Talk:Kary Mullis

bullshit

There's false info under the controversy section, and like 5 claims made, only 1 referenced. Reference or Remove.

Accomplishments

Is it just me, or does there seem to be very little balance between the man's actual accomplishments and his freakier beliefs in this article? Ya know, even Edison believed in ghosts...

A quote of Mullis from the Farber article that I'd love to see worked in (don't see how): ‘Peter [Duesberg] has been abused seriously by the scientific establishment, to the point where he can't even do any research…and it is only because he has refused to compromise his scientific moral standards. There ought to be some goddamn private foundation in the country, that would say, “Well, we'll move in where the NIH dropped off. We'll take care of it. You just keep right on saying what you're saying, Peter. We think you're an asshole, and we think you are wrong, but you're the only dissenter, and we need one, because it's science, it's not religion.”’ That's so what seems to be missing in all this: its science, not religion. I see too much of the Pope's House on the Corner about the orthodox side. Ya, Mullis has an ego and seems nutty. So did Pauling. That's the kind of mind needed to take us beyond where we've been. -- Kwantus

Improvement

The section Idiosyncratic views needs improvement. The current style is to describe an odd view and explain it in a parenthetical comment; I assume this is because the parenthetical comments were added by someone else afterwards. They should be integrated into the text better. --Saforrest 19:27, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC) (A perusal of the 'history' would show you're exactly correct...64.168.30.85 15:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC))

Parenthetical text

Removed the parenthetical text. Marginal notes don't belong in an encyclopedia artice, User:64.168.28.71.

• (Actually, he says it is similar in form to such experiences; he doesn't claim it's aliens. He was walking alone at night, he encountered a talking racoon, and then lost all memory of what happened the next 5 hours.)

• For those who do appreciate it, let us quote his book: "I was born at 17:38 Greenwich Mean Time on December 28, 1944 in Lenoir, North Carolina. You can find out more about me from that than you can from reading this book." He had a weird experience that he gives a parapsychological explanation.

• (This is inaccurate; the essay really is about thinking outside convention, where conventionally different types of chemicals had different concentration scales, like "activity" for enzymes.)

• If it seems the above emphasises the idiosyncratic, it is only because his book does likewise. The main theme is the quest to escape mental ruts.

--Calton | Talk 00:12, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK, I added the parentheticals, I guessed someone else would massage the text for me. Maybe no one else read the book so didn't feel confident in rewriting. So now I fixed it all. By the way, even if you don't AGREE with his book, you can get a lot from reading it, if only to contact a different mentalily. I think he is wrong , but I wouldn't what that fact to discourage anyone from reading the book. 64.160.47.75 02:51, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NPOV dispute

This page spends very little time referring to the accomplishments of Kary Mullis, and it is his accomplishments which make him encyclopedically notable, whereas it spends a great deal of time trying to make him look like a raving lunatic. I feel the present article is highly unbalanced against the man, and if there are controversies that deserve treatment, they ought to be included, but if the primary purpose of the article is to discuss those controversies, this is not encyclopedic at all. Whig 10:54, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Fine, add something. However, his views are directly from his own book. THere is no dispute that these are indeed his views. To me there is no controversy, it is factually accurate to say these are his views, and if the reader decides he's a lunatic, that's the reader's judgement. But like I said, if you have more to add about him, please add it.GangofOne 03:11, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, most of the content of this article is from his own book, but that doesn't make it a balanced nor encyclopedic. I'm not saying that it doesn't belong, because that is indeed part of the story / character / truth... but there is much more to the story than that. I totally agree with GangofOne - we should add content to round out the article, but perhaps with more focus on accomplishments. --Zeroasterisk 20:38, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Opinion on my edit so far? I'd also like to know if there is a quote from his book or other source that can be cited in support of the claim that he believes we may be "entering an ice age". Whig 04:39, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The advantage of the previous version, by gathering all the ideas together and making it clear they come from his own book, one may read between the lines to see that maybe he is a bit of a willfull controversialist, or contrarian, or hyperskepic. Diffusing the weird stuff with factual information about his wives etc, loses the distinction. Then the article needs a lot of text to contextualize each of his issues to keep from reading abruptly; then you may as well just read his book by the time you have clarified his ideas for the article. GangofOne 05:59, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) To amplify, his beliefs on AIDS and global warming are not what are important about him (as an encyclopedia entry); these beliefs are just part of what make him a unique mind and belong with the rest of his beliefs from his book, which rightly come after the autobiographical facts we have. "He is said to believe in astrology," well, no need to be coy, HE SAYS HIMSELF he believes in asstrology, it is misleading to say "He is said to believe.." (If you read the book, you too may testify to this.) His bald statement with his birthday exemplifies this nicely, I thought.

Well, not having the book or a quotation placed in context where he actually does say, "I believe in astrology" then I think it is more appropriate not to attribute this actual belief. Perhaps he was being irreverent like the "ice age" remark that was previously attributed to him and which I've shown to be falsely ascribed as his actual belief. In other words, if you want to say that he says something, you really have to cite it more precisely than just saying, "It's in his book."

Moreover, I feel that you are asking us to be uncharitable in trying to portray him as a "willful controversialist, or contrarian, or hyperskeptic" and this is a sort of ad hominem that does not fit in with the Wikipedia policy of NPOV. Whig 13:50, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Found the quote:

The concept that human beings are capable of causing the planet to overheat or lose its ozone seems about as ridiculous as blaming the Magdalenian paintings for the last ice age. There is a notion that our emissions are causing the temperature of the planet to go up, even though the temperature is not going up. Even if the temperature were going up, we would be foolish to think we caused it. We could just as reasonably blame it on cows. In the nineteenth century the temperature went down. In this century it's gone up only about half a degree. The trend over the last two centuries is down. Down is not warmer. So if you like to worry, worry that we might be moving into a new ice age. We could be.

I don't think this can be construed to say he actually believes we are entering an ice age. He was ridiculing global warming, to be sure, but that was a throwaway line at best and should not be attributed to him as his actual view. Whig 04:56, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I'd also like to see the actual quote on the talking racoon incident. Given the lack of context given to other beliefs attributed to him, I think it is important to evaluate the basis of this statement here. Whig 05:13, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I'd oblige, but I lent the book to an astrologer friend. My interpretation is he is stating he had the experience, like others, without claiming that it might not just be an hallucination.GangofOne 05:42, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Your interpretations of a book you read once but lent to a friend and therefore cannot cite, do not belong in an encyclopedia entry. Whig 13:50, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, one more issue here, folks, and I think we might be getting close to a fair article. The "drug" references seem to be out of place, without any particular context except perhaps that it's maybe in his book (and please, sure, read his book if you want to, but not everything in his book is encyclopedic). About maybe half the world's population has used cannabis at least once, and as for the other (then-legal) substances he may have consumed, so what? Whig 14:57, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I didn't see the "drug" references in question and haven't yet plowed through the article history to find them, but the article is incomplete without some reference to Mullis's claim that his past use of LSD and other hallucinogens gave him the insight to develop the PCR process. In fact, he has suggested that without the insights gained through the use of those drugs, he probably wouldn't have ever succeeded with PCR (note that he wasn't using LSD concurrently with his research; he had done in the past and felt that in doing so he had gained an ability for insight into molecular behavior). Leaving this out is like leaving snakey dreams out of the article on Kekulé - whether or not it's actually true, it's an important aspect of the subject matter. - toh 07:04, 2005 August 18 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for where he made that claim? I do want to put back some of the stuff in the article that was removed, but I'm only waiting till I get my copy of his book back so there will be no chance of misquoting him. GangofOne 07:45, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't have a print reference handy; as I wrote the above paragraph I had just finished watching an old episode of BBC Horizon ("Psychedelic Science", February 1997) which features an interview with Mullis where he quite clearly makes that claim. Other mentions pop up with a quick Google search, so a print reference ought to be available as well. Sorry I don't have time at the moment to help you find them. :) - toh 20:49, 2005 August 18 (UTC)

Kjell Kleppe, etc

Whoever added these 2 paragraphs needs to provide a more complete references. What did Stuart Linn say about the whole controversy? GangofOne 08:26, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Wasn't he also famous to have cheated "Nature" with a mock-up article about some math problem?

Inappropriate reference link

Not sure where the real one might be, but currently the References link to Omni magazine (Anthony Liversidge, "Kary Mullis, the great gene machine", Omni magazine (April 1992).) goes to somewhere inappropriate.

• Okay. I fixed it. --Fastfission 01:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Series of changes evidently made by Dr. Mullis

I have reverted this page after a highly interesting set of changes made by a user claiming to be Kary Mullis himself; as a group, they violated policies and guidelines on NPOV verifiability and Autobiography; although they made the article maybe 100 times more interesting to read, they were not in line with Wikipedia's purpose or style.

If that's you, Dr. Mullis, welcome to Wikipedia! The problems of responding to one's own autobiography have been hotly debated at this site, and editing for fact is certainly permissible; however, before reverting any of these changes back or coming up with new versions of them I would recommend you read Autobiography for a discussion of this issue. If it's not Dr. Mullis, then I think the case is even stronger for deletion. Joewright 22:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is a case where the Wikipedia policy is too conservative. However, I believe a suitable solution would be for Dr Mullis to post his version on his website karymullis.com (which is permissible under GPDL) then it will be verifiable, and Wikipedia won't be the original source, we can reference that. Please add some more stuff; entheogens, etc. GangofOne 22:47, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I have also tried to respond to some of the implicit criticisms of the previous page reflected by these edits, and have tried to make changes that were verifiable, etc. to make the article better reflect NPOV--the previous article was, by my reading, biased strongly towards trying to make him look bad. I happen to personally disagree strongly with his approach to AIDS and therefore am not his biggest fan, but my sides of those arguments can be made on their merits–-not by denigrating him personally. Joewright 23:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Category: Pseudoscientists

Please do not delete this category. A consensus was reached at the talk page of the category that AIDS dissidents are by definition pseudoscientists, and we MUST abide by the consensus of the community. So, I implore you, please do not remove the category. Revolver 23:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

• Please see WP:POINT. --Fastfission 04:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

If a walking fraud like Bob Gallo is regarded as as "Sciencist", IMO it is much better to be under a different category like "pseudoscientist"

LSD and PCR

It said: "He also details his use of LSD which he may have been using when he came up with the idea for PCR." SOrry, NO. He was DRIVING through the forests late at night with his girlfriend beside him when he came up with idea, according to his account. More about his actual LSD use could be added to the article tho. GangofOne 00:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

My father knew him at Berkeley when he came up with the idea. He did describe driving through the Sonoma area forests, but also said that he was using LSD at the time. He said it helped him visualize the polymerase going both ways on the chain. Still, you're right, it's hearsay and if his offical personal account does not include it, then neither should his encyclopedic biography. Kslays 17:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

AIDS "unrelated to biochemistry"???

YOu guys constantly smoke dope, but this ridiculous:

"controversial views on topics unrelated to biochemistry."

Since when is AIDS "unrelated to biochemistry". Stop the crack habit, people. 198.175.175.114 18:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The study of HIV/AIDS is part of virology. — Dunc|☺ 19:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

And virology is "unrelated to biochemistry"?? The development of ARVs is "unrelated to biochemistry"?? Dumbshit. 198.175.175.114 20:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Subsections

I have added subsections to the controversies section. In addition, I tried to make the Drug Use and Abduction section more readable. Please let me know if you do not agree with the edits. A few minor grammatical corrections were also made. Currently I am looking for a reference for the following statement under Accreditation of the PCR technique:

In addition, the suggestion that Mullis was solely responsible for the idea of using Taq polymerase in the PCR process has been refuted by his co-workers at the time.

This statement is in need of supporting documentation, without which it only conjecture. Thanks. --Coldbourne 21:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Has it occurred to anyone that this sentence is his confession that his whole book is a prank? "You can find out more about me from that than you can from reading this book." Yes, that's true, because he made up all the stuff in this book, glowing raccoons etc., because he's messing with us. It's a joke. He's trying to teach us not to believe in authority figures just because they've won Nobel Prizes.--Singularitarian 07:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Controversy Section

Two items I would like to bring up here for discussion. The "Drug Use and Abduction Account" listed in the Controversy section does not belong there, but should be moved under the Authorship section. The information is neither:

→ A prolonged public dispute, debate, or contention; disputation concerning a matter of opinion
or
→ Contention, strife, or argument (Random House Unabridged Dictionary)

as the information is freely admitted by Dr. Mullis and the source for this information is in fact his autobiography. Secondly, the reference to the O.J. Simpson trial could be considered libelous under the Wikipedia guidelines. As Dr. Mullis was never deposed by the defense or cross examined by the prosecution, he did not testify in the case. Any subsequent allegations against Dr. Mullis' character due to an event that did not take place and serves no purpose other than to slander the subject of this article. If a reference to the trial is necessary, it should be listed under his Career without speculative negative assertation from a poorly sourced reference (WP:BLP). Please let me know if you have a thoughts on this matter. Cheers. Coldbourne 22:14, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree that a court case in which Mullis did not testify is probably not notable enough for inclusion here. Agree with your first suggestion also. MastCell ^Talk 00:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)