Talk:Michael Greger

Bad Compromise

The last sentence in the intro, "Greger's promotion of veganism has been criticized for including exaggerated claims of health benefits and for cherry-picking research even though the vegan diet can be a healthy one" is a great example of a bad compromise, perhaps a remnant of a bygone edit-war, and I'd like to change it. However, all of my edits were reverted by Alexbrn who, in his edit notes, said "not an improvement".

I'm open to discussing the best way to improve that sentence. But first let me make the case that there's a lot of room for improvement. "even though the vegan diet can be a healthy one" is a tacky, out-of-place addition to this sentence. The main subjects of the sentence are: 1. Michael Greger's promotion of veganism and 2. Criticism of this. But the healthiness of a vegan diet is itself not the point of this sentence!

It comes across like it was written by a bipolar person in the middle of a mood swing. And I know exactly why. Critics of Dr. Greger wanted to include criticism, and proponents praise. They had a war, and they compromised by writing this atrocious sentence.

Consider the following sentences and tell me if you think they would belong in the headers of the respective persons:

"George Bush has been criticized for committing US troops to the war in Iraq by exaggerating claims of increasing regional stability, even though the war in Iraq may have led to greater regional stability."

Or, to keep things politically balanced:

"Barack Obama has been criticized for his role in promoting the Affordable Care Act by exaggerating its reduction in health care expenditures, even though the act may have reduced US health expenditures."

Or, moving beyond politics into religion:

"Jesus has been criticized for exaggerating claims of his divinity, even though he may have been the Son of God."

These are terrible sentences! And they are on par with that sentence in Dr. Greger's intro. We can do better on Wikipedia at making things sound encyclopedic rather than bipolar.

My proposed change is this: quote the article that mentions cherry-picking, and include enough of the quote that both critics and proponents will be just as satisfied (or dissatisfied) as they were for the original compromise. "There is some cherry picking of data. Of course that doesn't mean the cherries he picks are rotten; they're fine." That may be too long to include in the intro, but the nice thing about such a short article is that nothing gets "buried" in the article, so this could be moved to the next section.

Perhaps there is an even better alternative, and I'll wait for input before editing again, but Alexbrn, ANYTHING is an improvement over that wretched sentence.

Bluemousered (talk) 15:39, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, so what. -Roxy the dog™ woof 15:45, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

I tried to fix that as well but the people who rule over this part of wikipedia would prefer to leave the cherry-picking quote out of context. As you can see from the above conversation, if they disagree with you about something, you're not getting anything changed no matter how strong a point you have or how weak theirs is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8807:5408:6000:7D47:5396:3290:C1C2 (talk) 06:28, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I have little motivation to improving this article when Alexbrn, who seems to be oblivious to his own agenda, keeps forcing his point of view as neutral and just reverts all edits without actual discussion. Looking through his post history, he seems to be on a crusade on this topic and has made such fine edits like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_A._McDougall&diff=677431201&oldid=677429048, where he decides to state the diet is "fad diet" that causes farting as general truth. The farting part was only removed after other long-time editors stepped in. He forces the exact same thing in this article where the header has criticism but doesn't tell who criticizes. I have no patience for the kind of passive-aggressive behavior he exhibits. --Sapeli (talk) 20:05, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This sentence does not make sense. "Physician and skeptic Harriet A. Hall analyzed one of Greger's videos in which he claimed that death was largely a "food-borne illness" and wrote that while it was already generally accepted that plant-based diets with less red meat conferred health benefits, the evidence for them "is nowhere near as impressive or definitive as the true believers think".[ What does "the evidence for them" mean? Who is "them"? The evidence for whom? And what are "true believers"? I don't have a pos or neg pov, I just think this is a very awkward sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.82.73.246 (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Page protection

Because of the persistent disruption on this page by IPs and "fresh" accounts I now think a request for permanent semi-protecton here is in order. Do others agree? Alexbrn (talk) 18:51, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Oui. -Roxy the dog™ bark 19:09, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I like how you guys immediately turn to censorship when you disagree with how an edit should be handled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iloveinfo22 (talk • contribs) 19:14, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Not true. You appear to be the one removing information. -Roxy the dog™ bark 21:07, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

So, essentially, you want to do the same thing to this page that you did to Dr. John McDougall's page. I noticed you had that page protected and you are cherry-picking critics that suit your own point of view over there too, when those critics are themselves controversial or not experts in the field (not only that, but their claims are unsubstantiated). McDougall has done some promising research, the latest of which shows that MS can be treated with his diet, but none of this is mentioned on his page, and with Alexbrn around, I see no reason to try to implement it. Count me along those who believe you have an agenda here which is obviously about making these plant-based doctors look like they are vegan crackpots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ciopenhauer (talk • contribs) 19:39, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Removal of sourced content

User: Iloveinfo22 please come and explain your objection. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 19:10, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The source in question is a blog post that has no credibility beyond its being on the Internet. I conceivably could create a blog post criticizing that blog post and then include my criticism in the post. I usually don't edit Wikipedia, but I saw that source as being included and felt the need to remove it since it lacks any objective credibility. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iloveinfo22 (talk • contribs) 19:16, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for talking here. Wikipedia content is based on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. You are not presenting any policy/guideline based arguments. We do understand that you don't like this content, but not liking something is not a valid grounds for changing content here. This place is not a wild west. Jytdog (talk) 19:36, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jytdog: This has been a perennial issue with activist IP editors showing up to remove this material. However, they happen to be completely right. The source is a blog, it does not have editorial oversight (except for outside submissions, which this piece isn't), and its use here violates WP:BLPSPS. I have floated the idea of putting this issue on WP:DRN before. Would you object to my doing that? --Sammy1339 (talk) 20:15, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The statement is sourced to Harriet A. Hall as her opinion, it is not stated in Wikipedia's voice. She appears to be a well known skeptic and has the background to be skeptical of such claims. If this was in Wikipedia's voice I would agree it shouldn't be in there, however since it an opinion of a well known skeptic with a background in medicine it is a good counter opinion to show not everything Greger says is fully accepted in the scientific community.

The reason say; I couldn't just create a blog criticizing Harriett Hall and have it included in Wikipedia is; I am not well known for being an expert in the field. --VViking_TalkEdits 21:09, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, but the relevant guideline here is WP:RS which states Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications. Such material, although written by an established author, likely lacks the fact checking that publishers provide. Avoid using them to source extraordinary claims. Self-published information should never be used as a third-party source about another living person, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer (see WP:Biographies of living persons § Reliable sources). --Sammy1339 (talk) 21:18, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The issue here is that in his advocacy for veganism, Greger pushes his claims beyond what the science can support. A lot of "celebrity doctors" do that - people who rely on their medical credentials to get people to listen to them but "popularize" their message to the point where it just unsupportable. Dr Oz does this too. That is what it is, out there in the world, but here in WP we need to actually deal with the science. My preference would be that this article didn't exist at all because content that complies with Wikpedia's policies and guidelines ends up angering fans of the celebrity doctors, so we have these endless problems. So it goes. We use sources like Harriet Hall because the serious scientific literature doesn't take time to address these kinds of exaggerated statements; that is what WP:PARITY is for. Jytdog (talk) 22:02, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, that's an opinion, and not necessarily an unreasonable one, but there is still no valid policy-based rationale for including this specific source. There's no exception to BLPSPS for this situation. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:06, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The content is written so as not to criticism him but rather the scientific validity of the claims he makes about medicine. Different things. Jytdog (talk) 22:45, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, no, it refers to him. The article doesn't even mention any specific claims which demand rebuttal from a self-published expert. Anyway we are rehashing the same arguments from months ago and it's obviously not going to be productive, so I'll go ahead with DRN if you don't object. --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:16, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

It specifically refers to his "promotion of veganism". It is a kind of WP:CRYBLP to say that a person's fringe views are somehow exempt from criticism because they come from a person. If it were otherwise, you're going to be re-writing a lot of WP articles. Alexbrn (talk) 00:22, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Alexbrn, nobody said exempt from criticism, but everyone is exempt from self-published commentary of all kinds according to the policy. Clearly you could go very far with SPS commentary on everything to do with a person, claiming it's not "about" the person. --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:34, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

You said "it refers to him". It doesn't. Anyhow this horse has been beaten to death long ago by you.[1] So I'm not proposing we re-run all that. Alexbrn (talk) 00:40, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

If it said "he is a quack" it would refer to him. It doesn't say anything like that. Jytdog (talk) 01:42, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jytdog: @Alexbrn: I requested DRN, so hopefully this will be put to rest one way or the other. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:13, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

That filing should include Viewmont Viking from above, all the editors who have removed/added this content in recent days, and should point to previous noticeboard discussions on this topic. Alexbrn (talk) 07:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I notified the others and amended the filing. --Sammy1339 (talk) 09:44, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

What exactly makes Harriet Hall such an expert in nutrition? This is a woman who referenced a raw food blog run by a sock puppeteer as a response to the findings of the Cornell-Oxford China Project ("the china study"). This article at one point also referenced another famous skeptic, Joe Schwarcz, which was removed when it was pointed out that Joe generally liked and recommended Michael Greger's work. A reference to the major American HMO Kaiser Permanente also wasn't allowed because it recommended Greger's website as a resource for health information. This article is biased and tries to make him out to be a quack giving unsupportable, radical diet advice. To improve the article, we could either add back in the references to Joe Schwarcz and Kaiser Permanente or remove the reference to Harriet Hall, as she can't be the only person referenced if this article is to be unbiased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8807:5408:6000:44AC:9A9B:4102:1365 (talk) 20:12, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

--iloveinfo22 I don't know if the issue is so much Hall's credibility as it is where her criticism was published (third-party, non-scientific blog) and if that particular blog post has enough relevance to be included in the unbiased biography of a doctor's life. I agree with you that the article is currently biased -- if we are looking for objective information about anyone on this site, we can't include snippets from critics on blogs. Looking forward to this issue getting resolved.(talk) 11:30, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Page protected

I have protected this page for a three-day period due to sustained edit-warring. Neutrality^talk 05:07, 27 August 2016 (UTC)