Talk:Oldest people/Archive 4

Martha Graham dispute

Greetings,

Although Martha Graham wouldn't be verified by today's standards, her case was included in Guinness in the 1980's. Note the James Henry Brett Jr case is more likely to be false than the Martha Graham case is. That's why with Graham we use 'c' (i.e., about) and with the Brett case a ? (indicating age called into question).64.175.33.52 20:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as a footnote. I have the Guinness 1973, 1975, and 1981 edition. Under the oldest authenticated people by country, for the United States, Guinness listed a 113 year-old woman, from 1928 (1981 edition). Then, as a footnote, which listed other disputed cases, did they list Martha Graham. If you wanted to list Martha Graham, you might as well list all the other footnotes, no? I can take a picture of the Guinness pages. I don't have the 1959 or 1960 edition, so I don't know if she was crowned valid at the time. But nevertheless, she is not in the official tables but only as a footnote in later editions. You won't see her mentioned in today's Guinness editions, because that title goes to the undisputed 119 year-old Sarah Knauss of 1999, so, if there were any footnotes (per country), it would list dispusted U.S. cases of people older than the 119 year-old Sarah Knauss. Martha Graham was only listed when the oldest authenticated U.S. birth was younger than her, such as in the case of the verified 113 year-old Delina Filkins of 1928. Then, Guinness claims their only source of evidence of her was just the 1900 census. I suppose that's only significant just because Guinness mentions her? Neal 16:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Neal, try the 1987 or 1988 editions, they did list Martha Graham in the main section. They also moved Thomas Peters up from the footnotes. Whether this was a good idea or not, it did occur.R Young {^yakł_talk} 04:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

So, she is validated, correct? Extremely sexy 14:43, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Well then, looks like Guinness received additional evidence in 1987! Maybe you can share with us what that is. Neal 16:20, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I already told you, I wrote Guinness a letter suggesting that, even if 'only' 114 1/2 as the footnote said (instead of 117 or 118 as claimed) that she would still be older than the authenticated recordholder. This was 1986. I was 12. Needless to say, the very next edition, Guinness did exactly as I suggested. I didn't know at the time, however, that the 'only' 114 came from the 1900 census. The 'only' 114 claim came from A. Ross Eckler, Jr (born 1927) who I have since corresponded with, so now I know the source of the case. The bottom line: Guinness accepted the case as valid in 1987, but it wouldn't pass today's standards.R Young {^yakł_talk} 08:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh wow. Telling Guinness that 114.5 is greater than 113 must be a good reason for Guinness to add! Anyways, you regret to ever contacting Guinness about that when you were 12, so I presume you still find the case significant to be on Wikipedia's tables?

Just because Guinness for that reason decides to add Martha Graham to their tables in the 1987 edition, does that make her case any more valid? So Guinness, for that reason, decides to add Martha Graham to their table in their 1987 edition. How does that make her case any more substantial? A lot of you people probably think Guinness is the 'God' of answers. Regardless of whether Martha Graham is in the Guinness book or not, Guinness did say their source is her 1900 census of a claimed 1844 birth. Well, if you have a 60s year-old woman her first birth certificate, no serious demographic scholar would consider that as a substantial proof of evidence. So, the 1900s census saying this person is 63 years old would be...well, the same. How would this make any difference if Guinness accepts here? Some of you may remember Guinness awarding Amy Hulmes the title, the oldest person in the world, even though Guinness knew about Maud-Farris Luse. They gave it to Amy Hulmes anyways since she claimed to have a life of drinking Guinness, despite giving it to Maud-Farris Luse later. Why would Guinness do such a thing like that, I asked. I suppose adding a name to the table, "This is Guinness's official tables," would be something to resolve this issue as it would cause less confusion, so people can decide for themselves if Guinness is right or not. Robert Young did remind me that Guinness is an entertainment purpose, so to follow Guinness as a Bible of answers would be..

Some of you people probably thought Martha Graham should be mentioned because she is in the 2005 edition of the table of the oldest persons in the world, since 1955. However, Guinness did not make that table, Robert Young did. The tables didn't mention Elizabeth Kensley or Hannah Smith. Elizabeth Kensley was in the 1965 edition and Hannah Smith was in the 1967 edition. But Robert Young didn't have or see the 1965 or 1967 edition, so, he didn't know about them, thus, they weren't in the table he submitted to Guinness. This is Guinness giving Robert the full faith. Why didn't Guinness make their own table? Well, for 1 thing, that would be too intelligent. It doesn't seem as if Guinness kept their own records (since they have a lot of other stuff to store). It doesn't seem Guinness can reproduce their old verions anyways. Guinness 2006 didn't have an oldest validated person entry, because the person in charge of that resigned/retired, so Robert Young was hired to replace him. Therefore, he says, how was he supposed to know about a 1967 case if he didn't have the edition and wasn't around at the time? Well, obviously, the tables would then have listed the '2nd oldest person in the world,' so, hopefully, those aren't in our tables either. If the person before Robert has been with Guinness at the start in 1955, then I suppose he would be the person to ask. Neal 16:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Neal, to be more correct, the table for the 2005 edition did appear in the 2005 edition...regardless of who made it. Also, Mr. Epstein 'contributed.' To avoid controversy, I agreed to include the Martha Graham case as well as Marie Bernatkova. The problems I have with these cases are mainly that there is a missing date of birth or a missing date of death. However, Mr. Epstein continues to list them. I don't list them on my WOP tables but here, we want CONSENSUS on the Guinness tables. Therefore I support keeping Martha Graham as currently listed. If you choose to make your own listing on your own private page, so be it.

Second, 1900-1844=56, not 60-something. Also, the evidence does suggest this woman was over 110, based on the ages of the children. Right now I'm not sure where the original research went but I know that Mr. Eckler (born 1927) has it, so I can check. Note we keep Mr. Izumi not because we believe it, but because that is the standard, right or wrong. It's sort of like a call in a basketball game, or a baseball batting title. The standard, while not perfect, is better than no standard at all. If we drop the Guinness standard, there will be nothing to prevent a deluge of false cases from sweeping in, like the '116-year-old' Mexican man. Note also that the Martha Graham case is a 'grandfathered' case. That means it got in, but the standards of today wouldn't allow it in...sort of like a Hall of Famer elected in an old format. You don't take them out of the hall when a new format begins.R Young {^yakł_talk} 00:55, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: to Bart Versieck:

Bart Versieck wrote: "then you ought to delete all other disputed cases listed as well, but you didn't, okay"

Actually Bart, using the division fallacy isn't a good reason to justify any one individual case. Now, I'm presuming you implied that I didn't undo all the less-validated cases, so, if I did, that would have been kept, but I only did 1, so that has to be reverted. And it is from this idea, that you assume that the less-validated cases are "equally less-substantial." And I would like to point to you that that isn't the case.

From your logic, if I removed Martha Graham, I would also have to remove Carrie C. White and Shigechiyo Izumi, etc., and that would be the case if they were equally disputed, but it isn't. Shigechiyo Izumi was disputed because someone in Japan found another Shigechiyo Izumi born 15 years later, that had a birth certificate. That doesn't make the older Shigechiyo Izumi's birth certificate any less valid, just causes more confusion. Say there were 3 John Smith's born in the same city in the U.S. in the 1990s (different date of birth). Individually, assuming you didn't know their SSN, their date of birth are all equally non-disputed. It is only when you want to differentiate 1 John Smith from another, would you have a probability problem of differentiating which John Smith from which. Again, that doesn't cause a dispute on the individual level. Shigechiyo Izumi's birth certificate can be considered partially disputed for the fact that he was born before 1868, and since there's another person with the same name born 15 years later, that adds to the probability factor of determining 1 Shigechiyo Izumi from the other. Guinness wants reliability on individual birth records. If someone reported to Guinness that S. Izumi's birth certificate was false, that would be news to them. But Guinness was only reported that someone else has a birth certificate with the same name but different year, and potentially a relative, which is a somewhat different case. Now, I was told earlier by IP address that the Martha Graham case is more believable than the James Henry Brett, Jr. case. That I didn't research - I just know Martha Graham was listed once in the 1900 census at age ~56. As for Carrie C. White, her first census was the 1900 census, which stated 1889 (and being born in November, she probably wasn't born in time to make it to the 1890 census 2 months later?). The rest goes to case with how substantial her medical records are stating 1874 birth that got her in the Guinness book, and that I don't know. Anyways Robert, I did not know about her children, perhaps you can share her descendants lineage in WOP groups sometime. Neal 16:36, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Well: there really are even more reasons not to list both of them, plus Anicita Butariu and Kamato Hongo than for Graham. Extremely sexy 22:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, well I hope you can list those reasons! As for Anitica Butariu and Kamato Hongo, the nursing home that Anitica lived in has evidence that she moved in at the year (age 82), so they have records that she lived there for 33 years. So, if she wasn't 115, and marginally younger, then, yeah... And if you read Robert Young's WOP post some years ago, you'd know there is strong evidence that Kamato Hongo is over 110. Neal 14:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Neal, I think Bart is right. It's like a call by a referee, it usually stands historically unless there's overwhelming evidence to overturn it. In reality, the James Henry Brett Jr case is the worst...he almost certainly was 96. With the Izumi and White cases, the age hinges on identity. The Izumi case is weaker than you want to believe. Notably, Guinness claims that the original evidence that led to acceptance is now 'lost'. So, we don't know what led them to accept the case in 1978. The Graham case is more like Anitica Butariu...evidence favors the age claimed, but we don't have early-life documentation. With Kamato Hongo, most experts agree she was over 110, but probably younger than 116 (one theory is that her age was changed to cover up a teenage pregancy...her first child was born in 1909, but she didn't marry until 1914). In all cases, where scientific opinion deviates from the Guinness list, we use italics to show that the case is disputed.R Young {^yakł_talk} 06:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Except it doesn't matter as much whether Guinness keeps their records. For example, if Guinness never obtained or seen Shigechiyo Izumi's birth certificate, then we can assume we don't know how he got accepted. If they did have Shigechiyo Izumi's birth certificate, but they threw it away 100 years later, how would his case be any less substantial 100 years later? Etc. That gets thrown in with the Japanese-government claim of their first census in 1871 3 years after their revolution. As for James Henry Brett, Jr., I'd like to know how many censuses say what birth year he was born, and how many didn't (for my own curiosity). Neal 15:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

(Continued). Okay, I looked at the James Henry Brett, Jr. article. Woop dee doo. A 1930 census comes into question despite being born in 1849. That's when he was 81 years old. I imagine the earlier censuses are more relevant, unless you assume the later ones are more accurate. So that's '1' census that marks him as dispute, and do you weigh that in with all the early ones? And this is compared to only 1 census for both Martha Graham and Carrie C. white, where the 1900 census claims their birth record? If the 1910, 1920, and 1930 census are more relevant, what do they say for Martha Graham? Or Carrie C. White? Neal 15:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Adding Unvalidated Cases

Please refrain from adding unvalidated cases to the lists. Unvalidated cases can be added to the longevity claims page. That's what it's there for.R Young {^yakł_talk} 08:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Use of "Official"

The use of "official" is SUPPOSED to be subjective. Some authority chose these cases but not others. Like a referee...right most of the time, but not all of the time. Do the lists represent my best guess as to who is really the oldest person? NO. They represent who was CHOSEN to be the world's oldest person, oldest man, etc.R Young {^yakł_talk} 23:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

>>The use of "official" is SUPPOSED to be subjective.

The word 'official' isn't a subjective term and leads readers to believe that the list isn't subjective at all.

>>Like a referee...right most of the time, but not all of the time.

Ofcourse, but that goes without saying.

>>Do the lists represent my best guess as to who is really the oldest person?

Yes, it is the best and most authoritive guess that we currently have. Nothing is for certain, especially hard to verify claims such as these.

>>They represent who was CHOSEN to be the world's oldest person, oldest man, etc.

Exactly. But that doesn't make it official to everyone.

I personally think the use of the word 'official' on these sections is biased since the word asserts that it has authority over other lists. Although if it said "Guinness' Official", or just "List of" I wouldn't object. --Android Mouse 00:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, are you aware that when you reverted my edits you also reverted the edits of a few other editors after me? --Android Mouse 00:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you aware that if you had left the list alone as-is, that wouldn't have happened? If you want to make a major, controversial change you should discuss it first on the talk page.R Young {^yakł_talk} 05:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see the few slight rewording of the section names as being major or even controversial change. Even if it was a major, controversial change, that is perfectly fine. I'd advise you to take a look at WP:BRD. --Android Mouse 05:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

>Some authority chose these cases but not others.

So there's an example of ambiguity.

>Like a referee...right most of the time, but not all of the time.

Then it isn't "official."

You are missing the point. If there is a hypothetical absolute truth, then a very good referee will have a close approximation to that absolute truth but never be 100% perfect. Hence, I like the word 'official.' "List of" is too weak: anyone can make a list any way they want to.R Young {^yakł_talk} 05:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

>Do the lists represent my best guess as to who is really the oldest person? NO. They represent who was CHOSEN to be the world's oldest person, oldest man, etc.

And someone has to decide that. (Someone/body of official status?). Anyways, I think we better find a better word. Or simply clarify more, particularly starting with the words "List of validated..." Neal 04:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

This article has existed just fine for over a year without this silly dispute. It should stay as-is.R Young {^yakł_talk} 05:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not really how wikipedia was designed to work. --Android Mouse 05:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is. It's called 'concensus.' Also, last I checked, referees were also called 'officials.' But that doesn't mean their call is always right. It merely means they are the experts that decide. I'm sorry if you couldn't figure that out.R Young {^yakł_talk} 13:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism Again

What could be more fun for teenage boys than to change a few 'oldest' numbers 'sneakily' or, worse, add their own name in? Aside from the fact that they are sadly mistaken about not getting caught...this is one of the most heavily-monitored article groups...wouldn't it be easier on everyone to make the ban on anonymous edits semi-permanent? Should we really be wasting our time as 'babysitters' for these pages?R Young {^yakł_talk} 13:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Robert, this is actually a pointless message. If you look around, vandalism happens everywhere on Wikipedia. Being all over on Wikipedia, I virtually see vandalism on every article I been to. Is there a point to announcing vandalism in the talk page of every article that has vandalism? I vote this message to deletetion. Neal 14:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting the page be semi-protected? If not there's probably a better place to discuss vandalism in general. --Android Mouse 18:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

You should just have instantly requested protection at WP:RPP, R Young. If people are screwing around with sneaky vandalism that might not be noticed, then the sysop'll be very likely to grant semi-protection.-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 23:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)