User:SteveMcCluskey/Misuse of sources

Abu Rayhan Biruni
— 05:47, 5 September 2007
 * Elliptical Orbits of planets

This edit added the claim that "al-Biruni rejects Aristotle's view on the celestial spheres having circular orbits rather than elliptic orbits." The source cited for that edit was Rafik Berjak and Muzaffar Iqbal, "Ibn Sina--Al-Biruni correspondence", Islam & Science, Summer 2004.

This, of course, is basing an argument on the editor's interpretation of a primary source, but the text itself argues that Aristotle's logic for claiming the planets were carried about by celestial spheres is invalid, since they could equally well be carried around by an oval or lenticular body, generated by the rotation of an ellipse around its major or minor axis. Biruni concludes his discussion by clarifying his point: "I am not saying this with the belief that the celestial sphere is not spherical, but oval or lenticular; I have tried hard to refute this theory but I am amazed at the reasons offered by the man of logic."

Scientific revolution
— 02:28, 18 August 2007

This edit added the claim that "earlier Muslim scientists used [mathematisation] more broadly in other scientific fields as well (including ... medicine)." The source cited was Katharine Park (March 1990). "Review of Avicenna in Renaissance Italy: The Canon and Medical Teaching in Italian Universities after 1500, by Nancy G. Siraisi", The Journal of Modern History 62 (1), p. 169-170.

Park's discussion does not refer to Avicenna but to the Italian physician, Santorio Santorio. The selection Jagged 85 quoted in the discussion of Avicenna is in italics:
 * "Santorio's work is a case in point. Students of the history of medicine know him for his attempts to introduce systematic experimentation and quantification into the study of physiology using a number of original scientific instruments.... In his commentary on Canon 1.1, Santorio raised these new issues-even including woodcuts of his new thermoscopes and pulsilogia-while in other ways proving himself a staunch defender of Galenic orthodoxy."

Once this discrepancy was discovered in February 2008, it was pointed out on Jagged 85's talk page and the article was corrected. Despite Jagged 85 having been notified of this error in 2008, as of this writing his use of Park's review to document an alleged association of Avicenna with quantification is still found in the articles The Canon of Medicine, Ancient Iranian Medicine, Avicenna, Medicine in medieval Islam, Science in the Middle Ages, Human subject research, and six other articles.

Presentism / Whig history
Jagged has been repeatedly cautioned to avoid Presentism -- the tendency to discuss historical actions in modern terms and Whig history -- which leads to a presentist principle of selection in which the editor selects topics to discuss because they can be interpreted as anticipations of modern discoveries.


 * Discussed with Jagged 85 at Talk:History of Astronomy 15 June 2007
 * Off-Wiki discussion with Jagged 85 and others concerning his Wikipedia edits at Advances in the History of Psychology on "Presentism in the Service of Diversity?" 1 February 2008
 * Discussed with Jagged 85 at Talk:Psychology in medieval Islam 7 March 2008
 * Discussed with Jagged 85 at his talk page 15 April 2010

Despite these repeated discussions, Jagged closed the most recent discussion as if the concept were new to him and took refuge in the notion that he "largely attempted to avoid making claims about medieval scholars that go beyond what the sources suggest." Even if he were citing his sources accurately, which in many cases it has been shown that he did not, he actively chose to select those topics from the many in his sources precisely because they were the ones that made his medieval Islamic scholars sound modern.