Talk:Yan Fu

Birth date
Encyclopæpedia Britannica gives his birth date as January 8, 1854. Where did the December 10, 1853 date come from? --Rbraunwa 23:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * have corrected it, thanks a lot. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 10 December 1853 is correct, see Chinese Wikipedia.--Niohe 01:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * He was born on 10 December 1853--according to the Chinese calender. I've correct that again. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * How confused can things get? Now, go to the Chinese page, and find what the Chinese calendar date is, it is 咸三年十一月十日. The convert that date to the Gregorian calendar and what do you get? 10 December 1853. As long as we can agree on the Chinese calendar date, this is the corresponding Gregorian date.--Niohe 11:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * according to Yanfu Nianpu (严复年谱 "Yan Fu's Chronology" ISBN 7211043113), Yan was born on 癸丑十二月初十日, which translates into the Gregorian calendar "January 8 1854". People's Daily reported the same date. I don't know who we can trust if we don't trust these two sources. Indeed the Chinese wiki contradicts itself concerning Yan's birthday, if you take a look at zh:1月8日, on which date Yan Fu is reported to be born. The truth speaks itself out. You guys decide.--K.C. Tang 08:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, that makes much more sense. You should have referred to that source in the first place and I would have understood what you meant.--Niohe 13:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry for my plundering. Anyway, you can try to confirm the sources and weigh the evidences before making a decision. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll correct the date again, if there're no further objections.--K.C. Tang 14:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Reason for reverting
The section "view on race" added by User:Guodata doesn't written from a neutral point of view to judge a person's thought. It first describe Yan Fu as a eugenicist, which isn't mentioned above. Actually, Yan never support or say something like "exclude the inferior".Rather than comparing one race with another to indicate "selected" superiority over others, his introduction of "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" mostly focus on the side of "survive", so his conclusion can simply summerized as "to struggle to be the fittest for survival under the cruel natural selection", emphasizing more on the "acquired" than "gifted". This catered for the increasing appeal from many contemporary intellectuals for social reform and modernization during the fall of Qing Empire.

However, Guodata's quote misinterpreted his thought and gave itself an undue weight to convey the message that Yan is a yellow racist. It was placed after the main section of this biography. From cited source, I can't find the original text in Chinese, and this quote, cited by the thesis from a book, is thirdhand. I roughly browsed Yan's work only to find nothing have the similar meaning of this quote. So it's questionable whether the book's writer misunderstanded Yan's idea and use this misunderstanding to support the book's idea, as Yan's work is written in classic Chinese,a language system that is not easy to learn or accurately understand.

According to WP:NEUTRAL, I reverted Guodata's edit. It's better to see his whole authentic work than an inadequate quote.--太西浜 (talk) 07:36, 1 June 2021 (UTC)