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::The "point in the same direction" claim, though, is [[WP:OR]]. I would be fine if we had sources that made the connection between the points in this paragraph and the AAH, but it seems to me that there is no such source. Perhaps the Attenborough program suffices, but we need to have a discussion about this. Are we ready to concede that a TV special is the main source for what is and isn't related to AAH? Because if that's the case, I have some blogs I'd like to show you which have just as much editorial and academic cache. [[User:9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS|jps]] ([[User talk:9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS|talk]]) 20:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC) |
::The "point in the same direction" claim, though, is [[WP:OR]]. I would be fine if we had sources that made the connection between the points in this paragraph and the AAH, but it seems to me that there is no such source. Perhaps the Attenborough program suffices, but we need to have a discussion about this. Are we ready to concede that a TV special is the main source for what is and isn't related to AAH? Because if that's the case, I have some blogs I'd like to show you which have just as much editorial and academic cache. [[User:9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS|jps]] ([[User talk:9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS|talk]]) 20:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC) |
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:::It was radio actually, and there is a transcript referenced which you can read if you want to (or listen to the podcast, though that will probably cost). That might at least satisfy the issue of OR and it's published by an independent organisation. But the claim has another source in the paragraph. So it meets Wikipedia's criterias which are not the same as legal or scientific proof. [[User:Chris55|Chris55]] ([[User talk:Chris55|talk]]) 22:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC) |
:::It was radio actually, and there is a transcript referenced which you can read if you want to (or listen to the podcast, though that will probably cost). That might at least satisfy the issue of OR and it's published by an independent organisation. But the claim has another source in the paragraph. So it meets Wikipedia's criterias which are not the same as legal or scientific proof. [[User:Chris55|Chris55]] ([[User talk:Chris55|talk]]) 22:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC) |
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:::2005 programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/scarsofevolution.shtml |
::::2005 programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/scarsofevolution.shtml |
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:::2016 programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07v0hhm [[User:CEngelbrecht2|CEngelbrecht2]] ([[User talk:CEngelbrecht2|talk]]) 23:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC) |
::::2016 programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07v0hhm [[User:CEngelbrecht2|CEngelbrecht2]] ([[User talk:CEngelbrecht2|talk]]) 23:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC) |
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== Rewrite tag == |
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Response section
I think the simple bipartite split of this section into ‘public’ and ‘scientist’ responses is unfortunate for a very good reason. The response of paleoanthropologists was almost universally hostile and dismissive. They had vested interests in other scenarios, having subscribed to an up-to-then largely unchallenged status quo, and resented the intrusion into 'their field' of outsiders. In contrast, other scientists, zoologists, physiologists, evolutionary biologists etc., were much less hostile, in general. It would be useful for this to be reflected by the re-introduction of sub-sections. Urselius (talk) 10:17, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- This segregation of reception between (paleo)anthropologists and other scientists seems obvious, it's in my statistics, but I'd love to see if any secondary review pointed this out. Chakazul (talk) 02:32, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- A possible source is p232 of Dunking the Tarzanists by Erika Lorraine Milam, pp223-238 of "Outsider Scientists: Routes to Innovation in Biology, Ed O Harman, M. R. Dietrich, U of Chicago Press, 2013. It makes the point directly. Chris55 (talk) 15:25, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- Just like those dastardly climate scientists being vested in the climate change model, eh? 2600:1017:B019:80A2:FA2B:EDD9:A935:9BC (talk) 09:04, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
I see JPS rearranging this section into "silence + negative" and "positive" reactions a clever treatment, better than the previous "anthropologist vs others" dichotomy that implies some kind of secret society on either side (establishment vs rebels??), and better than sorting it in chronological order as I once thought. Chakazul (talk) 09:55, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Primary sources banner
Can we remove the primary sources banner from the The Hardy/Morgan hypothesis section?
I suggest move this on two grounds.
1) The banner was erroneously applied in the first place. The section is self-proclaimed as being about the hypothesis espoused by Hardy and Morgan, therefore the primary sources written by Hardy and Morgan are sufficient in and of themselves, they need no further corroboration.
2) Most of the statements in this section now have secondary source citations, redundant (see 1 above) as they are.
Once again, the use of primary sources is fine as long as they are not used editorially to create a novel synthesis. Urselius (talk) 13:50, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- The undue focus on the Hardy/Morgan primary sources does not seem resolved to me. I think it is important to learn the lesson that only concepts that are explicated in the same detail in secondary sources should be explicated here. In spot checking the secondary references, I see very little in the way of the kind of exposition we offer in that section. In short, I think the banner needs to stay until we pare down or start dealing with the ideas that are most WP:PROMINENT. jps (talk) 17:16, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- The AAH is the work of Hardy and Morgan, a description of the AAH is a description of the work of Hardy and Morgan. The section in question is, indeed, a rather bald description of the major assertions of the AAH, therefore there is no need for reference to secondary sources here at all. In effect we are saying "Smith says "Blah, blah, blah". What you want is "Jones says that Smith says "Blah, blah, blah". I have provided this "Jones says" unnecessary layer and even this is not sufficient for you. Total nonsense! You are just stonewalling and covering yourself with specious references to "WP:Bollocks" in every other sentence. Urselius (talk) 21:23, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- You miss the point. The stuff that Hardy and Morgan said are only relevant to the extent that they have been noticed by third-parties who are not true-believers in their religion. So we need to identify those points which have received outside notice. We can cite or even quote Hardy/Morgan directly, but it is irresponsible to simply reproduce their work as exposition lest Wikipedia serve as a WP:SOAPy WP:COAT. That is WP:NOT what Wikipedia is, you see. jps (talk) 01:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, you are not operating within a reasonable framework. I will take the route of proposing an entirely parallel scenario as a paradigm. European swallows are not seen in Europe during the winter. We know as a scientific fact that these birds migrate and overwinter ine Sub-Saharan Africa. This has been proven by ringing studies and radio-tracker studies. However, Aristotle said that swallows overwinter by burying themselves in the mud at the bottom of pools and lakes. Say that I add this interesting but erroneous observation to the Wikipedia article on swallows - it may already be there, I haven't checked. I can legitimately do this by writing "Aristotle said ...", and all the citation I need to give is to the relevant work of Aristotle where he makes this assertion. You seem to suggest here that the following would proceed from my hypothetical edit: that I believe that Aristotle's assertion is true, that I am claiming that the scientific community supports the truth of Aristotle's assertion and, finally, that if the edit stands then Wikipedia is endorsing the truth of Aristotle's assertion. None of these are reasonable assumptions. Your assertion that what Hardy and Morgan wrote are admissable only "to the extent that they have been noticed by third-parties who are not true-believers in their religion" is entirely and completely fallacious. In the context of an article about AAH (the work of Hardy and Morgan) the inclusion of what Hardy and Morgan asserted is central, its inclusion is not dependent on anything else whatsoever. Urselius (talk) 09:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- If there were contemporary proponents of the swallow burying hypothesis, a similar form of exposition as the one we have here (which would encompass multiple arguable bullet points, red herrings, and just-so stories) would be likewise problematic. No one is arguing that we shouldn't explain what Hardy and Morgan said. What is necessary, though, is proper context in light of the critiques and a removal of excessive detail that distracts from what can be verifiably said to be true about this fringe theory. jps (talk) 09:59, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- You appear to be doing just that. A section stating what Hardy and Morgan proposed needs no embedded critique - you are confusing the requirements for a single section with the requirements for the whole article. Urselius (talk) 10:05, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- The fact that Wikipedia even has a template for primary sources over-used in a section shows that your argument is not generally accepted. jps (talk) 20:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, that does not follow. A template might be used perfectly legitimately on a section that contained any editorial comment or extrapolation (OR) away from one or more primary sources. To use it on a section which is merely repeating or baldly reporting what a primary source or primary sources state is a misuse. The context is all important.Urselius (talk) 23:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- The fact that Wikipedia even has a template for primary sources over-used in a section shows that your argument is not generally accepted. jps (talk) 20:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- You appear to be doing just that. A section stating what Hardy and Morgan proposed needs no embedded critique - you are confusing the requirements for a single section with the requirements for the whole article. Urselius (talk) 10:05, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- If there were contemporary proponents of the swallow burying hypothesis, a similar form of exposition as the one we have here (which would encompass multiple arguable bullet points, red herrings, and just-so stories) would be likewise problematic. No one is arguing that we shouldn't explain what Hardy and Morgan said. What is necessary, though, is proper context in light of the critiques and a removal of excessive detail that distracts from what can be verifiably said to be true about this fringe theory. jps (talk) 09:59, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, you are not operating within a reasonable framework. I will take the route of proposing an entirely parallel scenario as a paradigm. European swallows are not seen in Europe during the winter. We know as a scientific fact that these birds migrate and overwinter ine Sub-Saharan Africa. This has been proven by ringing studies and radio-tracker studies. However, Aristotle said that swallows overwinter by burying themselves in the mud at the bottom of pools and lakes. Say that I add this interesting but erroneous observation to the Wikipedia article on swallows - it may already be there, I haven't checked. I can legitimately do this by writing "Aristotle said ...", and all the citation I need to give is to the relevant work of Aristotle where he makes this assertion. You seem to suggest here that the following would proceed from my hypothetical edit: that I believe that Aristotle's assertion is true, that I am claiming that the scientific community supports the truth of Aristotle's assertion and, finally, that if the edit stands then Wikipedia is endorsing the truth of Aristotle's assertion. None of these are reasonable assumptions. Your assertion that what Hardy and Morgan wrote are admissable only "to the extent that they have been noticed by third-parties who are not true-believers in their religion" is entirely and completely fallacious. In the context of an article about AAH (the work of Hardy and Morgan) the inclusion of what Hardy and Morgan asserted is central, its inclusion is not dependent on anything else whatsoever. Urselius (talk) 09:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- You miss the point. The stuff that Hardy and Morgan said are only relevant to the extent that they have been noticed by third-parties who are not true-believers in their religion. So we need to identify those points which have received outside notice. We can cite or even quote Hardy/Morgan directly, but it is irresponsible to simply reproduce their work as exposition lest Wikipedia serve as a WP:SOAPy WP:COAT. That is WP:NOT what Wikipedia is, you see. jps (talk) 01:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- The AAH is the work of Hardy and Morgan, a description of the AAH is a description of the work of Hardy and Morgan. The section in question is, indeed, a rather bald description of the major assertions of the AAH, therefore there is no need for reference to secondary sources here at all. In effect we are saying "Smith says "Blah, blah, blah". What you want is "Jones says that Smith says "Blah, blah, blah". I have provided this "Jones says" unnecessary layer and even this is not sufficient for you. Total nonsense! You are just stonewalling and covering yourself with specious references to "WP:Bollocks" in every other sentence. Urselius (talk) 21:23, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- This banner was discussed above in the section Primary sources and Dmcq agreed that it was a legitimate use of primary sources as defined in WP:PRIMARY. i.e. "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts...For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot". One of the reasons for this was the tendency of editors to add other features they found appealing (e.g. finger-wrinkling) which weren't found in Hardy/Morgan. You may disagree that this is allowed in "fringe" articles, but if so please show us the guidelines. Chris55 (talk) 17:42, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- Also a considerable amount of paring has already been done. e.g. Langdon includes 24 points but my analysis of the 5 books showed 37 whereas the article only has 9. I tried to choose the most common and central arguments. Chris55 (talk) 17:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- WP:UNDUE seems relevant here. This list is focused on primary-sourced arguments that are, on the whole, derided in the mainstream analyses I've seen. That this isn't substantively dealt with remains a problem. jps (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- Most of the arguments are incapable of disproof at present and many of them might never be demonstrated one way or another. That was the point of including Dennett's critique, which has been deleted. It's also why the research section only includes 2 out of the many arguments, together with a couple that have been suggested as a result. The aim of that was to try to show how science actually proceeds: in this case mostly pursuing the hard rather than the soft tissues. It was of course limited to lines of pursuit that people have picked up from the Hardy/Morgan theses. There are other lines of research that point in the same direction but are outside the scope of the article. Chris55 (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- WP:UNDUE seems relevant here. This list is focused on primary-sourced arguments that are, on the whole, derided in the mainstream analyses I've seen. That this isn't substantively dealt with remains a problem. jps (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- The undue focus on the Hardy/Morgan primary sources does not seem resolved to me. I think it is important to learn the lesson that only concepts that are explicated in the same detail in secondary sources should be explicated here. In spot checking the secondary references, I see very little in the way of the kind of exposition we offer in that section. In short, I think the banner needs to stay until we pare down or start dealing with the ideas that are most WP:PROMINENT. jps (talk) 17:16, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Many of the arguments are totally ad hoc. "Incapable of disproof therefore plausible" is not how parsimony works. This is exactly why mainstream academics make fun of evolutionary psychologists, for example. jps (talk) 01:05, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- WP:UNDUE would be another issue. WP:PRIMARY clearly states that primary sources could be used for straightforward description of facts (here "AAH claimed such as such") but (1) without further interpretation (2) avoid large passages (3) need to be sourced. The Hardy/Morgan section perfectly comply to these guidelines, plus Langdon 1997 guaranteed the whole thesis has been secondarily reviewed. Do we need a RfC to settle this? Chakazul (talk) 02:24, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- I think a Request for Comments is probably a good idea because I do not see WP:UNDUE as separate whatsoever and I certainly don't see the section as compliant. The problem is that we don't yet have an alternative drafted because there are other things to be worked on as well. jps (talk) 09:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- The problem is essentially that you are applying the various precepts and policies of Wikipedia that are intended for whole articles to individual sections and even individual sentences. Indeed, an article as a whole needs to be balanced and to accurately reflect the available sources. Quite obviously this cannot be extended to all individual sections and sentences, as this approach would make the result unreadable. Urselius (talk) 13:05, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- You make a claim with which I categorically disagree. See WP:CSECTION. It is indeed possible and definitely preferable to keep sections balanced. We don't have "on the one hand"/"on the other hand" sections for a reason. jps (talk) 15:58, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- The problem is essentially that you are applying the various precepts and policies of Wikipedia that are intended for whole articles to individual sections and even individual sentences. Indeed, an article as a whole needs to be balanced and to accurately reflect the available sources. Quite obviously this cannot be extended to all individual sections and sentences, as this approach would make the result unreadable. Urselius (talk) 13:05, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- I think a Request for Comments is probably a good idea because I do not see WP:UNDUE as separate whatsoever and I certainly don't see the section as compliant. The problem is that we don't yet have an alternative drafted because there are other things to be worked on as well. jps (talk) 09:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- jps, your habit of putting in quotes phrases that have never been used is either gross carelessness or careful disinformation. Please stop it. Chris55 (talk) 08:45, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- Please assume good faith. If you don't understand why I used quotation marks, you can always ask. jps (talk) 09:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- Then why did you? And how is that you haven't assumed any good faith on behalf of the editors of this page? Chris55 (talk) 11:40, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- I do it, I believe, for the same reason that Tobias did in the quote provided by Urselius. I will try to extend good faith if you will! jps (talk) 20:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- jps, I suppose I have to explain why I thought your remark bad faith. By adding "therefore plausible" to my phrase you put words into my mouth which counter the point I was making, and in the process made the assumption that I'm entirely ignorant or contemptuous of scientific method. Like most people contributing here I guess, I have a PhD in a non-related science subject and am well aware of what it takes to establish a subject scientifically. I prefer to try and explain words like "parsimony" in Wikipedia rather than using them in the lead but many of your remarks appear to assume simply that I'm ignorant. Chris55 (talk) 11:12, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
- I appreciate the explanation. I hope you will believe me when I say that I was not trying to put words into your mouth but rather trying to describe in a hypothetical fashion a problematic counterargument to the claims of parsimony. I also hope you will believe me when I say that I never assumed you were ignorant. I think what is needed at this page is a context of the most notable ideas and I think, sadly, that the most notable ideas associated with AAH are those that are rather more on the pseudoscience end. jps (talk) 01:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
- Only if you're prone to wishful thinking. Example: Extant Homo sapiens has nowhere near the same ammount of fur as their close ape relatives (or any primate), while it keeps warm employing a layer of subcutaneous fat just under the dermis. The combination of fur loss coupled with insulating skinfat is very common amongst aquatic, semiaquatic and recent semiaquatic mammals, because that combination is a better insulation solution for a medium to large size tropical mammal adapting to life in water. Therefore based on the concept of convergent evolution, fur loss in Homo sapiens could have emerged from aquatic selection. That's not a pseudoscientific argument. At all. Persistently repeating a falsehood doesn't make it a truth.
- This disgraceful smearing of one the finest ideas of the 20th century has to stop. Here and everywhere else. CEngelbrecht2 (talk) 04:14, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
- I appreciate the explanation. I hope you will believe me when I say that I was not trying to put words into your mouth but rather trying to describe in a hypothetical fashion a problematic counterargument to the claims of parsimony. I also hope you will believe me when I say that I never assumed you were ignorant. I think what is needed at this page is a context of the most notable ideas and I think, sadly, that the most notable ideas associated with AAH are those that are rather more on the pseudoscience end. jps (talk) 01:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
- jps, I suppose I have to explain why I thought your remark bad faith. By adding "therefore plausible" to my phrase you put words into my mouth which counter the point I was making, and in the process made the assumption that I'm entirely ignorant or contemptuous of scientific method. Like most people contributing here I guess, I have a PhD in a non-related science subject and am well aware of what it takes to establish a subject scientifically. I prefer to try and explain words like "parsimony" in Wikipedia rather than using them in the lead but many of your remarks appear to assume simply that I'm ignorant. Chris55 (talk) 11:12, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
- I do it, I believe, for the same reason that Tobias did in the quote provided by Urselius. I will try to extend good faith if you will! jps (talk) 20:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- Then why did you? And how is that you haven't assumed any good faith on behalf of the editors of this page? Chris55 (talk) 11:40, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- Please assume good faith. If you don't understand why I used quotation marks, you can always ask. jps (talk) 09:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- WP:UNDUE would be another issue. WP:PRIMARY clearly states that primary sources could be used for straightforward description of facts (here "AAH claimed such as such") but (1) without further interpretation (2) avoid large passages (3) need to be sourced. The Hardy/Morgan section perfectly comply to these guidelines, plus Langdon 1997 guaranteed the whole thesis has been secondarily reviewed. Do we need a RfC to settle this? Chakazul (talk) 02:24, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Organizing the section
- jps, I'm with Urselius on this: I think a section laying out the hypothesis is fine to rely on primary sources because it should not contain any analysis or commentary, and does not imply any endorsement. Films and books do exactly that without even giving any attribution. The section is essentially "What Hardy and Morgan think" and for supporting what they think, their own words are the single best source we have. The problem I see with that section is that it's entirely too long and detailed. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:53, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
- If you think the section is too long and detailed, you are on my side. jps (talk) 04:24, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- As I said to Alex, I believe two paragraphs, sourced to the primary works is enough coverage of the details of this hypothesis. The most noteworthy feature of it is it's near-universal rejection by mainstream scholars, and the (IMHO, rather poor) reasons for this. As such, that is where the focus of this article should be. I believe the fact that there's little worthwhile defense of this hypothesis in the literature is sad, but that doesn't prevent me from recognizing that it's true. For the most part, you and I are indeed in agreement as to how this article should be written. Which is remarkable in that I'm pretty sure you and I have very different opinions on the validity of this hypothesis. If that is so, and you think this hypothesis is pretty much bunk, then I think that's actually a pretty compelling bit of evidence that our shared opinion on the content is the best one for the project. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- The size of the section is just right. Compare Endurance running hypothesis, there're many similar points in ER and AH, but a feature would got a long section in ER while not even a mention in AH. I won't say the ER article is a good example because most stuffs were directly dumped from primary sources (where are the secondary reviews?), I just wanted to point out such an extreme treatment, not because of the level of evidence or academic acceptance, but of its popularity and few criticism.
- Back to here, one possible change is to reduce each of the arguments into bullet points (e.g. * Bipedalism facilitated and/or enhanced by wading), but increase their number to no more than 20. This could reflect the situation of these arguments -- even proponents have not much to say about them, but a longer list gives a better idea of its scope (its "umbrella-ness"). Chakazul (talk) 08:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- The available RSes devote far more time to discussing why (and that) the hypothesis is not accepted by scientists within the proper disciplines, but remains quite popular among scientists outside the relevant disciplines and the lay population than it does to expounding the theory. The article should reflect this, else by definition, it has major POV problems. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- As I said to Alex, I believe two paragraphs, sourced to the primary works is enough coverage of the details of this hypothesis. The most noteworthy feature of it is it's near-universal rejection by mainstream scholars, and the (IMHO, rather poor) reasons for this. As such, that is where the focus of this article should be. I believe the fact that there's little worthwhile defense of this hypothesis in the literature is sad, but that doesn't prevent me from recognizing that it's true. For the most part, you and I are indeed in agreement as to how this article should be written. Which is remarkable in that I'm pretty sure you and I have very different opinions on the validity of this hypothesis. If that is so, and you think this hypothesis is pretty much bunk, then I think that's actually a pretty compelling bit of evidence that our shared opinion on the content is the best one for the project. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- If you think the section is too long and detailed, you are on my side. jps (talk) 04:24, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- Let me just add my agreement with MjolnirPants that changing this section into paragraphs rather than bullets would do a lot to help the problems as I see them. Bulleted lists should be used when reporting uncontroversial members of a category. Here, we have arguments that may or may not be considered convincing, all sharing the same "top level" domain with each other. Switching to a paragraph/narrative form will allow us to explain what the most-dwelled-upon points are and lets us WP:WEIGHT properly to avoid giving false sense of import to the least-dwelled-upon points. jps (talk) 15:34, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- They are uncontroversial members of the category "Aquatic Ape Hypothesis", which is what this article is about. This article is not about convincing anybody about anything, it is about supplying information about the hypothesis. If the article was about the 'Moon being made of blue cheese hypothesis' then it would not need to prove that the hypothesis was reasonable, it would not have to, oh so carefully, guard against the hypothesis being taken seriously, it would just have to report what the hypothesis claimed and the reactions to it. The strictures you apply to the simple reporting of what has been published are irrelevant and/or unreasonable. Urselius (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Soft tissue?
Several times (at least 4), this article mentions that AAH is mainly concerned with "soft tissue" adaptations, but it never says what those adaptations are and the article itself seems to focus on everything but soft tissue adaptations (except for one paragraph about subcutaneous fat). I get the impression that either (1) there is a significant chunk of information missing from the article, or (2) the statement that AAH is mainly about "soft tissue" adaptations is wrong. Kaldari (talk) 00:13, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- Soft tissue just refers to essentially that which is difficult to fossilize. That's mostly from them bones. jps (talk) 01:06, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- Auditory exostoses, being bony and therefore fossilisable, may be a useful means of testing the AAH; at least for well-preserved hominin remains from populations in reasonably temperate zones, where cold water would be expected. Urselius (talk) 12:04, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Is a picture of a gorilla wading relevant to the article?
I added a picture of a gorilla wading to the section "Wading and Bipedalism" a few days and it has been deleted three times: once by jps (aka 9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS) with the comment "not an article on wading gorillas" and once by an ip saying "gorillas aren't bipeds". On another page the same user (jps) claimed "None of the sources mention gorillas wading as somehow being relevant to AAH."
I've just looked at the scientific papers cited in that section. Niemitz (2002) mentions gorillas 16 times, Niemitz (2010) mentions them 22 times and Kuliukas (2010) has 24 mentions of gorillas. All of these papers are evaluations of the different explanations for the bipedal nature of humans and both of the authors from their research back the explanation of Alister Hardy and Elaine Morgan that wading in water was a crucial step in bipedalism.
This article is about the differences between humans and the other hominids so the demonstration that many of the latter will walk on two legs when in water is extremely relevant to the article and I can only assume that jps has never read any of the articles he claims to have. The most recent deletion says "I don't think this picture is helpful." I disagree, I suspect that the reason for its deletion is that it is too helpful. There are still at least 20 different explanations for bipedality doing the rounds in the literature so it seems that the issue is far from settled. My cautionary note "Despite many theories, the reason for human bipedalism has remained elusive" has long since been deleted along with a number of other cautions. Do other users think this picture merits inclusion? Chris55 (talk) 23:51, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well, the thing is that humans aren't gorillas. The hypothesis is that humans had evolutionary pressures put on them by spending time in the water. The sources reference gorillas because gorillas bear some similarities to human ancestors, and demonstrate traits in the wild that can be used to illustrate the hypothesis. So the image isn't directly relevant, only indirectly relevant as it illustrates something which is, in turn, an illustration of abstract concepts stemming from the hypothesis. That's pretty indirect, and I agree with the concerns about using it.
- If this were a mainstream, accepted hypothesis, I would be okay with using unrelated photographs to illustrate the concepts. But with this being a fringe article, that's a little too much like an endorsement. I'll tell you what. If you guys give me some time, I can produce some illustrations. I used to volunteer at the graphics lab quite a bit. Better yet, if someone is willing to track down a vector artist (I can do it, but I prefer to work with rasters), I'll happily collaborate to produce two or three illustrative images. There once was a vector image used to illustrate here, but again, that was not directly relevant to the AAH, just an illustration of pre-paleolithic humans. I'd be happy enough to bring that one back, as I think actual illustrations don't carry the same implied weight of endorsement that photographs do. However, if we do this, I can probably whip up something more relevant than that one. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:21, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- I think you are incorrect here. The image of the gorilla is directly relevant, as the sources are using the behaviour of modern great apes to project backwards in time to the hypothetical behaviour of human ancestors. The fact that the gorilla is not human has no bearing on its relevance in this case, because the sources are not directly commenting on the behaviour of humans, they are directly commenting on the behaviour of modern great apes. A photograph of a modern great ape exhibiting this behaviour is, therefore, entirely cogent. Urselius (talk) 09:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- I'd argue that the gorilla wading photo is relevant to the section because the sources explicitly used primate wading as a direct argument (comparative primatology) in their theses, saying it's irrelevant would be an interpretion by some editors here.
- But I do not agree to put it here because there're already so many photos in the Evidence section.
- By the way I see the lede image of Pinnacle Point has been removed, I agree the image is not directly related, and at least one of the leading archaeologist working on that site (Curtis Marean) is mildly critical of the AAH. But then the lede image became the 2-skull that's a bit strange. I suggest to use an image of Seafood because an aquatic diet is so far the most important argument in AAH and Waterside models. Or alternatively an image of Freediving because it's the most iconic to AAH, though less emphasized in recent Waterside models Chakazul (talk) 03:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- As I said before, I'm not going to get behind an otherwise unrelated photograph being used for illustrative purposes. Even that seafood image looks an awful lot more like Wikipedia is doing more to help the reader understand the details of the hypothesis than outlining the subject holistically. I've already outlined how the sources mentioning gorillas is still not directly relation to the AAH, so I'm not sure what you expect to achieve by repeating to me why it's indirectly related. As I said, I'd be happy to work on dedicated illustrations, but I'm afraid you're not going to see much support for using these photographs. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:09, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
- "Well, the thing is that humans aren't gorillas." Well noticed, MjolnirPants. But this article is precisely about why humans are different from gorillas. There are some signs that they are (like chimpanzees) actually getting more like humans (particularly if knuckle-walking is seen as an intermediate stage) though there are exceeding few gorilla fossils and the species will, sadly, almost certainly be wiped out by human pressures before any more changes take place. So your point out "unrelated photos" fails on two points.
- Chakazul, please don't confuse the relatively frequent use of photos in the research section by pointing to the absence of pictures in the lede. There's still only one picture per section which is much less than many articles. I know it's difficult to find lede pictures that are acceptable, but putting pictures like this there would draw even more objections. Chris55 (talk) 09:30, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
But this article is precisely about why humans are different from gorillas.
No, it's not. It's precisely about one particular, not-well-received hypothesis which attempts to partially explain how humans are different from the common ancestors we share withgorillaschimpanzees. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)- This part of the article is about the evidence that some researchers have produced for one theory of bipedality. Knuckle walking is not now generally thought to have been inherited from the LCA (of humans and gorillas) but is thought to have evolved separately in both gorillas and chimpanzees and thus humans may have taken a different route. Chris55 (talk) 14:14, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
- Again we should estimate the relevance of an image not by our reasoning but by what the sources said, especially when the source is a peer-reviewed secondary review. Fig.4 & Fig.5 of Niemitz 2010 depicted 6 different species of primates wading bipedally, and used this as an argument for the wading hypothesis, so it's a comparison between human and other non-human primates, not just human and gorilla. Similarly, if someone put a baboon image in Bipedalism as a comparative argument for the postural feeding hypothesis, it also makes perfect sense. Chakazul (talk) 04:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Again we should estimate the relevance of an image not by our reasoning but by what the sources said
That's hard to argue with, and I'm not going to try. However, the image in question is not one of those images you just linked to, which have been used for this exact purpose. Find an image which has been directly linked to AAH, such as those you just linked to and I can get behind that, photograph or not. But we're not just going to ape the methods (pun intended, thank you) used by researchers, because that original research. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- Again we should estimate the relevance of an image not by our reasoning but by what the sources said, especially when the source is a peer-reviewed secondary review. Fig.4 & Fig.5 of Niemitz 2010 depicted 6 different species of primates wading bipedally, and used this as an argument for the wading hypothesis, so it's a comparison between human and other non-human primates, not just human and gorilla. Similarly, if someone put a baboon image in Bipedalism as a comparative argument for the postural feeding hypothesis, it also makes perfect sense. Chakazul (talk) 04:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- This part of the article is about the evidence that some researchers have produced for one theory of bipedality. Knuckle walking is not now generally thought to have been inherited from the LCA (of humans and gorillas) but is thought to have evolved separately in both gorillas and chimpanzees and thus humans may have taken a different route. Chris55 (talk) 14:14, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
- By the way I see the lede image of Pinnacle Point has been removed, I agree the image is not directly related, and at least one of the leading archaeologist working on that site (Curtis Marean) is mildly critical of the AAH. But then the lede image became the 2-skull that's a bit strange. I suggest to use an image of Seafood because an aquatic diet is so far the most important argument in AAH and Waterside models. Or alternatively an image of Freediving because it's the most iconic to AAH, though less emphasized in recent Waterside models Chakazul (talk) 03:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Lede image (again)
I've uploaded 2 photos of Sama-Bajau kid diving under water, taken by Swedish researchers who are studying diving physiology & ethnography and are moderately supportive to AAH / Waterside model. The first one was chosen as the lede image. I believe the photo and the caption are neutral and relevant to the topic. Chakazul (talk) 03:44, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- connecting either of these images with AAH is bald original research. I have removed them per WP:BRD. jps (talk) 04:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- These images of freediving tribal modern humans (e.g. Sea Gypsies, pearl divers) were often used by the advocating scientists, both in imargery and in text, e.g. p.121, p.130, p.166 in their works. The photos there are copyrighted so I obtained free ones instead. Since they are explicitely used by the sources, not by me, how can they be OR?
- Please don't get me wrong if I want to use some nice images to promote AAH. It's just that freediving is the most iconic defining feature of AAH, be it right or wrong. And it's the best to show such characteristic by a real photo of tribal humans, instead of atheletes equipped with fins/snorkles or abstract diagrams. In the same way, a hunting Khoisan or a running Tarahumara would be perfectly suitable for the Hunting hypothesis and the Endurance running hypothesis. Chakazul (talk) 05:22, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- As I said in the section above: If you can propose an image that has been directly tied to the AAH (not just an image similar to images which have been directly tied to the AAH), I can get behind that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- That is a piece of false reasoning. Consider that you were writing an article on the 'Assasination of Abraham Lincoln' and wanted to show an image of the gun that killed him. Your reasoning would exclude an image of the type of gun used, insisting that only an image of the particular gun used in the assassination was relevant. Similarly, an article on great white shark attacks on humans could legitimately use stock images of great white sharks, it would not need to use an image of a particular shark that had attacked humans. Your insistence on this point is unreasonable. Urselius (talk) 08:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- It's not 'false reasoning', it's your analogy that fails. If there were a fringe theory that the gun that killed Lincoln was actually a Henry rifle, then I would insist that an 'illustrative' photograph of a Henry would be wholly inappropriate, just as I have done here. If someone got their hands on an image which had been purported by reliable sources to be the actual gun used, then I would get behind that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:15, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- We may be moving somewhere useful here. To take your analogy further, I would be quite happy with two images, one of a Henry rifle and one of the type of small derringer actually used, for comparison's sake. In the context of the article under discussion an image of a bipedal wading ape could be twinned with an image of a bipedal ape in a terrestrial setting (perhaps carrying food). There would be no bias of imagery in that case. Urselius (talk) 15:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- Depending on how it's handled, I think I could live with that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:57, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- Possibly useful image of a captive female chimpanzee walking bipedally, while carrying a large stick/small log, in a terrestrial environment Urselius (talk) 09:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Wrt the example you gave (in the hypothetical article about the "Henry rifle hypothesis"), I'm okay there. But apes still aren't our ancestors, and this article is about our ancestors and early humans. I think the two images Chakazul found below are better suited, as they show actual humans (photographs of human ancestors doing anything but fossilizing tend to be very difficult to come by). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:14, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Apes are our ancestors, but our ancestors are not identical to any living ape. We share ancestors with the living great apes, and these common ancestors were also apes. I would challenge your assertion that, "this article is about our ancestors and early humans"; no it isn't, it is about a hypothesis which draws on fossil evidence very sketchily, but relies on comparisons of modern humans to modern living animals, aquatic species and apes, for most of its evidence. Anything that is relevant to the hypothesis is fair game, it does not have to be relevant to the fossil record at all. From what you said earlier, I assumed that your objection to an image of a wading bipedal ape was that it might assert a false legitimacy on the relevant assertions made in the hypothesis. By including an image of an bipedal terrestrial ape, this would overcome your objection. However, you seem to have moved the goalposts, and moved them on very shaky reasoning. BTW I do not want either bipedal ape image as the lead image - just together, paired, in the text at a relevant place.Urselius (talk) 14:09, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Wrt the example you gave (in the hypothetical article about the "Henry rifle hypothesis"), I'm okay there. But apes still aren't our ancestors, and this article is about our ancestors and early humans. I think the two images Chakazul found below are better suited, as they show actual humans (photographs of human ancestors doing anything but fossilizing tend to be very difficult to come by). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:14, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Possibly useful image of a captive female chimpanzee walking bipedally, while carrying a large stick/small log, in a terrestrial environment Urselius (talk) 09:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Depending on how it's handled, I think I could live with that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:57, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- We may be moving somewhere useful here. To take your analogy further, I would be quite happy with two images, one of a Henry rifle and one of the type of small derringer actually used, for comparison's sake. In the context of the article under discussion an image of a bipedal wading ape could be twinned with an image of a bipedal ape in a terrestrial setting (perhaps carrying food). There would be no bias of imagery in that case. Urselius (talk) 15:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- It's not 'false reasoning', it's your analogy that fails. If there were a fringe theory that the gun that killed Lincoln was actually a Henry rifle, then I would insist that an 'illustrative' photograph of a Henry would be wholly inappropriate, just as I have done here. If someone got their hands on an image which had been purported by reliable sources to be the actual gun used, then I would get behind that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:15, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- That is a piece of false reasoning. Consider that you were writing an article on the 'Assasination of Abraham Lincoln' and wanted to show an image of the gun that killed him. Your reasoning would exclude an image of the type of gun used, insisting that only an image of the particular gun used in the assassination was relevant. Similarly, an article on great white shark attacks on humans could legitimately use stock images of great white sharks, it would not need to use an image of a particular shark that had attacked humans. Your insistence on this point is unreasonable. Urselius (talk) 08:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
- As I said in the section above: If you can propose an image that has been directly tied to the AAH (not just an image similar to images which have been directly tied to the AAH), I can get behind that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Apes are our ancestors, but our ancestors are not identical to any living ape.
The apes in the image are not human ancestors. And humans are apes, too. I meant "gorillas" in my last comment, but I assumed you would understand what I meant based on the context, and "ape" is easier to type than "gorilla". Those images are of gorillas, and those are not human ancestors or humans. As I said below, I'm happy with the images of swimming children. As I said above, I'd be happy to produce or help produce an image to illustrate one of the key features claimed by the AAH, as well. But my concern here is what jps outlined earlier: we can't take random photographs and use those to illustrate something, because that's original research. That wouldn't apply to the hypothetical Henry rifle example, because we can get images of an actual Henry rifle, and compare them to images of the actual Deringer used. Translating that to this article struck me as a very good idea, but as I thought more about it I realize that we still had the problem of ascribing features to the subjects of the photos (that they are human ancestors or early humans) that are neither true nor verifiable. Even if we're doing so implicitly, it's a problem. Let's stick with what we have for now, and if you would like me to produce some illustrations (I used to work as a comic book illustrator, and I have done medical illustrations, and have many years experience as a CAD technician and a full graphics suite on my computer with all the "goodies" an artist might require), leave a note on my talk page and we can figure out what that would be. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:29, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Frankly it's hard to say which kind of image is "directly" tied to a hypothesis. I'd argue that if the idea (i.e. Sea Gypsies used as an extant phenotype model of the evolutionary past) as well as the imagery (my photo is nearly identical to this one) are used in the sources then it's directly tied. Note that we can't use the same image because of copyright issues. Perhaps AAH is too controversial, as an analogy, if we apply the same to a mainstream model say hunting, will it work? Chakazul (talk) 07:15, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Frankly it's hard to say which kind of image is "directly" tied to a hypothesis.
This is where the disconnect between us is coming in: I'm not referring to kinds of images, but to specific images. That being said, I see that the one you added to the article is directly tied to the AAH through being retrieved from https://theaquaticape.org/, which appears to me to be as reliable a pro-AAH source as we can get, and so I'm quite happy with it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:15, 6 March 2017 (UTC)- These photos were not ripped off from the website, but obtained directly from the group of Swedish researchers who went to study the Sea Gypsies every year, published works on the anthropology and physiology of these lovely people. There are other "similar" photos [3] [4], some of them captured underwater foraging (even more relevant to the topic), but they're all copyrighted. Chakazul (talk) 02:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- I don't particularly care how you got them; they've been directly linked to the hypothesis through being used on that site. I'm a little confused now, because you seem to have switched over to trying to give me reasons to oppose their inclusion. But I'm okay with these two. These two meet the criteria I specified earlier. So unless anyone else has a good argument as to why they can't be used, I think you're in the clear. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:36, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- These photos were not ripped off from the website, but obtained directly from the group of Swedish researchers who went to study the Sea Gypsies every year, published works on the anthropology and physiology of these lovely people. There are other "similar" photos [3] [4], some of them captured underwater foraging (even more relevant to the topic), but they're all copyrighted. Chakazul (talk) 02:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Frankly it's hard to say which kind of image is "directly" tied to a hypothesis. I'd argue that if the idea (i.e. Sea Gypsies used as an extant phenotype model of the evolutionary past) as well as the imagery (my photo is nearly identical to this one) are used in the sources then it's directly tied. Note that we can't use the same image because of copyright issues. Perhaps AAH is too controversial, as an analogy, if we apply the same to a mainstream model say hunting, will it work? Chakazul (talk) 07:15, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I am sorry to be a wet blanket, but I'm not of the opinion that a website such as theaquaticape.org is what we should be basing our lede image choices on. The current lede "image" is one of the human timeline, which I think is quite nice. An image used by a site that is essentially trying to propagandize does not appear to me to be WP:NPOV unless we contextualize it, and since the website aquaticape.org doesn't seem to be subject to, say, rigorous review it's not a website we should be using as a basis for declaring a high-quality and neutral lede image. jps (talk) 15:39, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Captioning the diving child
TBH, I would prefer using an image of Elaine Morgan as the lede. It makes the most sense to me as she is the one most famous for promoting the idea. Sadly, except for the really terrible group photo, it looks like there are no free images available for her. Would someone be willing to contact one of the people who own some of these google images and ask them if they'll release them to wikimedia commons? Even if we don't end up using it as the lede, such an image would definitely benefit the project. jps (talk) 15:45, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- I wouldn't be opposed to moving the timeline image up and moving the two swimming child images down. I don't really agree with your concerns about using images from that site as the lead image, but I'm not vested in the idea of using them there. I am opposed to excising them from the article, both for meta reasons (we have to give a little, that's what compromise and consensus is about) as well as for a concern over the article (it would benefit from having some appropriate photographs in it).
- I'm not a fan of using an image of Morgan (or Hardy, or any other proponent) as the lead image, though I suppose I could live with it if that's what the rest of you all decide on. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:55, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Can you point to a single neutral source which indicates that the images of these children diving are indeed related to AAH? Or, even better, is there any source which discusses the use of these images at theaquaticape.org (one of many AAH-proponent WP:BLOGS, none of which, as far as I can tell, has editorial oversight or review)? jps (talk) 16:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)WP:YESPOV says that we don't need a "neutral" source. And it's a matter of easily verifiable fact that these images were directly connected to the AAH by being used at theaquaticape.org, which may be a blog, bug is a blog by an individual with a masters in social anthropology who has published in a peer reviewed journal (albeit one with a low impact factor). I'll be the first to admit that it's not ideal, but it's easily an expert WP:SELFPUB source, and it's not even being used to make claims of fact, merely to attribute the author's opinion that these images are illustrative of certain points of the AAH. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:10, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- This is problematic, though, because we have seen plenty of anti-AAH blogs excised from this page by the pro-AAH crowd. Blogs, I would add, that are maintained by similarly credentialed individuals who make salient points that are just as illustrative as a social anthropologist taking pictures of diving children. I would like at least to give us an opportunity to use images associated with them. E.g. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/04/28/oh-no-not-the-aquatic-ape-hypothesis-again/ seems like a perfectly good source to me, and, look, there are great images of a mouse skull which show that the "humans have sinus cavities" argument is a little odd. jps (talk) 16:19, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Or... if that's too far afield for ya, why not some of the images used here? jps (talk) 16:22, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
This is problematic, though, because we have seen plenty of anti-AAH blogs excised from this page by the pro-AAH crowd. Blogs, I would add, that are maintained by similarly credentialed individuals who make salient points that are just as illustrative as a social anthropologist taking pictures of diving children.
This blog and blogs by similarly credentialed individuals being used for claims of fact is something I'm not entirely comfortable with, either on the pro-AAH or anti-AAH side (wrt the anti-AAH side, I don't see that as a loss as there are blogs from individuals with better credentials, and of course, sources like Langdon which are ideal). But we're not using it for claims of fact.Or... if that's too far afield for ya, why not some of the images used here?
I'm fine with them (and the PZ Myers blog images) for the same reasons I'm fine with these two. My only concern is that they're properly licensed to be used here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)WP:YESPOV says that we don't need a "neutral" source. And it's a matter of easily verifiable fact that these images were directly connected to the AAH by being used at theaquaticape.org, which may be a blog, bug is a blog by an individual with a masters in social anthropology who has published in a peer reviewed journal (albeit one with a low impact factor). I'll be the first to admit that it's not ideal, but it's easily an expert WP:SELFPUB source, and it's not even being used to make claims of fact, merely to attribute the author's opinion that these images are illustrative of certain points of the AAH. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:10, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Can you point to a single neutral source which indicates that the images of these children diving are indeed related to AAH? Or, even better, is there any source which discusses the use of these images at theaquaticape.org (one of many AAH-proponent WP:BLOGS, none of which, as far as I can tell, has editorial oversight or review)? jps (talk) 16:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
So how do we write the caption? "This image was taken by a proponent of AAH. He thinks it is supportive of the hypothesis." That seems like a terrible justification for a lede image. At least with the mouse skull we can say, "This image was posted to PZ Myers blog showing that mouse skulls have a similar topology to human skulls. In so doing, Myers rebuts the arguments that AAH proponents make wherein they proposed sinus cavities were strong evidence in favor of AAH." jps (talk) 16:33, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
So how do we write the caption? "This image was taken by a proponent of AAH. He thinks it is supportive of the hypothesis."
No, I think a simple blurb that doesn't directly describe the image, but describes what the image illustrates is better. The caption Chakazul gave it was right on point, IMHO:- A child of modern Sea Gypsies demonstrating their diving behavior and ability, often used by proponents as an argument for a "more aquatic past".
- I think the same thing goes for any images taken from the anti-AAH sources, so if we were to use the mouse skull image from the Myers blog, something like:
- Sectional views through a mouse skull show that mice have similarly large sinuses, despite not being claimed to have adapted to an aquatic environment.
- ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:41, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- I don't like that caption for the diving child at all. First of all, where do the proponents make such an argument? It is on the blog, for sure, but is it published anywhere? We need to be responsible here with our explanations. "Often" is basically a WP:PEACOCK term and the "argument" in question is not well-elucidated -- neither by the image nor the proposed caption. In short, if the image is not WP:OR, the caption sure is! As for your proposed caption for the alternative image, I'm fine with that. It at least passes the verifiability test, as far as I can tell. jps (talk) 16:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
I don't like that caption for the diving child at all. First of all, where do the proponents make such an argument?
Umm, if you read the pro-AAH stuff, it's shot through with this exact claim. That claim is about as close to summing up the hypothesis as one can get. Any of the Hardy or Morgan sources should support this, and be rather easily verifiable. I wouldn't mind changing to caption to something like the following, though:- A child of modern Sea Gypsies demonstrating their diving behavior and ability, which has been pointed to as evidence for a "more aquatic past".
- You could even add "claimed" or "supposed" in front of the word "evidence" in that, and I'd be okay with it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:56, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- I have read the pro-AAH stuff. This is what I would write: This picture of a child of modern Sea Gypsies demonstrating their diving behavior and ability was taken by a social anthropologist who believes in the AAH hypothesis. AAH proponents like him argue, on the basis of a kind of hasty generalization, that because this ability is seen in a few less technologically developed peoples that humans as a whole had a "more aquatic past". Now, that's obviously not WP:NPOV, but it at least makes it clear what the argument actualy is. The other caption does not. jps (talk) 17:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well, as you said that's obviously not NPOV. But strip out the parts that make it a POV-pushy statement (the analysis of the argument and source, and the overly-specific attribution), and it's saying the same thing my suggested one did. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Crucially, the caption you provided, doesn't explain what the argument is. If you can rewrite my caption so that it explains the argument in a neutral fashion, please do so. But as I see it, simply providing that the existence of diving behavior and ability in modern humans is evidence for a "more aquatic past" is totally opaque. Why is it evidence for a more aquatic past (than present, I'm assuming?) Also, the neo-colonial essentialism contained in the choice to illustrate the image with a child from the Sea Gypsies instead of, say, an Olympic diver implies that we are looking back in time which is, of course, completely and rather repellently fallacious and not NPOV in implication. On the other hand, focusing on Olympic divers instead of Sea Gypsies would also be systematically biased. The answer, of course, is to try to make some sort of universal claim (which I think is the crux of the reason why this AAH is shaky) -- but damn if you can do that in a single image. jps (talk) 17:52, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Why is it evidence for a more aquatic past (than present, I'm assuming?)
That's what the body of the article is for; providing more detailed descriptions of the subject than a simple caption on a picture. We don't need to fully explain the photo in the caption, as the reader is expected to read more than just the image captions. They'll get the specific arguments from the section detailing the AAH.- Any sociopolitical aspects of the images are beyond the scope of this article, and thus I'm not too worried about them. We're Wikipedia, not Conservipedia: we present information in a clinical, detached way. As long as we do that, then whenever content has mildly offensive connotations, that's a problem with the reader not the article.
- And I have the same problem with the image below that I had with the wading gorilla image: It's not directly linked to AAH in any way except by it's use in this article. With photographs, I see us as needing some very specific photos if we want to illustrate anything. If we are to use non-photographic images, I think it's okay to relax that a bit. But photos imply evidence. We've all heard the arguments that UFOs must be real because people have photographs of them. I understand that logically, the existence of a photograph in the article doesn't imply that there's any proof that the AAH is true, but I also understand that people will see an article with photographs, and their mere presence will make the article's subject seem more real. That's not what we're trying to do here, so I think that for a photograph to be due enough to include, we need to establish a direct link between the photograph and the AAH. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:41, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Crucially, the caption you provided, doesn't explain what the argument is. If you can rewrite my caption so that it explains the argument in a neutral fashion, please do so. But as I see it, simply providing that the existence of diving behavior and ability in modern humans is evidence for a "more aquatic past" is totally opaque. Why is it evidence for a more aquatic past (than present, I'm assuming?) Also, the neo-colonial essentialism contained in the choice to illustrate the image with a child from the Sea Gypsies instead of, say, an Olympic diver implies that we are looking back in time which is, of course, completely and rather repellently fallacious and not NPOV in implication. On the other hand, focusing on Olympic divers instead of Sea Gypsies would also be systematically biased. The answer, of course, is to try to make some sort of universal claim (which I think is the crux of the reason why this AAH is shaky) -- but damn if you can do that in a single image. jps (talk) 17:52, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well, as you said that's obviously not NPOV. But strip out the parts that make it a POV-pushy statement (the analysis of the argument and source, and the overly-specific attribution), and it's saying the same thing my suggested one did. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- I have read the pro-AAH stuff. This is what I would write: This picture of a child of modern Sea Gypsies demonstrating their diving behavior and ability was taken by a social anthropologist who believes in the AAH hypothesis. AAH proponents like him argue, on the basis of a kind of hasty generalization, that because this ability is seen in a few less technologically developed peoples that humans as a whole had a "more aquatic past". Now, that's obviously not WP:NPOV, but it at least makes it clear what the argument actualy is. The other caption does not. jps (talk) 17:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- I don't like that caption for the diving child at all. First of all, where do the proponents make such an argument? It is on the blog, for sure, but is it published anywhere? We need to be responsible here with our explanations. "Often" is basically a WP:PEACOCK term and the "argument" in question is not well-elucidated -- neither by the image nor the proposed caption. In short, if the image is not WP:OR, the caption sure is! As for your proposed caption for the alternative image, I'm fine with that. It at least passes the verifiability test, as far as I can tell. jps (talk) 16:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Actually, image captions really should be stand alone. WP:CAPTION makes that clear. We cannot just provide vague descriptions and hope for readers to read the text. jps (talk) 02:50, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
- I think you should read the first section of that page, which doesn't say anything like that. It says the caption should clear identify the subject, be succinct, establish relevance, provide context and draw the reader in. It even goes on to say
However, it is best not to tell the whole story in the caption, but use the caption to make the reader curious about the subject.
ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)- You entirely miss the point. The caption you support is horrible. It doesn't explain the connection to AAH in the least. It does NOT draw the reader in. It WP:ASSERTs opinions as facts, claims to make an argument that doesn't exist, and uses a quotation that contains no antecedent that I can tell. I have modified the caption in the text to at least conform to WP:V which your supported version failed rather spectacularly. jps (talk) 03:04, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
It doesn't explain the connection to AAH in the least.
That's not even remotely true. The caption I provided explicitly stated the the depicted behavior is pointed to as evidence of "a more aquatic past".It does NOT draw the reader in.
As opposed to your offered version, which beats the reader over the head with a POV statement about the qualities of the argument and those who made it? My version pointed to the central claim of the AAH. Yours simply passes judgement. Your is a conclusion, which is pretty much the opposite of something that might draw a reader in.It WP:ASSERTs opinions as facts
It absolutely does not in any way, shape or form. It only asserted that unspecified people have "pointed to" the behavior "as evidence". That is not an opinion, but a fact which can be verified in the article. Even if it were untrue, it would not be an opinion, but a false claim of fact.claims to make an argument that doesn't exist,
I'm honestly a little aghast at this. Are you suggesting that the AAH is not the hypothesis that humans had a "more aquatic past"? Because if not, then this comment makes no logical sense whatsoever.- Your arguments here bear no relation to what I've said, and indeed, flatly contradicts it. It's as if you're arguing with someone else who is making entirely different claims about the image and suggested an entirely different caption. Add to that you insistence that MOS:CAPTION said the opposite of what it actually says, and your dismissal of my correcting you on this as somehow me missing the point, it's really making me question whether you're more interesting in documenting the subject or pushing the POV that it's complete bollocks. If you are correct about it being bollocks, then documenting it should be enough to make that abundantly clear. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:23, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
- You entirely miss the point. The caption you support is horrible. It doesn't explain the connection to AAH in the least. It does NOT draw the reader in. It WP:ASSERTs opinions as facts, claims to make an argument that doesn't exist, and uses a quotation that contains no antecedent that I can tell. I have modified the caption in the text to at least conform to WP:V which your supported version failed rather spectacularly. jps (talk) 03:04, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
- Interesting discussion here. I'd reiterate that the sole reason for including the diving kid photo in the lede is the fact that nearly identical photos were used in published accounts elaborating AAH, especially in the studies of Sea Gypsies ethonography, physiology and underwater vision. It's nothing to do with [theaquaticape.org] which happens to be the photographer's website, and surely we will not refer to this or other personal websites failing WP:RS.
- Some proponents may say such imagery provides some kind of "photographic" evidence for AAH, but the actual logic behind is much more complex, as modern behaviors doesn't necessary imply past activities, and tribal behavior/ability doesn't necessary apply to all humans (though there's some hints for pleistocene diving and universal ability). The good thing with the diving photo is that it encapsulates a large portion of the AAH claims in one photo, call it remarkable or superficial, it's definitely iconic IMO. Chakazul (talk) 07:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
If the image is iconic, then you need to explain why. The claim is that the image has nothing to do with the website, but this is the very reason that MjolnirPants is okay with the inclusion. As I can understand his logic, we need to be clear that the connection to the hypothesis comes because the photographer is a supporter of the hypothesis. The image itself says absolutely nothing about AAH and if there is much more "complex" logic behind the connection between the image and AAH, then it is not a good idea to include the image at all. I'm not in favor of polluting a page with images that have impenetrable captions and the insistence on a caption which does not explain the connection of the image to the idea (and there is also no corresponding discussion of such images in the text, so it is not simply possible to just rely on that as a way to cover the confusion) makes me unable to support inclusion of this image until such time as a caption is made that offers the reader an explanation as to exactly how the image is connected to the topic.
I also cannot fathom how a user would claim that the image was not from a blog. It clearly is.
jps (talk) 10:17, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
As I can understand his logic, we need to be clear that the connection to the hypothesis comes because the photographer is a supporter of the hypothesis.
No, any photograph which has been used in a verifiable capacity to address the hypothesis is enough for me. It doesn't need to come from a supporter, but can come from a detractor as well. I would prefer one which was connected to the AAH in an unambiguously reliable source such as a peer-reviewed article, but I'll settle for one which was connected in a source that's only usable for the source's views.I also cannot fathom how a user would claim that the image was not from a blog. It clearly is.
Indeed it is. Chakazul may have found it elsewhere, but it was unambiguously used on that blog, and the image page claims that the source was that blog. An image from a peer-reviewed source would be much better, and as I said before, I'm still open to using one of the ones you earlier offered. In fact, I'd prefer the mouse skull scan images over this one. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:23, 8 March 2017 (UTC)- See this page for "Sea Gypsies kid diving" photos (and other freediving compositions) used in AAH-related sources. The text describes how the authors think such activities are related to AAH. There are other usages e.g. in books written by Jacques Mayol or Michel Odent. The usage by this photographer in his blog is only one (if you have to count it) so I don't see why the caption should only mention his usage but not others. A summarizing caption with references to these explicit usages (perhaps including the blog) should be sufficient. In case you want to argue that this particular photo is just "similar" to the ones shown, I would like to point out that the mouse skull image suggested above is copyrighted material taken from a research paper (perhaps OK to use in the blog but not in WP), if you're going to find a free one that would be inevitably a "similar" image. Provided that published sources are almost always copyrighted, insisting to use the "exact same image" will be unrealistic. Chakazul (talk) 05:52, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- A child of modern Sea Gypsies demonstrating their diving behavior and ability, used by some proponents[1][2][3] as hints of a "more aquatic past".
- Would this be a better caption? Chakazul (talk) 08:23, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- An improvement, but still problematic. First of all "some proponents" is desperately asking for whom. If we are going to attribute, we should attribute to someone. Secondly, the "more aquatic past" presumably is a quote. The quote comes from whom? Finally, it seems that this caption is a bit leading in its description. It is not at all clear that such behavior and ability "hints" at anything. So describing exactly the way it "hints" is important. Does it imply something about the way society was organized? Evolution? Traditions that are ancient? If so, why? jps (talk) 14:44, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- From WP:CAPTION:
However, it is best not to tell the whole story in the caption...
. I don't see any policy based reason why we can't be vague in the caption. I understand your point about the quotation marks, and suggest we remove them. But the "some" in that proposed caption refers to AAH proponents generally, which is very clear from the context of it being in an article about AAH. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:59, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- From WP:CAPTION:
- An improvement, but still problematic. First of all "some proponents" is desperately asking for whom. If we are going to attribute, we should attribute to someone. Secondly, the "more aquatic past" presumably is a quote. The quote comes from whom? Finally, it seems that this caption is a bit leading in its description. It is not at all clear that such behavior and ability "hints" at anything. So describing exactly the way it "hints" is important. Does it imply something about the way society was organized? Evolution? Traditions that are ancient? If so, why? jps (talk) 14:44, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- See this page for "Sea Gypsies kid diving" photos (and other freediving compositions) used in AAH-related sources. The text describes how the authors think such activities are related to AAH. There are other usages e.g. in books written by Jacques Mayol or Michel Odent. The usage by this photographer in his blog is only one (if you have to count it) so I don't see why the caption should only mention his usage but not others. A summarizing caption with references to these explicit usages (perhaps including the blog) should be sufficient. In case you want to argue that this particular photo is just "similar" to the ones shown, I would like to point out that the mouse skull image suggested above is copyrighted material taken from a research paper (perhaps OK to use in the blog but not in WP), if you're going to find a free one that would be inevitably a "similar" image. Provided that published sources are almost always copyrighted, insisting to use the "exact same image" will be unrealistic. Chakazul (talk) 05:52, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm not saying that the caption itself has to answer all those questions. But those are the questions that the caption provokes and I don't see any way to answer those questions in the text either. What are the hints? Why are they more convincing than, for example, the number of drowning victims? The sources that are linked do not really describe why the behavior and the ability is a hint, nor is it clear who exactly is making the claims about diving being a key hint. If I knew the answer to these questions, I might be able to help draft a caption, but as it is, I still really feel like the caption is a soapbox for the idea of, "hey, look, humans can dive so AAH is legitimate!" which, I hope we all can agree, is not a reasonable message for Wikipedia to send even by mere implication. jps (talk) 15:29, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- I see the captions as saying "Some people say 'Look, humans can dive so AAH is legitimate!' " which, as you can imagine, is okay by me. But I have an idea: let's make it even more vague. Something like:
- "Proponents of the aquatic ape hypothesis point to human's ability to dive as evidence supporting the hypothesis."
- I can't really imagine a more neutral way of wording it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:39, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- Maybe we're getting even closer now. The begged question is, "WHY?" Proponents of the aquatic ape hypothesis point to human diving abilities as evidence supporting the hypothesis because []. It's the BECAUSE that I cannot answer. In all the sources the claim is that the diving ability is evidence but no one explains why. EVEN IF WE DON'T INCLUDE THE EXPLANATION IN THE CAPTION, the answer to this question needs to be discoverable before including text like that, IMHO. Even if the answer is (as I suspect), "because the people who believe in AAH haven't thought carefully about how current human behaviors do not necessarily contain any information about past development". jps (talk) 15:54, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
In all the sources the claim is that the diving ability is evidence but no one explains why.
You'll get no argument from me on that point. But I think the lack of a solid explanation might be something we could point to, provided we can find a source that comments on it. I suspect that somewhere out there is an RS that essentially gives the same answer you give at the end of your comment. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:27, 9 March 2017 (UTC)- The classic polemical takedown is, of course, aquaticape.org [5] (a website which has been systematically eliminated from this page, unfortunately, in spite of WP:PARITY being satisfied, I would argue). But this is an even more general point which I find to be difficult to explain. If WP:FRINDs do not notice the argument itself, I think it's not a good idea to include the image which can only be referenced to such arguments. jps (talk) 17:31, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- I understand jps' concern because there is no text in the article describes the proponents' reasoning on this issue. To answer your question here are their published arguments (by Erika Schagatay, Anna Gislen, Erik Abrahamsson and their team):
- Diving reflex in human is stronger than land mammals, at the same level as semi-aquatic mammals.
- Underwater vision is achieved by innate accommodation in Moken kids, also demonstrated in European kids.
- Their daily diving pattern is convergent to sea otters.
- Diving ability exist in broad ranges (likely universal) of age, ethnicity and gender, and maximum performace can be achieved in short periods of training.
- I could think of drafting a small paragraph in the "further research" section because this aspect fullfills my "solid research + explicit reference" criteria and was reviewed in Attenborough 2016. I'm still finding critiques on this issue, better from experts with similar background.
- And I'm OK with Pants' revised caption. Chakazul (talk) 07:30, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
- I understand jps' concern because there is no text in the article describes the proponents' reasoning on this issue. To answer your question here are their published arguments (by Erika Schagatay, Anna Gislen, Erik Abrahamsson and their team):
- The classic polemical takedown is, of course, aquaticape.org [5] (a website which has been systematically eliminated from this page, unfortunately, in spite of WP:PARITY being satisfied, I would argue). But this is an even more general point which I find to be difficult to explain. If WP:FRINDs do not notice the argument itself, I think it's not a good idea to include the image which can only be referenced to such arguments. jps (talk) 17:31, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- Maybe we're getting even closer now. The begged question is, "WHY?" Proponents of the aquatic ape hypothesis point to human diving abilities as evidence supporting the hypothesis because []. It's the BECAUSE that I cannot answer. In all the sources the claim is that the diving ability is evidence but no one explains why. EVEN IF WE DON'T INCLUDE THE EXPLANATION IN THE CAPTION, the answer to this question needs to be discoverable before including text like that, IMHO. Even if the answer is (as I suspect), "because the people who believe in AAH haven't thought carefully about how current human behaviors do not necessarily contain any information about past development". jps (talk) 15:54, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Unfortunately, I don't see much in the way of independent confirmation of the bulleted points to people who are not AAH-supporters. Is that correct? If so, these are controversial points to base our text upon in any case and third-party discussions would be best. More problematically, I still don't understand why any of these points support AAH. Why would a stronger diving reflex necessarily indicate an aquatic past? Why would training improving diving necessitate a more aquatic past? These facts, if they are well-supported, may be interesting without being at all relevant to AAH. What makes these claims AAH evidence? It's a basic question but still one I don't see answered. Again, we don't even need to answer it in the caption, but we do need to be able to have the reader discover these answers. jps (talk) 10:55, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
- I'm afraid we're going too far here. But these are very good questions to ask regarding any kind of evolutionary hypothesis -- Why would the development of human's foot arches indicate adaptation to running (but not, say, jumping or treading water)? Why would the existance of feathers in some dinosaurs imply its original usage as flying, gliding, or keeping warm, in the corresponding hypotheses? If you ask them the questions, I wonder their answers would be just as unsatisfactory as those AAH advocates. My thought on this is that biology, especially evolutionary biology, is not that logically rigorous like physics or mathematics. When you get a proof in maths, get it verified step-by-step by other mathematicians, then it becomes a truth, Q.E.D. In evolutionary biology, you need to promote your idea, find as many tiny pieces of evidence as possible, but no matter how you declare your logic as foolproof, there will be still "why" or "how" questions that cannot be answered.
- Back to the photo, I restored it and used MPants' catpion, and just added "Diving behavior and performance" subsection which would support how this photo is relevant and notable. Chakazul (talk) 07:18, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
- I think since detractors have noted the universality of the diving reflex, it behooves us to include that point in the caption as well. I think with that, our caption provides adequate framing. It also inspired me to fix the relevant section in the text. jps (talk) 14:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
- While a common critique is that diving reflex is in fact universial, the Swedish studies distinguished different levels of diving reflex in terrestrial and semi-aquatic mammals. Before more sources could clarify this issue, both points are valid. Just that the caption became a bit wordy. Chakazul (talk) 03:06, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah, the Swedish studies, though, don't seem to be peer-reviewed on that point at least. There are pretty big gaping holes in the sense that ranges are not well calibrated as far as I can tell. And the source cited went to a book that wasn't peer-reviewed, so it appears to be WP:SOAP violation. jps (talk) 13:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- That's why I'd like to see more sources to clarify on this issue. Declaring a universal existence of something is no more sophisticated than starting to identify layers and mechanics within that universal existence. Though I'm OK with your photo caption to keep it simple.
- Concerning the source in particular those chapters cited, they are arguably RS per WP:SPS that the authors are "established expert[s] on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications". ChakAzul (talk) 04:20, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah, the Swedish studies, though, don't seem to be peer-reviewed on that point at least. There are pretty big gaping holes in the sense that ranges are not well calibrated as far as I can tell. And the source cited went to a book that wasn't peer-reviewed, so it appears to be WP:SOAP violation. jps (talk) 13:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- While a common critique is that diving reflex is in fact universial, the Swedish studies distinguished different levels of diving reflex in terrestrial and semi-aquatic mammals. Before more sources could clarify this issue, both points are valid. Just that the caption became a bit wordy. Chakazul (talk) 03:06, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- I think since detractors have noted the universality of the diving reflex, it behooves us to include that point in the caption as well. I think with that, our caption provides adequate framing. It also inspired me to fix the relevant section in the text. jps (talk) 14:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Can you find someone who is not a proponent of AAH who agrees that human beings' diving reflex converges to sea otters? This is a claim that seems based more on single sentences than rigorous comparison. It get the impression that there may have been no third-party review of this point. jps (talk) 14:14, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
Swimming children
In discussions above, I thought of another option for an image. jps (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
How to treat this subject
Please have a look at the article Nazi eugenics. Here you will see the reporting of the discredited application of a discredited anthropological theory and movement. Does this article have to moderate every sentence when reporting what was believed, written about or done in support of this entirely discredited, and indeed vilified, movement? No it does not! The simple act of reporting something does not require the ridiculous lengths of secondary and tertiary source support that some editors are advocating as necessary here. Please try to act in a reasonable manner. Urselius (talk) 21:12, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well, to be fair, how many proponents of Nazi eugenics are there editing WP? In the past few months, there have been a number of editors with a pro-AAH POV editing this article. To be clear, that includes myself, although I will say without my usual humility that I at least seem to be making a concerted effort not to let my POV shape the way this article is written. If you think the arguing on this page is bad, try Talk:Acupuncture and it's archive pages. In comparison to many other fringe theories, this talk page is a paragon of lockstep agreement. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:45, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
- Please ASSUME GOOD FAITH. Your insinuation that anyone "pro-AAH" is "POV" and unbalanced is exactly the opposite. Where statements are not properly referenced it is normal to request a citation not to assume that they are simply expressing a biased personal opinion not backed up by research. Chris55 (talk) 12:34, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Please ASSUME GOOD FAITH. Your insinuation that anyone "pro-AAH" is "POV" and unbalanced is exactly the opposite.
Are you kidding me? I made references to my own POV and you have the unmitigated gal to try and respond as if I'd cast aspersions on another editor? Seriously, fuck off. Nobody has the time or patience to deal with this sort of ridiculous tripe. If you can't stick to discussing the subject, go edit another article. Your constant, incredibly hypocritical assumptions of bad faith on my part are really getting old. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)- Your boast that you didn't allow your POV to shape the way the article is written implies that it was not true for others. Chris55 (talk) 15:51, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
- I really don't give a shit what you read into my comments. Discuss the article or get lost. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:05, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
- Your boast that you didn't allow your POV to shape the way the article is written implies that it was not true for others. Chris55 (talk) 15:51, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
- Please ASSUME GOOD FAITH. Your insinuation that anyone "pro-AAH" is "POV" and unbalanced is exactly the opposite. Where statements are not properly referenced it is normal to request a citation not to assume that they are simply expressing a biased personal opinion not backed up by research. Chris55 (talk) 12:34, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
"sweeping changes"
Chris55 Point out where any experimentation or testing is even mentioned in those sections you restored. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
- To avoid ambiguity I changed the section title to "Testing efforts and further research". Only some of the research produced actual experiments and tests, but most efforts are on reviewing the existing literature and building new foundations, because investigating water-related ideas was difficult or simply impossible in the former terrestrial-only frameworks. This section should be more general on these efforts, as long as they're directly related to AAH. I don't mind slimming some of the texts to make it less bulky, like the Hardy/Morgan section. Even better, we should supply criticism whenever available. Chakazul (talk) 08:10, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- Niemitz in his 2002 paper reviews 15 accounts of bipedalism in humans and proposes his "Amphibian Generalist" theory after comparing multiple factors; in his 2010 paper he additionally surveys 49 monkey and ape species in relation to water usage and upright stance in water. Kuliukas (2012) extends this to 42 variant explanations and in addition records the results of experimental tests using volunteers on the energy efficiency of walking with straight and bent legs on land and in water (p58). Kuliukas (2016) in addition includes a detailed analysis of the hip bones of an Australopithecine arguing that they are consistent with a side-to-side motion that would be expected in an animal used to wading through water. In neither of these cases is it argued that these are conclusive or widely accepted, but to deny they are attempting to test the explanations or show experimental techniques appropriate to the field would be hard to maintain. Chris55 (talk) 09:23, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- The auditory exotosis section is supported by the archeological evidence adduced in Rhys Evans (1992) and Rhys Evans and Cameron (2014 section External Ear Exosotoses–Archeological Populations) as well as that by Okumura et al (2007). Chris55 (talk) 10:05, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
- Do I really need to explain the difference between a test and a review? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:40, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
15,000 years?
I am concerned that the pseudoscience enforcers are insisting on some very outdated views. When one of them included the sentence "archaeological evidence suggests that maritime adaptations and sea-faring developed within the last 15,000 years" I very modestly changed it to the past tense as it represents a 40 year old view, but it was reverted with the comment 'I don't see anything in the sources to support the assertion that this is "outdated"'. Table III in Erlondson (2001, p311) contains dates up to 800,000 for travel to the Indonesian island of Flores, which homed the more recently discovered homo floriensis, as well as 40-60,000 for the arrival of AMH. Now Flores is not only an island but part of the Australian plate which has always been separated from the Eurasian Plate by deep water. Recent re-enactions of this feat actually failed even though the same team had successfully crossed from Timor to Australia (using less authentic techniques). Erlandson also talks about Australia, "which we now know was colonized by boat at least 50,000 years ago". Although the gap was probably much less than the current 700 miles from Timor due to sea level differences, it was not less than 70. There are other examples mentioned. Erlondson comments that "The proof that seafaring extended well back into the Pleistocene requires a fundamental paradigm shift, not yet fully realized". Chris55 (talk) 12:30, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
- "not yet fully realized" is key. I don't think that there is any consensus whatsoever that there is solid evidence for seafaring 50,000 years ago let alone 800,000 years ago. 15,000 years may be an under-estimate, but it seems a standard age even today. jps (talk) 14:03, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
- The phrase quoted doesn't say "There is a scientific consensus that..." It says "archeological evidence suggests..." I doubt you'd find an archeologist these days who would support that one. (There are for example plenty of sites of humans in Australia much older. How did they get there? Fly?) So, wikipedia readers will be misled until the paradigm shift is finalised. It's a bit like the story of plate tectonics. It was proposed in 1912; Holmes and others provided the mechanism in a number of publications between 1928 and 1942; but it took till 1955 for most scientists even to entertain the idea. Once the scientific community has made up its mind it finds it very hard to change it. I find it depressing that one is not allowed to discuss alternatives sensibly. It seems that for some Wikipedians, pseudoscience = any theory which contradicts the general consensus, even if there are no impossibilities involved and the pros and cons are presented fairly. Chris55 (talk) 16:35, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
- Frankly it's too early to say AAH would be another continental drift or is destined to be a dead-end. A paradigm shift cannot be known until it's done (or almost done).
- For that statement about 15,000 years, the source Erlandson 2001 was talking about "the general perception" that the author disagreed with and thus calling for a paradigm shift, and it did happened, after this influential paper, much evidence has been unearthed in support of more antique coastal exploitation in the Pleistocene[6] up to the earliest times of our species[7] (while seafaring evidently occured much later, it's a more advanced form of technology possibly derived from earlier coastal living). Therefore this excerpt is both misused and outdated here. The seconds source Erlandson 2002 was talking about "peopling of the New World" and thus not relevant. Also both sources didn't mention AAH being supported or refuted. I'll just remove this part. Chakazul (talk) 07:59, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
- The phrase quoted doesn't say "There is a scientific consensus that..." It says "archeological evidence suggests..." I doubt you'd find an archeologist these days who would support that one. (There are for example plenty of sites of humans in Australia much older. How did they get there? Fly?) So, wikipedia readers will be misled until the paradigm shift is finalised. It's a bit like the story of plate tectonics. It was proposed in 1912; Holmes and others provided the mechanism in a number of publications between 1928 and 1942; but it took till 1955 for most scientists even to entertain the idea. Once the scientific community has made up its mind it finds it very hard to change it. I find it depressing that one is not allowed to discuss alternatives sensibly. It seems that for some Wikipedians, pseudoscience = any theory which contradicts the general consensus, even if there are no impossibilities involved and the pros and cons are presented fairly. Chris55 (talk) 16:35, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
- "not yet fully realized" is key. I don't think that there is any consensus whatsoever that there is solid evidence for seafaring 50,000 years ago let alone 800,000 years ago. 15,000 years may be an under-estimate, but it seems a standard age even today. jps (talk) 14:03, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
it seems that for some Wikipedians, pseudoscience = any theory which contradicts the general consensus, even if there are no impossibilities involved and the pros and cons are presented fairly.
The word you're looking for is not "pseudoscience" but WP:FRINGE. And yes, that is exactly how we're supposed to treat them. Even Loop Quantum Gravity gets this exact treatment. "But MPants!" You say, "The LQG article doesn't read anything like this one!"
- Well, that's because LQG has lots of supporters who actually have degrees in the relevant subjects and publish peer-reviewed articles on it fairly regularly, so there's a wealth of information, including the barest minutiae, about how it works and what it is, versus relatively little information about rampant criticism and dismissal. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:45, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Section: Testing efforts and further research
I'm still not seeing anything in that section resembling a test of the hypothesis. Does anyone here have any evidence that anyone has ever tested any prediction of the AAH? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:42, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
- Some studies described in this section can test AAH:
- Biomechanical experiments may find that the wading model is unfavorable per energetic calculations.
- Archaeological and paleo-environmental studies may find that human ancestors were never exclusively lived near water bodies or coastlines, or rarely engaged in diving activities, that could allow specific adaptations to happen.
- Dental wear and isotopic studies may conclude that aquatic diet were never significant for human ancestors.
- Nutritional studies may find that terrestrial food sources and metabolic convertibility are sufficient to provide the DHA, iodine, etc human needed.
- Studies in human swimming/diving abilities (e.g. performance, diving reflex) may find that human is actually no more capable than other apes/primates.
- These studies are onging by proponents or other unrelated researchers, negative findings can disprove part or the whole of the AAH. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chakazul (talk • contribs) 05:01, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- I think that this is a original research argument. You think that they can do this, but there is no third-party source saying that they actually do. jps (talk) 13:22, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- I'm not asking about studies that can test it, I'm asking about actual testing of it. If I don't get an answer, I'm renaming the section to something better and pruning it up. This is the second time I've asked for someone to point out how this section is not misleadingly titled (which is a rather blatant NPOV violation), and not gotten a straight answer in response. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:32, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- The vernix section is a prediction made by the theory that nobody had considered before. Nobody in the sciences knew that any marine mammals had similar coverings as newborns until it was confirmed, first in Canada, then in California in two different species. And the explanation appears to confirm other arguments about fatty acid demands in foetuses. If you're expecting the type of laboratory testing that occurs in physics, I think you need to examine more work in this domain. The work of Kuliukas certainly involved quite a bit of 'lab work'. The work of Stewart, Joordens, Munro and others is classical archeological field work. All of this was within the framework of research stimulated by the AAH. Much of this has been drawn together and commented on in several conferences. The name of the section has been changed several times so if you want to propose another, please do. Chris55 (talk) 13:54, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- Sigh... Once again I find myself asking you a question with a very specific format: Do I really need to explain the difference between a test and an observation? You could chalk that up as weak evidence in support of the theory, but it is not by any mean a deliberate attempt to test a prediction of the hypothesis. Indeed, the section makes it rather clear that Morgan didn't predict other aquatic mammals would have it. So it was put forth as extraordinarily weak evidence, then later found to be not-so-weak by Attenborough when he examined some of the literature. That's a far cry from a test of the hypothesis. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:09, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- I didn't name the section. If you have a better name for it, please let's hear it. Morgan wasn't a scientist and never did any "scientific research". That is the point of separating out this section. Chris55 (talk) 14:14, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- Fine, I'm quite ok with the title you've chosen. Chris55 (talk) 14:35, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- Those I listed are actual tests for the AAH. The archaeological/fossil ones may need decades of data accumulation, the others (wading efficiency, DHA convertibility, apnea responses) are actual experiments that have been performed and can be readily repeated in vitro or in situ. They gave some positive results that proponents used to advance their hypothesis, and other scientists can work on similar experiments to falsify them.
- Anyway the currently title is just right to avoid confusions. ChakAzul (talk) 02:34, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
- Sigh... Once again I find myself asking you a question with a very specific format: Do I really need to explain the difference between a test and an observation? You could chalk that up as weak evidence in support of the theory, but it is not by any mean a deliberate attempt to test a prediction of the hypothesis. Indeed, the section makes it rather clear that Morgan didn't predict other aquatic mammals would have it. So it was put forth as extraordinarily weak evidence, then later found to be not-so-weak by Attenborough when he examined some of the literature. That's a far cry from a test of the hypothesis. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:09, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- The vernix section is a prediction made by the theory that nobody had considered before. Nobody in the sciences knew that any marine mammals had similar coverings as newborns until it was confirmed, first in Canada, then in California in two different species. And the explanation appears to confirm other arguments about fatty acid demands in foetuses. If you're expecting the type of laboratory testing that occurs in physics, I think you need to examine more work in this domain. The work of Kuliukas certainly involved quite a bit of 'lab work'. The work of Stewart, Joordens, Munro and others is classical archeological field work. All of this was within the framework of research stimulated by the AAH. Much of this has been drawn together and commented on in several conferences. The name of the section has been changed several times so if you want to propose another, please do. Chris55 (talk) 13:54, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Algis Kuliukas
We cite Kuliukas quite a bit in this article. I notice that the citations are all to contributed book chapters from the AAH perspective and to a PhD thesis. I'm not particularly enthused about that. Typically we would want to see some peer-reviewed work instead of this kind of grey literature. I am thinking of taking it out since it doesn't seem to have much in the way of citations by third-party sources either. Please discuss. jps (talk) 20:04, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
- I've to agree that we're in some gray area here. PhD thesis can be used but with care per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, Kuliukas' PhD thesis was reviewed by recognized expert in the field like Niemitz, among others, so it could be considered reliable depending on context. I'm reviewing the section to see what could be improved, perhaps more emphasis on Niemitz's works which treated wading as a legitimate and competitive hypothesis. ChakAzul (talk) 07:03, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
- Moving up a level to Niemitz would be a step in the right direction. It is a bit difficult evaluating the text that is sourced solely to Kuliukas right now. I have the impression that there are some holes that may not have been addressed given the novelty of many of Kuliukas's suggestions. My impression is that our use of those works may run afoul of WP:FRIND/WP:PSTS. jps (talk) 14:12, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
- Kuliukas has a number of peer-reviewed articles available in full text through Researchgate, mainly on wading biomechanics.
I've removed much of the text from the bipedalism section sourced to Kuliukas, but added a point about timescales made Henry Gee who we quote in the article earlier. As far as I can tell, I don't think AAH proponents dispute his observation. jps (talk) 15:07, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
- The proceedings of the conference "Human Evolution: Past, Present and Future", which were published in Human Evolution in 2013,14 were peer reviewed in the normal way and indeed open to anyone in the normal way. If it were not so, how come that the second article is by John Langdon who is not a noted supporter of the AAH? It seems that discrediting this proceeding and the contribution of Kuliukas is entirely POV. I agree that it isn't too normal to cite PhD theses, but this dates from last year (2016) so give the poor fellow a chance to get it published properly! Anyway, if you are so concerned with sources, how come that one of your group has inserted an opinion (Hawks) supported a blog post? You then challenge a picture that has been used in a blog post as if its source is in turn a blog. Chris55 (talk) 11:07, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
- Conference proceedings are not peer-reviewed. jps (talk) 05:48, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- I'm not suggesting that the bar for a conference is as high as for journals, but there is always some vetting by a conference committee. The Wikipedia guidelines nowhere require peer review and are written in permissive terms: "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." Even the fringe theory guidelines are cautious: "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, but material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas." They say "it should not include fringe theories that may seem relevant but are only sourced by obscure texts that lack peer review" but there are plenty of peer-reviewed citations in this article. I'll add a couple for Kuliakis. Chris55 (talk) 13:21, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Conference proceedings are not peer-reviewed. jps (talk) 05:48, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Concerning the timescale, the general consensus now is a recent (late Pleistocene) coastal seafood consumption, possible interactions with water bodies e.g. lakes/rivers as well as trees and grasslands in the Miocene (mosaic paleo-environment), and also the origin of bipedalism in the Miocene. In all published accounts, modern waterside research including Niemitz, Kuliukas, Cunnane all agree on these consensus, so no dispute here. Only Hardy/Morgan's out-dated timeline (Miocene semi-aquatic phase) disagrees. ChakAzul (talk) 05:08, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- I think that what is important to identify is that the basic claim of a long period (~ millions yr) of aquatic or wading context for hominids had to occur in both the current rehabilitated as well as the Hardy/Morgan treatments. That there is no evidence for such prolonged water-based history of humanity is key. The point is that the strong evidence for serious shore habitation only goes to 200,000 years ago. jps (talk) 09:21, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- There's growing evidence for lakeshore use of fish far further than that. Kathy Stewart who edited the 2014 Journal of HE special section on freshwater and marine resources, has traced the use of Clarias at Koobi Fora to around 1.5m years and in Oduvai Gorge to between 1.85 and 1.2m yrs, recovered in association with stone tools. Of course these aren't the first signs that water resources were used: the consumption of sedges and other C4 foods go back much further. I'm not saying there is any general consensus on this but the sources are definitely there with good citations and she's not alone. Chris55 (talk) 21:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
Nutrition and Health
One of the occupational hazard of dealing with fringe fields is that certain seemingly mainstream journals can actually turn out to be fringe journals. I am concerned that our reliance on the journal Nutrition and Health which is already contained within the somewhat hazy field of "nutrition studies" and is further edited by an AAH proponent is not what I would count as reliably peer-reviewed. We have come up against this issue in other WP:FRINGE areas where a journal controlled by an advocate gives favorable papers a pass because of the predilection of the editor. My inclination would be to never use citations from Nutrition and Health. jps (talk) 18:42, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
- Are you mistaking Nutrition and Health with a number of questionable popular magazines with similar titles? This journal is published by Sage Publications, a respectable American and British academic publishing source and is properly peer-reviewed. In fact there was originally just one citation from that journal and there now appear to be none. Chris55 (talk) 11:14, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm with Chris on this one. N&H is not on Beale's list, and it has no tarnishes on its reputation than I'm aware of (I'm sure there are some, but none that rise to the level of common knowledge among well-informed laypersons). If you have more specific reasons to suspect this publisher than you've given above, then let us know and perhaps we will agree with you. But absent that, the case for reliability is pretty well met. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:41, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
- Just to be clear: an example of the sort of specific problems I'm referring to: If you have good reason to believe that the article which you recently removed (and I undid) was reviewed solely by the pro-AAH editor you mentioned, I could understand that, and would likely agree with it. But absent any specific information of the sort, I think the reliability of N&H is well enough established. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:50, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
- Did you read the article? Nutrition journals in general are highly dubious endeavors, as we know from looking at fad diets. This particular article seems to have undergone no peer review which is a possibility since the author is also the editor. I have contacted the publisher to ask whether there is independent review of the editorial policies for this journal (which, incidentally, does not indicate that there is always third-party review of articles), and will let you know of the response. jps (talk) 05:47, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- I looked at it and went over it briefly, I didn't read it in depth. But I'm not going to make a judgement about publishing circumstances based on the contents because that's circular reasoning and a li'le tooo scootish fir meh ("No truly independent scientist would publish a paper complimentary of the AAH, so any such paper must have been pushed through the process by pro-AAH types"). Like I said, if you can come up with a good reason to believe there was no review, I'm open to discussing that as a reason to exclude this. But until there's some specific information about improprieties, the evidence says this is a good source. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:51, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well, this morning I just received an e-mail back from the publisher confirming that there is no editorial board review for submissions to this journal and that reviews are conducted entirely on the basis of the judgment of the editor-in-chief. This is a conflict-of-interest par extraordinarie. It means that there is zero oversight as to how papers are reviewed. In high-quality journals, the editorial board is tasked with making sure that controversial papers are reviewed by at least one independent reviewer. In this case, the sole person making the decision is the editor-in-chief.
- This isn't the first time we've had to deal with this. For example, IEEE Transactions are handled in a similar way and we had to exclude the primary source work from plasma cosmology on that basis. Low-impact, low-quality fringe journals should not be used for primary claims such as this. It's very irresponsible.
- jps (talk) 13:25, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Could you forward on that email? We've exchanged emails before, so you should have my address. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:26, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Sure thing! I first need to confirm with the person with whom I'm corresponding that they do not mind me forwarding the e-mail to you. There is a confidentiality note on the bottom I missed, but I imagine that they'll be okay with it. jps (talk) 13:50, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- No rush. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:10, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- I'd like to see it too please. As I don't currently have access to the editorial board as it was presumably in 1993 I'm in the dark about this one. That you regard IEEE Transactions in equal suspicion will come as a surprise to many in that field. Chris55 (talk) 14:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Be sure to email jps so he can forward it on to you: the WP email page doesn't allow for forwarding. Also, I doubt anyone would be surprised that IEEE transactions shouldn't be used as references in an article about a fringe theory in physics, nor that the WP community (not jps himself) came to that conclusion. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:39, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Sure thing! I first need to confirm with the person with whom I'm corresponding that they do not mind me forwarding the e-mail to you. There is a confidentiality note on the bottom I missed, but I imagine that they'll be okay with it. jps (talk) 13:50, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Could you forward on that email? We've exchanged emails before, so you should have my address. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:26, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- I looked at it and went over it briefly, I didn't read it in depth. But I'm not going to make a judgement about publishing circumstances based on the contents because that's circular reasoning and a li'le tooo scootish fir meh ("No truly independent scientist would publish a paper complimentary of the AAH, so any such paper must have been pushed through the process by pro-AAH types"). Like I said, if you can come up with a good reason to believe there was no review, I'm open to discussing that as a reason to exclude this. But until there's some specific information about improprieties, the evidence says this is a good source. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:51, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Did you read the article? Nutrition journals in general are highly dubious endeavors, as we know from looking at fad diets. This particular article seems to have undergone no peer review which is a possibility since the author is also the editor. I have contacted the publisher to ask whether there is independent review of the editorial policies for this journal (which, incidentally, does not indicate that there is always third-party review of articles), and will let you know of the response. jps (talk) 05:47, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Subsection: Diving behavior and performance
Re JPS:
Can you find someone who is not a proponent of AAH who agrees that human beings' diving reflex converges to sea otters? This is a claim that seems based more on single sentences than rigorous comparison. It get the impression that there may have been no third-party review of this point.
Schagatay's chapter itself is an independent secondary review of the subject matter. It cited various peer-reviewed research findings and ethnographical records to examine Hardy/Morgan's speculation on diving. We should avoid labelling every one who expressed some sympathy or support as a "proponent", and refuse to acknowledge the academic independence in their works. In this sense there can never exist an "independent" supportive work. Demanding a tertiary review on a secondary review here will be too much, similarly I won't demand a review on Langdon's 1997 review for it to be useful.
On the reliability of Schagatay's chapter, I repeat it is appropriate to be used here per WP:SPS, in that Schagatay is an established expert on the subject matter (diving physiology) with peer-reviewed publications. This is the same reason that I welcome the use of John Hawks blog post here.
More details have been added to the subsection. I've added Landgon's counter-proposal, though not as logically sound as Schagatay, but for the sake of balance. ChakAzul (talk) 06:47, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Stop it. Schagatay is clearly an AAH proponent. That is so far from being "independent" that it is rather ridiculous that you would even pretend to be making that claim. Lagdon's review is independent. Schagatay's is not. If Schagatay is an established expert, it should be easy for you to find someone who is not a proponent of AAH saying that Schagatay is an established expert on this subject vis-a-vis AAH. I have found nothing. I further have not seen how anyone can take the claims that human diving is convergent to sea otters seriously. There is no real attempt made to compare the two as Schagatay makes no effort to actually compare trained sea otters to trained humans (or trained humans to any other trained diving animal). If I compare human high-altitude endurance records and claim they "converge to mountain goats", that's a specious claim (excuse the pun). It's worthless unless you compare humans who haven't trained to goats that haven't trained. jps (talk) 11:02, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Whilst I agree that Schagatay can hardly be an independent source on Schagatay, I challenge the repeated insistence that every argument in this article be independently verified by an "anti-AAH" scholar. Wikipedia does not claim TRUTH but verifiability: "content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors." "In Wikipedia's sense, material is verifiable if it can be directly supported by at least one reliable published source." The issue of whether Schagatay's publication is a reliable source is entirely independent of the issue of whether she is pro or anti the point in question. To demand that you personally can be convinced of the truth of every statement is going well beyond the rights of an editor of Wikipedia. Chris55 (talk) 16:00, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- See WP:SOAP. Novel claims do not get to be covered just because they are made. Our goal is to explain AAH and contextualize its dramatic marginalization in paleoanthropology. Our goal is not to provide an apologia for a fringe theory unless that apologia has been noticed. The much bally-hooed claim that AAH is "more accepted by biologists" has not stood up to scrutiny. Rather, it seems that biologists are actually just more generally critical of much of the paleoanthro Just So Stories. It is irresponsible for Wikipedia to push these stories beyond their WP:WEIGHT in the academy, which is what is being attempted here. WP:FRIND is a guideline for a reason. jps (talk) 16:14, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well that's good. I presume that you accept that Langdon is an independent source. Since he has discussed the issues in this article extensively, as well as many other critics, he's given them a right to be heard in Wikipedia. Chris55 (talk) 21:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Nothing and no-one has a right to be included on WP. That being said, being pro-AAH is not necessarily an indicator of a lack of independence, and being anti-AAH isn't necessarily an indicator of independence. That being said (again), jps has other complaints about Schagatay that should be addressed before including his claims. To be explicit: Schagatay's claims need to have made some sort of impact on the field. Their publication indicates reliability, but it says nothing about WP:WEIGHT. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Ah, I'm glad you mentioned weight. The guidelines say "each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Now Langdon gives 19 lines to the issue of breath-holding and speech and 10 lines to the issue of the diving reflex. Now I'm not sure how many complete papers Schagatay has given to these topics. There is her paper in the 1987 conference and the one in 2014 which mentions 7 other papers, all published in refereed journals (apart from her PhD thesis which according to the odd view here is not regarded refereed at all). So by this metric, Langdon should be limited to a total of a few lines in this article whereas he is given the lion's share in many sections. The issue of prominence might adjust the scale somewhat but I'm not in that field so I can't give an opinion on that. Now I am not getting on a soapbox for Schagatay. I'm pretty indifferent to her claims one way or the other. But none of the arguments that have been made suggest she must be excluded from the page. Chris55 (talk) 22:33, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- "prominence" != "word count per author". ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:45, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Ah, I'm glad you mentioned weight. The guidelines say "each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Now Langdon gives 19 lines to the issue of breath-holding and speech and 10 lines to the issue of the diving reflex. Now I'm not sure how many complete papers Schagatay has given to these topics. There is her paper in the 1987 conference and the one in 2014 which mentions 7 other papers, all published in refereed journals (apart from her PhD thesis which according to the odd view here is not regarded refereed at all). So by this metric, Langdon should be limited to a total of a few lines in this article whereas he is given the lion's share in many sections. The issue of prominence might adjust the scale somewhat but I'm not in that field so I can't give an opinion on that. Now I am not getting on a soapbox for Schagatay. I'm pretty indifferent to her claims one way or the other. But none of the arguments that have been made suggest she must be excluded from the page. Chris55 (talk) 22:33, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Nothing and no-one has a right to be included on WP. That being said, being pro-AAH is not necessarily an indicator of a lack of independence, and being anti-AAH isn't necessarily an indicator of independence. That being said (again), jps has other complaints about Schagatay that should be addressed before including his claims. To be explicit: Schagatay's claims need to have made some sort of impact on the field. Their publication indicates reliability, but it says nothing about WP:WEIGHT. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well that's good. I presume that you accept that Langdon is an independent source. Since he has discussed the issues in this article extensively, as well as many other critics, he's given them a right to be heard in Wikipedia. Chris55 (talk) 21:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- See WP:SOAP. Novel claims do not get to be covered just because they are made. Our goal is to explain AAH and contextualize its dramatic marginalization in paleoanthropology. Our goal is not to provide an apologia for a fringe theory unless that apologia has been noticed. The much bally-hooed claim that AAH is "more accepted by biologists" has not stood up to scrutiny. Rather, it seems that biologists are actually just more generally critical of much of the paleoanthro Just So Stories. It is irresponsible for Wikipedia to push these stories beyond their WP:WEIGHT in the academy, which is what is being attempted here. WP:FRIND is a guideline for a reason. jps (talk) 16:14, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
- Whilst I agree that Schagatay can hardly be an independent source on Schagatay, I challenge the repeated insistence that every argument in this article be independently verified by an "anti-AAH" scholar. Wikipedia does not claim TRUTH but verifiability: "content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors." "In Wikipedia's sense, material is verifiable if it can be directly supported by at least one reliable published source." The issue of whether Schagatay's publication is a reliable source is entirely independent of the issue of whether she is pro or anti the point in question. To demand that you personally can be convinced of the truth of every statement is going well beyond the rights of an editor of Wikipedia. Chris55 (talk) 16:00, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
It's astonishing to see how a number of researchers/works were labelled as "proponent" and therefore not independent, while the critical ones were automatically treated as independent. How about Carsten Niemitz, Curtis Marean, or Reneto Bender, who have published works that could support AAH while also critizing it as a whole, and how about all the authors and co-authors who never took side and just do their science? Should they be counted as "proponents" or "opponents"? This kind of labelling may be OK in casual talks, but is unnecessary and often inaccurate within Wikipedia and academia. It is especially unwanted if used as a double standard, that a higher bar is set on the "proponent" sources, requiring an additional layer of "independent" (i.e. critical) secondary/tertiary reviews, and a lower bar on critical sources that permits even low quality sources, and since they are already independent and matters of fact, no further confirmation needed. This is not a new problem here, but has been affecting this article for some years. What I suggest is to stop this kind of POV pushing by means of false labelling and double standards on sourcing. ChakAzul (talk) 07:02, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- I agree. It amounts to a form of scientific censorship. There are the results of several conferences of scientists that have been published but are being systematically deleted from the article on the basis that they are "Pro-AAH". Already a straightforward description of the claims made by Hardy and Morgan has been deleted on spurious "primary source" grounds, which overrides the clearly stated guidelines. These censors are so used to waving the appropriate flags they obviously don't realise how much their heavy handed tactics are approaching the types of censorship that have been used in religious and political domains for centuries. 1984 anyone? Chris55 (talk) 08:53, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- Hm... I wouldn't say there is censorship because WP has no authority or central government to censor any topic, it's just that everyone has his/her own preference or bias, we need to minimized and overcome this bias by using guidelines on a fair basis. ChakAzul (talk) 09:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- There's no easy way to determine who are the experts, but as you see in Google Scholar that Schagatay has a couple of peer-reviewed papers with high citation rates [8], her research findings and viewpoints are certainly qualified here.
- Langdon is a peculiar case here. With AAH's alleged overwhelming rejection one would expect there're multitude of detailed criticisms out there we can cite, but there is none, except Langdon's reviews which are still relatively brief. To live up with the expectation that AAH is absolutely debunked, we have to somehow put Langdon in heavy use (sometimes I've to cite his half-sentence critic to make the paragraph more balanced). It doesn't mean I don't find his critics logical and often thought provoking. Just that we have no choice here. ChakAzul (talk) 09:39, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
"With AAH's alleged overwhelming rejection one would expect there're multitude of detailed criticisms out there we can cite, but there is none...." This doesn't describe how WP:FRINGE works. Part of the big issue I'm having with the last section is that it relies a lot on primary sources which is extremely problematic. The rejection of fringe theories typically happens because of ignoring them rather than any published rejoinders because people don't find the work compelling enough to comment upon. Wikipedia shouldn't be including work that hasn't been discussed in the context of AAH by people who are not AAH proponents. This is a right great wrongs kind of scenario. I think a great culling of material is going to have to commence where we basically remove any primary-sourced material that has not been noticed as connected to AAH by WP:FRIND sources. Expect a much more truncated section soon. jps (talk) 10:35, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- This depends on whether we consider Attenborough 2016 as a proper WP:FRIND secondary review on these lines of primary research. Again if we say David Attenborough is a proponent -> his review is not independent -> need extra review -> that extra review was done by a reviewer who agreed with Attenborough -> need further review, it's surely not helpful. As far as I know those aspects laid out in the last section are all in the scope of Attenborough's review, other aspects (e.g. water birth, baby swimming) which "are not discussed in independent sources should not be given any space in articles". ChakAzul (talk) 05:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
- I just want to point out that I, like many other editors (many other editors) immediately tune out and stop caring what comes next when I read an accusation of censorship in a comment on a talk page. It's unhelpful, it's untrue and, frankly, it's a ridiculous claim. We have different ideas about what's best for the article is all. Accusations of censorship are a form of casting aspersions on other editors (and other people in general) and do not help the discussion at all. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:18, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
The problem with this topic is that "AAH's alleged overwhelming rejection" is just that: alleged. In fact it is has been overwhelmingly ignored by the scientific community (whereas the public liked it). There are pretty good reasons for this, up to the last 20 years. Hardy (who was an FRS) preferred to devote his retirement to religion rather than science; Morgan expected that her publicizing his views would lead to a serious examination of the issue by scientists, but it didn't. And it's not hard to see why. Paleontologists believed that Africa, where the homo genus eventually emerged, was a savannah as it is today and subscribed easily to the myth of man the mighty hunter. By the time it became obvious that climate changes were far more complex in Africa, they had publicly dismissed the idea, which made it hard to reconsider it, and the spread of several species throughout the world in a variety of environments confused the issue even more. Those who found fruitful leads in the idea were generally not anthropologists or paleontologists and were therefore easily dismissed. Things are changing but the dust is far from settling.
That the scientists who were interested have been forced to use any publication method they could find has definitely run it foul of Wikipedia's normal criteria for fringe articles. I don't know any way out of that dilemma. The Human Brain Evolution book and the JHE issue represent one step, but it only covers one aspect. A basic problem is the name of the article: it's based on the name of Morgan's most recent general book and is what the general public recognizes, but everyone accepts it isn't a single hypothesis–Morgan creatively explored a large number of possibilities. It may be that in the future science will view her efforts differently, but at the moment we have a number of scientists who acknowledge her lead and are working out the possibilities. To cut those out would misrepresent the whole topic. Chris55 (talk) 22:34, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
- jps has already explained that the rejection of a theory by the scientific community usually takes the form of scientists ignoring it. This is an extremely common occurrence throughout pseudoscience and fringe science topics, and itself is very well documented. You're creating a false dilemma. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:52, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Latest revert
We were going pretty well up until today. Then I found absolutely nothing to preserve in the latest round of edits from the nominally pro-AAH editors. [9] I want to emphasize a few things:
- Stop removing Henry Gee's point from the bipedalism section. It's exactly this kind of timeframe point that needs to be emphasized because it's the obvious rejoinder that does not get addressed in pro-AAH (or its auxiliary hypotheses) sources. Removing this point is being done basically under the radar and is not appreciated.
- The framing of pro-AAH authors is argued above to be problematic. However, this is an article about AAH. If there is no possible connection to AAH, I will start removing content. The reason the content is relevant is because the authors are pro-AAH. Otherwise, the content that is published in peer-reviewed journals often avoids any mention of AAH for obvious reasons. You cannot have it both ways. Either there is a connection to AAH or there is not.
- The journal Human Evolution is not the one that is indexed. Rather this ia an obscure Italian journal that does not pass our WP:RS muster. It looks like Kuliukas could not get this provocative paper published in more mainstream journals. Leave it out since it is basically not cited by anyone, please.
- Removal of aquaticape.org from the article is just poor form since we link to pro-AAH blogs elsewhere in the article.
- Removing the sentence "There are differences between humans and other diving mammals include human's slower attainment of maximum bradycardia response and the occurrence of hypertension during dives." is extremely poor form. This is just attempting to whitewash and is not okay.
jps (talk) 10:29, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- 1. The evidence of fish eating is not used at all in the wading section and therefore the citation is irrelevant. In addition fossilisation of fish remains 5-6m years ago is almost absent so you are setting up a straw man.
- 2. That is a ridiculous argument. It is silly to set up pro and con camps at every mention. In addition labelling someone as pro or anti is OR.
- 3. I've never indexed the "Journal of Human Evolution". The indexes I've put are to the journal that was owned by Springer but is as you say now owned by an Italian company. It is a published source and therefore meets WP guidelines though obviously not as prestigious as the other.
- 4. The only blog sources that I've seen are anti-AAH blogs. Where are the pro ones? Jim Moore gets his only credibility by having the same name as a paleontologist of the same name at UCSD. WP guidelines strongly discourage the use of blogs.
- 5. I'm not quite sure why you're objecting to the removal of this ungrammatical and obscure sentence. Does it have a source?
- Chris55 (talk) 10:48, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- I'm with jps 100% on these changes. I see nothing wrong with his arguments, and the content restored in the linked revert reads better, is more informative and more balanced (including a cite-through from the pro-AAH blog). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:22, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- I have checked the two references to the Journal of Human Evolution (the more prestigious Elsevier one) in the article and they are both correct. The 2014 Special Section: Freshwater and Marine Resources contains contributions from at least 6 of the people cited on this page: Stewart, Marean, Cunnane, Crawford, Brenna, Joordens, maybe others. Though I didn't add them myself I can't see what you're complaining about. So evidently they think that "AAH proponents" are worth listening to. Chris55 (talk) 17:14, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
- Let me elaborate
- Quote Gee's paragraph[10]
He was obviouly criticizing Hardy/Morgan's all-in-one coastal swimming/diving phase. In contrast Niemitz suggested a freshwater wading phase at African lakes/rivers, where you won't find any coastal seafood ("seafood" could also mean freshwater, but Gee was talking about the recent coastal diet 200,000 years ago). Note that coasts and lake/river shores are markedly different biological niches. Thus Gee and Niemitz are talking about different things and by no means contradict each other, citing it here is misunderstanding and OR. A relevant point would be evidence against prolonged lake/river interactions and freshwater food consumption in the Miocene.First: none of the features proposed to support the idea evolved together. The ancestors of humans became bipedal at least five million years ago, but our fondness for seafood is much more recent, emerging, as far as we know, with the origin of our own species around 200,000 years ago.
- We simply don't know the standpoint of many of the authors/co-authors (Lin Yu-Chong, Andersson JP, Linér MH, Rünow E, Dacke M, Kröger RH, Warrant EJ, Lodin-Sundström A, Milne N, Fournier P, Halsey LG, Tyler CJ). As far as I know, Andersson JP is even mildly critical to AAH, but nonetheless published works that could support it. Generalizing them as "proponents" is inaccurate and not very informative. Notwithstanding the connection to AAH is obvious, they are studies on the diving and bipedalism aspects of AAH respectively, plus some of the authors are pro- or anti-AAH.
- I agree with the removal here. Curiously, Human Evolution (not the prestigious Journal of Human Evolution) is indexed in Springer only up to 2006 [11].
- Non-RS aquaticape.org has no place here. Period. So does theaquaticape.org in the lede, I also removed it. (Please note again the lede image is valid not by its usage in theaquaticape.org but the same imagery in several published accounts)
- So you're suggesting a preliminary comparison of human vs marine mammals should be included, while similar comparisons of human vs other great apes and human vs semi-aquatics should be removed. What is the rationale for such disparity? (I tend to keep them all for balanced information, or remove all)
ChakAzul (talk) 03:51, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
- Preliminary comparisons of the way humans dive compared to other animals was done on the basis of simple facts about physiology. The comparisons between humans and sea otters was claimed on the basis of humans who had trained to dive and sea otters in general. As I pointed out, mountain goats and sherpas share a lot in common too. But not a person thinks humans have convergent evolutionary adaptations to those of mountain goats. jps (talk) 18:33, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- This is how research findings against AAH are treated as "simple facts" and those supporting it as "no real attempt", this kind of filtering is exactly why AAH was perceived as having no evidence support. The mainstream consensus (not facts) in diving medicine and primatology is, according to available data, human's diving performance is much inferior than aquatic mammals [cite Lin], and much superior than other apes/primates [cite Bender]. To counter these consensus we'll need reports of human diving down to several hundred meters without adverse effects, or primates trained to dive down to 40m (the typical upper bound of Sea Gypsies), both are very unlikely. Schagatay's comparison with sea otter is preliminary, I agree. So I'd suggest to include both of the above consensus as useful information.
- Indeed, the high-altitude adaptation has also been studied by Schagatay's team, and she suggested that it's a pre-adaptation stemmed from diving, not the other way round, due to the many more factors required for diving. ChakAzul (talk) 03:30, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I don't understand how this comment is supposed to be taken in terms of what we should do for the text of Wikipedia. If Schagatay's comparison is preliminary, then it is irresponsible for us to WP:ASSERT it as true. Since no one has bothered to notice these claims beyond AAH proponents, it seems to me like inclusion of such is just a kind of soapboxing. jps (talk) 06:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I won't insist on the sea otter comparisons, but suppose if I suggest to include the human > ape comparison which is also kind of "fact" in primatology and has the same (lack of) direct connection to AAH, what would you say? ChakAzul (talk) 07:44, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Has anyone ever bothered to try to teach a non-human ape to dive? All the sources we currently propose only look at people who train. jps (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, Bender and Bender (the source you removed) trained one common chimpanzee and one orangutan, they can dive down several meters in a swimming pool, now the world record of non-human apes freediving. Before that, no one believe apes can dive at all. ChakAzul (talk) 09:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Right. That's why I cannot follow your logic about human > ape. :) jps (talk) 09:24, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Human record 101 meters >> non-human ape record several meters, is it so hard to do simple arithmetic comparison? XD ChakAzul (talk) 04:04, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- Number of humans who have trained to dive: hundreds of thousands (conservative estimate). Number of non-human apes who have trained to dive: 2. So tell me whether we have a good statistical distribution for non-human ape extrema now? jps (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- Judge for yourself:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5i1xhq0G2Y (trained chimpanzee, 5 clips)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYSLx4287Yc
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=949p-Btf2uI
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jzKt7zpABQ
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkEOBG5nsQU
- ---
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGP_j0uOwmc (trained orangutan)
- ---
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_sc7j0XHEk (trained human, using some equipment)
- https://vimeo.com/7953385 (trained human, using no equipment what so ever) CEngelbrecht2 (talk) 23:14, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Number of humans who have trained to dive: hundreds of thousands (conservative estimate). Number of non-human apes who have trained to dive: 2. So tell me whether we have a good statistical distribution for non-human ape extrema now? jps (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- Human record 101 meters >> non-human ape record several meters, is it so hard to do simple arithmetic comparison? XD ChakAzul (talk) 04:04, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- Right. That's why I cannot follow your logic about human > ape. :) jps (talk) 09:24, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, Bender and Bender (the source you removed) trained one common chimpanzee and one orangutan, they can dive down several meters in a swimming pool, now the world record of non-human apes freediving. Before that, no one believe apes can dive at all. ChakAzul (talk) 09:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Has anyone ever bothered to try to teach a non-human ape to dive? All the sources we currently propose only look at people who train. jps (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I won't insist on the sea otter comparisons, but suppose if I suggest to include the human > ape comparison which is also kind of "fact" in primatology and has the same (lack of) direct connection to AAH, what would you say? ChakAzul (talk) 07:44, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I don't understand how this comment is supposed to be taken in terms of what we should do for the text of Wikipedia. If Schagatay's comparison is preliminary, then it is irresponsible for us to WP:ASSERT it as true. Since no one has bothered to notice these claims beyond AAH proponents, it seems to me like inclusion of such is just a kind of soapboxing. jps (talk) 06:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Preliminary comparisons of the way humans dive compared to other animals was done on the basis of simple facts about physiology. The comparisons between humans and sea otters was claimed on the basis of humans who had trained to dive and sea otters in general. As I pointed out, mountain goats and sherpas share a lot in common too. But not a person thinks humans have convergent evolutionary adaptations to those of mountain goats. jps (talk) 18:33, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Either there is a connection to AAH or there isn't
Descriptions about research done by AAH proponents have been removed with the claim that some of the co-authors don't believe in AAH. That may be true, but in such cases where AAH is not mentioned in the source and there is no explicit connection vis-a-vis the authors then, we must remove the text. jps (talk) 16:52, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- The section is about research which concerns the main issue of the article, which is the controversial idea that humans have a more aquatic past than has been generally assumed in the recent history of anthropology, not about the claims of a party of 'proponents'. For many years the speculations of Hardy and Morgan received no attention from scientists so for me at least it's a good thing that is now receiving attention, whether or not they thank Hardy or Morgan, and it's a potential opportunity to show people how science works. Where is your argument for this line that 'we must remove the text' if they don't? Chris55 (talk) 18:54, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not the place to "show how science works". It's the place to report what reliable sources say about a topic. The topic here is "aquatic ape" which is indelibly tied to Hardy and Morgan. Sources which make no reference to Hardy and Morgan/aquatic ape and cannot be directly connected to the subject of the article but for the original research of the editors here must be removed until such time as secondary sources make the connection. jps (talk) 19:11, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- This discussion is, as far as I know, about a couple of papers in which a known "proponent", Schagatay, was one of four authors (and another with 3) but as far as we know the others are not proponents. So there is definitely a connection. You're making up rules all the way along about what may or may not be included in the article and how things must be described which have no basis in Wikipedia policies. Chris55 (talk) 19:35, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- I am not the one arguing that we cannot say that the article was written in part by proponents. Rather that was Chakazul. If the connection is Schagatay and her support of AAH as an inspiration for the research, we should be able to spell that out in the text. If we cannot say that in the text, we should not include the text. jps (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- I've added more accurate descriptions of how those works were related to AAH (better than generalizing as advocates doing this or that). Hope it's clearer now. ChakAzul (talk) 02:42, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well, you did for the bipedalism section, but the diving section was simply reverted. I removed the co-authored material again and tried to contextualize Schagatay. jps (talk) 03:28, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- All the materials, including Lin's, have been reviewed by Schagatay 2011, and further by Attenborough 2016, in their explicit support of AAH. In turn, Schagatay's review has been reviewed by Langdon as mentioned at the end. Provided these secondary/tertiary reviews, there's no single reason to remove the materials, which also leaves the "in reviewing the abovementioned findings" and Langdon's statement point to nowhere. ChakAzul (talk) 03:46, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Well, you did for the bipedalism section, but the diving section was simply reverted. I removed the co-authored material again and tried to contextualize Schagatay. jps (talk) 03:28, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I've added more accurate descriptions of how those works were related to AAH (better than generalizing as advocates doing this or that). Hope it's clearer now. ChakAzul (talk) 02:42, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I am not the one arguing that we cannot say that the article was written in part by proponents. Rather that was Chakazul. If the connection is Schagatay and her support of AAH as an inspiration for the research, we should be able to spell that out in the text. If we cannot say that in the text, we should not include the text. jps (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- This discussion is, as far as I know, about a couple of papers in which a known "proponent", Schagatay, was one of four authors (and another with 3) but as far as we know the others are not proponents. So there is definitely a connection. You're making up rules all the way along about what may or may not be included in the article and how things must be described which have no basis in Wikipedia policies. Chris55 (talk) 19:35, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not the place to "show how science works". It's the place to report what reliable sources say about a topic. The topic here is "aquatic ape" which is indelibly tied to Hardy and Morgan. Sources which make no reference to Hardy and Morgan/aquatic ape and cannot be directly connected to the subject of the article but for the original research of the editors here must be removed until such time as secondary sources make the connection. jps (talk) 19:11, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Whether a text is reviewed by Schagatay or Attenborough is irrelevant to whether or not Wikipedia has adequately explained the connection of the text to AAH. Either we can say that the material is connected to AAH or we cannot. You first removed the characterization of certain materials as being associated with the AAH because you were concerned that the co-authors were not AAH proponents. Now you are saying because pro-AAH proponents have reviewed these materials, we can describe them in Wikipedia. No, that's not how it works. If you want to discuss Attenborough or Schagatay, that's one thing, but Wikipedia cannot go on about other sources that they cite without explaining their connection to AAH. jps (talk) 05:42, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- The connection: These research findings you want to remove, and also Lin's findings that you've added, were all used directly in the review in discussions and support of AAH, its diving argument, and other minor points like nose shape and body shape, and directly cited Hardy, Morgan, and Lin. Is it clear enough?
- Or if you insist, why is the following sentences not removed, according to your criteria? (I agree to retain them)
The diving reflex is present in all vertebrates ever studied, including terrestrial ones.[81] There are differences between humans and other diving mammals, which include humans' slower attainment of maximum bradycardia response and the occurrence of hypertension during dives.[81]
- Again please don't remove the content before you can explain why the reviewed findings were not connected but the green ones were connected. ChakAzul (talk) 07:33, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- It's fine with me if you want to remove Lin too, but it doesn't bother me much one way or the other. I'm happy to have a single sentence about Schagatay and Langdon. jps (talk) 07:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I won't remove Lin and Langdon because they balance the paragraph quite well, and are directly connected to AAH. ChakAzul (talk) 07:49, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I would agree since the point is rather obvious. What's less obvious is why the training of humans to dive is at all relevant. The only relevance I see is that this idea is studied by AAH proponents. That seems to be the connection, but currently our text just describes the research without explaining its relevance. jps (talk) 08:03, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Didn't expect that I have to quote from Schagatay 2011 to prove the connection... but we've often do this kind of cross-check anyway, here we go (bold = source used in main text)
The diving response is sometimes said to exist in all species, including terrestrial ones [48 Lin 1982]
The diving response provides protection for the oxygen craving brain and heart, and has been shown in both laboratory and field experiments to be efficient in conserving oxygen and to lead to prolonged apneas in humans [13, 49]. It is equally efficient in conserving oxygen if the apnea is performed during work [50 Andersson et al. 2002, 51] or during immersion [52]
Diving was done with wooden goggles as the only equipment (Fig. 1) and in some areas a modern rubber diving mask, but no fins, suits or weights. Most children were diving without any visual aids (see also Chapter 10 [Gislen et al. 2003 used as the main evidence] ).
Our observations showed that harvest dives done to depths of 5-12 m lasted in average 38 s (SD 8 s), with resting intervals of the same duration as the dives, thus 50% of the total working time spent submerged (Fig. 4) [7 Schagatay et al. 2011].
For the no-fins disciplines, which may be the most interesting from a natural human diving perspective, the world records for horizontal distance swimming are 218 and 160 m for males and females, respectively, and for deep diving the records are 101 and 62 m (Table 1, see also www.aida-international.org).
[Conclusions] Humans in general seem to be well equipped for repeated diving to depths of 5-20 m to engage in underwater harvesting for several hours per day, with at least half of the diving time spent actively working on the sea floor. [...] The apparent reserve capacity displayed by some competitive elite-trained divers may indicate that humans were more aquatic in the past, as suggested by Hardy, already 50 years ago [68 Hardy 1960].
- Here are the connections to AAH, I hope you appreciate. ChakAzul (talk) 08:54, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Then the content should say, "AAH Proponent Erika Schagatay believes that the ability for humans to dive is evidence in favor of AAH." We can remove all the rest of the useless text in the section. That's the conclusion. The rest is filler as far as I can tell and adds nothing to the understanding of AAH for the reader. jps (talk) 09:24, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I would agree since the point is rather obvious. What's less obvious is why the training of humans to dive is at all relevant. The only relevance I see is that this idea is studied by AAH proponents. That seems to be the connection, but currently our text just describes the research without explaining its relevance. jps (talk) 08:03, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I won't remove Lin and Langdon because they balance the paragraph quite well, and are directly connected to AAH. ChakAzul (talk) 07:49, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- It's fine with me if you want to remove Lin too, but it doesn't bother me much one way or the other. I'm happy to have a single sentence about Schagatay and Langdon. jps (talk) 07:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Blogs
If you want to remove blogs, we should remove pictures that are included here simply because they appear on AAH-supporting blogs. I actually don't mind using blogs as WP:SPS, but I will not abide by a double standard of removing blogs but keeping the pictures. jps (talk) 16:54, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- If the blog is removed, then the link between the image and the subject is broken, at least as far as the article goes. I could see someone arguing that the fact that the link is still there, just not documented on WP is sufficient, but I personally don't buy it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:32, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- It is an act of good faith by Chakazul to remove the blog citations and I think it should be accepted as such. The connection with the article doesn't depend on the blog and the photo is taken from an academic publication. You seem to be arguing here that it should be removed because AAH supporters have used it (elsewhere) whereas in a previous section you argued that material should be removed because not all of the authors had declared themselves as supporters. You seem to want removal for any reason. Chris55 (talk) 19:24, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- Sorry, what academic publication is the photo taken from? jps (talk) 20:06, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, my mistake. It's taken by someone who also runs a blog. Where is the requirement in Wikipedia:Image use policy that pictures are from reliable sources? Chris55 (talk) 22:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- jps didn't state that the photo needs to be from a reliable source. In fact, he previously agreed to include the photo, knowing it came from a blog. It was you who just stated it was from an RS, to which jps asked "which one?" Attempting to now make it seem as if jps argued that the photo must be excluded because it didn't come from an RS is a transparent debate tactic. Both jps and I have argued that the photo should be excluded because there's no documented connection between it and this subject on wikipedia. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, my mistake. It's taken by someone who also runs a blog. Where is the requirement in Wikipedia:Image use policy that pictures are from reliable sources? Chris55 (talk) 22:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- Absent any indication of a connection here on WP, then for the purposes of this article, there's no connection. That's an almost tautological statement, so I'm all for either getting rid of the images or bringing the blog back in. If we can demonstrate in the article or through citations that the author of the blog is a credible expert, then the latter shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise, we should just drop the images. The very problems we've been having with sourcing show that this subject is not an overwhelmingly notable one, so even if the article ends up with no pictures, that's really not that remarkable. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:11, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- Sorry, what academic publication is the photo taken from? jps (talk) 20:06, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
As I see it there are two options here:
(1) include blogs and include the image from a blog. (2) exclude blogs and exclude the image from a blog.
Does anyone object to this dichotomy? I actually don't care that much whether we use (1) or (2).
jps (talk) 03:30, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- It's only you that claimed such a dependency of the photo on the personal blog, and only you that inserted the link. I have explained otherwise the photo is illustrating the exact same subject as the photos used in published accounts.
photos
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- They are all (1) photos taken by the a team during their scientific excursions, (2) depicting Sama-Bajau children diving in the Southeast Asian coast, usually naked, without any equipment, eyes opened, (3) used in discussions of AAH both here and in the sources. The only difference is the later two are copyrighted. Please explain if you disagree. ChakAzul (talk) 04:07, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Here is the relevant difference: The final two are images used in papers that support AAH, so if we use either of those images, we could say that. The first two images are only connected to AAH via the blog, so if we use either of those images we can explain their connection via their use on a blog written by a proponent of AAH. That's the relevant difference as far as Wikipedia is concerned. jps (talk) 05:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, the connection is photo of exactly the same subject and condition (location, ethnicity, age, activity, purpose of usage) were used in sources discussing AAH.
- Are you suggesting to infringe copyright and use the later two?
- Please explain any difference of the subject of these 4 photos?
- Which WP guideline stated that we can only use the exact same piece of image? Say, our topic is Unpeeled Californian Red Apple, can we use a photo of an unpeeled Californian red apple here when other pieces of unpeeled Californian red apples were depicted in sources?
- It that we can base the photo on a blog post, but not base on a pulished review which is of higher reliability?
- If this image is "not connected", why the other suggestions (swimming pool, mouse skull) are connected by applying your same criteria?
- Don't dodge my questions, before you can explain clearly, don't remove the photo, pls. ChakAzul (talk) 07:06, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- The latter two can be connected to AAH. I would be fine using them. If they cannot be used for licensing reasons, that's not my problem.
- They're fucking different photos. The difference is that they are not the same photo.
- This is not an article on diving. It's an article on AAH. Photos that appeared in articles supporting AAH are worthy of inclusion. Photos that appeared in blogs that supported AAH are worthy of inclusion. Not telling the reader that this is why the photo was included is basically soapboxing.
- I don't care which of these photos you want to use, but if you use a photo that is sourced to a blog, we need to reference the blog. And if you reference a blog, by WP:PARITY, expect the blogs to start being included in this page (especially the excellent anti-AAH blogs you keep removing). Either we use blogs or we do not. It's your decision. Decide wisely.
- I'm on board with Mpants's idea to use images that are ONLY connected directly. Swimming pool is out. Mouse skull is in, but, remember, BLOGS!
- The ball is in your court. If you continue to insist on keeping the image, expect the article to start containing a lot more references to blogs. Or you can find a different image. Or no image at all!
- jps (talk) 07:34, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I've explained the photo is directly connected. You still haven't explained which guideline tells us to use "the same photo". It's akin to insist that only the same wordings can be copied from sources and cannot be rephrased or summarized to mean the same thing. In such case there will be no content in Wikipedia because everything is either copyrighted or not the same. The mouse skull is out too, because you can only use the exact same photo here. ChakAzul (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- The photo is directly connected because it's from the blog of an AAH proponent. That's the connection. If you're fine with that and us letting the reader know, expect an introduction of blogs! jps (talk) 08:07, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I hate to not assuming good faith, but your reasonings above make me suspect that you're using the non-exist "same photo" argument (neither logical nor found in guidelines) so that blogs like aquaticape.org can be re-introduced. Please, no. ChakAzul (talk) 08:16, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- It's really quite simple. If you want to use resources from blogs, then we can include the image. If not, then we can't. I don't care either way, but I'm clear that by WP:PARITY there will be use of aquaticape.org if we use blogs at this page. I get the impression you don't like aquaticape.org which is why you don't want to see that resource used. Since there is a good argument to be had that we can stick to literature other than blogs, I don't mind taking out everything that is from blogs, but you must take out everything then. Everything. jps (talk) 08:20, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I hate to not assuming good faith, but your reasonings above make me suspect that you're using the non-exist "same photo" argument (neither logical nor found in guidelines) so that blogs like aquaticape.org can be re-introduced. Please, no. ChakAzul (talk) 08:16, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- The photo is directly connected because it's from the blog of an AAH proponent. That's the connection. If you're fine with that and us letting the reader know, expect an introduction of blogs! jps (talk) 08:07, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Please show some hint from the guidelines that pictures used to illustrate articles must have been directly produced and/or used by proponents of the topic of that article. There is no such policy. Other pictures that you have removed from this article have been so used by proponents so you don't even stop at that. You are making up 'policy' just to suit yourself. Chris55 (talk) 08:54, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I don't mind if you use the picture, but it is vitally important that we let the reader know it is sourced to a blog. By WP:PARITY, if we use content sourced to blogs, we will include all sorts of such blogs. jps (talk) 09:20, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- JPS, you - still - haven't - provide - which - guideline - only - the - same - photo - can - be - used. ChakAzul (talk) 08:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Because I never made such an argument. The photo which is currently being used is from an AAH proponent's blog. That's important for the reader to know and it constitutes the inclusion of content from a blog. That's the fact of the matter. If you want to include content sourced to a blog, that's fine. Just expect other content sourced to a blog to be so included as well. jps (talk) 09:20, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, it was put on WikiCommons by the same person who made the blog. If we start questioning material that has been used (maybe by the same author) in a blog, you would be effectively stopping any author who writes about their work in a blog. Chris55 (talk) 09:57, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- It was uploaded to commons by Chakazul. Either Chakazul is Erik Abrahamsson (in which case there's a huge WP:COI problem with him editing this page), or you're just making stuff up.
- For the record, just because a situation is not covered by policy doesn't give free reign for editors to do whatever they want. They are still expected to abide by consensus, and right now there's no consensus for inclusion. Me and jps are trying to form a consensus with you two, but you seem to be of the opinion that resources from blogs which are supportive of AAH are acceptable, whereas resources from blogs which are critical of AAH are not, which is not a tenable position. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:33, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- It doesn't say that. Other pictures in the sequence were, but not that one. Chris55 (talk) 16:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Go to the file histories (none have been edited, so each is just a table with a single small thumbnail of the image, near the bottom of the page, just above the file usage section) and you can see that Chakazul is the original uploader for all four of them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:45, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- It doesn't say that. Other pictures in the sequence were, but not that one. Chris55 (talk) 16:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, it was put on WikiCommons by the same person who made the blog. If we start questioning material that has been used (maybe by the same author) in a blog, you would be effectively stopping any author who writes about their work in a blog. Chris55 (talk) 09:57, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Because I never made such an argument. The photo which is currently being used is from an AAH proponent's blog. That's important for the reader to know and it constitutes the inclusion of content from a blog. That's the fact of the matter. If you want to include content sourced to a blog, that's fine. Just expect other content sourced to a blog to be so included as well. jps (talk) 09:20, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- JPS, you - still - haven't - provide - which - guideline - only - the - same - photo - can - be - used. ChakAzul (talk) 08:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I don't mind if you use the picture, but it is vitally important that we let the reader know it is sourced to a blog. By WP:PARITY, if we use content sourced to blogs, we will include all sorts of such blogs. jps (talk) 09:20, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- I've explained the photo is directly connected. You still haven't explained which guideline tells us to use "the same photo". It's akin to insist that only the same wordings can be copied from sources and cannot be rephrased or summarized to mean the same thing. In such case there will be no content in Wikipedia because everything is either copyrighted or not the same. The mouse skull is out too, because you can only use the exact same photo here. ChakAzul (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- No, the connection is photo of exactly the same subject and condition (location, ethnicity, age, activity, purpose of usage) were used in sources discussing AAH.
- Here is the relevant difference: The final two are images used in papers that support AAH, so if we use either of those images, we could say that. The first two images are only connected to AAH via the blog, so if we use either of those images we can explain their connection via their use on a blog written by a proponent of AAH. That's the relevant difference as far as Wikipedia is concerned. jps (talk) 05:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
After some thought I won't persist to use this photo. This kind of image, as relevant and valid as it may be, could be seen as emotional manipulation or promotion. I'll leave it for more suitable images (most WP articles don't have suitable images anyway). ChakAzul (talk) 02:46, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- Just for the sake of discussion that what images are suitable for WP:FRINGE topic: Refering to MPants above "the photo should be excluded because there's no documented connection between it and this subject on wikipedia", I then showed that (1) a few sources connected the diving behavior of Sama-Bajau children to AAH, (2) this connection was documented in the article, and (3) a photo was added depicting the diving behavior of Sama-Bajau children for its documented connection to AAH. Which part does not fulfill MPants' criteria? If the diving kid photo doesn't fulfill, what makes the Clarias photo or other potential images fulfill?
- My impression is, when (1) was not met, I added citations to the caption; when (2) was not met, I added a paragraph to document the relevant research findings; when the source was questioned, I provded details to support its validity (as an expertise SPS); then, after a documented connection was demonstrated, step by step, it's suddenly not about a documented connection but all about its usage in a blog post (which doesn't hamper the connection). It all seems to me as moving the goalposts, the only conclusion I can make is that this kind of image is unwelcomed, despite its validity according to MPants statement. ChakAzul (talk) 03:51, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- If the blog wasn't used as a source, then I fail to see how the connection was documented. If the article made reference to a paper that also included them (a paper which you have said multiple itmes was copyrighted), then they are non-free images and need to be reduced in size and have their usage parameters updated. If they are not used in that article, and the blog is not used as a source and no sources cited mentioned the blog then there's literally no way to document this outside of pure OR, which I think we can all agree is no good. I'm with jps on this: I'm perfectly fine with using the blog as an expert SELFPUB source. Note that I'm also okay with jps citing blogs from other experts which are critical of the AAH. Hell, there's one I would dearly like to cite, myself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 06:00, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- So, just to clarify the logic, how could the Clarias photo, the exostosis photo, the vernix photo, or the swimming pool photo and mouse skull photo (provided a free version) be considered valid, when these images are not used in any source? Would their usage be OR as well?
- For the personal website you're referring to, its author is by no mean a published expert, and its contents always disappoints me -- the half AAH-critic inside me -- that it suffers from many logical fallacies and really didn't kill AAH. If Elaine Morgan is pseudoscientific, the website is pseudoskeptic. Langdon, Hawks, Bender et al. did much better jobs. ChakAzul (talk) 09:43, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- The mouse photo was the only one of those I supported, and I did so with the implicit caveat that the blog it was pulled from be used as a source. As this is not a medical issue, we don't need MEDRS sources, so the current removal of blog sources is unnecessary. In fact, I cannot imagine a rationale for removing it other than attempting to establish a precedence by which blogs critical of the AAH can be excluded. Note right now that me and jps are arguing for the inclusion of relevant images and the inclusion of relevant pro-AAH sources and anti-AAH sources. I'm really not seeing how excluding this material does anything but harm the article by painting a false picture of a theory which has more scientific support than it factually enjoys. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:36, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- If the blog wasn't used as a source, then I fail to see how the connection was documented. If the article made reference to a paper that also included them (a paper which you have said multiple itmes was copyrighted), then they are non-free images and need to be reduced in size and have their usage parameters updated. If they are not used in that article, and the blog is not used as a source and no sources cited mentioned the blog then there's literally no way to document this outside of pure OR, which I think we can all agree is no good. I'm with jps on this: I'm perfectly fine with using the blog as an expert SELFPUB source. Note that I'm also okay with jps citing blogs from other experts which are critical of the AAH. Hell, there's one I would dearly like to cite, myself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 06:00, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Agreed with Mpants. The situation seems to me to be that litigation of this idea happens more on message boards and blogs than it does in the traditional academic press. I am still waiting for the contact at Sage to get back to me as to whether they don't mind me spreading their gossip around, but basically I'm coming to understand that pro-AAH academics tend to write papers that are supportive of the hypothesis without mentioning AAH more than obliquely (occasionally with a nod to Hardy/Morgan, but often not even that). We currently include a lot of papers that fall into this category which is far more WP:OR-game-y than it would be to just allow blogs and personal websites which seems to me a reasonable approach to the topic given the status quo.
But consensus is consensus. If the game is exclusion, I'm okay with that. Just gotta exclude then!
jps (talk) 15:04, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- JPS: True that litigation of the AAH exists only in laymen discussions and non-RS reviews, also true is that certain aspects already exists in academic discourses and even textbook grade materials e.g. MOCA. But I agree with you that either the source have explicit connection to AAH, or the authors have explicitly claimed to be pro- or anti-AAH. What I do not agree is mass removal of relevant details just because they contradict your own understanding of the topic. In the same line, I won't support to mass remove details from criticisms like Langdon even I may not entirely agree with them.
- MPants: It doesn't need to be a medical issue to exclude personal websites, WP:V is very clear that SPS should not be used in any topic, with the only exception of self-published expert sources, which Hawks' blog post and Schagatay's chapter fall into this category. So things are exactly the opposite, it was an attempt to establish a precedence to include unwarranted personal websites, and to place it at the same level as RS/expert SPS. ChakAzul (talk) 04:05, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
- Okay then. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:08, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
validity and suitability
I still haven't got a clear answer of which kinds of image can/should be used. We may treat validity and suitability as seperate issues, my understanding is:
- An image (I) is valid if there is documented connection, i.e. the subject matter (M) of the image has been explicitly linked to the topic (T) in published sources (S).
By this definition (correct me if I'm wrong), a swimming pool photo is valid (M=human swimming, S=Hardy/Morgan), a free version of mouse skull photo is valid (M=sinus, S=Myers blog), a Clarias photo is valid (M=catfish, S=Cunnane & Stewart 2010), a diving kid photo is valid (M=diving performance & physiology, S=Schagatay 2011,Gislen 2011), a wading primate photo is valid (M=primate wading, S=Niemitz 2010). This should be true for the entire Wikipedia, including fringe topics.
Even an image is valid, we also talk about whether it's suitable, for example some photos may be susceptible to emotional manipulation or promotion, making the article less subjective. I'm totally comfortable with this logic and say an image is valid but not suitable, and I believe most editors would agree.
Excuse me for long-winded, but it's important to sort out the basics that editors, especially inexperienced ones, could follow and improve the article. ChakAzul (talk) 04:35, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
Crawford and Cunnane
The nutrients section is going to have to be re-centered on two AAH proponents leading research: Cunnane and Crawford. (See this for more on identifying them as ideologues.) Much of the exposition is sourced to them as WP:ASSERT, but given their agenda, independent verification of those ideas as being connected to AAH would be appreciated. So far, I've just seen cited critiques of Crawford and not Cunnane. I think this is because Cunnane is not as well-known. A case may have to be made for removing much of the Cunnane-sourced research, or at least cutting it down substantially.
jps (talk) 16:15, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- Leading researchers in this aspect (pro-AAH) include Cunnane, Broadhurst, Crawford on the nutritional side, Stewart, Parkington, Joordens on the paleontological / archaeological side, and more collaborating scientists in biochemistry, marine archaeology etc. Most recent RS reviews for their works have been positive [12] [13] [14] [15] and received wide coverage in leading journals [16] [17], criticisms maybe harder to find except older ones (before 2007), so their academic reception is quite different from that of AAH. ChakAzul (talk) 08:10, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
- That's not really addressing the point. This is an article on AAH, not not nutrition. The connection between the claims about fats and iodine and human evolution need to be made explicit, and very few of those claims have been reliably vetted. While looking at nutritional requirements and the context of when and where such nutrition may have been obtained in the past is essentially separate from AAH claims in the abstract, the agenda of pro-AAH researchers (who seem to be all connected) and the affiliated researchers who believe that coastal environments may have been exploited hundreds of thousands of years ago is a watering down of the AAH proposal (excuse the pun). What I am singularly unimpressed by is the claims that the four cites you give are "reviews". They are all original research advancing similar agendas that coastal development may have occurred earlier than generally thought. This is a far cry from AAH, and the disconnect between AAH and these other ideas is obvious by doing a quick search and finding no references to early AAH work. This is the WP:OR game, then. We need to use reliable sources to establish (1) there is a connection between some researchers who made claims about AAH and nutrition in the past and (2) certain groups want to study aquatic food in the context of earlier human development. jps (talk) 08:56, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
- So you have the content of this article in a double-lock. If any blog site points to people as proponents of the AAH, they are then by definition ideologues and therefore their scientific credentials can be dismissed. If they cannot be positively identified as supporting AAH they can be removed for that reason. The AAH was for many years an untested hypothesis so it's redundant to point to the lack of earlier work. Since all the claims by Hardy and Morgan have been stripped down to a couple of minor paragraphs, the reader of the page will be no more enlightened about what they actually said. This is becoming once again a one-sided critique. Chris55 (talk) 20:02, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Hey, I'm arguing that Crawford and Cunnane are relevant because they are AAH proponents! That connects them to the topic. I'm not saying we dismiss their claims -- I'm saying we contextualize them as AAH proponents. However, the bigger issue is that such contextualization is not being done in a fair way at this point as a lot of claims are being WP:ASSERTed for which we do not have WP:FRIND sources. If you can point to some, that would be appreciated. But as it is, I think we will start to restructure the article through an identification of pro-AAH researchers which is of interest to the readers even if their particular research does not necessarily connect to AAH in all cases (sometimes to avoid problems, I'm sure). jps (talk) 20:36, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Why don't you just call the likes of Crawford and Cunnane what you actually think of them? That they're heretics, whose volumes should be burned? CEngelbrecht2 (talk) 23:09, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Hey, I'm arguing that Crawford and Cunnane are relevant because they are AAH proponents! That connects them to the topic. I'm not saying we dismiss their claims -- I'm saying we contextualize them as AAH proponents. However, the bigger issue is that such contextualization is not being done in a fair way at this point as a lot of claims are being WP:ASSERTed for which we do not have WP:FRIND sources. If you can point to some, that would be appreciated. But as it is, I think we will start to restructure the article through an identification of pro-AAH researchers which is of interest to the readers even if their particular research does not necessarily connect to AAH in all cases (sometimes to avoid problems, I'm sure). jps (talk) 20:36, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- So you have the content of this article in a double-lock. If any blog site points to people as proponents of the AAH, they are then by definition ideologues and therefore their scientific credentials can be dismissed. If they cannot be positively identified as supporting AAH they can be removed for that reason. The AAH was for many years an untested hypothesis so it's redundant to point to the lack of earlier work. Since all the claims by Hardy and Morgan have been stripped down to a couple of minor paragraphs, the reader of the page will be no more enlightened about what they actually said. This is becoming once again a one-sided critique. Chris55 (talk) 20:02, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- That's not really addressing the point. This is an article on AAH, not not nutrition. The connection between the claims about fats and iodine and human evolution need to be made explicit, and very few of those claims have been reliably vetted. While looking at nutritional requirements and the context of when and where such nutrition may have been obtained in the past is essentially separate from AAH claims in the abstract, the agenda of pro-AAH researchers (who seem to be all connected) and the affiliated researchers who believe that coastal environments may have been exploited hundreds of thousands of years ago is a watering down of the AAH proposal (excuse the pun). What I am singularly unimpressed by is the claims that the four cites you give are "reviews". They are all original research advancing similar agendas that coastal development may have occurred earlier than generally thought. This is a far cry from AAH, and the disconnect between AAH and these other ideas is obvious by doing a quick search and finding no references to early AAH work. This is the WP:OR game, then. We need to use reliable sources to establish (1) there is a connection between some researchers who made claims about AAH and nutrition in the past and (2) certain groups want to study aquatic food in the context of earlier human development. jps (talk) 08:56, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
A paragraph without justification
One of the major changes in human biology has been the growth in size of the brain from around 350ml (Ardipithecus) to 1,600ml (Neanderthal) which took place between approximately 4.4m and 0.4m years ago with the main increase since 2m years, before settling down to 1,300ml in modern humans. Increasing meat consumption by hominins (or even a fruit diet to explain reducing teeth) has been traditionally associated with this growth, but the same effect was not observed in carnivores on the savannah whose encephalization quotient remained low.[66] Early remains show the consumption of C4 grasses and sedges that typically occur on lake margins or seasonal floodplains.[67] Brain development is dependent on the polyunsaturated fats AA and DHA (or their precursors) which occur in roughly equal proportions, as well as trace elements such as iodine. These are plentiful in the marine environment but are lacking in some inland areas (particularly DHA).[68] A series of papers and books have explained these issues and pointed to the availability of rich sources of DHA in catfish and shellfish which were available in the Rift Valley environments such as Lake Turkana.[69][53][70] These would be available without the use of tools, apart from wave-rounded stones (which were plentiful along the water's edge) for smashing the shells and led eventually to cave dwelling by the waterside which became the hallmark of early humans. When successive waves of Homo left Africa, they followed the coastlines into Europe and Asia, which provided sources of fresh water as well as the benefits of the beachcomber.[71] Dry season access to aquatic resources was also a necessary condition for adaption to savanna habitats.[72]
This paragraph seems to have been written somewhat accurately, but, in that, has had its connection to AAH completely obscured. I suppose the argument (unsaid) is that the availability of nutrients in aquatic foods to grow the human brain makes AAH plausible, but none of the sources actually go as far as to make this claim. There are also arguable points which are asserted as fact but not known (such as the claim that waves followed coastlines). I am inclined to say we should remove this paragraph as WP:SYNTH unless someone can source a connection to AAH directly via any of the sources in the paragraph or other sources we may find that would help to connect these ideas to AAH directly.
jps (talk) 16:20, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
- Hang on a minute, I've missed this paragraph. Let me respond to it. The AAH says in the words of Hardy that humans have "more aquatic ape-like encestors". It comes from a section which is trying to point out how current research is pointing in the same direction. It is therefore very relevant to the thesis. In addition most of the people are in your favourite word "proponents" of the hypothesis. Most if not all of these points are repeated in the Attenborough programme (e.g. the coastlines) which is referenced in the article so I haven't shown any originality in putting it forward. Probably they would not agree with your phrase "growing the human brain" but rather suggest that the availability of the necessary PUFAs removed the constraint on brain growth that occurs in more arid areas. But that is not in any of the published sources that I could find and I had to ask one of the principals about it and hence for obvious reasons I couldn't put it in the article. Chris55 (talk) 19:42, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- The "point in the same direction" claim, though, is WP:OR. I would be fine if we had sources that made the connection between the points in this paragraph and the AAH, but it seems to me that there is no such source. Perhaps the Attenborough program suffices, but we need to have a discussion about this. Are we ready to concede that a TV special is the main source for what is and isn't related to AAH? Because if that's the case, I have some blogs I'd like to show you which have just as much editorial and academic cache. jps (talk) 20:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- It was radio actually, and there is a transcript referenced which you can read if you want to (or listen to the podcast, though that will probably cost). That might at least satisfy the issue of OR and it's published by an independent organisation. But the claim has another source in the paragraph. So it meets Wikipedia's criterias which are not the same as legal or scientific proof. Chris55 (talk) 22:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- 2005 programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/scarsofevolution.shtml
- 2016 programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07v0hhm CEngelbrecht2 (talk) 23:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- It was radio actually, and there is a transcript referenced which you can read if you want to (or listen to the podcast, though that will probably cost). That might at least satisfy the issue of OR and it's published by an independent organisation. But the claim has another source in the paragraph. So it meets Wikipedia's criterias which are not the same as legal or scientific proof. Chris55 (talk) 22:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- The "point in the same direction" claim, though, is WP:OR. I would be fine if we had sources that made the connection between the points in this paragraph and the AAH, but it seems to me that there is no such source. Perhaps the Attenborough program suffices, but we need to have a discussion about this. Are we ready to concede that a TV special is the main source for what is and isn't related to AAH? Because if that's the case, I have some blogs I'd like to show you which have just as much editorial and academic cache. jps (talk) 20:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
Rewrite tag
Fama Clamosa has put a "rewrite entirely" tag at the top, it would be great if Fama can give more information why a rewrite is needed, or which elements e.g. WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:V need to be drastically improved. The current situation is most issues can be fixed by editing the current article, like what we're doing now, and in general the POV is well balanced, with one-third of the article documenting facts like history and the thesis, one-third about its overwhelming rejection/silence, and one-third about further research -- all supported by and traceable to secondary/tertiary RS reviews. ChakAzul (talk) 02:37, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
- That tag shouldn't be used on articles currently being actively edited and discussed on talk. I've removed it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:52, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
Article slanted against people living near bodies of water
The article still tries to push against the idea that people in the past lived near bodies of water ( just like most do today ).
That causes inconsistencies in the article.
Two article statements for an example:
"though evidence for seafood consumption by humans is, at oldest, from 200,000 years ago.[50]"
To extend to ten times that amount of time in the same article:
"Microscopic analysis of fish food remains extending back to 2m years from the Olduvai gorge has now shown cut marks indicating butchery.[81][73]"
somitcw (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.7.24.45 (talk)
- No, it doesn't. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:38, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
- Excuse me, but is this the ten minute argument, or the full half-hour? Urselius (talk) 21:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
- Shut your festering gob, you twit! You people really makes me puke, you vacuous, coffee-nosed, malodorous, pervert![FBDB] ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
- Say no more, a nod's as good as wink to blind bat, or an ape underwater. Urselius (talk) 07:30, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Nudge nudge, know what I mean, know what I mean? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:19, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Say no more, a nod's as good as wink to blind bat, or an ape underwater. Urselius (talk) 07:30, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Shut your festering gob, you twit! You people really makes me puke, you vacuous, coffee-nosed, malodorous, pervert![FBDB] ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
- Excuse me, but is this the ten minute argument, or the full half-hour? Urselius (talk) 21:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
Seafood versus freshwater food
I am trying to figure out how certain statements are justified in the literature and am drawing an increasingly growing question mark. I realize that nutrition journals are notoriously of poor quality, but even given that, many of the papers we are citing about nutrition and ancient food resources make claims that are demonstrably untrue -- namely that it is possible to get the essential fats and iodine from freshwater aquatic foods more easily than other inland food resources. As far as I can tell, this is simply not the case -- especially with iodine but even with the so-called "essential" fatty acids. Does anyone have a sense for why this pro-AAH argument is being made vis-a-vis freshwater/inland aquatic food? jps (talk) 13:17, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- In particular, DHA does not seem to be particularly abundant in Clarias. Some authors claim it's because of farming techniques, but I am surprised that this kind of argument is being put forward as legitimate. Maybe there is no connection between the eating of Clarias and the DHA claims, but the section is muddled enough now that it seems to me that we need to start being clearer about what is and is not verified to be correct. jps (talk) 13:34, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Are you looking for the reference: Stewart, Kathlyn M. (2010). "The Case For Exploitation Of Wetlands Environments And Foods By Pre-Sapiens Hominins.": 137–171. in Cunnane & Stewart 2010, Human Brain Evolution (Wiley). It's been stupidly cut out of the references. She explains the significance of Clarias, which is not because it's a super-source of DHA but that it was a fallback food during drought conditions, very easy to catch by wading in the pools left in drying rivers, is abundant in hominin sites and shows cutmarks which demonstrate deliberate butchering. Chris55 (talk) 16:09, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, that I understand, but how on Earth does this connect to Crawford's claims then? Eating catfish because it is plentiful is different than evolving to accommodate a seafood diet. Connecting Clarias to DHA as our current section does seems like WP:OR. jps (talk) 20:29, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- It's evidence that humans were beginning to benefit from a fish diet. Freshwater mussels are better and almost as easy to pick up, once they'd learned to swim underwater. And it didn't start there as Stewart's 2014 paper reminds us. The fish middens that even Hardy referred to which were a commonplace in early archeology are latterly being rediscovered, whereas those that accumulated during the ice ages have mostly been long buried by the oceans. Chris55 (talk) 22:46, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, that I understand, but how on Earth does this connect to Crawford's claims then? Eating catfish because it is plentiful is different than evolving to accommodate a seafood diet. Connecting Clarias to DHA as our current section does seems like WP:OR. jps (talk) 20:29, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- Are you looking for the reference: Stewart, Kathlyn M. (2010). "The Case For Exploitation Of Wetlands Environments And Foods By Pre-Sapiens Hominins.": 137–171. in Cunnane & Stewart 2010, Human Brain Evolution (Wiley). It's been stupidly cut out of the references. She explains the significance of Clarias, which is not because it's a super-source of DHA but that it was a fallback food during drought conditions, very easy to catch by wading in the pools left in drying rivers, is abundant in hominin sites and shows cutmarks which demonstrate deliberate butchering. Chris55 (talk) 16:09, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
Pseudoscience or Fringe science?
There are frequent comments from 9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS (aka jps aka scienceapologist) such as "We need to couch the proponents versus the non-proponents", and "removing all work not specifically mentioning AAH" in the edits to this article, which appear to assume that we are dealing with a classic "pseudoscience" subject. It follows that it is necessary to delineate each side carefully so it's obvious which side you can identify with. But does the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis fit this mould?
It's an odd topic, because it was proposed by a scientist, popularised by a non-scientist and attained an almost mythic following by all sorts of people apart from the feminists it originally appealed to along the way, which may or may not be justified. However, since the turn of the century the idea that there was an important aquatic dimension to human evolution has been growing, after having been almost entirely ignored in the previous century. Something significant happened in 2014. An obscure but mainstream journal in the field, The Journal of Human Evolution, published a special section devoted to the topic of aquatic resources in evolution. You can look at it to see how well represented are many of the people on the AAH page. The converse of course doesn't hold. Many of the authors would stay well clear of the topic.
So the question of whether it's pseudoscience or a fringe science is becoming important. To treat it on the level of UFOs and yetis suggests that Wikipedia editors are getting seriously out of date. They are accepting stereotypes that may once have been justified but are now being challenged by reputable scientists. Many of these same people have been rigorously excluded from the "Reactions" section, which gives the misleading impression that every scientist who looked at the idea was against it, although they were there a few weeks back.
No one is going to accept that there are "aquatic apes" on a par with "aquatic mammals". But the proponents have never claimed this, despite the use of the phrase, and the opponents have often been slovenly in their critiques. The jury is still out on whether aquatic resources were first important 200,000, 2m or 7m years ago. But the important issue is that this is not an argument of kooks against scientists but specialists against more cautious researchers.
So can we please start to treat this not as a pseudo-political confrontation between scientists and anti-scientists but as a subject which needs further exploration, and let us allow reliable sources to speak for themselves. Maybe it's even time to reclassify Elaine Morgan as an Outsider Scientist as her cover picture on a recent book alongside Gregor Mendel suggests. Chris55 (talk) 14:54, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- This thread does not appear to discuss improvement to the article. For what it's worth, this is an example that strays close the pseudoscience, but still seems to stay within the bounds of legitimate fringe science. And that is how both jps and I have been attempting to treat it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:27, 29 March 2017 (UTC)