Talk:Clair Cameron Patterson

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on December 5, 2020.

Untitled[edit]

In the last sentence of the final paragraph that refers to an 80% reduction in Lead blood levels in Americans, a 'citation required' is denoted. Bill Bryson (p 204) quotes this finding and attributes this to the following reference, which I show in full; Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Prometheus in the Lab: Chemistry and the making of the Modern World, p169.

The Center for Disease Control in a report dated Feb. 20, 1997 and entitled 'Blood Lead Levels Keep Dropping; New Guidelines Proposed for Those Most Vulnerable' states that 'Average blood lead levels for both children and adults have dropped more than 80 percent since the late 1970s'. This archived page can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/1997pres/970220.html.

Doug McDougall 23:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That HHS release seems very clear and adequately sourced, so I've added that in as a reference for the 80% claim, which I've also adjusted very slightly. Mooncow 19:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Estimate of the Earth's age[edit]

This section fails to mention that Clair (Pat) Patterson's attempts to determine lead content in zircon took almost six years due to his ongoing battle to reduce lead contamination in his testing environment. In the process, Clair (Pat) Patterson to built the first ultra-clean room. His lead research eventually guided him on his campaign to reduce lead in the environment.

Reference 1: http://www.space.com/25579-cosmos-recap-earth-age-lead-poisoning.html Reference 2: http://www.iptv.org/iowapathways/mypath.cfm?ounid=ob_000330

William J Bean (talk) 14:55, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Review comments[edit]

Some suggestions for improvement as the article is expanded:

Template:Infobox Scientist should be added
The text contains a number of direct quotes from the Bill Bryson book without any citation. These should be rewritten in original language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luyseyal (talk • contribs) 02:41, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Photograph should be added from a source with a free license, if available
Some basic biographical information required, including precise dates of birth/death, education details (with dates), positions held, etc
Re-organisation of sections for clarity would be beneficial
Information on research should be expanded
References should be expanded and preferably converted to inline format
External link present which could be used to expand article

Espresso Addict 02:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mention of the campaign to earn Clair Patterson a Nobel Prize

GrogInOhio (talk) 13:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Legacy" is a poor choice for a section header that describes his appearance in a popular TV show. His legacy is much more than that. Perhaps change the title to "In Popular Media" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.100.35.83 (talk) 07:42, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mental Floss article[edit]

Here is a recently published article on Mental Floss about Clair Patterson. Editors here may be interested in using it for adding references to the WP article: http://mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-scientist-who-determined-age-earth-and-then-saved-it —howcheng {chat} 16:48, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Use of middle name in page title[edit]

I was surprised to see that Dr. Patterson's middle name is used in his page title, as that is not a common feature on biographical pages and it's not like the page is distinguished from another Clair Patterson. Is there any reason that Clair Patterson is just a redirect to this page instead of the primary article? Balon Greyjoy (talk) 06:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe WP:MIDDLENAME was applied for this article? – The Grid (talk) 13:40, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Radio Lab[edit]

The radio program Radio Lab had a full program on Patterson on 11 Feb. 2024. 00:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC) Kdammers (talk) 00:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]