support the pseudoscience designation -- they were there for reporting the level of acceptance. However the text about the level of acceptance was removed, leaving the orphaned refs which you now mistakenly attribute to "pseudoscience". Per WP:FRINGE Wikipedia should report the level of acceptance; restoring.


 * The New Republic is not Jerry Coyne's personal blog. vzaak 19:28, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The references are clearly in the Notes supporting "pseudoscience" (twice almost), and it seems odd that anyone would add them, even if they were meant to be used elsewhere and for a different purpose.
 * At the bottom of the post, it reads "A version of this post first appeared on WhyEvolutionIsTrue", the latter I believe is his own personal blog. The New Republic focuses on "politics and the arts". --Iantresman (talk) 19:40, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * What is this Ian? You are going through each of these sources and they have to be written by a biologist with a PhD do they to describe Sheldrake's ideas as pseudoscience or not accepted by the scientific community? Is this a new Wikipedia rule? When did this come about? Where does it say this in Wikipedia policy? Have you looked at other Wikipedia articles on pseudoscience topics? All of the sources on the Sheldrake article are reliable and notable, including the ones you just listed. Don't take my word for it, ask many other editors. They have been on the article for a long time. They wouldn't be up there otherwise, especially as moderators have thoroughly checked this article. It doesn't matter if they were not all written by professional biologists. It matters if the sources are reliable and they are. For example, Martin Gardner was a science writer and his book was published by a mainstream publishing house. Yet you are claiming his book is 'popular level' and fails WP:BLP? This is absurd, Gardner is cited on hundreds of Wikipedia articles and I have never seen your objections raised before. I don't understand this at all especially the part about some of these academic books being 'popular level'. I want to assume good faith but your post is the nuttiest thing I have seen on this website in a long time. You are a senior Wikipedia editor with some good edits, it is a shame you have stooped to this level. I don't think you are going to get very far here, so instead of going round and round debating this, I will not be further contributing to this discussion. Happy editing to all editors here and whatever the outcome. Goblin Face (talk) 21:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I would be grateful if you wouldn't descend into incivility. We are allowed to have a difference of opinion. WP:BIO requires good reliable sources. I don't consider a "portfolio manager" and "Ph.D. in American Studies" to be suitable to comment in this field. I don't consider Gardner a good source mainly because "balderdash" is not synonymous with "pseudoscience", but accept that you, and many others may disagree. --Iantresman (talk) 22:05, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * To answer 's question, AFAIK there is no requirement for sources to be written by someone by a PhD. That appears to be an arbitrary criterion established by Iantresman and as such should be disregarded. The lede as written appears BLP compliant, and the proposed "some scientists" language is too soft. VQuakr (talk) 22:18, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I never said there was such a requirement. But there is a requirement that we use reliable sources. The lead is not BLP compliant because it include contentious material that has been challenged by several editors, including statements that are not supported by the sources provided. While "some scientists" may be too soft, what we currently have is equally misleading. Just to be clear, I have no problem indicating that some scientists have described Sheldrake's work as pseudoscience. --Iantresman (talk) 23:10, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, we use reliable sources. Contentious material can be BLP-compliant, it just needs to be sourced. You have not presented any policy-based reasoning for why you view some of the sources to be unreliable. Do you have any issue with the slightly reworded current version, "Morphic resonance is not accepted by the scientific community as a real phenomenon and Sheldrake's proposals relating to it have been characterized as pseudoscience."? VQuakr (talk) 00:11, 5 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I think I have provided more links to policies than most editors (at least half a dozen, above). The current wording is an improvement, but the impression that the "scientific community" speaks (a) as a whole, and (b) has decided unanimously, is a nonsense. We have no inkling (a) who this scientific community is (b) what proportion of them have even heard of Sheldrake and/or his theory (c) what proportion of them are familiar enough with his ideas to make a judgement (d) what proportion of them have done so. How many of them heard about his ideas by word of mouth (hey! did you hear about the guy who believes in psychic pets!).
 * To repeat, I am in no doubt that there are a proportion of scientists who have said that they do not accept his ideas, and that a proportion of them have said that they think his ideas are pseudoscience.
 * But there are also other scientists who appear to take a more impartial look at Sheldrake's work, such as Nobel prize winner Brian Josephson, quantum physicist Hans-Peter Duerr, application by computer scientists Germano Resconia and Masoud Nikravesh,, plus dozens of broadsheet newspapers (many already used as sources in the article), plus lots of other scientists some may consider on the fringe, who may be studying conscientious subjects, but who are scientists nevertheless, eg. --Iantresman (talk) 11:25, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Basically all of Sheldrake's supporters are known to be proponents of their own pseudoscientific ideas. Birds of a feather and all that. I notice that the people with whom Ian associates himself, the Electric Universe folks, also support him by inviting him to their conferences, for example. The fact that Velikovskians support Sheldrake isn't much of a surprise to me. jps (talk) 12:35, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Sigh. I shouldn't have to explain the association fallacy to a science educator, and using it to try and discredit another editor falls short of Wikipedia's civility guidelines, and is considered a personal attack, ie. "Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem" (per WP:WIAPA). I am reluctant to remind you of but it is not constructive and we can all do without it. I am happy for you to remove this post along with yours. --Iantresman (talk) 13:18, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Just pointing out that all the supporters of Sheldrake are pseudoscientists or pseudoscience champions (and not solely in their support of Sheldrake) is of relevance to the conversation. I note that your support for the man goes back to 2001 in this pseudoscience newsletter. jps (talk) 13:56, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * (1) Nowhere did I indicate that I support Sheldrake's ideas. Please do no misrepresent me. (2) I would be grateful that you don't bring aspect of my private life into Wikipedia in an attempt to discredit me, per WP:PRIVACY (3) I have already stated on several occasions that I don't know whether Sheldrake's ideas have some validity or are bunkum. --Iantresman (talk) 14:45, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

It is an extraordinary claim that Sheldrakes proposals have any measurable level of support in the scientific community and would require extraordinary sources for us to present it as such. the "supporters" are less than any rounding error and to present them as otherwise would be breaking BLP because BLP requires us to follow NPOV of which an important component is WP:UNDUE -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  13:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It would be an extraordinary claim to suggest that Sheldrake has been proven, and I too would expect several peer-reviewed secondary sources to even hint at it. That there are other scientists who are as impartial as you would expect scientists to be, is of no surprise, and there are several indisputable sources (examples previously provided). --Iantresman (talk) 13:24, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * None of the scientists you listed who support Sheldrake are impartial. They're either an advocate of a myriad of pseudoscientific proposals (Josephson) or a proponent of quantum mysticism (Duerr). jps (talk) 13:58, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I would not be comfortable suggesting that any scientist was not impartial, and, an alleged advocate of pseudoscience.
 * "It is the responsibility of all contributors to ensure that material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory." per WP:LIBEL
 * "Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia." per WP:NPA --Iantresman (talk) 14:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * In addition to the previous sources I provided of scientists who consider Sheldrake's work objectively, I have just discovered that Hans-Peter Dürr (Nobel prize winning physicist) published in German "Rupert Sheldrake in der Diskussion" which includes discussion from other scientists, including Janis Roze (Professor of Biology Emeritus), Suitbert Eertel (Prof emeritus Göttingen University), Prof. Arnim Bechmann (land economics?), Hans Werner Ingensiep (Prof. biology, Universität Duisburg-Essen), Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich (Prof. Philosophie, Universität Essen), Friedrich Cramer (German chemist and geneticist), Fritz-Albert Popp (biophysicist), and Amit Goswami (physicist, Professor emeritus University of Oregon). It is notable that besides their qualifications, many are notable enough to have their own entry in Wikipedia, none of which suggesting they "promote pseudoscience".
 * It seems that we have a not too dissimilar number of scientists, who don't characterise Sheldrake's work as pseudoscience, as those who do. --Iantresman (talk) 14:32, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Looking at the three supposedly bad references:
 * I'm not seeing how Gardner isn't recognized by virtually everyone (except those caught up in his investigations) as a respected researcher into bad science.
 * I can't evaluate the second one due to the imprecise citation.
 * The third case isn't quite as extreme as Gardner, but I cannot see how doing sociological/historical work in the field requires a hard scientific degree. Samuel is perfectly well-qualified to report the contempt of the biological community.
 * I'm not seeing the need to have umpteen references anyway except for the quibbling, but of these three, one (Samuel) is absolutely unproblematic, one (Gardner) is only really "problematic" because of his notoriety as a skeptic, and the last lacks context. This is really coming across like Abraham trying to bargain down God as to how many righteous men it would take to save Sodom and Gomorrah: I don't think you're ever going to get the number of citations low enough to deny the essential fact that they all report. Mangoe (talk) 18:12, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * As I've said before, I am not quibbling over the fact that some people describe his work as pseudoscience. My complaint it that we are giving the impression that the whole scientific community rejects his work as pseudoscience, and it is this that is not supported by the references, when we have many references from scientists who do not characterise his work in this way, including the 8 I mentioned in the German book "Rupert Sheldrake in der Diskussion", the dozen or so scientists in JCS,, and people like nobel-prize winners Brian Josephson and Hans-Peter Duerr, not to mention the dozens of quality broadsheet newspapers, many already used as sources in the article. Of the tiny number of references we have to scientists who have commented on Sheldrake's work, most do not characterise it as pseudoscience. When we say "Sheldrake's proposals relating to it have been characterized as pseudoscience", we allow readers to assume that the whole scientific community feels this way. I propose we write:
 * "Morphic resonance is not accepted as a real phenomenon by most of the scientific community, and while a number of them have characterized it as pseudoscience, some have investigated whether there is any merit in his ideas."
 * --Iantresman (talk) 10:24, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * perhaps "and while widely characterized as pseudoscience, some have investigated whether there is any merit in his ideas and found no basis." to minimize the dismissal and not include the lack of verification would be inappropriate. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  10:34, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * My only reservation, is that while I am not aware of there being any confirmation of some of Sheldrake's "big ideas", my understanding is that people like Brian Josephson and Hans-Peter Duerr have found what they consider to be some merit in his ideas in their application to other fields. In other words, I don't know whether all scientists have found "no basis" whatsoever, we'll have to read through as many references as possible. Or perhaps we just need to re-order the statement as follows:
 * "Morphic resonance is not accepted as a real phenomenon by most of the scientific community, and while some have investigated whether there is any merit in his ideas, others have concluded that his ideas have the characteristics as pseudoscience."
 * --Iantresman (talk) 11:25, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * again, promoting "some have investigated whether there is any merit in his ideas" without following it up with "but no scientific evidence has ever been produced" is WP:UNDUE promotional spin in violation of WP:BALASPS. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  11:50, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Stating that "no scientific evidence has ever been produced", would also be in violation, if some had been found. What I have found so far in the open-peer reviewed JPS, is leaning towards your statement, but it is not exhaustive, and getting hold of full text is not easy (references below refer to articles, not full text). I will need to continue at a later time, eg.


 * Atkinson, A.P. (D.Phil. Psychology, U. of Oxford) "no such capacity, but that, to the extent that there is anything substantive and meaningful in the data"


 * Dr Ian Baker (PhD Psychology) "The combined EDA-CCTV approach has largely stood up to independent, rigorous statistical and methodological scrutiny, thanks mainly to Schmidt et al.’s (2004) meta-analysis; the remote staring detection studies that employed conscious guessing and direct looking have yet to do so."


 * Dr Susan Blackmore (PhD in parapsychology, U. of Surrey), "Sheldrake’s two papers are so deeply confused that they should never have been published in JCS."

--Iantresman (talk) 12:19, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Jean E. Burns (Ph.D., Physics, U. Hawaii), "the above-chance results in these experiments do not confirm the existence of the staring effect."
 * The Journal of Consciousness is not scientific evidence. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  12:25, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * No publication is scientific evidence. Yet we still give the opinion of scientists sourced to their personal blogs, newspapers, and popular books, per WP:PARITY --Iantresman (talk) 12:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

The support of Sheldrake comes from pseudoscience supporters. Scientific evaluation of Sheldrake has been universal in identifying him as a pseudoscientist. The only people who disagree with this characterization are people who support pseudoscientific proposals other than Sheldrake's. Sheldrake acts almost as a litmus test. If you find someone who supports him, you can find another pseudoscience which they support. To claim that this is somehow indicative of the scientific community would be a misnomer. BUT we don't even say anything about the scientific community. We essentially say that when his proposals have been evaluated scientifically, they are found wanting. The references which defend him do not defend his science but rather make jermiads about closemindedness -- exactly what we expect from WP:FRINGE promoters. This is a classic case of pseudoscientific wagon circling and we are under no obligation to accommodate this sort of game-playing any more than we are under an obligation to explain how there are certain scientists who support creationism or certain scientists who believe in the existence of bigfoot. jps (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2014 (UTC)


 * "we don't even say anything about the scientific community" - the scientific community is mentioned twice in the lead, and twice more in the article.
 * "We essentially say that when his proposals have been evaluated scientifically, they are found wanting" - no, the article and your comments present Sheldrake's work as pseudoscience as a truth. I am perfectly happy to describe the scientific assessment of his work as "wanting" (though I'd rather use a better sourced description)?
 * I don't recognise any of your other opinions, so I look forward to you offering some WP:TALK for assessment so we can stay WP:TALK per WP:NPOV and WP:BLP
 * I still have no problem attributing those people who have described his work as pseudoscience, as I did when I added Maddox's quote from Nature. --Iantresman (talk) 23:54, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I think we can discount pseudoscience promoters like yourself. You haven't made a coherent case and your criticism of my points are flat. jps (talk) 02:41, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Please don't make WP:ASPERSIONS, personal attacks are uncivil and suggests that you have no argument. Please also take note of ArbCom's findings concerning you and me.. I believe that I have been both civil and extended good faith toward you. --Iantresman (talk) 13:53, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Morphic resonance is not accepted by the scientific community
This sentence has been altered to say "Morphic resonance is not accepted by "much" of the scientific community as a real phenomenon and Sheldrake's proposals relating to it have been characterized as pseudoscience." Can anyone reference which part of the scientific community DOES accept it? Theroadislong (talk) 21:45, 6 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, and have removed the "much" part. Sheldrake's views are completely fringe. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I am troubled by the implication that the scientific community is unanimous in its rejection of Sheldrake's theory. A careful reading of the article itself will reveal that Sheldrake has supporters who are scientists, and his credentials are impressive. I am by no means sure that Sheldrake is correct in his theory of morphic resonance, but I take the view that the qualification "much" respects the fact that his views are contentious, and that the characterization "fringe" is a serious overstatement. Because I am new to Wikipedia I have resolved not to engage in an editing war, but, with respect, I suggest that Theroadislong and FreeKnowledgeCreator are wrong. GraceOdin (talk) 00:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The portion of the scientific community that doesnt is less than a rounding error. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  01:29, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * When the overwhelming majority of scientists rejects an idea, it's reasonable to say that the scientific community rejects it without adding any qualification. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:36, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No question that some individuals have labelled some of Sheldrake's work as pseudoscience, I added references to that effect myself. But to infer that these few individuals represent the voice of the entire scientific community is not supported by reliable sources, and appears to be WP:SYNTH. We don't even have sources suggesting that most scientists have even heard of Sheldrake, let alone his work. This seems to be reflected by the vast majority of sources who mention Sheldrake, who do not seem to share this characteristic. --Iantresman (talk) 10:01, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What I said back when it was User:Alfonzo Green who was pushing this: "There is no reason to expect that there should be long lists of people who can be cited on this, but both AG and BB incessantly hammer on the notion that we have to imply that there might be something to Sheldrake's notions because dozens upon dozens of scientists haven't taken the time to explicitly address them. The logic of this is obviously specious and would imply that we have to implicitly endorse every pseudoscientific and alt-med idea that comes along simply because large numbers of Scientists don't make room on their schedules to do rigorous rebuttals. The idea is ludicrous and its advocates need to be told to stop pushing it." Nothing has changed. Mangoe (talk) 10:59, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I completely agree that we do NOT imply that there is ANY veracity to any of Sheldrake's work, unless we have reliable sources to do so. Conversely, we do not pretend and push the idea that the whole scientific community rejects Sheldrake, when we don't even have sources as to the proportion of experts who are familiar with it. I do not know who you are calling "advocates"; I do not know any editors who have wanted pseudoscience references removed. --Iantresman (talk) 12:57, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:REDFLAG You need to provide proof to your extraordinary claim that there is any measurable segment of the scientific community that believes in psychic dogs. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  13:03, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Where did I make any such claim? I never said, and the article does not state, that there is "any measurable segment of the scientific community that believes in psychic dogs", so I don't know why we would mislead the reader, when I am not aware of any such evidence/sources. But the article does say, that "Morphic resonance is not accepted by the scientific community", and while I am aware of some individuals who have said this, and I have provided sources supporting this, I am not aware of reliable sources that support the statement in the article. --Iantresman (talk) 16:16, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You are attempting to position your handful as a meaningful segment. They are not and should not be represented as being such. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  16:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you mean as "my handful". My opinions have been very clear, (1) the statement in the article is not supported by reliable sources (2) some scientists have described morphic resonance as pseudoscience. --Iantresman (talk) 19:05, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The existing sentence makes me think of something like "Nazi concentration camps were very bad places." This may be true, but you won't find that sentence in that article. The existing sentence here stands out in a similar way - you can tell what the author is trying to do, but it just doesn't quite work, or come off as encyclopedic. I would understand that here, to open the third para of the lede, we want to say something really damning about morphic fields and conventional science. It's just that, really, it has to be something that a well-informed person or serious academic might actually say, and preferably something that one of them did actually say (then we could cite it). If the lede summarises the article, it should be based on the criticism section of the article. --Nigelj (talk) 19:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Jaytee graphs
Just to clarify - the graphs in the Dogs That Know Their Owners are Coming Home section are presumably of Sheldrake's data, rather than Wiseman/Smith/Milton's? --McGeddon (talk) 17:38, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Regardless, it seems to be giving WP:UNDUE weight in an encyclopedia to complete hogwash. I think they should be removed. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  17:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Those graphs are based on Sheldrake's data, but the point is that there are other graphs based on Wiseman's data, which are almost exactly the same shape. (This is not surprising - same dog, same circumstances, etc.) --Nigelj (talk) 20:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it's reasonable, if we're going to have a section on a controversial book, to give some idea what the controversy was about. Wikipedia is not paper, so there's no waste. What would be WP:UNDUE would be to try to cover a controversy without giving a clear view of both sides of the argument. Until today, the section seemed to conclude that the longer that its owner was absent, the more often the dog visited the window. There is plainly more to it than that, when you see the graphs. If that were the case, then the graphs would rise smoothly, and they would all three rise at a similar rate, with the owner reappearing at a different point in their rising pattern. In fact we have a 'hockey stick' shape which tilts steeply upwards at different times, depending on the return time of the owner. AFAIK, Wiseman never said the data was fabricated or erroneous, and so the explanation he offered should be viewed next to the data that he was trying to explain. --Nigelj (talk) 20:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Presenting eyecandy graphics of no something that is of no actual merit is giving WP:UNDUE weight to bullshit. We are an encyclopedia after all. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  20:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:UNDUE is part of WP:NPOV. One example given in that section of the policy is that "the article on the Earth does not directly mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority; to do so would give undue weight to it." If you have an article on Rupert Sheldrake, with a section on this book, how can showing some of the book's findings be WP:UNDUE? Is the guideline you're looking for WP:N? "Whether a given topic [Rupert Sheldrake in this case] warrants its own article"? If so that is a different discussion. If we're going to discuss a topic in an article, we are obliged to do so within the requirements of the WP:NPOV policy. --Nigelj (talk) 20:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * the books "findings" are complete hokum. we discuss what the book says and the response from the scientific community. to then overlay with a big eyecandy graphic, unresponded to from the mainstream views is completely inappropriate and not acceptable weight to the fringe claims. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  20:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Both Sheldrake and Wiseman/Smith/Milton (representing the mainstream) discussed and responded to the same data. The graphs show the data, not a point of view or the various proposed explanations from the mainstream reviewers. --Nigelj (talk) 21:01, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * If "the point" is that another group's graphs of the same experiment are similar, the caption should say that, rather than leaving it unstated and hoping that the reader may reach that conclusion. I'll edit the caption to clarify that these are Sheldrake's own graphs. --McGeddon (talk) 09:22, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

@WP:UNDUE states: "In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space". Wikipedia is full of articles on minority views, from the Flat Earth to Phlogiston. We don't exclude such views because they are wrong. We still state why those views were considered at one time, and a basic use of English allow us to do so neutrally, so that we conform to NPOV. (1) We not pretend that the views are correct (2) we do not pretend that a couple of critics represent the whole scientific community. --Iantresman (talk) 11:42, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The presentation of uncontested eyecandy is, in any view, WP:UNDUE. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:13, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * With the Blackmore observation that Sheldrake was combining two different tests in an apples-and-oranges way, the diagram may actually be a useful illustration of Sheldrake's post hoc analysis: Blackmore seems to suggest that the "long" graph is of the unrandomised tests where the dog was aware of the routine, and the other two are for the randomised tests (and are both more clearly the "did very little then visited the window with increasing frequency the longer that its owner was absent" situation that Wiseman mentions). --McGeddon (talk) 15:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't find the bit in the Blackmore review where she actually "criticised Sheldrake for comparing the 12 shorter tests of random duration... to the initial, longer tests." Can you quote it here for me? --Nigelj (talk) 22:28, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "Realising this problem, Sheldrake did 12 experiments in which he bleeped Pam at random times to tell her to return. Now surely Jaytee could not be using normal powers could he? No. But there is another simple problem. When Pam first leaves, Jaytee settles down and does not bother to go to the window. The longer she is away, the more often he goes to look. But in these experiments Pam was never away for less than an hour, and yet the comparison is made with the early period when the dog rarely gets up. Sheldrake provides extra analyses to try to get round this artefact, but it remains a problem for his experimental design." --McGeddon (talk) 09:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see any words in that that support our statement that Blackmore "criticised Sheldrake for comparing the 12 shorter tests of random duration... to the initial, longer tests." I think we may be misrepresenting Blackmore's position, which is serious under BLP. --Nigelj (talk) 21:58, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Saying "But in these experiments Pam was never away for less than an hour" suggests that the other experiments were for longer than an hour (and this fits the graphs, if the first one is for Pam's predictable routine and the two shorter ones are for random keep-looking-longer ones), but sure, borderline WP:SYN. I'll cut "shorter" and "longer" and mention the hour per source. --McGeddon (talk) 22:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The caption now says that Sheldrake did 24 experiments, but there are only 3 graphs. Did Sheldrake select for publication only the three results best fitting his ideas? Or did someone else pick those three from Sheldrake's 24 published ones? Or is every one of the graphs somehow a conglomerate of the results of eight experiments? I don't think what the graphs mean is very clear, on top of the undue weight issue. They should be removed. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:11, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The original caption says, "The graphs represent the average of a total of 24 experiments," which is pretty clear. This was cut from the caption shown on this page by user McGeddon. Readers only need to click on the image to see the full caption on the image's own page. I don't accept that showing results from a book is undue weight in a section dedicated to discussing the book, on the author's bio page. What they show is that, for example in p6 (50-60 minutes after the owner leaves), the dog visits the window for an average of about 20 seconds when the owner isn't due back for an hour or more, but spent on average over 100 seconds there when the owner was due to start travelling back in about 20 minutes. This result is not explained by saying that it's "visiting a window with increasing frequency the longer that its owner was absent," so simply implies that more thought is needed. --Nigelj (talk) 21:58, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * TRPoD has take the above exchange as a consensus to remove the graph, saying "this is far too small sample to make any conclusion about the one dog let alone all psychic dogs." I disagree with this application of statistical thinking in an experiment such as this. If one dog were ever truly and verifiably psychic only once, it would give present-day science something serious to think about. The fact that one dog has shown evidence of this kind of behaviour dozens of times then that is still interesting. (In fact there were other dogs too). The purpose of this book and these graphs was never to try to prove that all dogs are psychic all of the time - this wasn't a political focus group, but just an interesting phenomenon that was not easily explained away. --Nigelj (talk) 22:50, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * you may be interested in small oddities from small sample sizes. however, to leap that we should promote such "oddities" as being in any way meaningful contradicts WP:REDFLAG. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  23:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It is not our job to drawn any conclusions, regardless of the sample size, per WP:SYNTH. However, there is nothing stopping us describing a point of view that is attributed to even a single individual in a primary source as long as it used with care, per WP:PRIMARY, i.e. we don't give the impression it is a fact per WP:YESPOV. --Iantresman (talk) 23:55, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that including the graphs made the section much more interesting and balanced, and I think that that is how you build a good encyclopedia. --Nigelj (talk) 23:17, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * We do not promote a "balance" of tripe vs fact. WP:GEVAL(belated sign) -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  00:01, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Nigelj and support the improvements to the article that he/she is suggesting. By the way, the idea that Wikipedia is an "encyclopedia" is laughable.  An encyclopedia, like Brittanica, has a paid staff who produce a professional product.  On Wikipedia a bunch of yahoos, including myself, engage in silly content discussions and insult and hector each other.  This is romper room, not an encyclopedia. Cla68 (talk) 05:22, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Tripe versus fact: You seem to have an unusual understanding of WP:NPOV. It says, "For instance, articles on historical views such as Flat Earth, with few or no modern proponents, may briefly state the modern position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail, neutrally presenting the history of a now-discredited belief." This an article about Rupert Sheldrake, and a section about this book. We give plenty of coverage to the mainstream view throughout the article, but your position seems at the moment that we cannot use an illustration of Sheldrake's data from the book. It is a fact that the book contains information about the time Jaytee spent at the window. It is also a fact that there was an outcry against the conclusions drawn. No one (AFAIK) said that the data was fraudulent, or that the book does not discuss Jaytee spending time at the window. I don't see why we can't summarise it by this graph (based on data from the book). --Nigelj (talk) 20:33, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. Cla68 (talk) 22:22, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The graphs were not neutrally presenting anything. They were un-neutrally presenting fringe claims. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  22:41, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * So far we have two for, one against, inclusion. Anyone else? Cla68 (talk) 07:31, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Is someone keeping count? That seems to undermine Consensus. Even if we set aside due and fringe concerns, which we should not, the table is somewhat cryptic, and its presence in the article is implying legitimacy which is not supported by secondary sources. Why are there three sets of graphs? That should be clearer from the caption, but it's not really explained in the article. Yes, yes, a reader can click on the image to get that info, but it's clarity is not proportional to it's prominence. It's a big blog of fussy data with a bunch of out-of-sight details tucked away elsewhere, and that seems like poor practice.
 * Also, can you get rid of the flat earth image that's messing up the formatting? It makes the discussion harder to follow, and distractions like that give the impression that you're not really taking this seriously. Grayfell (talk) 08:05, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * A couple of points of information: (1) The reason the caption is short and less informative than the original caption I wrote is that User:McGeddon shortened it. I'd be very happy to reinstate the caption - or rewrite it if someone's got better words. (2) The reason the flat earth picture is here is to remind people that, in the article on Flat Earth, we have illustrations of flat earths. I've moved it to the right so it won't interfere with indentation. I'm not going to repeat my arguments, or quote any more from policy, but I would like to say that I don't see anything in policy that says we can't briefly explain and/or illustrate a fringe theory in an article that is about the fringe theory, or about it's theorist, as long as we state that it is not accepted by the mainstream. On that score, linking to a whole policy document is not helpful in a discussion about a specific point like these graphs. It is far more likely that we will reach a consensus here if people could quote the actual words of the policy that they would like us to read, that they think supports their position. --Nigelj (talk) 19:16, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying there is a hard-and-fast policy that says "no graphs about fringe beliefs", but I am saying that this appears to be over the line of appropriate levels of detail. Flat earth theory is such a fringe viewpoint that it's become a synonym for such beliefs. That image is a vintage illustration which has artistic and decorative qualities which make it ideal for demonstrating the context of the flat Earth viewpoint. The flat Earth image is instantly identifiable as being attached to a fringe view. It's a featured image for good reason. Without any other context, a reader knows exactly what that image is about, and probably a fair amount about the time and place it was made.
 * The set of graphs is not even close to that clear, but it was taking up a similar amount of space in the article. It is not immediately recognizable as being a product of a specific time and ideology, and it would need a very clear caption, which would, in my estimation, still make it undue.  I had to go into the sources to actually learn what the specific criticisms of the study were, and once I did, I realized just how flawed the study was. These counter-arguments are explained in the article, but they explanation didn't really jib with the graphs until I read the "The ‘Psychic Pet’ Phenomenon" pdf. I don't feel like that's a discrepancy I should have to dig around to find out, and I for that reason I think the graphs are more confusing than informative in this context. The graphs are giving Sheldrake's view more legitimacy than is reflected by sources.
 * Linking to WP:Consensus was not intended to be condescending, and I'm sorry if it came off that way. I just wanted to emphasize that taking a head-count with only three people involved seemed very premature. I understand the desire to get the ball rolling, though. Grayfell (talk) 22:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see that the graphs are very useful for a biography. If we were writing an in-depth article about this claim, then you might have an argument for including them with the appropriate explanations of their flaws (note that this data was not subject to peer review in the normal sense). Otherwise, they seem to be a coatrack. jps (talk) 23:54, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 April 2015
Citation 35 is not accurate.

Acasusa (talk) 17:40, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format.  Kharkiv07 Talk  17:53, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

The given link to the article "Overhyped" is no longer valid. Is that reason to Semi-protected the article, when it just needs to be corrected? --Iantresman (talk) 18:03, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The archive link doesn't work, but I think the main link does work, assuming the issue and page number in the cite are correct. Ravensfire ( talk ) 18:06, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Source discussing his so-called "persecution"
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115533/rupert-sheldrake-fools-bbc-deepak-chopra

"Rupert Sheldrake is a pseudoscientist who has made his name promoting various kinds of woo, including telepathy (including in dogs!), immaterial minds, and his crazy idea of “morphic resonance,” a Jung-ian theory in which all of nature participates in some giant collective memory. (He was once a real scientist, trained in biochemistry and cell biology at Cambridge, but somewhere went off the rails.)"

So we have a direct WP:RS for the statement that he is a pseudoscientist. And that means "scientist" should go fomr the first sentence, because he hasn't been an actual scientist for a long time. Guy (Help!) 22:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Nonsense. You have source that Coyne has called Sheldrake a pseudoscientist, and I am not aware of any editor that would dispute that, and would be happy to include an attributed statement to that effect. Those same editors are also well aware that this does not imply there is any veracity to Sheldrake's work. But it is clearly WP:SYNTH that editors decide, that a couple of attributed quote means that Sheldrake is not a scientist.
 * If you read to the bottom of the article in the New Republic, you will find that a version of the article first appeared on Coyne's personal blog. ie. Coyne's article is a self-published source, lessening its reliability per WP:USERGENERATED. --Iantresman (talk) 22:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The original publication location makes no difference if it is pulled into a reliable source under their imprimatur. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  23:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * And as an analogy, Muhammad Ali while certainly once a boxer, is currently a former boxer as he has not done any professional boxing for a number of years. Likewise, while Sheldrake may have once been a "scientist" he has not actually done anything of an actual "scientific" nature for nigh on 30 years and so "former scientist" is the most accurate description. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  23:28, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The New Republic is not known as a reliable source for science. Again I have no problem attributing Coyne's opinion, and do not dispute it, but the New Republic gives Coyne's view no further veracity, and more than it would do the same for Sheldrake, if his opinions were published there. --Iantresman (talk) 23:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * While Muhammad Ali is described as a former boxer, I have few sources suggesting that Sheldrake has retired as a scientist, any many sources that suggest he is still active. What source are you using to define "scientist"? --Iantresman (talk) 23:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Since what Sheldrake is currently engaged in can easily be described as pseudoscience, he's not currently participating in scientific research. So if we have a reliable source calling him a former scientist, even one like the New Republic, I'd agree with TRPoD. Simonm223 (talk) 23:44, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The Demarcation problem says we can't easily described something as pseudoscience or science. That's why Coyne's is presenting his opinion. The New Republic and Coyne do not ultimately decide whether someone is a scientist or not, especially to the exclusion of all other sources, which generally disagree, and refer to Sheldrake as a scientist (see numerous sources mentioned several times previous ). I have no problem attributing Coyne's opinion. --Iantresman (talk) 00:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no demarcation problem with identifying psychic dogs as pseudoscience. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  01:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I also think that the idea of psychic dogs is crazy. But that doesn't necessarily make people who wish to scientifically test the idea, pseudoscientists. Unless you have some sources that say otherwise. --Iantresman (talk) 07:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * uh, yes it does: "Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification." --  TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  02:41, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * As long as he is formally employed as a scientist and researcher, the pseudoscientist argument is moot. - A1candidate  15:05, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * No, that is irrelevant to the question. Employment and research do not exempt someone from engaging in pseudoscience. Besides that, whether he is or is not a pseudoscientist is also irrelevant. We write what RS say. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

One problem we have: the source given identifying Sheldrake as a scientist doesn't actually identify him as a scientist. jps (talk) 17:42, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Elsewhere, in a contentious and closely monitored area (climate change) we define a 'scientist' as "an individual who has published at least one peer-reviewed article during their lifetime in the broadly-construed area of natural sciences, though not necessarily in recent years..." Sheldrake easily passes this test. Googling the question, it seems to be something that very few WP:RSs have tackled head-on. Most of the sources that describe Sheldrake either as a scientist, or as not a scientist, are blogs and other polemics with a clear axe to grind. I'm happy with the everyday use of the word: anyone with his scientific background is a scientist by definition, and there is no defined method of taking such a description away from people, whatever they may say or publish. --Nigelj (talk) 21:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. I see no problem with describing him as a scientist who is considered a pseudoscientist. The exact wording would depend on the sources. I'm sure we can work this out. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:16, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

1. We are spoilt for sources referring to Sheldrake as a biologist/scientists. For example, he is referred to as a biologist by the University of London, the University of Arizona, the Open University, the University of Reading, the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, National Geographic, Discover magazine, The Independent newspaper, Scientific American, Science, Financial Times, New York Times, and in various academic/university textbook, peer-reviewed journals, Trans. Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2012)

2. Furthermore, I contacted the Society of Biology who emailed me the following last year (this can be confirmed with the Society): From:  Subject: Definition of 'Biologist' Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2014 08:18:52


 * Clearly anyone who has at least a degree in biology can sensibly be called a biologist. Whether they are practising or not can define if they fall into the ‘professional’ biologist category or not, rather than a 'biologist' or not.


 * The teacher example is very clear - they are a biologist.
 * A first degree is sufficient, a PhD is nice but not necessary
 * It is not necessary to publish peer reviewed papers, this is just one way of evidencing whether they are currently a 'professional' biologist. For example, a biology school teacher would be unable to publish papers, whereas a researcher in a Biology Department would, but both would still be ‘ professional’ biologists, but would evidence this in different ways.

--Iantresman (talk) 10:39, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

3. I further clarified with the Society specifically whether this applied to Sheldrake. They responded: From:  Subject: Dr Rupert Sheldrake Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2014 10:48:45

Whilst I can see where the debate comes from I think this is relatively straight forward. He is clearly a biologist given that he has a first degree and Ph.D in the biosciences. He is probably a biologist many disagree with. [..]

Being described as a “biologist” makes no comment on the current competence of an individual in biological science merely their background, in my view, especially as science is so broad. After all, someone who is (e.g.) a world renowned immunologist can quite reasonably be described as a scientist but they may no more than any other member of the public about other areas of science, even some biosciences. --Iantresman (talk) 10:54, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I dont think those address the question at all. Per WP:LEAD the question is "Is being a scientist/biologist key to what Sheldrake is notable for?" -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, no-one above has queried whether his being a scientist is notable enough for inclusion, possibly because notability applies more to articles, than facts. The Wikipedia Manual of Style/Biographies on the opening paragraph suggests that it includes "The notable positions the person held", in addition to why they are notable. Many sources that describe Sheldrake consider it notable enough to mention that he is a scientists/biologist. --Iantresman (talk) 15:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * and we cover the "notable scientific positions" he formerly held in the second sentence, which is probably STILL more prominence than it deserves given what he is actually notable for. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  15:40, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that we change "English scientist" to "British biologist". His nationality is British (not English), and "Biologist" is better supported by sources. --Iantresman (talk) 23:48, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think changing to British is a good idea. I also like the idea of getting rid of scientist. What sources do you intend to use for "biologist"? jps (talk) 03:31, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * This source is from the British broadsheet Independent newspaper, written by Cambridge biologist and science writer Colin Tudge. Otherwise I suggest that you indicate what sources are used in other articles to indicate that someone is a biologist, that you would also be happy with. --Iantresman (talk) 10:48, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that source indicates that Sheldrake is a biologist. Can you explain? (I also note that there are a lot of errors of fact in that source which makes me concerned as to its reliability). jps (talk) 10:56, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The article says "... he is a scientist himself, through and through: a botanist with a double first from Cambridge..." . I'm not sure what errors of fact you are referring to, as you specified none. What kind of source would you usually expect to confirm someone is a biologist? --Iantresman (talk) 11:52, 6 April 2015 (UTC) Update. Mea culpa, just noticed that I read "botanist" as "biologist". --Iantresman (talk) 11:53, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Basically, everything Tudge says about physics in that article is incorrect or at least grossly misleading. Let's find a better article (I don't think that one should be found in Wikipedia sourcing anything but Tudge's opinions). Besides, it doesn't really support what you're trying to source anyway. jps (talk) 12:10, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I note, however, that Tudge's article gives a nice turn of phrase. Couldn't we say, "Sheldrake is a biologist by training and former profession." We have the sources for that! jps (talk) 12:11, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Because he is still a biologist, according to several criteria (above), and the Society of Biology. Here are some sources supporting Sheldrake as a biologist: The Telegraph newspaper, the Open University, University of Reading, Open University programme broadcast on the BBC, and the Society of Biology. --Iantresman (talk) 12:19, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * None of those sources are inconsistent with the statement "Sheldrake is a biologist by training and former profession." jps (talk) 14:12, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * All the sources I provided are consistent with the statement that Sheldrake is a biologist, period. I disagree with your phrase, which diminishes the description that the Society of Biology suggests is proper. --Iantresman (talk) 14:40, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The Society of Biology didn't suggest any phrase was more proper than any other phrase. Do you disagree with the factual basis of the statement? Do you think that Sheldrake was not trained as a biologist? jps (talk) 14:45, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * ...replied in the section below. --Iantresman (talk) 14:54, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Iantresman is right; demarcation is not a busyness everybody is skilled at. It would be worthwhile to note, though that, whether Sheldrake himself sees his morphic resonance kind of "studies/opinions" as psuedoscientific (or something else) or not. Logos (talk) 21:22, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

"Biologist by training"
I really like that turn of phrase. It doesn't denigrate nor does it promote. It just states the facts. We avoid controversy completely that way.

I tried it out, but it would be nice if others would adjust accordingly.

I don't think it appropriate to identify Sheldrake as a "scientist" since he criticizes science explicitly. He might be called a "disputer of the scientific method", but I don't think that's an appropriate designator.

jps (talk) 14:15, 6 April 2015 (UTC)


 * It's not for you to decide whether Sheldrake is, or is not a scientist, because he criticizes science, per WP:SYNTH. The Society of Biology says of Sheldrake that "He is clearly a biologist". That is the view of the professional body for biologists. --Iantresman (talk) 14:44, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't decide anything. The sin of omission is not binding in Wikipedia. We don't identify every "scientist" as a scientist on Wikipedia. That's not required. We are supposed to describe what people are notable for. Sheldrake's scientific contributions are not that notable. jps (talk) 15:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

You stated: "Do you think that Sheldrake was not trained as a biologist?". I reply: Sheldrake did not just train as a biologist, he received a degree and a doctorate that the Society of Biology considers make him "clearly a biologist". --Iantresman (talk) 14:55, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * We also mention his professional employment. That goes above and beyond. If this makes him "clearly a biologist", the reader surely can come to that conclusion without us spoonfeeding them. jps (talk) 15:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Training as a biologist is not the same as being [a qualified] biologist. --Iantresman (talk) 16:49, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * According to the Society of Biology it is. jps (talk) 17:12, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I think there are a couple of errors above. First, the use of the word training. Training is one of the first levels of competence one receives in a skill area. It is typically what is given in further education classes to those who did badly in high school. A bachelor's degree is never referred to as 'training'. Of course, a master's degree implies mastery of a subject, and a doctorate - PhD - implies that a person has added to the subject (i.e. 'doctored' it in some acceptable way), usually via their research and a published thesis. Sheldrake's career at Cambridge took him beyond this into the realm where he was published as a professional scientist several times in topics including Hormone Production In Plants, Auxin Transport In Plants, Cell Differentiation, The Ageing and Death of Cells, Crop Physiology, etc. I think his bio must acknowledge this; it cannot be disputed, and it cannot be taken away from a person, living or dead. Second, I know of no source that would support him being a "disputer of the scientific method". From what I've read, he seems to try to apply the existing scientific method, quite rigorously, to areas that science currently does not study. He seems to be attempting to expand science's remit, not to dispute the methods by which it works (Observation, Hypothesis, Experiment, Analysis etc). I wouldn't support any article text based on such faulty premises, unless they were cited to explicit statements in a WP:RS, and I don't see any cites here. --Nigelj (talk) 19:20, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Is it possible that "by training" is a UK/US language divide thing? jps (talk) 21:13, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Sheldrake is not a "disputer of the scientific method". In his book Science Set Free (Preface), he writes "I strongly believe in the importance of the scientific approach". --Iantresman (talk) 10:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
 * after which he goes on to posit a position completely at odds with scientific approaches to anything. Self identification is of little value. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  19:54, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, I'm not in favor of a categorical delimiter of Sheldrake as one who disputes the scientific method. I do think, however, that he is in rough agreement with those who argue we should modify the typical methodology to allow "non-materialist" hypotheses. It is a similar argument to theistic realism. jps (talk) 16:01, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sure we could ascertain Sheldrakes' views on science from his book. --Iantresman (talk) 16:07, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Which book? The one about resonating dogs, or the one about staring -Roxy the Viking dog™ (resonate) 16:51, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I meant to say books (plural). If he has books on dogs and starring that describe his views on science, then that is good enough. --Iantresman (talk) 17:02, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Contentious material in lede
On principle, contended material should not be included without consensus. I object tot he following sentence in the lede, as presently sourced:


 * Sheldrake argues that science should incorporate alternative medicine, psychic phenomena, and a greater focus on holistic thinking.

I object to this because while he may argue this, he does so on no credible basis. This is like including the claims of a psychic without including the real-world consensus view that the claims are fraudulent. Since the source is his own website, there is no balancing reality-based perspective: the reason science does not include alternative medicine is because alternative medicine is defined by lack of scientific evidence. If science accepts alternative medicine it can only be because (a) new evidence has shown that it works, in which case it's no longer alternative, or (b) you've decided to extend the meaning of science to include unverifiable phenomena, in which case it's no longer science. The idea that science does not engage in holistic thinking is also bollocks, much of the past century has been spent in an energetic search for a grand unifying theory, and it doesn't get much more holistic than that.

So: a self-sourced statement of faith contradicted by empirical fact, with no balancing reference to independent sources, should not be included in the lede. Guy (Help!) 17:21, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I see your point, but it would be nice to actually tell the reader what Sheldrake believes. He thinks that the scientific method should be changed to accommodate beliefs in such things, for example. We need sources. jps (talk) 17:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is reasonable to aspire to tell the reader that this is what Sheldrake believes, but to do so without including the reasons why this demonstrates a profound error about the nature of science and evidence fails WP:NPOV rather badly. If there are no reliable independent sources discussing these beliefs, then it is obviously not significant enough for the lede anyway. Guy (Help!) 18:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know what the best sources are. I've read a lot about Sheldrake and think that the summary should be pretty easy to arrive at. "Sheldrake advocates for a complete overhaul of the scientific method so that pseudoscientific ideas found in areas such as alternative medicine, psychic phenomena, and holism can be incorporated." Just playing around, really. jps (talk) 20:51, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I cannot see any good reason for removing a simple, brief explanation of Sheldrake's views from the lead. I am not convinced by JzG's arguments above; Sheldrake himself is clearly notable, so it seems silly to say that his views are not significant enough for the lead of an article about him. I also believe JzG is wrongly edit warring to remove that material; I believe it should be restored. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:31, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Might there be a better way to write it? jps (talk) 22:43, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm open to suggestions. Go ahead and make one. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I did, above, but I can't say I'm particularly pleased with it. jps (talk) 23:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, make another suggestion, then. While the previous text could be improved on, it should still simply be restored if no one suggests something better; JzG was wrong to remove it through edit warring. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not really interested in pissing into the wind. Comments on what would be good to see in such a rewrite would be appreciated. You could start with criticizing my less-than-perfect suggestions. jps (talk) 00:03, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * @FreeKnowledgeCreator: I understand that you can't see why an in-universe presentation of his twaddle is a problem. That's why I stated above, why it is a problem per policy. Maybe you don't understand why his views amount to pseudoscientific balderdash? If so I'll happily explain. Guy (Help!) 22:55, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If you are suggesting that I am in any way sympathetic to Sheldrake, rest assured that your suggestion is quite mistaken. I believe that the lead does a reasonable job of explaining that the scientific community does not take his views seriously, and that the sentence you removed is simply neutral and descriptive rather than promotional. I have restored it, as you clearly had no consensus for removal. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:11, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that describing the views of a person, in their bio article, is perfectly normal. The only point I would make is that Sheldrake's views on these matters may be a little more nuanced, for example that science should incorporate more open-minded investigation of these matters, rather than that it should simply 'incorporate' them wholesale, as they are, in some way that isn't specified. --Nigelj (talk) 22:02, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see the original quote on which the statement is made, we don't want to misrepresent him. --Iantresman (talk) 23:46, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Sheldrake does not need a credible basis to offer an opinion, and we don't need one to describe his view. If there is a reason in a descent source, we provide it. Wikipedia already describes the crazy opinions of many people, with them having no foundation whatsoever. --Iantresman (talk) 22:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Given your history of advocating non-standard views, I think we are best off ignoring your opinion on this. Guy (Help!) 22:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If you are going to make WP:ASPERSIONS, then you need to back them up with diffs, as you failed to do previously. Sheldrake is advocating the non-standard views, not me. I've stated my views on several occasions, that I don't believe in psychic phenomena, let alone by pets. That you draw the opposite conclusion is troubling. To repeat FreeKnowledgeCreator "the point of that sentence is simply to explain what Sheldrake's views are, not to suggest that his views are credible" I have previously added the source supporting Maddox's description of Sheldrake's work as "pseudo-science", hardly consistent with being an advocate. --Iantresman (talk) 10:24, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

How about replacing "Sheldrake argues" by "Sheldrake believes"? I also thought of "Sheldrake claims" but "claim" does not fit the "should" in the same sentence - you cannot make claims about desirables. Using "argues" implies that he can give reasons for his belief, while "believes" does not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:30, 8 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I would argue that Sheldrake's book, Set Science Free provides a bookful of reasons for his beliefs. I t would help if the source provided a page number so we can determine if this is the case. --Iantresman (talk) 08:12, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * again as a primary source, wikipedians should not be determining what out of book length work are the ideas worth noting. what have the third parties said? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  13:09, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Scientific papers listing
I note that our citation for Sheldrake being a scientist includes a CV-style list of "scientific publications" provided by Sheldrake. I notice, however, that there are number of papers listed that some would question as being strictly "scientific" (e.g. Prayer: A Challenge for Science, Noetic Sciences Review (Summer 1994). 30, 4-9). I think rather than using primary sources to assert this, we should be using secondary sources. Perhaps there is a better identifier?

jps (talk) 14:51, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that producing scientific papers, and having them published in scientific journals, is not an indicator of whether someone is a scientist. The Society of Biology (above) stated that to be a biologist "It is not necessary to publish peer reviewed papers". However, publishing non-scientific papers in addition to one's scientific papers, does not disqualify someone's scientific output. I think that Sheldrake's list of articles contains sufficient examples of scientific papers, that are consistent with him being described a scientist. Personally, I would describe him as a British biologist, but this implies that he is also a scientist. What sources do we use for other scientists? --Iantresman (talk) 16:36, 9 April 2015 (UTC)


 * As a rule we don't list scientific papers for anyone except the really most important reputation-making publications. Besides being a place to slip in his crankishness, it's another attempt at trying to burnish his credentials. Mangoe (talk) 17:29, 9 April 2015 (UTC)


 * List of papers used in justifying a claim like that is straight up WP:OR. I don't see how that's even controversial. Second Quantization (talk)
 * Which is why I said "scientific journals, is not an indicator of whether someone is a scientist". I share the same view as the Society of Biology above, the professional organisation for biologists. --Iantresman (talk) 21:14, 9 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The long-running attempt by supporters to characterise him as a scientist, has always been driven by a desire to legitimise the crank ideas for which he is known. As a scientist, he was never notable. As a crank, he is. I think it would be wrong to use the term scientist in the first sentence as this would mandate that we also include the fact that he has for some years produced only pseudoscience and conspiracist claptrap. Better to avoid it altogether and leave that discussion for the body, where it can be done in a properly nuanced style. Guy (Help!) 23:13, 9 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Nonsense Guy. I don't know any such "supporters". Every editor here has accepted that we can attribute Sheldrake's work to various people calling him a pseudoscientist, and I have previous added such sources to the article myself. I have also repeatedly said that I do not accept, for example, the idea of psychic dogs. In fact, I don't know ANY editors here who are trying to "characterise him as a scientist" without sources. Clearly it is not editors characterising Sheldrake as a biologist/scientist, but the professional body for biologists (See Society of Biology above), and numerous reliable sources (also above), that are not required in any other Wikipedia article. --Iantresman (talk) 12:38, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If you don't know of any such supporters then you have a short memory. There was much fuss not long ago when Sheldrake encouraged a number of friends to come along here to "correct" our reflection of the real-world consensus in respect of morphic resonance. The question is not whether he has ever qualified as a scientist, but whether he is a scientist, i.e. whether his work has the status of science. Actually it has the status of pseudoscience. So it's better to leave such ambiguities out of the lede and discuss them in the body. Guy (Help!) 15:04, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Editors, and a handful of individuals do not get to decide whether someone is a scientist, per WP:SYNTH. The professional body representing biologists, the Society of Biology says of Sheldrake that "he is clearly a biologist". I am more than happy to include the views of a handful of critics, such as Maddox and Coyne. I am not aware of any sources which correlate "being a scientist" with "work that has the status of science" (whatever that is). --Iantresman (talk) 16:35, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) We are not ruled by Society of Biology. 2) We ARE ruled by WP:UNDUE which does not allow us to be presenting something as "scientific" when the mainstream academic world has an entirely different view . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  17:05, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You are comparing apples and oranges. I could counter that we ARE ruled by WP:RS such as the Society of Biology (representing 15,000 professional and academic members), and not ruled by the opinions of a handful of critics (which we already include in the article). I would like to see your source concerning the "mainstream academic world", and your opinion on how this differs from the Society of Biology. --Iantresman (talk) 09:37, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what source do you intend on using that was published by the Society of Biology? I'd like to see how we're going to verify the connection between them and the subject of this article. jps (talk) 02:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The Society of Biology is the source, and I verified the information by contacting them. You can do the same, unless you don't want to look through the telescope of facts. --Iantresman (talk) 08:15, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I am unable to verify that Rupert Sheldrake is a member of the Society of Biology. jps (talk) 08:40, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of anyone who has claimed that he is a member of the Society of Biology, and I don't think it is relevant. I do not think there is any obligation on any biologist being a member. --Iantresman (talk) 12:15, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If Sheldrake is not a member and they have no published works about him, I fail to see what relevance the Society of Biology has to this page. jps (talk) 12:44, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The Society of Biology is a professional organisation, and know better than you and me, the criteria for calling someone a biologist. At no point have they suggested that membership, nor having published papers, is such a criteria. --Iantresman (talk) 13:57, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

So you're proposing that we use an e-mail you may or may not have received to synthesize a citation for Rupert Sheldrake. I don't know that this is standard Wikipedia practice. Can you point to any other time something like this has been done? jps (talk) 14:38, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I never said anything of the sort. I specifically said that the Society of Biology was a primary source, that I was able to verify, and that you could too. Can you point to any other article where an individual who has a degree in a biology-related field, requires an addition source supporting that they are also a biologist? --Iantresman (talk) 23:35, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Every article about every biologist requires a source that confirms they are a biologist. When you find such a source, let us know. jps (talk) 00:24, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Been there, done that, we have dozens of independent sources that state Sheldrake is a biologist, including the Society of Biology who state that a degree is sufficient criteria to be called a biologist, thereby confirming all the independent sources. I know of no sources which describe how one's status as a biologist is revoked. --Iantresman (talk) 08:09, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I remain unconvinced. jps (talk) 10:35, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you need to explain (a) how the sources you say we use for other biologists are better in some way (b) what sources you are using to ascertain whether someone is a biologist, per WP:TALK. --Iantresman (talk) 13:56, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:REDFLAG the burden is on the extraordinary claim that someone promoting psychic dogs is a "biologist" rather than a "parapsychologist". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:11, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * @TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom Nonsense. Isaac Newton "promoted" the occult yet he is still considered a physicist. I am aware of no sources where one's field of enquiry affects one's status as a scientist, and I await ANY source which suggests otherwise per WP:TALK. --Iantresman (talk) 15:33, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Whatever Newton's occult pasttimes were, he still did real science. Not so for Mr. Your Dog May be Psychic. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  18:50, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the WP:BURDEN is not met by an e-mail that may or may not have been received from some flunky at the Society of Biology. jps (talk) 15:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * @jps So do what an editor is supposed to do, and check the facts with the Society of Biology. Of course you are under no obligation to do so; why let an ugly fact get in the way of a beautiful opinion? --Iantresman (talk) 15:27, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Nope, that's original research. jps (talk) 18:23, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Fair point, you got there in the end. So we just need to find a published source? --Iantresman (talk) 20:09, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's the lede, so what we really should do is summarize the article and the article should be based on reliable sources. We do have a bit about his former career as a biologist in the article. Are there any other sources you think should be in the article? Do you think the lede does a good job summarizing what we have in the article? jps (talk) 04:14, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the lede misrepresents Sheldrake, who numerous reliable sources call a biologist (detailed several times previously). Using the Society of Biology as a guide (not a source), they distinguished "biologist" from "professional biologist", and specify the appropriate criteria. But just for you, and uniquely for ALL other biologists mentioned on Wikipedia, we'll if we can get the Society of Biology as a published source. I am not aware of any sources which tells us how a biologist loses their status as a biologist. Just to be clear, I am basing my opinion on reliable sources and the guidance of the Society of Biology, and am happy that article includes reference to critics that question Sheldrake (eg. such as the reference I added to Maddox describing Sheldrake's work as pseudoscience). --Iantresman (talk) 09:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see the summary misrepresentation of the article. jps (talk) 10:39, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Minchin's Law

 * Sheldrake argues in his books that science should incorporate alternative medicine, psychic phenomena, and a greater focus on holistic thinking.

We really can't include this without a balancing statement. Minchin's Law: by definition, alternative medicine either hasn't been proven to work, or has been proven not to work. The term for alternative medicine that's been proven to work is: medicine.

Sheldrake can assert until he is blue in the face that science should include alternative medicine, it won't happen because it can't happen. Alternative medicine is defined by its lack of credible scientific evidence. The term "holistic" as used by cranks is semantically null. Science is searching for a grand unifying theory, that is pretty holistic. What Sheldrake means by holistic is mind-body woo. That's not holistic, it's just nebulous bullshit. Guy (Help!) 23:24, 9 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The lead already has a balancing statement: it refers to "the negative reception Sheldrake's ideas have received from the scientific community." That is enough. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:35, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * But it does not address this specific point. His ideas about moronic resonance are wrong, but this exemplifies a differnt problem: his belief that science should jettison objectivity in order to allow for his unverified conjectures to be treated as if they had merit. Guy (Help!) 06:01, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Your use of the expression "moronic resonance" (you are referring to his theory of morphic resonance) suggests an unhelpful lack of detachment. I simply disagree with your suggestion that each and every specific claim made by Sheldrake needs a specific rebuttal in the lead. A general disclaimer that the scientific community does not take him seriously is quite enough. I am surprised that you are resorting to edit warring to push through your change. As you should know very well, if there is no consensus to make a change, it is not made. So you cannot use "no consensus" as an excuse to keep reverting. Maybe you should place a request for comment? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The recent edit by TheRedPenOfDoom is highly inappropriate. I note that neither JzG nor TheRedPenOfDoom has seen fit to explain precisely what additional "context" they consider necessary. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 09:10, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think I have explained it well enough, but I am happy to explain it further.
 * The idea of incorporating woo into science, as he advocates, might seem superficially reasonable to the casual reader, especially in the context of the rhetoric spun by Chopra and his ilk. The reader will wonder: "sure, why not?" And being Wikipedia we should answer that question: woo is woo because it fails the basic standards of science, you cannot incorporate woo into science without changing science to the point that it will no longer have any value. If science were to relax its standards sufficiently to embrace alternative medicine, with homeopathy being the most common example, then it would have lost the essential defining characteristic that makes it science rather than natural philosophy.
 * If Sheldrake advocated the repeal of the laws of thermodynamics, which is at the root of what he actually wants to happen, the casual reader might be expected to immediately grasp that this is absurd. But instead it's stated in terms of his wanting to "integrate" woo, which plays to the superficially appealing fallacy of "integrative" medicine and the like. The fact that integrating quackery into medicine only makes medicine worse, is a point not readily apparent in the wheedling of quacks promoting "integrative" and "holistic" medicine.
 * The word "holistic" as used in your preferred content is especially problematic. It comes straight from the alt med marketing playbook. It is fallacious in that it begs the question: if you have a bacterial infection and go to a doctor, the doctor will give you an antibiotic that kills the bacteria; if you go to a quack they will give you some potion that may be entirely ineffective but will sit and chat about how you feel about your illness, and call this "caring for the whole person". Actually the doctor is caring for the whole person by curing the disease, and the quack is simply conning them.
 * So, statements that Sheldrake believes that science should throw out the baby in order to make room for him to pour his bullshit into the bathwater, cannot stand alone as bald statements, because without important qualifications the causal reader may well not realise what they would actually mean.
 * A science that conforms to Sheldrake's beliefs would be a science that allowed for the moon to be made of cheese, basically. Guy (Help!) 11:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * @Guy If Sheldrake has the "belief that science should jettison objectivity", then we should say so. What is your source of this? Likewise that he sayd science "should incorporate alternative medicine, psychic phenomena". I concur with the views of FreeKnowledgeCreator --Iantresman (talk) 12:49, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * "Sheldrake argues in his books that science should incorporate alternative medicine, psychic phenomena, and a greater focus on holistic thinking" (source: Sheldrake; no independent source presented to establish the significance of this claim).
 * That can only be done by jettisoning objectivity. By definition, alternative medicine either hasn't been proven to work, or has been proven not to work. The term for alternative medicine that has been proven to work is: medicine. Sheldrake also asserts that science's refusal to accept his empirically unverifiable conjectures, is a problem with science, not with his conjectures. Again, he would have science jettison objectivity in order to apply a label to his beliefs - albeit that the label would, by this very act, become worthless. It would not change the status of his beliefs.
 * Of course you agree with FreeKnowledgeCreator, you invariably support any proposal that serves to make Sheldrake seem less of a crank. I don't hold that against you, I seem to recall that you are quite passionate about an number of beliefs that are at odds with the scientific consensus. Guy (Help!) 15:01, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Which Sheldrake source, says that "science should incorporate alternative medicine" etc? We need a specific paragraph, rather than interpretation of his books. If there isn't one, the statements must go. Likewise his view on objectivity. An interpretation from editors fails WP:SYNTH.
 * I'll remind you (yet again) that I added the Maddox source describing Sheldrake's work as "an exercise in pseudo-science", and support the inclusion of the views of other critics, contradicting your statement that I "support any proposal that serves to make Sheldrake seem less of a crank". As I asked you kindly before, please don't make such WP:ASPERSIONS about me, as you also did here. --Iantresman (talk) 16:54, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * JzG's comments above are not in any way an acceptable answer to my query as to exactly what kind of "context" he deems necessary. Again, specifically what additional information would have to be added to the article to make it acceptable to restore the statement that "Sheldrake argues in his books that science should incorporate alternative medicine, psychic phenomena, and a greater focus on holistic thinking"? Would it be a specific rebuttal of each point of Sheldrake's position? That seems excessive. JzG's approach is over-zealous. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:49, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The Context question is 2-fold WP:NPOV:
 * Context of Sheldrake - is this item from his repertoire of woo particularly representative /a notorious example, or is it something that wikipedia editor(s) thought was cool? Needs a third party source to identify its importance in the context of Sheldrake.
 * Context of the real world - what does the mainstream think of this piece of woo? Needs a third party source to explain why this is considered nonsense on stilts by the practicing scientists. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  04:51, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I am sure the answer is not acceptable to you, as it conflicts with your opinions and cognitive dissonance is a bitch. It remains, however, a valid response.
 * As to where he said it. the original reference is in the quote at the top of the section, which is the text I removed from the article as contentious self-sourced opinion that conflicts with the real world.
 * If he also stated that the moon landing was a hoax, would you also want to omit the reality-based view? Guy (Help!) 23:41, 11 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Mind–body interventions are not woo, they are part of mainstream medicine. Those claiming otherwise are either not trained in medicine or deserve to have their qualifications stripped away. - A1candidate  00:11, 12 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I, personally, do not mind much whether sheldrake's that statement exists in the article or not, but it also looks quite redundant to discuss over to exclude it. Because, it does not violate any policy or guideline, to me. WP:V dictates that, article content must be verifiable, it does not need to be the truth. Even if such statements seem as "detrimental" or "all wrong" to some people, those kind of content convey some information to the reader, in the end. That's why WP:V prioritizes the verifiability over the truth. If the content to be included passes WP:V, then WP:WEIGHT and WP:BLP comes into the scene; which I don't think that are violated by sheldrake's that opinion piece. It should not be overlooked that, the article is about sheldrake, not about the science (i.e.; we're not reporting sheldrake's opinions in the science article). Nevertheless, TRPoD has a point; it would be better to cite it by a secondary source. If sheldrake had stated that moon landing was a hoax, I'm sure the objecting party would have been eager to include that as the main proof of his nuttiness. Logos (talk) 01:13, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * JzG, what do you think you're doing by saying that I find your answer unacceptable because it conflicts with my opinions? What opinions? What do you imagine I believe? I'm not a supporter of Sheldrake's views at all, if that is what you imagine. Your response is too vague to be helpful, and as such of course it isn't valid. The comments by the Red Pen of Doom are barely coherent and unfortunately simply illustrate the low level of discourse on Wikipedia. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:34, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * At the very least, we need to see the primary source describing Sheldrake's views. No source, no statement. --Iantresman (talk) 09:38, 12 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Support inclusion of this sentence in the lede to balance out the POV, pejorative sentence that is also included in the lede, per nominator. Cla68 (talk) 06:41, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * we do not create false "balances." WP:GEVAL. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  13:12, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Per WP:GEVAL, we give no validity to the statement. Per FreeKnowledgeCreator (again), "that sentence serves a neutral, descriptive purpose only and does not promote Sheldrake's views" --Iantresman (talk) 14:03, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * as Guy clearly indicated, it is not and is not serving as a neutral, descriptive purpose only.--  TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  23:11, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, which adjective serves to promote, or provide any kind of veracity to Sheldrake's view? --Iantresman (talk) 23:28, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * the entire presentation - promoting and framing his claims as if it were possible to "integrate" nonsense into science and medicine without fundamentally changing what science and medicine into not-science and not-medicine. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I ask again. Which adjectives (or words), implies we are promoting Sheldrake's views? --Iantresman (talk) 14:11, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * and the answer, again, is the entire framing of the presentation is unduly promoting and presenting the claims in an inappropriately POV manner. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:22, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * one does not have to use the adjective "superfantabulous" to violate NPOV. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:30, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You said specifically that the sentence was promoting Sheldrake's view. Which word is doing that? If we can ascertain that, we can see whether NPOV is being violated, and correct the sentence accordingly. --Iantresman (talk) 15:05, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, the sentence alone, without context of how his claims do not have actual meaningful substance, is an undue presentation, promoting Sheldrakes views as something other than clop trop. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  15:28, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Sheldrake does not need "meaningful substance" to have both an outlandish view, and for us to describe it. --Iantresman (talk) 15:39, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * But we were not "describing it" - it was presented without any context which was the issue.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  16:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)


 * It should be a matter of common sense that the content included should reflect what the actual source says, not the spin of some users. The would be assasin (talk) 07:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Sense of being stared at
I completely disagree with jps's removal of the text by Nigelj, describing them as "coatracky". As a description of Sheldrake's book, it is utterly irrelevant whether "Sheldrake's claims are refuted by others". After all, we describe Becher's Phlogiston theory, "Flat Earth theory‎", and "Steady State theory", all of which have been refuted by others. If you have any reliable sources refuting Sheldrake's points, by all means include them. But it is not refuted that Sheldrake made these points. --Iantresman (talk) 15:00, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:COAT says that it applies to an "article that ostensibly discusses its nominal subject, but has been edited to make a point about one or more tangential subjects." I find it hard to believe that jps meant to say that that was my motivation when I added a brief synopsis of this book into the article about its author. My personal motivations aside, that is an essay, not policy: WP:CONSENSUS is policy. Do other editors think it is reasonable to have a few lines about the contents of Sheldrake's main books here, under the appropriate headings, along with published criticisms per WP:FRINGE? --Nigelj (talk) 15:07, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Your description about Sheldrake's book, is in a section devoted to that book. That is not "tangential", and consequently WP:WINAC (What is not a coatrack). where it gives a specific example:
 * "An article that presents factual information (including criticism) about a discredited scientific theory is also not a coatrack" --Iantresman (talk) 16:12, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree, I think Nigelj's edit was entirely reasonable. Screamliner (talk) 07:05, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

The consensus here seems pretty clear. I shall reinstate the paragraph. Thanks for your input, guys. --Nigelj (talk) 10:24, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * it is clearly WP:UNDUE weight to so fully present his extraordinary claims as supported only by his work and Dean Radin. It fails to present the appropriate mainstream academic reception of his claims . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  11:33, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the synopses of individual books are undue. They could be collapsed into a section on "morphic resonance" and a section on his views of telepathy/precognition, with each of those sections listing applicable books by title only. Appropriate rebuttals included, of course. Rhoark (talk) 20:08, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think book synopses may be very problematic, but the wording was outrageously coatracky. It's clear there is no consensus to include this wording at all, and I'm fine if people remove it wholesale. If we keep wording like this in, it must be couched as Sheldrake's peculiar opinion (as indeed they are -- his work is not replicated by independent reviewers -- nor is it published in reliable journals). jps (talk) 20:31, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

@TRPoD. If we pretended there was any veracity to Sheldrake's ideas, and/or presented them as such in a mainstream article, then the claims would be extraordinary. We don't. We simply follow WP:SUBSTANTIATE "Biased statements of opinion can be presented only with attribution", which is exactly what we do. That Sheldrake may believe in telepathic animals is not extraordinary. Claiming that animals are telepathic is extraordinary. --Iantresman (talk) 23:15, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * claims of telepathy and other psychic phenomena are EXTRAORDINARY whether they appear in the article about New Zealand or in the article about quarks or in an article about a book that claims that telepathy is factual. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  00:27, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Surely you understand the difference between (a) claiming that there really is an extraordinary phenomenon called telepathy (b) Stating the indisputable facts that Sheldrake has written about, made some investigations on the concept of telepathy, and claims he has evidence consistent with it, per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV? For the record (for the umpteenth time), I do not believe in telepathy myself. --Iantresman (talk) 13:44, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Surely you understand that a book that claims that he has "evidence" consistent with telepathy is as clearly an EXTRAORDINARY claim as stating straight out that telepathy exists. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  16:33, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Your confusing a book's claims, which is indisputable, as described by WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV per WP:NPOV, with that claim being a truth. By your logic, every sci-fi book would have to have significant disclaimers so that the weak minded aren't "taken in" by the fiction. Read WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, it covers this very point. Didn't Alice in Wonderland sometimes think of six impossible things before breakfast? That's so extraordinary, it should never be reported in Wikipedia! --Iantresman (talk) 18:49, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You are seriously conflating fiction with content presented as non-fiction? or are you stating that we need to present his books as science fiction? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  20:12, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't distort my comments. I deliberately chose science fiction as a genre because its supposed to be scientifically plausible, but blurs the line with its imaginary elements. My comment still stands, read WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV per WP:NPOV, and tell me how you interpretate it. --Iantresman (talk) 20:41, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

@jps. Book synopses are not problematic, as is evidenced by every Wikipedia article that summarises a book or a film. Of course we must attribute Sheldrake's ideas as his opinions, which is implicit in every book summary on Wikipedia, per WP:MNA. Nowhere do we imply that any of Sheldrake's ideas have any veracity. --Iantresman (talk) 23:15, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not distorting your comments. You are the one who compared Sheldrake's to to science fiction. If you want to present Sheldrake's work as science fiction and not fringe science, please provide a source that shows it has been consistently mis-shelved. Otherwise your analogy is comparing apples to existentialism. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  02:43, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are continuing to distort my comments. I did not compare Sheldrake to science fiction. I'll making it easier for you. You are confusing (a) an indisputable attributed statement, with (b) the statement being a truth. An example by way of clarification. It is indisputable that (a) Sheldrake "sees psychic phenomena as an extension of biology", which is not the same as suggesting that (b) psychic phenomena is an extension of biology, which none of us would allow in the article. Statement (a) is wholly consistent with WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV per WP:NPOV. --Iantresman (talk) 12:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It is indisputable that presenting Sheldrake's fringe claims in the article about Sheldrake does not make the claims any less fringe or any less subject to the requirement that we clearly frame fringe claims that have no measurable support in the scientific community as claims that have no measurable support in the scientific community. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:39, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * We frame the claims per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. An attributed claim does not have the same level of credulity as making a bold-faced claim per WP:ASSERT. This is first thing mentioned in WP:NPOV in the section WP:WikiVoice. --Iantresman (talk) 15:27, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Book synopses are problematic when they include content that hasn't been reviewed by independent reliable sources especially when they make phenomenological claims that are WP:FRINGE like Sheldrake's ideas. jps (talk) 23:27, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * No. Book synopses can be problematic, when inexperienced editors are incapable of writing neutral prose. Fortunately experienced editors such as yourself would have no problem in basic comprehension, and can always fall back on WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV per WP:NPOV. --Iantresman (talk) 13:48, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * And in this instance, the existing synopsis IS problematic in that it inappropriately fails to present his EXTRAORDINARY claims in the appropriate frame. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  20:30, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:MNA tells us that we don't need to frame every statement with a disclaimer. We've already framed Sheldrake's work in the introduction. --Iantresman (talk) 20:48, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There is nothing in MNA that that counters WP:FRIND and the extraordinary claims that come up in every sentence when trying to summarize Sheldrakes works which is part of the issue - we are not summarizing based on third party sources - we only have the primary source. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  02:53, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, WP:MNA is a part of WP:NPOV, and from its lead, "is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus". --Iantresman (talk) 12:42, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Per your MNA "It is difficult to draw up a rule, but the following principle may help: there is probably not a good reason to discuss some assumption on a given page, if that assumption is best discussed in depth on some other page." What other page would be better to discuss Sheldrakes EXTRAORDINARY claims made in his books? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  13:04, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not my WP:MNA, it is core policy. If Sheldrake is making an extraordinary claim about telepathy, then a link to the Wiki page on telepathy is adequate. Sheldrake's work is already framed in the introductory paragraphs. If Sheldrake is making extraordinary claims about physical constants, then we link to the page on Constants of nature. That someone makes extraordinary claims is not in itself extraordinary. --Iantresman (talk) 13:32, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If it is more appropriate to explicitly cover Sheldrake's extraordinary claims about telepathy in the telepathy article then fine, we dont explicitly discuss them here, and the summary with its explicit information about his extraordinary claims is still problematic.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:58, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no objection to Sheldrake being addressed in the article on telepathy, though the view of mainstream science is already addressed. And we already address Sheldrake's claims on telepathy in his article, so we don't need to mention it every single time it is mentioned; the audience may have only basic levels of comprehension, but they are not imbeciles. --Iantresman (talk) 15:19, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

I see the whole paragraph has been removed again, even after jps extensively edited it. The edit summary says that this deletion was done "as per talk", with something about putting it in the telepathy article. I think that that is misleading and disingenuous, as I don't see any consensus here for that change, and clearly it would not be appropriate content for the overall telepathy article per WP:UNDUE. The idea that the contents of this book are so dangerous that even to summarise them in a brief paragraph in a section specifically about the book, simply stated as being the contents of the book, and the unadopted views only of the author, is extraordinary. WP:NPOV requires that the mainstream view should always prevail - which it clearly did before the deletion - and that pseudoscience and fringe views should be stated as such - which again was clearly followed. What it does not require is that an article about a fringe view should not mention the fringe view. Extremist editing of that type makes our articles less useful. For example our article on the Moon landing conspiracy theories has a large section on the the hoax claims. Furthermore, Wikipedia editing decisions proceed on the basis of consensus, and here I see many people putting perfectly reasonable arguments for the inclusion of this brief paragraph. jps started off arguing against the inclusion, but then made an extensive edit, linked above, which I assume tidied it up more or less to their satisfaction. There were no responses at all at FT/N, so there are no strong feelings there, despite the inflammatory language with a certain amount of disrespect to fellow editors. I would prefer to listen to the majority, as I don't like the feel of these repeated unilateral deletions so far. --Nigelj (talk) 08:56, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * At no point did I suggest, or mean, that any of the material on any aspect of Sheldrake, his works, or books, should be moved to the article on telepathy. It is very clear from WP:MNA in WP:NPOV, that any discussion telepathy includes the necessary assumptions and framing, merely by us referring to the Wikipedia article on telepathy, and by us already stating the mainstream view elsewhere in the Sheldrake article.
 * No other fringe, or contentious article, removes material so that the "weak minded" and those who have no basic English comprehension, misinterpret what is obvious to everyone else.
 * I also resent posts by TRPoD deliberately trying to be divisive with groups of editors, and inappropriate posts by Manul making WP:ASPERSIONS based on edits over a decade ago. --Iantresman (talk) 13:17, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * No one is objecting in principle to including a book summary. However, given the controversial nature of Sheldrake's work, it would be best if we sourced such summaries to third-party independent reviews rather than the book itself just so that we don't give undue weight to the parts of the book that are not prominently part of this topic. By independent reviews, I mean we should look for reviews from those who are not inclined towards Sheldrake's POV and instead try to position his book's contents neutrally in the context of known scientific facts and principles, for example. Or, for example, in the context of religious dreams if that is relevant, etc. jps (talk) 15:09, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem with independent reviews, but that is an additional an welcome addition. WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV still allows us to describe Sheldrake's POV (neutrally), and if there are also reviews (not just negative reviews), we can describe those POVs too. --Iantresman (talk) 20:21, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If you cannot find outside notice of his claims, then they have zero WP:PROMINENCE and will be removed from Wikipedia. jps (talk) 22:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. You are confusing viewpoints we might include in a mainstream article with "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views" per WP:DUE, and which we can describe neutrally per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, all of which are described in WP:NPOV which it states "is non-negotiable". I am a strong proponent of WP:NPOV, as I am sure you are too. --Iantresman (talk) 15:37, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not allow the proliferation of content that was not independently discussed. Full stop. jps (talk) 01:18, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. It requires a reliable published source. Of course independent peer reviewed sources are often better than, for example, a primary source, which "can be both reliable and useful in certain situations" see WP:WPNOTRS per WP:RS. Of course we would not "proliferate" a minority view in a mainstream article per WP:UNDUE. --Iantresman (talk) 07:15, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * You say "nonsense", and then go on to agree with my assessment. jps (talk) 11:11, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I was disagreeing with the generality that we do not allow "content that was not independently discussed". Since the article on Sheldrake is about his minority views, my comment regarding mainstream articles seems moot. --Iantresman (talk) 11:52, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Independent discussion is necessary to establish the relative weight of the content. If there is zero independent discussion... elimination is what happens. That doesn't mean we can't reference a primary source, it just means that it must be represented in balance with the most well-known aspects of the topic according to the sources that are not promoting the topic (see WP:PROFRINGE). In the case of Sheldrake, there are a lot of independent sources discussing his books and his ideas, so we go by those. What we do not have are any independent sources that verify his particular statistical claims, so we should not be proliferating them. jps (talk) 11:58, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. We do not need to verify any claims because we are not claiming that anything that Sheldrake says has any veracity whatsoever. That's the whole point of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Sheldrake may be completely wrong, may have made up his results, lied, or even used voodoo, but that does not mean we can't describe his views neutrally per WP:NPOV (a) by attributing them (b) having made necessary assumptions per WP:MNA. If we were stating some Sheldrake's views as facts in mainstream articles, then it would be completely different, and I would agree with you 100%. --Iantresman (talk) 15:07, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

We need to identify which claims are WP:PROMINENT. Those no one has bothered to talk about except Sheldrake are not prominent enough for inclusion here. jps (talk) 18:59, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views (such as Flat Earth).", so they are not automatically excluded, but I'm happy to compromise, and include only those views which have been mentioned in at least another independent source. --Iantresman (talk) 11:11, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:UNDUE] we represent the subject in proportion to how the subject has been seen and presented by reliable sources. so given the fact that he has been talked about, we follow and present what has been talked about ( not pulling other stuff out and artificially presenting it as "uncontested" because no one has even bother to notice it.) -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  13:16, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, in mainstream articles, where we may be summarising many POVs. But if you carry on reading "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views (such as Flat Earth)", also part of WP:UNDUE --Iantresman (talk) 15:46, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It does seem that jps and TRPoD here are demanding the standards that would be required if talking about the flat Earth in an article on space flight, or about Sheldrake's book in an article on psychology. It seems perfectly clear to me that in an article about an author, brief summaries or synopses of his main books are perfectly normal to include, and that the summaries should be based on the content of the books, not on the contents of their reviews. Of course, their reception by reviews, critics, and their place in the overall literature should also be given with full prominence. Some of this criticism is already in place, I'm sure more can be found. I don't see how we're ever going to get there if every mention of the content of the book is removed. It seems quite counter to making reasonable progress to improving the article. Progress in creating an excellent encyclopedia is achieved by improving what's there, and adding to articles, not by continuously deleting material that other people have added. --Nigelj (talk) 22:41, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sometimes the best way forward is to remove bucketloads of nonsense and non-encyclopedic crap: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  18:41, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Nigelj, agree completely, as it allows the representation of several views. --Iantresman (talk) 09:38, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
 * "[Including] only those views which have been mentioned in at least another independent source" as Ian suggested is good for me. Please keep in mind WP:FRIND when looking for the independent sources. jps (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Interview and Debate Material
Here’s an interview with Sheldrake and a debate/dialog between Sheldrake and Michael Shermer archived at TheBestSchools.org. (I have a relationship with the site where this content is hosted):

- Rupert Sheldrake Interview

- Sheldrake-Shermer Dialogue on the Nature of Science, May thru July 2015.

BlogRodent (talk) 04:05, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Is this worth putting into the External Links section? Akesgeroth (talk) 09:22, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 October 2015
In the third paragraph, the phrase “have been characterized as” is weasel wording.

173.16.37.238 (talk) 20:35, 26 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , you need to provide a "complete and specific description" of the edit you want to see made. It would be reasonable for the lede section to leave a statement like that unattributed if it were attributed in the body of the article, though. --McGeddon (talk) 21:00, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Biritish Biologist in Lead +Morphic resonance theory
There is concensus in mainstream sources about describing him as A British biologist. (From an earler argument in the talk page): For example, he is referred to as a biologist by the University of London,[22] the University of Arizona,[23] the Open University,[24] the University of Reading,[25] the BBC,[26][27][28][29][30][31] the Daily Telegraph,[32][33][34][35] National Geographic,[36] Discover magazine,[37] The Independent newspaper,[38] Scientific American,[39][40] Science,[41] Financial Times,[42] New York Times,[43] and in various academic/university textbook,[44][45][46] peer-reviewed journals, Trans. Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2012)[47] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake/Archive_20#Source_discussing_his_so-called_.22persecution.22

Leading skeptics also refer to him as Biologist:

James Randi http://archive.randi.org/site/index.php/2-uncategorised/185-pigasus-award-2006.html Robert Baker in skeptical Inquirer http://www.csicop.org/si/show/can_we_tell_when_someone_is_staring_at_us/

Mainstream sources call Morphic resonance a theory (albeit a wrong one) such as TED Talks http://blog.ted.com/the-debate-about-rupert-sheldrakes-talk/

And so do leading skeptics Michael Shermer http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ruperts-resonance/ Suzzane Blackmore http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/04/morphic-paranormal-science-sheldrake

to the sceptics here that have virulently fought to to not add this legitimate, due weight description. Dont make a mockery out of yourself. Your own leaders call him that LOLBigbaby23 (talk) 15:39, 7 November 2015 (UTC)


 * @Roxy. I disagree with your edit summary that the reverted edit was (a) POV, due to the preponderance of reliable sources provided by Bigbaby23 above, suggesting it was no particular editor's POV, (b) That "This was settled here ages ago", I am not aware of any consensus on this matter, (c) Your suggestion that Sheldrake "hasn't done any biology for more than thirty years" would be POV on at least three counts, unless you have some sources (i) indicating that Sheldrake hasn't use his biology expertise in the last 30 years, (ii) That someone ceases to be described as a biologist at some point after possible retirement (iii) it contradicts the Society of Biology's view (the organisation representing professional biologists), and that of many sources. Of course we attribute the view of people like Maddox whose quote on pseudo-science I added myself, to ensure we maintain WP:NPOV. --Iantresman (talk) 22:34, 7 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Ianresman, there is no question. Both pro and con (even extreme con) sources describe him as biologist, and morphic resonanse as a theory. The very reason Sheldrake is so controversial is because of his high pedegree of education and background. From here on, any deletion of this material is a clear case of vandelism.Bigbaby23 (talk) 10:32, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia would not consider such edits to be vandalism which are quite well defined. I do think that the onus is on other editors to verify their statements per WP:ASSERT. As you have found, there are a preponderance of sources describing Sheldrake as a biologist. While there are some sources describing him otherwise, basic logic tells us that this does not mean he isn't a biologist (Obama has been called a lot of things, that do not mean he isn't an American, Democrat, and the President). I am not aware of any sources that specifically question whether Sheldrake is a biologist, suggesting that any statement in the article to the contrary, is WP:SYNTH and consequently fails WP:NPOV]. --Iantresman (talk) 12:01, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I have revert back to the version from multiple previous discussions where as per WP:MOSLEAD the initial sentence must describe what the subject is noted for, and it ain't his work as a "biologist" - unless someone suggests a phraseology that incorporates the essence of "who utilizes his background in biology as a white lab coat to attempt to give validity to his pseudoscientific ideas." -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  12:23, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Ian, you've been round this enough times to know better. Big baby, could you provide us with examples of the work he supposedly does in Biology? It shouldn't be difficult as you claim he is a biologist, just search for him and his work in peer reviewed journals. Remember that all his ideas don't appear to have any basis in the real world, and don't amount to testable theories. -Roxy the dog™ woof 12:42, 8 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Doom and Dog, your personal opinions have no validity in Wikipedia. You simply want to defame the man. I am warning you, it is not worth for you to risk administrative action against you for this. We both know that the skeptic sources  have completlly discredit youBigbaby23 (talk) 15:10, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, there is no mainstream coverage of his work as a biologist - it is all about him as an author promoting pseudo science ( and sometimes) inclusion of coverage of the attempts to utilize his long ago background as as a biologist as white lab coat to attempt to present woowoo as if it had a scientific basis. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  15:18, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm with TRPoD on this one. There won't be any "administrative action" as the only one pushing anything is you Face-smile.svg samtar  { t } 15:26, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Damn. No sources. Nvm. -Roxy the dog™ woof 15:30, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I should know better? I know only what I find in reliable sources. What sources are you referring to? I've never seen one questioning this. No-one is saying he is known for (a) just being a biologist (b) just for his research as a biologist.

Numerous reliable sources describe him a biologist who has written books on contentious subjects. Perhaps if he wasn't a biologist, his ideas may have sunk without trace. Those who mention his contentious work AND think it is significant and relevant to mention that he is a scientist/biologist include: The Open Universe, University of Reading, the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, National Geographic, Discover magazine, The Independent newspaper, Scientific American, Science, Financial Times, New York Times, and in various academic/university textbook, peer-reviewed journals, Trans. Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2012). --Iantresman (talk) 16:36, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

The suggestion that you must publish in peer reviewed papers, or wear a white lab coat, are the only criteria for being a biologist is contradicted by the professional body who represent biologists, the Society of Biology. You can contact them for confirmation. I am also not aware of any reliable source that agrees with this. A single source will help support your opinion so we meet WP:ASSERT. --Iantresman (talk) 16:47, 8 November 2015 (UTC)


 * There is a significant difference between identifying his background as a biologist in the article (for which there is support) and identifying him as a biologist in the lede. There it would have to be his main activity and for that there is no evidence  Snowded  TALK 16:58, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Additionally, re: background, please see the second sentence of the lead. Thanks. -Roxy the dog™ woof 17:25, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You are actually presenting the promotional speaker's blurbs   as rationale for why we should frame Sheldrake's past in a promotional manner? For someone who has been around as long as you have, that speaks soundly to a complete lack of understanding of basic Wikipedia principles or deliberate misrepresentation and disruption--  TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  17:41, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * They may well be the speaker's blurbs, but they are reproduced by respectable institutions (the OU talk was produced and broadcast by them under their banner, and I'm sure the BBC checks their facts), and were not the only sources I provided, and are a requirement of WP:NPOV and WP:V. I am still waiting to see any sources countering the statement, or any explanation why so many other reliable sources are wrong. Your other comments seem to fall short of WP:CIVIL, though I don't think I have treated you with any disrespect. --Iantresman (talk) 18:59, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you still under that topic ban on fringe science? If so I think you just breached it  Snowded  TALK 19:02, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you're the third editor who has dredged this up, or questioned my competence, understanding, whether I have an agenda, ulterior motive, blindly support pseudoscience, or just associate me with any wacky idea I may have come across. No I'm not under my fringe topic ban, and you can find details on my talk page. It is disappointing how the direction of the "discussion" has changed, and bears little resemblance to the constructive friendly editing environment I would expect from Wikipedia.
 * I now plan to take another break from Wikipedia, standing by my original comment above, and noting that there has not been one reliable source offered in return, and just one comment concerning 3 of 20+ sources I have provided. The Maddox quote I added to the article supporting his view that Sheldrake's work is pseudoscience,[,] and all other contributions I have made to the article, are still present, would suggest that my edits support WP:NPOV and WP:V and are reliable. --Iantresman (talk) 19:41, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification and there is nothing wrong with checking, you seem to read a lot more than intended into that. On the content issue you are missing the point about the lede v the article  Snowded  TALK 20:11, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I stopped when I had looked at them and found three out of three to be ridiculous basis to support your claims. Lets move on to 4 which yes, uses the term "biologist" to discuss as television show about "Are YOU telepathic?". Thats not biology. Source 5 appears to be a chat forum, and the identification of Sheldrake as a biologist is a post from someone using the handle ROS  and not anything "published" by the BBC. Source 6 about Paranormal Pigeons and how they find their way home psychically. Again, not biology. Biologists have good theories about homing pigeons that have no need for them to be paranormal. So far, zero out of six. Unless you can guarantee that some of the rest of the twenty are valid, I really have no more time for you shenanigans. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  23:38, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Synthesis
Thank you, we can now see what the issue is here. I completely agree with you that a programme on a telepathy, or similar subjects, do not support the description that someone is a biologist. To do so would be synthesis of the worse kind, (a) editors are not allowed to draw such a conclusion from such a selective set of observations per WP:SYNTH (b) the logic is poor, because you are saying he can't possible be X because I see him doing Y, the most basic of formal fallacies. This is indeed ridiculous, and the sources were never intended to support such subjective conclusions.

Similar reasoning is also WP:SYNTH, for example, (a) I don't see published peer reviewed papers on the subject, (b) I don't see him doing active research. They are WP:SYNTH because editors are setting their own personal criteria for what doesn't make a biologist. Likewise, I have never said that I think Sheldrake is a biologist solely because of my own personal set of criteria.

The point of a secondary source is that someone else has already looked at various primary sources, and drawn a conclusion for us. All of the sources I provided allow us to check that the writers/broadcaster, believe Sheldrake is a biologist, based on THEIR criteria. Neither of us is necessarily privy to those criteria, nor may we accept them individually. It might be only because Sheldrake has told them that he is a biologist (which is weakly supportive), it might be because the broadcasters have checked further and find that he has a doctorate, which exceeds the criteria which the Society of Biologist suggests.

In conclusion, a wide range of reliable source consider Sheldrake to be a biologist, allowing people to check this fact. Every Wikipedia reader will give the sources more credence than you or me. But I respect your point of view and your right to disagree. --Iantresman (talk) 10:21, 9 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Lede descriptions are summaries of the article. It seems to me that the article indicates Sheldrake basically only works on parapsychology these days and does not work in the context of academic biology. Is there a way to indicate that clearly that would satisfy everyone? jps (talk) 11:26, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * JPS, the current lead is a compromise to do that. as required by MOSBEGIN, the first sentence describes how and why Sheldrake made his mark on the world- as a promoter of woo. it is followed immediately by a description of what he did before then- which is more weight and more prominence than his short lived scientific career merits.
 * If we are going to call more note to his "biology" training and background in the lead, then it needs to be presented in the context of how it is important and relevant: that it is used as a labcoat to cover woo and give it the appearance of respectability. But Wikipedia cannot participate in that charade that just someone got a degree in science that everything they do thereafter is protected by the imprimatur of "this is scientific"-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  12:27, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think we have many sources which telegraph the politics of why identification as a "biologist" is fraught, as much as I think it's obvious that this is going on. Since the fact that he was trained as a biologist is in the lede and is part of the biography but there aren't any sources which indicate that he continues to work in academic biology, I don't think it unreasonable to be careful in how we present this characterization in the lede. The present lede seems fine to me, but if others think it isn't summarizing the article, I'm happy to be convinced that the lede isn't doing that (which is where the discussion should go rather than endless machinations over what makes a true biologist). jps (talk) 12:35, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * you are doing WP:SYNTH again. You are setting personal criteria that you consider the nature of Sheldrake's work means that any of his biological training is ipso facto unscientific. By the same logic, Isaac Newton did not do any science because of his interest in Occult Studies, which is nonsense. All the other reliable sources I provided disagree with you, making a point of calling him a biologist in association with his contentious work. That is why it is significant and relevant to specify it. If you think Sheldrake is participating in a charade, or does not deserve to be called a biologist, then provide a source. That's exactly what I did when Maddox described Sheldrake's work as "an exercise in pseudo-science".
 * As a compromise, I'd be happy with second sentence reading: "He qualified and worked as a biochemist.." --Iantresman (talk) 14:37, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually the problem is you taking selective quotes to make a point rather than paying attention to what the sources say his work is described at. The Newtonian example is nonsense as that was at the time when the transition to modern science was taking place so it was common to have practice in both alchemy and chemistry (for example),  Sheldrake is advancing a controversial position which has no support in Biology (I've hear him make it three years now at the Hay Festival and he gets less convincing every year),  Given that it is wrong to emphasis a historical role in biochemistry with his current role and focus.  Snowded  TALK 15:27, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have added contrary quotes such as Maddox describing Sheldrake's work as pseudo-science. I have requested contrary quotes which question his status as a biologist, and none have been forthcoming. We are not emphasising Sheldrake's status as a biologist, merely describing as fact, how he is seen by numerous reliable sources, without sexying it up, and without resorting WP:SYNTH. It is also wrong to assume that a biologist must be undertaking current research and publication, a view of the Society of Biologists. OK, enough, I'm bowing out for the time being. --Iantresman (talk) 15:43, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * " We are not emphasising Sheldrake's status as a biologist" What nonsense! the never ending push to attempt to prioritize his non notable contributions as "biologist" to the lead sentence is nothing but attempting to emphasise Sheldrake's "status" as a "biologist". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  17:00, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If there were but one or two sources, then we would be guilty of pushing his status as a biologist. Because we have so many sources describing him as a biologist in comparison to sources that question it, we would be guilty of suppressing his status, if we did not represent the consensus of views. I see only editors who question his status, and see why they would see it as emphasized an opinion they do not share. Wikipedia deals with reliable sources, and we always turns to reliable sources in a dispute. --Iantresman (talk) 17:11, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

If you think we should "describe" him as a biologist in the lede, it would be helpful if you would explain what in the article itself could be fleshed out to justify summarizing the article with statements such as "He qualified and worked as a biochemist..." If that is an important part of the summary of the subject of Rupert Sheldrake, then there probably needs to be some explanation of this in the article, right? So what's the proposal for new article prose, because as the article reads to me right now it seems that he moved past mainstream science rather quickly. We aren't talking about Lynn Margulis or James Lovelock here whose notability extends well beyond the fringe views they advocate. Sheldrake is notable BECAUSE he is a maverick. We should honestly explain this to the reader. jps (talk) 17:40, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The ideal intro would be:
 * "Rupert Sheldrake is an English author,[3] public speaker,[4] biologist, and now researcher in the field of parapsychology,".
 * Although we have a couple of sources describing him as "former biologist", these are out-numbered 10-to-one. Alternatively, we could say:
 * "He qualified and worked as a biochemist and cell biologist"
 * This I think is fair compromise as it doesn't say that he now works as a professional biologist, and doesn't down-grade the fact that he did more than just work as a biochemist.
 * --Iantresman (talk) 18:12, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You didn't answer my question. What content should be altered in the article below the lede? Alternatively, please try to describe how your proposed wording summarizes the extant content of the article better than the current wording. jps (talk) 18:14, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't want to digress into other areas of the article, as it is not relevant to the issue at hand. My proposed wording reflect reliable sources more accurately. Most of them describe Sheldrake as a biologist without justification. Sheldrake's interests may well extend "beyond the fringe", but I have no sources that describe whether "he moved past mainstream science", or whether he tried to bring "fringe" interests into mainstream science. But that is another issue, and we shouldn't argue it here. --Iantresman (talk) 18:25, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * According to WP:LEDE, we're supposed to summarize the article in the lede. It's the article that is supposed to reflect reliable sources. The lede summarizes the article. As the lede reads right now, it summarizes the article pretty well. I think your proposed wording does not summarize the article well. jps (talk) 18:33, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The lead "serves as an introduction to the article and a summary". I think framing Sheldrake's background as a biologist, reflecting the numerous sources which do exactly the same thing, is in keeping with the lead being an introduction. As I mentioned, some sources describe Sheldrake as a biologist without further justification. --Iantresman (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Why do we want to "serve as an introduction" information that is not relevant to the vast majority of the content or to any aspect of the subjects notability? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  22:05, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Because it reflects the view of a preponderance of reliable sources which seem to think it relevant to describe Sheldrake as such, and which readers will find is verifiable. I've also found the odd view that some people consider his work to be pseudo-science, and I've added that too. --Iantresman (talk) 22:50, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I suggest you propose a change to the relevant section of the article (presumably the first section) or explain how your proposed wording fits with the current content of the article. Otherwise, I think this conversation will not go anywhere. Your arguments are not convincing according to the standard way articles are written at Wikipedia and especially not with summmary style. jps (talk) 23:51, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I am aware of no other article which deliberately doesn't try to acknowledge that someone has a degree/doctorate, which many sources consider important and relevant enough to mention about Sheldrake. But yes, we can also expand on the background information in the "Background" section which already mentions where and what he studied, using reliable sources such Scientific American, The Guardian,, and even consider some less reliable sources and primary sources such as which I don't think is uncommon for biographical material. --Iantresman (talk) 08:17, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I know it is boring to repeat stuff, but as we keep getting the same handwaving "but he's a biologist" stuff all the time, the body of the article should cover his notable work in the field per WP:LEAD. That way, we can properly cover it. There isn't any. To repeat myself again, as regards Ian's comment that "I am aware of no other article which deliberately doesn't try to acknowledge that someone has a degree/doctorate, ..." see sentence two. -Roxy the dog™ woof 09:55, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It would be hand-waiving if I offered no sources. And I never said "but he's a biologist". What I have said, is that we have a preponderance of reliable sources that have considered that it is relevant to described Sheldrake as a biologist, and all we are doing is reflecting that, per WP:V. If you have an alternative point of view, such as questioning his labelling as a biologist, questioning whether he is misrepresenting himself as a biologist, whether he is doing work inappropriately under the label of biologist, then per WP:UNSOURCED (part of WP:V), let's look at your sources so we can work out how to proceed. --Iantresman (talk) 11:19, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Steadily avoiding the point now reiterated by more than one person that you have made no proposals to change the body of the article so we can conform to Wikipedia policy is tendentious, in my opinion. jps (talk) 11:27, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I am allowed to disagree with you without it being tendentious, as I have explained, WP:LEAD says it serves as both "an introduction to the article", and, "a summary". I have also said that I am happy for the "Background" section to be expanded, and am also the only editor that has already provided suggested changes to wording, and am also the only editor to provide numerous sources. I would also like to think that we are all meeting WP:AGF.
 * In the spirit of cooperation and moving forward, I will be happy to provide a suggested expansion of the last paragraph of the "Background" section", (a) if editors think that such a wording is possible, and will provide constructive alternatives too (b) if editors think this would allow us to reflect sources describing Sheldrake as a biologist in the lead? You may have to forgive me if I don't come up with something immediately, the day job is busy, and I'm not refusing or avoiding. --Iantresman (talk) 12:30, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Where is your suggestion for how to change the text in the Background section? I'd like to discuss that first. jps (talk) 13:08, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * As I said, lets' wait until we have consensus that this is the way forward, and then when my work commitments fall off, I will write something. --Iantresman (talk) 13:49, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Until you come up with a concrete suggestion there isn't going to be a consensus on anything Snowded  TALK 14:21, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It will not be until later than I offer something, but I intend to. Until then, will editors first give me their opinion on the beginning of the sentence in the first paragraph of WP:LEAD: "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary...". Do editors think this suggests that the lead contains ONLY a summary of the article, or may contain basic additional relevant introductory material that may not be elsewhere in the article? --Iantresman (talk) 15:36, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Lede should only summarise the article Snowded  TALK 15:49, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The sentence wording you offered is not appropriate because it does not reflect the article's content. jps (talk) 15:50, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * (e/c) I dont know why you think a summary and an introduction to the subject would be different?
 * And in case you haven't read it yet, most of us are basing our discussion on the directives from the Manual of Style:  [The lead] should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.[1] The notability of the article's subject is usually established in the first few sentences. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic  .--  TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  15:55, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought a summary and an introduction to the subject would be different because it reads ambiguously to me, (a) "and" implied two things to me (b) it could have been worded unambiguously (c) the last but one sentence mentions "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article"
 * It also looks like we should be following MOS:BLPLEAD, which seems equally ambiguous about providing "context" and "notable position(s)". While Sheldrake may not be notable for being only a biologist, reliable source often seem to think it is notable to provide the context that they consider him a biologist. --Iantresman (talk) 16:33, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The fact that some sources may reference that he is a biologist does not make it notable Snowded  TALK 16:43, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * There isn't really an objective criteria of what makes a notable fact. But it seems reasonable that if a reliable source mentions something, then they consider it notable, relevant and significant context. If multiple sources mention that fact, then it does suggest it is more notable. If we then have a preponderance of sources that mention a fact, then I would suggest that it is more than incidental and irrelevant. This seems consistent with MOS:BLPLEAD. --Iantresman (talk) 17:03, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You need to identify secondary sources which describe him CURRENTLY as a biologist and you need to link those to a proposed edit. Otherwise you are simply wasting people's time.  When you have that together we can look at it  Snowded  TALK 18:31, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * When I offer some text for the expanded "Background" I will of course provide sources. Regarding sources that described him "CURRENTLY as a biologist", all sources that use the present tense, ie. Sheldrake is a biologist, is sufficient. It is not for us to set criteria, and make the assessment as to (a) whether this constitutes "current", and (b) we don't get to decide whether a biologist is someone who is "currently" and continuous "doing" biology, that is WP:SYNTH. The point of using secondary sources, is that someone else has made this assessment for us, and we are not necessarily privy to their criteria and reasoning. --Iantresman (talk) 21:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Just a note that I haven't forgotten, but my work deadline is for Friday night, so I'll reply over the weekend. --Iantresman (talk) 21:28, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Another note that my weekend has proved busier than I anticipated, so I'll reply during the forthcoming week. --Iantresman (talk) 17:25, 15 November 2015 (UTC)