Talk:Polymath

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Polymath article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3: 2 years

Education Low‑importance

	Education portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Education, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of education and education-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EducationWikipedia:WikiProject EducationTemplate:WikiProject Educationeducation
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

History of Science Mid‑importance

	History of science portal This article is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.History of ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject History of ScienceTemplate:WikiProject History of Sciencehistory of science
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives

This page has archives. Sections older than 700 days may be automatically archived by when more than 5 sections are present.

L Ron Hubbard

Various sources list this man as a visionary in music, medicine, psychology, art, nuclear physics, and philosophy. He was also a child prodigy according to various sources. You may want to add him in both articles. (unsigned comment by User:Deibwan, 12:42, 9 May 92014)

White male used as the picture? Really?

Consensus is to not change the picture based solely on race or gender

The following discussion has been closed by Panamitsu. Please do not modify it.

I suggest we change the main picture to that of an African American or Israeli, or anything other than a white male. It just sets a bad tone 218.215.116.200 (talk) 10:59, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest we stop worrying about any race but the Human Race... Polymaths come in all sizes, shapes, colors and creeds. So one picture is as good as another. Raclapp (talk) 14:16, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just make a collage of polymaths with people from every race?

Case solved. 152.231.128.241 (talk) 15:10, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll suggest that the best person to illustrate what a polymath is would be someone widely known both by name and by his wide-ranging accomplishments. Few, no matter the race, would better depict a polymath than Ben Franklin. 159.250.54.66 (talk) 15:09, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Race and religion should not be selection categories in any way. Raclapp (talk) 15:58, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@159.250.54.66 Benjamin Franklin is known more as a political figure rather than a polymath. Franklin, like many founding fathers, has stories or tales commonly attributed to them that they did not do, I think that having him as the main picture would cause confusion of what a polymath is. I suggest the best representation of a polymath in the sense of popularity and accomplishments is Leonardo da vinci. Other languages of Wikipedia including Spanish, russian, and Hebrew already use Leonardo da vinci as the main picture. Tacos31 (talk) 19:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with you, Leonardo da Vinci is basically the first person we think when we talk about polymath, we need to fix that Etoilæ (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

possible new paragraph heading and section

Backstory: I've been a Polymath my entire 48+ years since middle school. It is rare that the negative aspects of being a Polymath are mentioned. I would like to create a subsection in this article to address known issues experienced as a group by many historical and modern Polymath. Many issues are similar to those experienced by those with high IQs (over 140) but not all. Thoughts? Richard Clapp Jr Central Ohio Raclapp (talk) 14:14, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this information should be somewhere, though this might not be the best home. Could you write a bit so it can be sourced and put in a good spot?

I can do stuff! (talk) 01:35, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hypatia

I recall finding Hypatia through this article, but mention of her - or of any woman - seems to have been removed. Ressomatic (talk) 14:43, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Flicking through The Polymath, I find Maya Angelou (page 1), Florence Nightingale, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Émilie du Châtelet, Ban Zhao, Lubna of Córdoba and Anna Maria van Schurman (page 18), Mary Somerville (page 71), George Eliot and Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de Genlis (page 291). Hypatia's on page 57. Why on Earth is this article including male-only lists? MartinPoulter (talk) 16:33, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Need a trained eye to take a look.

Could someone please add to this section the names of any of the women that fit the description of polymath? It seems a previous reply to this thread offered up quite a few candidates. I’m also interested in the official criteria that’s required for a person’s name to officially qualify for such a title as polymath. Could anyone enlighten me? 2600:6C55:4600:1D39:4830:1A64:3D58:4DDC (talk) 12:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reliability of ResearchGate

@004bvan I'm replying here to your message on my Talk page because it concerns the sourcing of this article. Muntadher Saleh does appear to be a notable person and successful artist, already documented in library databases. I don't know if he is a polymath; training as a pharmacist before becoming an artist does not in itself make him a polymath. The link you have been given to ResearchGate is not a reliable source for this, and is in fact a deceptive link. First, ResearchGate is not itself a reliable source; anyone can upload files to it. The particular link you put into this article (since removed) just includes an image by Saleh and pretends to be a figure from a peer-reviewed article called "The Last Polymath". However on looking at that article, we see that it is not about Muntadher Saleh but about Hermann von Helmholtz. I think the ResearchGate user is falsely claiming to be the author of the article. If you want people to believe that Saleh "has been recognized in various scholarly works", you need a much better source than this link. I will add Saleh to the list of target articles for global artists. MartinPoulter (talk) 08:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @MartinPoulter,

Thank you so much for your detailed and insightful response. I really appreciate your guidance and the effort you put into maintaining the quality of Wikipedia content.

I wanted to add that Muntadher Saleh is not only an artist and pharmacist but also a talented calligrapher and writer. While I'm not entirely sure if this qualifies him as a polymath, I'll leave that judgment to your expertise.

Thank you again for adding Saleh to the list of target articles for global artists. I will also ensure to seek out reliable sources for all the articles I contribute to in the future .

Best regards,

. 004bvan (talk) 14:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

About editing the Example section

The section was removed twice over the past six months (see this edit and this one) due to "incorrect examples of polymath".

Based on both the Chinese and English versions of Wang Wei's page, he is likely not appropriate for this list.

A more suitable candidate would be Wang Yangming, whose pages in both languages support his classification as a polymath.

Hope this helps. 籠鳥飛行紀錄 (talk) 09:00, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On the "In Academia" Section

Hi all,

This is my first starting a thread here, forgive me if I don't know the Wikipedia etiquette so well.

For disclosure I am the Michael Araki mentioned in the "In Academia Section".

Two people have disputed the fact that the whole section is mainly using self-references (i.e., using the authors' papers as references, like it is done in academia). I believe the reason is that somebody took the only review available on the construct, which is my pre-print "Modern Literature on Polymathy: A brief review" and used that to create an initial version on Wikipedia. Later, some non-research people like Waqas Ahmed were added.

What was not okay about the recent exclusion was that the person chose to single out one author from an entire section that consistently followed the same format across six entries (authors). This selective judgment appeared highly biased, which I found quite aggravating.

One obvious course of action is to take down the whole section. However, I believe it would be a disservice to people, as it contains valuable in-depth information on the construct.

Alternatively, the community can help by adding secondary, independent references. For my case, some of them are here:

https://www.polymathu.org/fellowship

https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2024/01/16/do-you-have-a-polymathic-personality-a-psychologist-explains/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-school-walls/202005/cross-pollinate-your-mind

Some recent apers citing my work on polymathy: Acar, S., Cevik, E., Fesli, E., Bozkurt, R. N., & Kaufman, J. C. (2024). Testing the domain specificity of creativity with Kaufman domains of creativity scale: A meta‐analytic confirmatory factor analysis. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 58(1), 171-189.

Karwowski, M., Czerwonka, M., Wiśniewska, E., & Forthmann, B. (2021). How is intelligence test performance associated with creative achievement? A meta-analysis. Journal of Intelligence, 9(2), 28.

Abdulla Alabbasi, A. M., Runco, M. A., & Ayoub, A. E. (2024). Creative activity and accomplishment as indicators of polymathy among gifted and nongifted students. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1255508.

Angus, R. W., & Barlow, M. A. (2024). Organizing transactions between entrepreneurs and human capital resources under Knightian uncertainty. Small Business Economics, 1-21.

Díaz, M. V., & González, M. G. (2023). Cross-curricular training of specialized translators: an interdisciplinary didactic experience in economic and technical translation. CLINA: an interdisciplinary journal of translation, interpreting and intercultural communication, 9(2), 17-40.

Жукова, Т. А., & Черных, Я. В. (2022). Мультипотенциальность и перспективы ее развития на уроках английского языка. Вестник Мининского университета, 10(2 (39)), 6.

Гарифуллина, А. М., & Валеева, Р. А. (2021). Сущностно-содержательная характеристика мультипотенциальности педагога. In Педагогическое образование: новые вызовы и цели (pp. 90-96).

Some books (that I am aware of) https://www.amazon.com.au/Polymath-Multiple-Disciplines-Extraordinary-Autodidact/dp/1647431638

https://www.amazon.com.au/Learn-Like-Polymath-Multidisciplinary-Irreplaceable-ebook/dp/B08JKPHMX7

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Polymaths-Multi-Specialists-Revolutionize-Learn/dp/B0CSVXZ7VY

Koehler, A. (2022). Paving a Path to early College-from Homeschool to the Ivy League. Parenting for High Potential, 11(3), 13-14.

It seems that the breadth, depth, integration approach from my model has become a major view on the construct. I personally find it funny that my other papers have not been cited on the Wikipedia page, which is okay, but it just gives the impression that I only have the 2018 article instead of being one of the most prolific academic contributors to this very underexplored topic in academia (I know that the competition is not big as only very few scholars have published peer-reviewed articles on the topic).

Best regards, Dr Michael Araki DrMikeAraki (talk) 17:36, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Arguing about your own importance on wiki is a really really bad idea; just don't go there, for your own sake. And see-also WP:COI William M. Connolley (talk) 18:11, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with DMacks and also with William M. Connolley. Per WP:COI you should not have put it back into the article.

Taking down the section is clearly the proper course. Blog posts (see WP:FORBESCON) and self published books on amazon are not the secondary references we would need to establish WP:DUE weight, as they do not meet the requirements of Wikipedia:Reliable sources. MrOllie (talk) 18:13, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If more people agree, we take down the whole section. As I said: "What was not okay about the recent exclusion was that the person chose to single out one author from an entire section that consistently followed the same format across six entries (authors). This selective judgment appeared highly biased, which I found quite aggravating."

As long as you single out only one author indiscriminately, I will keep questioning your judgment. DrMikeAraki (talk) 18:19, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By 'the section' I mean the section about you. I take no position on anything else in the article as of yet. That someone has not (yet) fixed all problems everywhere does not mean that they cannot start with one. MrOllie (talk) 18:20, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, since more people have agreed, I removed the whole "In Academia" section. Like I said before: "One obvious course of action is to take down the whole section. However, I believe it would be a disservice to people, as it contains valuable in-depth information on the construct."

Too bad you didn't read that and instead wanted to fight and accuse me. Now, the whole section, which now I learned is not in accordance to Wikipedia's guidelines", has been taken out. DrMikeAraki (talk) 18:41, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not a single person aside from you has agreed to remove the entire section. Stop editing the article until an actual consensus has been reached here on talk. -- Fyrael (talk) 18:46, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Taking down the section is clearly the proper course" I believe this was said by William M. Connolley. Again, please read the whole thread. DrMikeAraki (talk) 18:52, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DrMikeAraki, he did not. Drmies (talk) 18:57, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I read the entire thread and I don't see William M. Connolley agreeing to remove the whole section or even mentioning it. You are now vandalizing the page and it looks like you are doing so because you didn't get your way.--VViking_TalkEdits 18:58, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I thought it was William M. Connolley that said that, butI realized it was MrOllie.

Again, "What was not okay about the recent exclusion was that the person chose to single out one author from an entire section that consistently followed the same format across six entries (authors). This selective judgment appeared highly biased, which I found quite aggravating."but since 3 people have been bullying me around this issue, I will leave it as is, with only myself singled out and the other entries with the very same issues as is. DrMikeAraki (talk) 18:59, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]