Talk:John G. West

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This article was nominated for deletion on 11 August 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

Sources that might be relevant later

Defusing The Religion Issue: Taking John West to task for distorting the positions of Scott and Miller Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 03:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Darwin Day

Currently there are WP:RS from scholars.[1][2] Reviews, which intend to promote the book on a commerical website like amazon have no business as a reference. Only source material from WP:RS, not commerical promotions. We66er (talk) 22:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Borrello further states that this popular support for eugenics was matched with popular opposition to teaching evolution."

Popular support for forced sterilization was not mirrored by similar support for evolutionary biology. In fact, in the same year that the sterilization laws were passed here in Minnesota the legislature was also considering an anti-evolution bill. It strikes me as odd that Prof. West argues that the support of evolutionary biologists was instrumental to the success of sterilization laws in the teens and twenties, but at the same time anti-evolution legislation was passed in many states. If the scientists were so influential, why were they ineffective in keeping anti-evolution laws off the books?

This quote clearly verifies the above statement.
It is clearly attributed as Borrello's opinion.
Unlike West Borrello is a historian of science, so it is legitimate to give WP:DUE weight to his expert opinion.
Because of 2 & 3, no NPOV concerns apply.

Therefore I'm removing the "disputed" tag. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:50, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. We66er (talk) 22:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

funny!

1 line to expose West's opinion and 5 for the criticism; I think that this is a record for WP.--79.56.178.172 (talk) 12:19, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SECONDARY & WP:DUE. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 13:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know anything about West; so if I come to Wikipedia I'd like to know his opinion in brief without read the whole article or the book cited exactly how I can understand Borrello's critics without reading his article.
This is an article about West and not about eugenics in general or history of science: there I would know West's opinion even if wrong.--79.23.181.45 (talk) 06:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given that West's main claim to fame is having written a book that tries to link eugenics to evolution, it would seem difficult to give some understanding of his claims without dealing with that topic -- any more than one could explain Einstein without talking about relativity. If you can suggest other reliable WP:SECONDARY sources that round out our understanding of West, you're welcome to suggest them. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 06:49, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

that's my problem: in reading the article I can't understand if West links "Darwin to the eugenics movement", or as you writes in the comment "eugenics to evolution" or as I read in the Chapman's article West talked about "Darwinism's fathership of eugenics".. In reading Borrello's article I have to suppose that West talked mainly about "evolutionary biologists (who acted) in the name of Darwinian natural selection".. --79.23.181.45 (talk) 07:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given that creationists like West and Chapman use 'Darwin' and/or 'Darwinism' pretty much interchangeably for 'evolution' and/or 'evolutionary biology', it would appear to be a point without either meaning or means of clarification. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 08:28, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"interchangeably"? well if I change in the article "Darwin" with "Darwinism" do you have anything against?--Domics (talk) 10:09, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I said that creationists did -- not that I do or that Wikipedia does. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 13:17, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Creationists of course did; this article is about West. West is a creationist; so the sentence "West presents his case for linking Darwin to the eugenics movement" could be changed in "West presents his case for linking Darwinism to the eugenics movement."--Domics (talk) 09:45, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

given the use of "Darwin" (as opposed to "Darwinism") in the title of both the book and the precursor essay Darwin's Public Policy: Eugenics, Democracy, and the Dangers of Scientific Utopianism, the sentence would not appear inaccurate. But I'm really not that worried about parsing Creationist rhetoric that finely -- so I would probably not object to a change. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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