Talk:Richard C. Hoagland/Archive 2
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Today's edit by 74.61.200.165
It's important to note that his title of "science adviser" on C2C-AM is not supported by any actual credentials. It's a testament to the faith that program's producers have in him, since they are in a position to choose any of a number of well-qualified commentators for that position.
I think his statement "we do not depend on sources" is important and should remain.
The sphinx, as an upright monument that can be seen as an entity by its creators, is irrelevant.
It's important, I think, to note that Hoagland abandoned his main claim about the Face in the epilogue of "Dark Mission".
Personally I don't think reference to Zacharia Sitchin is helpful to Hoagland's "cause" but fine, leave it in.--El Ingles (talk) 15:32, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
New York Times Best Seller
I know that Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara's book, Dark Mission - The Secret History of NASA, is a New York Times Best Seller, and I can find it on their offical page here. However, I cannot find it on the Wiki List of New York Times Non-Fiction Best Sellers, on on Hawes List. So, as it is on their official site why not on Wiki or Hawes list? Also, what number did it get too? 77.96.24.33 (talk) 18:09, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
- The fact is, it came within one ranking point of the list (#21) for one week in November 2007 but never actually made it onto the list. According to Publisher's Weekly it sold >50,000 copies. Plenty for its authors and publisher to be proud of, certainly, but when they call it a "NYT best-seller" (as they do, loudly and often) they're stretching the strict truth. --El Ingles (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
- In April 2008 Mike Bara posted the following comment on the Dark Mission blog:
“ | I live on Redondo Beach, California, I drive a 2007 BMW 5 Series, I’m a New York Times bestselling author, and I hang out with strippers and porn starlets half my age. | ” |
--El Ingles (talk) 19:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for the info on the book ranking. Where does it state it has to be within 21? However, that quote is only found on this dorkmission entry. (your site?) An archive on his offiical site doesn't show this entry either. It's not even cached there. I agree about the book but this might be a fabrication.
Mike Bara's nauseating brag is here. The New_York_Times_Best_Seller_list is, according to this venerable 'pedia, and also by inspection, a list of "fiction and non-fiction sections; each contain[ing] ten to twenty titles." --El Ingles (talk) 15:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Gary P. Posner
Hoagland being a NASA consultant was removed from the lead as I used the enterprisemission website as a reference. I agree that this was not good enough as a source and am doing my bit to get a better source. But, Wiki cannot use Gary P. Posner as a source. Just look at his reasoning that Hoagland wasn't a consultant: http://www.gpposner.com/Hoagland.html . He states [allegedly] that he received a letter (on August 31, 1990) from a one 'Dr. David Morrison, Chief of the Space Science Division at NASA's Ames Research Center'. Other than this, Posner doesn't back up his allegation. Just as Hoaglands own website isn't a source for such a claim, Posners ludicrous skepticism and incredibly poor references should not be used as such. (M. Bara even comments on this) Dr. Posner is a skeptic and rails on just about every subject he disagrees with. What many fail to realize is that with just about any subject evidence can be produced to verify or tear down someone's theory. Dr. Posner has posted some interesting things on his site but nowhere in the article regarding Hoagland are there actual letters posted rather "transcriptions" of said letters and anecdotes of supposed phone conversations. In addition, in his rebuttal letters traded between Mike Bara, Hoagland and Posner, he himself had to admit to errors in the article he posted in the Sketical Inquirer. All raise a skeptical eye on Posner's due diligence in his fact finding and reporting. Based on Posner's "outing" of Hoagland and his own admitted errors I find his work to be suspect.AWT (talk) 13:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
- Here's some corroboration from an independent source. The source is somebody identifying himself as "Dr. Ali Fant," writer of a generally favourable review of "Dark Mission" in Amazon customer reviews.
“ | This review is from the perspective of a former NASA Manned Spaceflight Controller, so it is more technical than expository. I first encountered Hoagland's claims through the NASA Technical Alert Briefing viewed by many controllers at the Johnson Space Center in 1989-90, found his claims creditable, and then discovered the briefing tape "disappeared" from the closed JSC Technical Library - from both the open card catalog and the closed shelf listing catalog. As a former university library page, I was shocked to find all references to the briefing tape we controllers viewed were gone two years later. When I began investigating the matter, I was told in no uncertain terms to cease any search for the missing library records. | ” |
- The briefing tape must be the 30-minute edit Posner refers to. Far from being any kind of official consultant, this is evidence that the error-prone Mr. Hoagland is persona non grata at NASA. Note that Hoagland himself endorses Ali Fant. --El Ingles (talk) 15:00, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
- Where are these letters where Posner admits having made errors? dougweller (talk) 17:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Biased article (2)
Science is based on examining evidence, not dismissing it. Richard C. is a scientist, and he makes plenty of interesting hypotheses, but he never makes unfounded claims. True skepticism doesn't start with dismissive conclusions up front; it starts with an open mind and says, "show me the evidence." That's what Richard does, albeit sometimes his evidence is far-fetched, but that doesn't make it untrue.Landroo (talk) 14:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
- Actually, quite often (I cannot say always, as I haven't seen all his "evidence"), his "evidence" is fabricated or the interpretation is fabricated, rather than deriving from the evidence. As for his being a scientist — objective evidence of that is hard to come by. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:49, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
- "....he never makes unfounded claims." No? How about
- NASA murdered the Apollo 1 astronauts
- Neil Armstrong likened himself to a parrot in his 25th anniv speech
- The Brookings Report recommended concealing evidence of extraterrestrial life
- Apollo astronauts brought alien technology back from the Moon
- The problem with the Shuttle ECO sensors was due to "torsion physics"
- The 'A' in the Apollo mission patch stands for an Egyptian God
- Farouk El Baz was the most powerful figure in the Apollo Program
- NASA concealed the results of the Viking LR experiment
- A rock in the Moon crater 'Shorty' is actually the severed head of a robot
- Three Mars missions in the 1980s were deliberately sabotaged
- "....he never makes unfounded claims." No? How about
- Shall I go on? --El Ingles (talk) 16:09, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
- "The problem with the Shuttle ECO sensors was due to "torsion physics"" and you forgot : "and would never be fixed" Scorpene (talk) 16:42, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
- Shall I go on? --El Ingles (talk) 16:09, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
- ...and by the way Landroo, where on Earth do you get the information that Hoagland is a scientist? It's totally untrue. Certainly he has met plenty of scientists, and he knows the jargon and parrots it quite adeptly while performing no science whatsoever. That makes him an impostor, not a scientist. --El Ingles (talk) 21:02, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
NPOV? I don't think so.
I can't find a single part of this article that would be remotely close to ANYTHING neutral. Whether or not you believe what Richard C. Hoagland says, it is irrelevant. All articles on wikipedia are supposed to be written in an encyclopedic manner,which has always been NEUTRAL. This article is akin to the one on Kevin Trudeau. An almost complete rewrite of this article is needed,and I hope someone who reads this will give the man at least a fair shot and give him a neutral article on here. 75.65.2.45 (talk) 09:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
- I don't see any likely objection from a reasonable observer. Could you be more specific? His theories are discredited by all scientists in the appropriate fields who have have heard of them, and his claims to expertise have not been proved. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
- This is a pony that's already trotted around the ring a few times. On this circuit, 75.65.2.45 is being hyperbolic in his or her contention that no part of the article is even close to neutral. The first two sentences are totally neutral. There -- I've cited two immediate examples of neutrality. Over to 75.65.2.45 for some counter-examples. --El Ingles (talk) 17:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
- Neutral does not mean to hide the truth. Hoagland operates a website, on which website he asks for money. That is not mentioned in the opening statement out of an effort to maintain a neutral point of view, BUT if it were mentioned, it would be OK, because it is fact. NPOV means allowing the reader to digest the facts and come to his\her conclusion. Nobody comes out and says "Richard C. Hoagland is an attention-seeking charlatan". The facts are stated, and if the astute reader comes to such a conclusion, how can you claim that is biased? - mbarrieau —Preceding undated comment was added at 22:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC).
Britannica would NEVER run an entry like this in its encyclopedia. It is just an exercise in ridicule of this Hoagland guy. No attempt to present balance - just contempt. Whomever wrote this just cherry picked the most ridiculous factoids on Hoagloand they could find and put them together to create the impression he is a total loony - robot heads and the like ! It's no wonder newspapers mock Wikipedia when you present entries like this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.40.22.251 (talk) 12:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
- Britannica has no entry for RCH — I guess their editors don't consider him notable enough, and who could blame them? For the second time in this short discussion section, I ask for contrary examples. If 59.40.22.251 would like to find some factoids that are not ridiculous, or opinions of Hoagland that are not laughably false, bring 'em on! --El Ingles (talk) 15:41, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
- (with full citations, of course) --El Ingles (talk) 15:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
- No response having been posted for a month, I removed the POV tag. --El Ingles (talk) 23:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Something in Hoagland's Favour?
I've just been reading Arthur C. Clarke's 2061:Odyssey Two and his introduction to the book claims that it was indeed Richard C. Hoagland that provided the theory of life in Europa's oceans. Given Mr Clarke's meticulous research in other areas of science It would appear that he held Hoagland in some regard scientifically. Unfortunately I'm not sure that there is an non-copyrighted version of the book anywhere to provide a reference.... The evil jelly (talk) 11:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
- Here's a scenario: perhaps Arthur C. Clarke first heard the idea from Hoagland, and simply assumed that it came from him? The article already contains sourced evidence that the idea of an ocean on/in Europa was already established some time before Hoagland's 1980 article. --PLUMBAGO 12:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
- You're probably right, After having the dubious 'pleasure' of reading his material on Enterprisemission (I especially like the theories about the mile high glass structures behind the Apollo astronauts) I did think it odd that he'd managed to come up with something so plausible. The evil jelly (talk) 14:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Time for a revision?
Now that yet another of Richard Hoagland's confident predictions (that STS-125 would be canceled) has proved as worthless as all the rest, is it perhaps time to describe him differently? It seems to me now that he's best described as an entertainer rather than as any kind of researcher, scientist or engineer. In his appearances on Coast to Coast AM he parodies a scientist/engineer and as such he still seems to have quite a following despite his very frequent errors (I can provide a list of some important ones if anyone would like.) The problem is that this can hardly be described as his profession, since his radio appearances are unpaid. Any consensus for this change? --El Ingles (talk) 18:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
It is certainly fair to list his predictions, both incorrect and correct (if any). I haven't done a study, but my guess is his erroneous predictions far outnumber any that have proven accurate. One suggestion for describing Hoagland would be "attention seeking charlatan". --MBarrieau (talk) 09:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC) Mark Barrieau
Cronkite on Hoagland
Can anyone corroborate and provide a decent source for this story?
One of Richard Hoaglands favorite resume items is his stint as science advisor to Walter Cronkite and the CBS evening news. It turns out that today is Hoagland's birthday and he was on Coast to Coast AM via telephone. Cronkite called in, of all people. Cronkite first said that he wanted Goerge and all of his listeners to know this, and then he referred to Hoagland's "hocus pocus nonsense", his "babbling about Mars", that he wished he hadn't been led astray by Hoagland, that Hoagland probably qualified for medical treatment under the CBS insurance plan, and he was glad to be away from him. Cronkite alluded to this all being a joke, but IMO it was no joke. He never said one nice thing. I think Cronkite had been waiting for this for a very long time. His work with Cronkite is one of Hoaglands most prized claims.
I've heard other stories like this, that when asked about Hoagland, Cronkite replied something along the lines of "Tell him to give me a call when he's stopped being a crackpot"
I found a mention at:
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/04/25
they say '"Walter Cronkite" Calls Hoagland', implying it wasn't really him. Heavystones (talk) 18:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Heavystones (talk) 18:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Edit wars
Recent edit wars on this article are unacceptable. I agree that "manipulation", although proved in one instance, is biased. However, evidence that he ever examined images not digitally reprocessed by him or his associates is also lacking.
- "Hyperdimensional physics" should not be in the lead or infobox unless he's been doing it all of his — well, alternative — science career. It probably should be in the text somewhere.
- Calling his organization a "research" organization requires evidence other than his own statements.
- The lack of peer-reviewed papers should probably be included; the alleged "contribution" to a peer-reviewed survey was a general public contribution, which is not notable (and should not be in the lead). I've made "public comments" on proposed IP and drug laws; that isn't notable enough for the lead, although if someone thinks it should be somewhere in my article, they may add it.
— Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:06, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
- I fully agree. It was I who added the "contribution" to a peer-reviewed survey, in a good-faith attempt to placate a Hoagland fan who protested some previous wording. Quite honestly it's lame and I'd be only too happy to see it re-deleted. I remind all readers once again that I'm on record as advocating the complete deletion of this article. --El Ingles (talk) 16:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm a newbie here, I didn't know of this page and 3RR until now. My opinion,
- Hyperdimensional physics is described in chapter two in his popular Dark Mission book, also given a good introduction in his Hyperdimensional Election of Barack Obama documentary. HDP is the 'scientific foundation' of his theories and will probably be central in all his future talks and material. If not "known for HDP" now, he will be eventually.
- Agreed.
- Since Hoagland never claimed formal scientific training (afaik), who would expect him to publish peer-reviewed articles? I agree that the 'contribution' is moved.
- How about refering to him as an "independent investigator and science speaker"?
El, why do you advocate complete deletion? IMHO, the article just needs bias-adjustments, more recent information and citation updates.
- Dubiten (talk) 21:44, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
- No, I couldn't support "independent investigator". We don't have evidence that he "investigates", rather than fabricates. We cannot say that he fabricates his material, but there is no evidence to the contrary.
- I could only marginally accept "science speaker". He speaks about science, but there is no evidence that he knows any science to speak about. (sorry, forgot to sign) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:03, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
- I advocate deletion because I don't think this person is notable. The article has already gone through about ten phases of "bias adjustment" and there are already more citations than is good for any of us. --El Ingles (talk) 21:58, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm curious, have any of you read Dark Mission?
I think that Hoagland is by far notable, after his publications and controversy. Yes, the article has a lot of citiations, to further justify that he is notable, but not to the point where it should be deleted.
- Dubiten (talk) 22:22, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
- I've read about half of "Dark Mission" but that's just a parenthetical aside. I would consider myself qualified to act as one editor of this article even if I hadn't. --El Ingles (talk) 16:16, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
- Have you read the Hoagland entry on uncyclopedia? I think it's much better than this wiki article after the latest batch of edits. <http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Richard_C._Hoagland> MBarrieau
- Today Dubiten has once more corrupted this article by re-inserting an incorrect version of Dark Mission 's "best-seller" status, this time claiming in edit summary that there is no "Also Selling" list. Dubiten, please go here to confirm the original reference. You need to be registered to NYT to see the complete list. Thank you. --El Ingles (talk) 16:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
- I saw the NY times page some days ago. As I recall, the major heading on top of it is "Bestsellers" and it ranks from 1-100. A small separation between ranks 20 and 21 notes "also selling", and Dark Mission is on the 21-spot, 18th Nov 2007. If you actually read what I contribute, you'd notice I did not say "Dark Mission is a bestseller", I referenced to the Feral House (publisher) site here where they congratulate Hoagland and Bara for Dark mission being on the "Bestseller List", which my opinion is all 100 entries on the page. Dubiten (talk) 16:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- The New_York_Times_Best_Seller_list is, according to this venerable 'pedia, "a list of fiction and non-fiction sections; each contain[ing] ten to twenty titles." Now you tell me that a publisher stretches the strict truth in order to promote one of his titles? I'm shocked -- SHOCKED, I tell you. --El Ingles (talk) 16:52, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- Go sue them. Dubiten (talk) 17:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Hominid/feline face
El Ingles, if you actually had seen Hoagland's video of his UN Briefings event on Feb. 27th, 1992, you'd see that he made a long statement on his assumption that "the face" is likely half human, half lion. This means your wiki-edit "On April 8, 2001, enhanced images[35] showed that the "face" was not symmetrical, as Hoagland had earlier claimed." is false. And the date of the youtube-video claimed to be of 1993 is false, it had to be earlier than the UN Briefings event. Dubiten (talk) 17:25, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- Nevertheless, he stated with absolute clarity in the Ozzie TV interview that the mesa was doubly symmetrical. Of course he's perfectly entitled to change his mind in light of new evidence. He's not, however, entitled to publish on his wretched web site an essay claiming in effect that he and Mike Bara NEVER expected it to be symmetrical. That's simply dishonest. --El Ingles (talk) 18:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
So, are you going to re-edit your false statement? Let's see if you can come up with something unbiased this time. Dubiten (talk) 18:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
That Oct. 2007 Press Conference, and Ken Johnston
Dubiten seems very insistent on creating a paragraph describing this event. I urge him or her to read Dwayne Day's hilariously satirical account of it to understand what a total farce it was. Not one single word was written or spoken in the US media by way of coverage (unless you count Day's piece) and hence it must be judged a total failure. Not a very elevating addition to a 'pedia article, then, is it?
Now -- for those readers who might want to know -- who is Ken Johnston? Ken, an ex-Marine Air Corps Lance-Corporal who served his country honorably and was aged in his 20s at the time of Apollo, worked in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at Johnson Spacecraft Center in Houston. The primary duty of LRL was to safeguard and curate the Apollo moonrocks, and to administer the program under which samples and accompanying documentation were dispatched to scientists who had successfully applied to receive samples for study. For this purpose, LRL archives included many sets of the photographs taken by astronauts on the Moon. Samples would be sent out, by Ken and others, with a letter saying, in effect, "Here are your samples and here are some photographs that show the context in which they were collected." These photo-sets were emphatically not the principal photo-archive of Apollo, which was in a completely different building under separate curation. It is also inconceivable that Ken had access to photos that were not also in the principal archive, since the LRL archive was a sub-set of the principal.
It may easily be imagined that, as the sample-distribution program ran its course, the photo-sets in the LRL became more and more incomplete. Quite likely there was no one complete set when, some time in the 1970s, Ken was told to wind up the program and destroy the remaining archives. For his own reasons he decided to retain one set for private use, and these in due course were made available to Richard Hoagland. Hoagland has made much of so-called "anomalies" in some of these photographs, but as evidence of a dead lunar civilization they are woefully unconvincing, and it is far from clear that any single one of these photos cannot also be obtained quite openly from the official archive.
After retirement, Ken joined JPL's Solar System Ambassador program. Read about it here. He resigned his volunteer position with SSA on 19th October 2007 and his resignation was accepted by Kay Ferrari, Program Coordinator, on 25th October. Documentation of those events is in the November 2007 archive of the Dark Mission blog.
I ask for consensus to remove the paragraph about this farce of a press conference, as a fundamentally misleading paragraph which might induce readers of the article to believe that its subject, Richard Hoagland, has the attention of the US media when in fact he does not. Thank you for your attention. --El Ingles (talk) 20:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
- Now, this is how the article gets biased. This is not a debunking page. A person who releases a documentary should have this mentioned in his neutral encyclopedia biography so the reader is given the opportunity to make his own opinion. If this information is removed, it is censorship. The wikipedia entry must accurrately reflect Hoagland - if he in the future claims that his work is a lie, it should be posted. By all means, criticism must be allowed, but also kept to a minimum. There is already plenty coverage of criticism, both in the header and later, even a whole section is dedicated to it called "responses by scientists". -- Dubiten (talk) 07:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
This paragraph is biased as it stands because it reflects Hoagland's dishonest wish that we believe he has the power to summon the Media to hear and report his wisdom. Please say how you expect a reader to "make his own opinion" when not given the important information that this was a press conference in which the (US) press did not participate. Minor point -- the referenced video is in no sense a documentary (more dishonest labeling there.) Per its official description, it is an unedited and uncut record of the event. I'm glad that at least the word documentary is not in the main article. I appeal again for consensus to delete this misleading item. --El Ingles (talk) 14:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
- The paragraph is neither biased nor misleading because it correctly reflects Hoagland's truth and events - not your truth. If you think he is dishonest, that's your problem...and if he bothers you so much, why do you even waste so much of your time and energy on this?! I recommend you rather spend your precious time on inspirational stuff instead. Dubiten (talk) 17:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The fact that the press failed to show up for this press conference is not my truth or The Man In The Moon's truth — it's THE truth. I'm not proposing to add either criticism or debunking — I'm proposing that this passage be deleted as misleading. I have no objection to the "press conference" being included, as it already is, as a footnote to the lead paragraph. That's quite sufficient. Other editors please opine.
Dubiten, please do not give me advice about how to spend my time, precious or otherwise. Thank you. --El Ingles (talk) 19:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
- You really don't get it do you, StuHarris(=El Ingles)? A documentary has been released by Hoagland, and it is cited in his bio. End of discussion. Dubiten (talk) 20:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
So you think a legitimate function of this 'pedia is to promote merchandise that its subjects offer for sale?? Well, you're very inexperienced as a wikipedia editor, I make allowance for that. We may hope that in time you will revisit that opinion. --El Ingles (talk) 12:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Toby Owen
Who is Toby Owen and why is that paragraph relevant? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:20, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
- Prof Owen is http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/users/owen/default/owen.html
- As to why he's cited in this article, beats me. Better ask the editor who added him. --El Ingles (talk) 15:40, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Because it marks the beginning of "the face on mars" and cites who saw it first (quoted from Dark Mission). Dubiten (talk) 16:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
- ...and "Dark Mission" is a reliable source?? The book has approximately 15 documented errors, starting with its very first sentence. --El Ingles (talk) 16:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Primary sources
I added the {{Primary sources}} tag to this page. Much of the material is from Hoagland's own book. Especially the sentence in the lead that says
Claims from his personal biography[2] and publication[3] include having been curator for a science museum in Springfield Massachusetts at age 19 in the mid-60s, and science advisor to CBS News during the Apollo Missions to the Moon.[citation needed] Hoagland does not claim to have formal scientific training.
Just because we say that these claims are from his publications, does not remove the necessity of finding other sources that back up these claims. If wikipedia just said what people said about themselves, and we sourced it very well that way, wikipedia would be very flawed. Nasa-verve (talk) 13:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Neutrality
Over 3/4ths of the references in this article are from Hoagland's books or his website? How can we call this article neutral???? Nasa-verve (talk) 16:56, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
- Would you please refer to the references that you think degrades neutrality? I would like to remind you that this is an encyclopedia entry that should correctly present Hoagland, and not "why he is wrong". Of course there is room for criticism, though to a minimum. Dubiten (talk) 18:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- As I said in the section above this one: "Just because we say that these claims are from his publications, does not remove the necessity of finding other sources that back up these claims. If wikipedia just said what people said about themselves, and we sourced it very well that way, wikipedia would be very flawed." Nasa-verve (talk) 01:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Would you please refer to the references that you think degrades neutrality? I would like to remind you that this is an encyclopedia entry that should correctly present Hoagland, and not "why he is wrong". Of course there is room for criticism, though to a minimum. Dubiten (talk) 18:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the comments that Richard Hoagland is not noteworthy. If the only source for 3/4 of the references is Hoagland, why is that? It is because he is not a notable person. He is not distinguished in his career, as illustrated by his reference to his very first job out of high school as a notable achievement. MBarrieau (talk)
Hoagland is by far noteworthy. Look at this discussion page and all edits during several years. Dubiten (talk) 21:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
The edit wars are not proof of his noteworthiness. They merely show that a small group of people have an opinion about Hoagland, or they object to a wikipedia entry based on his own self-promoting website. He has no standing among real scientists. He is an attention whore. MBarrieau (talk) 10:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- Dubiten: Almost all of the 'Public Expression' section you added violates neutrality. --El Ingles (talk) 21:22, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- I don't believe neutrality is called for in this situation. Richard Hoagland spouts nonsense. Do we really need to treat nonsense with respect? I know there are Hoagland disciples who might argue that he's a genius, and true genius is never understood by contemporaries. But Hoagland IS understood by some contemporaries, they just happen to be the people without any education in critical thinking. This article is an example of the weakness of wikipedia. By allowing know-nothings a voice, wikipedia is diminished.MBarrieau (talk) 22:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
copy editing
I was asked to take a look at this article, so I've been copy editing it for the last little bit and I wanted to share some of my thoughts here. First, in terms of formatting, I wanted to mention that the bullet list style of presentation is just bad. It's an OK style to use for things which are supposed to be lists, such as books, but it should never replace a prose style.
As for content, and all of the neutrality stuff going on here on the talk page: I've been cutting the bulk of the material back. First, to those of you who are obviously "trying to fight pseudoscience", giving detailed rebuttals of Hoagland's fringe theories only provides the theories themselves and his supporters undue weight. To those of you who are supportive of his theories, this article is not license to try to publish detailed treatises on what he asserts. To everyone, the fact that he thinks what he does can be notable on this page. If any of his theories end up gaining some sort of widespread notability, then they could be mentioned on the associated articles which deal with them, and rebutttles woudud probably be appropriate there. This page should simply report the facts though, not serve as some sort of battle ground to advocate for or against his views. There are a lot of trivial points being made on this page, which the switch to a prose style tends to highlight, so I would encourage those of you who regularly edit this page to begin picking the more notable points which should be kept in the article.
— V = I * R (talk) 04:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- I slashed and burned a bit more then I had intended to, but I think that the article is better now overall. Give it a chance and actually read it. Regardless, I don't keep these type of articles on my watchlist so you guys don't have to worry about my participation in any edit wars or anything. Happy editing!
— V = I * R (talk) 05:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Dubiten's revert 8/19/09
I counter-reverted because..
- Dubiten can't spell "physical."
- We don't know who appointed RCH science adviser. It was more likely Lisa Lyon than George Noory.
- The BBC programs cited were not "regular appearances."
- The videos are not documentaries, they are unedited recordings.