Talk:Stephen Oppenheimer

message: Is there anybody who can tell me that when this Genology report or the book was published ? Also, I want e-mail no. of Mr. Stephen Oppenheimer who is author of this report / book.
WIN 06:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: When was book published

message: Me too.  I do not find this individual on the list of Green College fellows, nor anywhere else at Oxford.  The article does not meet wiki biographical standards, and in fact appears to be an advertisment.
LinguisticDemographer 16:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Any graduate or former fellow of an Oxbridge college continues to be a member of that college for life. In other words, membership of a college is not an academic affiliation and proves nothing about the academic respectability of one's current work. It's hard to see how this information is anything other than misleading in the context of the current article (or indeed in a publisher's bio) since people will assume it is an actual affiliation, which clearly it is not. Mhardcastle 09:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

text: An edit summary pointing here would have been useful. In any case, I've put it back. See   for instance. Or this Oxford Univesrity site  .  That's current as of this year. Genie, this was a 2 year old discussion and you could have done the work I just did. Dougweller (talk) 08:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, but the best way to do this would be to find some reliable sources commenting on this. (And to get some more attention, this should be restarted at the bottom of this page). I'm not disagreeing with you, just with the way of doing this. Dougweller (talk) 06:40, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Relationship to Oxford

message: I was under the impression that "Out of Eden" and "The Real Eve" were the same book under different titles. T@nn 02:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Doing a google seems to indicate that "The Real Eve" is the U.S title of the book "Out of Eden".
So it's just a different edition of the same book. I see that the article now indicates that. T@nn 08:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Differing titles for same book

message: The book "The Real Eve" or "Out of Eden" had a documentary based upon it, also called "The Real Eve". There a wikipedia entry for the documentary, but that does not indicate the connection between it and the book. The documentary entry is a stub anyway, so I'm suggesting merging the two articles. T@nn 08:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we should do that. Stephen Oppenheimer has a fairly wide research agenda (e.g. the origins of the British stuff described on this page), and his writing on mtDNA Eve includes a synthesis of work by lots of other people (see Mitochondrial Eve. I do however agree that if the documentary is based on Oppenheimer's book then there should be references both ways.  Cheers, Ngio 08:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion to merge page with [[The Real Eve]]

message: I don't understand why an editor reverted my description of Eden in the East with a description that is completely inaccurate:
In his book "Eden in the East", Oppenheimer hypothesizes that Eurasians have South Asian origins, with the founding population of Caucasoids (Western Eurasians) originating in northwest India, while the founding population of Mongoloids (Eastern Eurasians) originated in northeast India/Nepal. Caucasoids spread north and west into Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa and Europe, as well as south into southern India and Sri Lanka, while Mongoloids spread north and east into Siberia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Polynesia, the Americas and Greenland.
The population movements described above happened at an earlier time:about  80,000-15,000 years before present. Eden of the East covers the period 14,000-7,000 years before present. At first I thought that the editor who inserted this had inadvertently characterized Oppenheimer's later book. But it's also not a completely accurate characterization of that book. TimidGuy 10:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eden in the East 

message: I both saw the Discovery Channel's documentary of The Real Eve and have and read the book with the above title.  I'm a Caucasian, peach-colored skin, male who believes this book because IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!  Homo Sapien humans originated in Africa, after evolving from apes there, spread to different continents, where over thousands of years, the melanin in their bodies made their skin change color according to the amount of sunlight hitting that area of the Earth.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.30.129.10 (talk) 11:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Although the purpose of this page is not to chat about Oppenheimer's works, I must say that I agree -- I'm really impressed with the range of disciplines that he marshals in order to support his hypotheses. He's a real polymath. TimidGuy (talk) 15:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The Real Eve:-Modern Man's Journey Out Of Africa" speaks true! 

message: Oppenheimer is brilliant in assessing the pre-Roman constitution of the peoples of Britain, and concludes that Germanic as well as Celtic peoples inhabited the island and possibly non-Indo-European Picts. However it is a pity that he follows Colin Renfrew's idea that Indo-European was spread in the Neolithic. His genetic arguments to match that idea are weak as a consequence and he tries to fit a 6000BC date on everything. David Anthony's book The Horse, The Wheel and language compellingly states that Indo-European was spread by Kurgans starting around 3300BC. This is a real shame as I believe that with Oppenheimer's brilliant knowledge of DNA he could have made a better match to that date, when drawing up DNA spread maps. As a consequence, about half the book has to be read by ignoring his bias against Kurganisation.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.3.191.166 (talk) 08:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The Origins of the British" 

message: Changing the lead to " a British paediatrician, now best known as a popular science writer" was I think misleading considering the amount of work he has done in other fields. He's been a co-author of a number of publications on genetices, 3 are here  and there are others. He's currently working within the Human Evolution and Ecology Group, Institute of Human Sciences, Department of Anthropology at Oxford. The lead needs improving, but Genie's edits didn't make it less misleading so far as I can tell. Dougweller (talk) 08:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just a paediatrican? the lead needs to say more than that 

message: I know i'm not the only one who thinks his origins of the British is total crap. I mean "were all the same", yeah we'd be the first country in the world where everyone is exactly the same ethnicity. Seems a little coincidental that this suddenly crops up when English (yes ANGLO-SAXON) natioinalism is on the rise and the lefty labour government is trying in vain to combat it (not PC to be English).
I also resent how Wikipedia uses it as fact despite the fact its ONE theory in many others. English Bobby (talk) 21:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi English Bobby, can I respectfully point out WP:Soap. So far as I can see this article describes the facts of Oppenheimer's research, it does not take sides as to whether his conclusions are or are not correct. The alternative view of the Anglo-Saxon invasion is generally taken as given elsewhere in Wikipedia. If you can provide referenced criticisms of Oppenheimer's views I'm sure that would be a welcome addition. For what it's worth, Oppenheimer does not say "we're all the same" - he suggests that the populations of the eastern and western parts of the islands have different origins, but a long time back. If you are an English nationalist I'm puzzled why you would argue with the idea that we (English people) have been around since Neolithic times and mostly didn't just 'step off the boat' a thousand or so years ago. Pterre (talk) 17:56, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

text: "... older than any nation in Europe." Wow-someone tell the Greeks! And the Basques! HammerFilmFan (talk) 20:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bull 

message: Oppenheimer's theories are not universally accepted. For example, in its summary of their article 'Who were the Celts?' The National Museum of Wales note here here (updated 18/12/2015) "It is possible that future genetic studies of ancient and modern human DNA may help to inform our understanding of the subject. However, early studies have, so far, tended to produce implausible conclusions from very small numbers of people and using outdated assumptions about linguistics and archaeology." Should this be added to the article? It does not refer explicitly to Oppenheimer. Thoughts? Daicaregos (talk) 10:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't now whether that comment (by the Museum of Wales) is a snipe at Oppenheimer. It does not seem reasonable to describe Oppenheimer's conclusions as implausible, though whether they are correct is another matter. Pterre (talk) 11:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Same here. I actually do agree that some of the outdated assumptions about linguistics and archaeology (by Oppenheimer) actually spoiled much of the fun of the Origins for me, but that doesn't constitute a qualified assessment of his genetic research. I don't think his methods border the least on the unscientific, so they certainly shouldn't be called "fringe". But it's a relatively new field of studies, so the main work has not been done yet, I suppose. Trigaranus (talk) 13:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the source would need to explicitly mention Oppenheimer; otherwise it may be a violation of WP:NOR. TimidGuy (talk) 14:39, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, good point. Any explicit scientific criticisms of method etc would of course be appropriate. (Oh, just noticed - I do know how to spell know!) Pterre (talk) 15:29, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

text: NB. National Museum Wales moved the page to here. I've updated the link above. Daicaregos (talk) 08:48, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:FRINGE]] 

message: A recent edit defines Stephen Oppenheimer as an 'archeo-geneticist'. Please provide a citation for this. Thank you. Daicaregos (talk) 10:33, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead and removed it, I can't find a source for it and in any case the lead is supposed to summarise the article. Why not 'folk-lore-geneticist' for instance if someone is just combining words? Dougweller (talk) 10:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That is how he is described here (4:19 to 4:23 - sorry but there are also 40 secs of adverts) Yes I had never heard of it which is precisely why I wanted to add it. Þjóðólfr (talk) 16:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not accessible from outside the UK, but I doubt it's in the kind of context that would make it usable in the first sentence. It would get way too much weight that way if nobody else calls him that. Hans Adler 16:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Even apart from whether it's a WP:RS or not, if you don't know what it means (and there's no article here saying what it means), it's hardly going to be helpful to other readers to use the term.  "Paediatrician, geneticist and writer" seems to me to sum him up. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

text:  ec Its available  here too - not that accessibliy issue negates the source; archaeo- is a prefix and can be applied to any word that has an ancient specialism to it. As to tV programmes not being reliable sources were did DW form that delusion? Þjóðólfr (talk) 16:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, you do know about WP:NPA don't you? It's not a reliable source to show that this is a normal way to describe him, or that it is an academic role, etc.  He's an academic, we should describe him the way other academic sources describe him. TV programme writers aren't experts on this and they are interested in a good show, not in using the descriptors that colleagues would use. Dougweller (talk) 17:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's more or less what I intended to say, although apparently it got lost in the accessibility red herring. (I merely meant to guard against the possibility that in the programme an eminent scientist says something like "Stephen Oppenheimer can most accurately be described as an archaeo-geneticist".) The stress of what I wrote was meant to be in the first sentence. Clearly not everything that can be sourced with some effort is appropriate there. ("Stephen Oppenheimer is a former thalassaemia researcher and talking head for a BBC programme, who raised £ 50,000 for genetics research over a 10-year period.") Hans Adler 18:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: @DW Channel 4's  Public Service Remit includes a requirement to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value. @HA my beef is here is Randy in Boise, not that Archaeo- should be included in the opening sentence. Þjóðólfr (talk) 21:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archaeo-geneticist? 

message: There is a small stubby article at The Real Eve.  I propose it be merged into the relevant section in this article.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:12, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I support that. Good find. The more we have in this article the more we can put his work on Europe in context, giving us more freedom. This falls under how he became a celebrity in the first place and why it came to be so easily that his 2006 title was so successful with the public. DinDraithou (talk) 05:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I also support this, although obviously not for the strategic reasons that appear to motivate DinDraithou. The stub has little potential, and it would be natural to merge it into the article for the more notable (I suppose) book. But the book doesn't even have its own article; it's covered here. Hans Adler 06:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Support. F Dougweller (talk) 10:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Merged. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:15, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Unmerged, the book and the documentary are notable in their own right. It is one of the first  books and documentaries to popularize the Out of Africa theory. Wapondaponda (talk) 10:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger: [[The Real Eve]] 

message: Do not merge this with The Real Eve and make new page for The Origins of the British  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrt2349876 (talk • contribs) 16:50, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed new page 

message: Why is there a neutrality tag on this article? It merely gives a description of Oppenheimer ideas, it does not say if they are right or wrong (Because that is something that no one could know, at least not yet). I will remove the tag in one week if nobody says me otherwise. I have seen that some people does not give credit to his theories, but that does not change the fact that those are his theories. Leirus (talk) 09:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I used it to replace an even more silly "advert" tag, as a compromise. But as there is no active POV dispute here, I think it can be removed now. Hans Adler 10:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality Tag? 

message: Can this be re-written?
"He uses the evidence that the Germanic genetic contribution to eastern England originated before the Anglo-Saxon conquest of much of England incursion to suggest that the possibility that some inhabitants of the isle of Britain spoke English well before the so-called "Dark Ages"."
It does not seem to make sense. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  This sentence does not make sense 

message: Hi, with science moving ever onwards it was inevitable that the extended quotes and discussions about Stephen Oppenheimer would eventually be reduced on the Genetic history of the British Isles article. Here however is a handy record of the three biggest deletions, in case any of that material is useful on this or any other article: , , --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  some deleted material in case it is useful here 

message: ...Beaker culture is defined by the common use of a pottery style — a beaker with a distinctive inverted bell-shaped profile found across the western part of Europe during the late 3rd millennium BC.Many theories of the origins of the Bell Beakers have been put forward and subsequently challenged,however a recent overview of all available sources from southern Germany concluded that the Bell Beaker Culture was Original from Iberia which showed that the earliest dates for Bell Beaker were 2900 BC in Iberia...
British and American archaeology since the 1960s has been sceptical about prehistoric migration in general, so the idea of "Bell Beaker Folk" lost ground. Neither Mallory nor Anthony proposed mass migrations.Many archaeologists believe that the Beaker 'people' did not exist as a group, and that the beakers and other new artefacts and practices found across Europe at the time that are attributed to the Beaker people are indicative of the development of particular manufacturing skills. This new knowledge may have come about by any combination of population movements and cultural contact.But investigations in the 'Mediterranean' and France recently questioned the nature of the phenomenon,of 86 people from Bell Beaker graves in Bavaria suggests that between 18-25% of all graves were occupied by people who came from a considerable distance outside the area. This was true of children as well as adults, indicative of some significant migration wave. Given the similarities with readings from people living on loess soils, the general direction of the local movement according to Price et al., is from the northeast to the southwest...
Beakers arrived in Ireland around 2500BC and fell out of use around 1700BC (Needham 1996)and Beakers arrived in Britain around 2500BC, declined in use around 2200-2100BC...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.247.201 (talk) 11:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archaeologist Evidence 

message: English is a Germanic language, having the  grammar and  33% vocabulary inherited from Proto-Germanic,It has been estimated that between 60 and 70% of our English words are derived from Latin. Some words, such as area, circus, and animal, are spelled the same in both languages. Others, like people, space, and peace (populus, spatium, pax), come indirectly from Latin. Indeed, because Latin has been the language of learned men and women, it became the basis for the vocabulary of the sciences, law, technology, music, and medicine.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.247.201 (talk) 15:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm ... the ancient Greeks and Egyptians might take up an argument about that - Latin became the "language of science" because it is a dead language, and suited the needs of scientists.  It is certainly not the language of music - where did that come from?  English has Celtic, Germanic, French and Latin words and influences. HammerFilmFan (talk) 20:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Also Hindi (verandah, bungalow), Iranian (tiger, pistachio), Persian (chess, bazaar) and any number of others.  English isn't a borrower from other languages, it follows them down dark alleyways, knocks them out and then goes through their pockets for loose grammar and vocabulary (to butcher a quote I can't fully recall right now).  From memory, the old argument for Latinate words being more used for 'scientific' and 'technical' topics while the Germanic words are used more for 'normal' topics was that prior to the Norman invasion the main tongue was Old English (primarily Germanic).  After the Norman invasion, the nobility brought their (Latinate) languages with them, and so if you were a member of the nobility or were dealing with the nobility, you were more likely to use Latinate terms than if you were a member of the lower classes (who still spoke Old English).  That's also ignoring the hefty effect of the Church, of course.  Unfortunately I don't have any referrable sources, as most of this is from memory from classes a few years back, I'm afraid!194.176.221.149 (talk) 11:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  English Language 

message: Should this be added to the article, since it is different from the one currently showing? EatYerGreens (talk) 13:55, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, feel free to add. TimidGuy (talk) 09:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Now done. Apologies for the time delay, I simply forgot I'd even made that suggestion and I only revisited this talk page to make the observation that  (I'm guessing this is the hardback) only leads to a page which suggests any of 50 services to assist you to search for the book under that number. The number I added takes you straight to sites where you can buy it. EatYerGreens (talk) 07:49, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Origins of the British in Paperback 

message: The various discussions here about what to call Oppenheimer and debates about mDNA are interesting but are appropriate to a later stage of revision. What needs to happen now is a rewrite from the ground up. As it stands, the article does not provide a neutral assessment of his work or his place in the scholarly community—or the pop science community, for that matter. None of the critiques of his work are in evidence here. As a result the article is more misleading than informative. It would be better to remove it than to let it stand as it is now. 
Is there nobody conversant in the field who is willing to take this on and provide a judicious assessment of Oppenheimer's works, both in what they add to our knowledge and where they fall short? KC 15:45, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needs major revision now 

message: The article says that Oppenheimer has the position that Scandinavian genetics are underestimated in Britain, but from his work's I've read, including his DNA studies, the opposite is his viewpoint, isn't it?
Also, a lot of his work seems to say that Celtic is somehow a race? But surely it's a group of connected cultures. There's a lot of ambiguity here and he seems to be taking strange conclusions from his tests (DNA tests etc.). 86.2.213.86 (talk) 21:09, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scandinavians in Britain 

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thread_title:  External links modified