Talk:Leonard Sax

message: Prevous post violated NPOV.
35.10.49.111 19:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your input. I'll put the Wiki talk page guidelines up here. Talk pages are supposed to be discussion of pros and cons of articles rather than pros and cons of the subject matter. If the facts of the article are wrong or poorly worded, alert us please. If LS views on things are not to your taste, just avoid the article. The responsibility of editors of this page is to accurately report what LS has published. We cannot take sides as to whether he is right or wrong or crazy. Sorry if that's disappointing. Alastair Haines 09:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article needs to be reorganized and rewritten. As of now, it is too list-heavy. — Emiellaiendiay 05:12, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I have deleted the following text from the "Criticisms" section on NPOV grounds: "However, Professor Liberman's blog itself has many inaccuracies and is largely out-of-date.  Most of his criticism regarding hearing differences, for example, is devoted to comments which Dr. Sax posted on a web page in 2005 regarding sex differences in brainstem processing of auditory stimuli.  More recent updates of that page  have completely eliminated the discussion of the auditory brainstem response which bothered Liberman.  Additional information and sources have been added to Dr. Sax's site as well.  Nevertheless Professor Liberman's blog has not been updated:  it continues to attack statements made on a web page which no longer exists." — User:TheNewAuk 20:04, 17 Sept. 2007 UTC-8  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.41.124.120 (talk) 03:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: Liberman is the *founder* of LL, of which a dozen or so linguists are active members of. This is the same Language Log mind you, that has won critical acclaim from the Linguistic Society of America. Unlike what you seem to imply, LL does not exist for the sake of opposing Sax or fradulent communication myths-- in fact, it exists to educate the public without the dolor and formality of journal articles; LL is no more guilty (and is in fact if anything less guilty) of this than Sax is; the difference between LL and Sax's books is that of medium. In fact, if you didn't realise, Dr Liberman is considerably more well-published than Mr. Sax is  -- that is also not counting the other members (such as Pullum  --  you know, coauthor of Cambridge Grammar of the English Language) who are each prominent in their field. 
That you Sax supporters do not consider sensory acuity to be part of psycholinguistics is bizarre, especially since Sax has used this evidence to make arguments about how somehow boys then have an inferior comprehension pathway to girls. And thus when the uses the concept of language to explain performance differences between the sexes in a fallacious way -- and it has been noted that the average differences between groups he cites are small compared to the average differences *within* groups -- the reacting criticism should be admissible. In the very least, it is notable. John Riemann Soong (talk) 22:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not Mr. Soong, but I will respond.  While Dr. Sax has published some academic work, his controversial claims are themselves not made in peer-reviewed literature.  They are instead in books published by the popular press.  As such, they do not get academic attention: they are literally outside of the acadamic conversation.  This choice does not in itself indicate ill intent; however, it does explain why there has been so little academic response to Dr. Sax.  As far as Dr. Sax's credentials go, he is a somewhat junior researcher.  Getting one's Ph.D. is only the first step towards climbing the academic hierarchy, and, though Dr. Sax has published a bit, he is not an established voice in peer reviewed research (I just checked, and there is not a single peer-reviewed article by him that is indexed by PsycINFO).  Dr. Liberman, however, is a senior scholar, with full professorship in two departments (Linguistics and Computer Science). In academic terms, Dr. Liberman is far senior to Dr. Sax.  This is why I think this page should pay serious attention to Liberman's remarks about Dr. Sax.  Of course, those remarks should not dominate the page -- Dr. Sax's own claims should be given room, but so should Liberman's responses to him.  This page also does not need to cite absolutely every single popular press interview Dr. Sax is given (that's just not what Wikipedia is for).  DarwinPeacock (talk) 05:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  on authorship  

message: : I hope there is a possibility of a consensus page here.  I think this should start with briefly summarizing his work, and also mentioning that this work is controversial (which is an easily referenced fact -- just google for 'leonard sax "controversial book"' and you can find plenty of references).  Later on in the page, it should mention that Dr. Sax has gotten positive reviews in the press, and also some negative reviews (like that long New York Times piece early this year).  It should also include Liberman's criticism, which should not be dwarfed in size by the repeated positive mentions from the popular press (those are only worth so much).  The strong word "pseudoscientist" should be removed in favor of the more reserved term "controversial figure".  The page should be short, concise and clean.  Does this sound like an acceptable compromise?  DarwinPeacock (talk) 05:09, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Fritzvonturin, I do hope we can work some sort of compromise, unless you want to be stuck in an edit war until some admin locks down the editing on the page and comes up with a compromise himself.  I think you misinterpret my claim about peer-reviewed papers: I was not contending that he did not publish any, but only that he did not publish any that were significant enough to be currently indexed by PsycINFO.  My point with bringing up Sax's junior status as a knowledge producer was only to indicate that Liberman's complaints against him should not be casually disregarded, as Liberman is a senior and respected scholar.  As singlesexschools is a Leonard Sax-run project, it makes no sense to quote singlesexschools.com in regards to ignoring criticism of Leonard Sax -- I can hardly think of a more biased source.  The NYT criticism should stand alongside the popular press acclaim, especially because it is a lengthy article in the most reputable newspaper in this country. I am not particularly invested in what exact claims about Leonard Sax stay on this page; however, I would like to make sure that the page is not overwhelmed with links to positive reviews and interviews, and that the criticism remains as visible as the positive responses.  So, can we start working towards a compromise, or do we need to bring in an admin to do this? DarwinPeacock (talk) 03:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

text: DarwinPeacock, the central claim you make in the opening section is that "Leonard Sax's primary claim is that sexual dimorphism between boys and girls is significant enough that they should be educated separately in order to succeed."  This statement is false; it is in fact a caricature which has been promulgated only by Sax's critics.  Sax's primary argument for single-sex education is not based in "sexual dimorphism" at all, but in social justice, specifically the idea that parents who can't afford to send their kids to private schools should have options similar to wealthy parents.  However, your revision does clean up the page, and I have modified your edit, bringing it into accordance with Sax's actual views (rather than his opponents' caricatures) rather than reverting to the previous version.Fritzvonturin (talk) 13:18, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Fritzvonturin, I kept your additions to the page, but removed your edits of the criticism.  Please, you are obviously too much of a fan of Leonard Sax to edit the section about the criticism of him.  I have made the critical language more neutral.  However, the criticisms themselves should not be toned down.  I am faithfully reproducing them from cited sources.  Also, the fact that Leonard Sax's views are controversial is an important and easily supportable fact, and so it should remain visible near the top.  I did not restore my summary of Leonard Sax's views since you claim that it is not representative of them, but your depiction of those views is undescriptive.  There are reasons that he believes that whatever private schools offer (in this case, split-gender education) is important.  Social justice might be a personal motivation or a rhetorical cover, but it is not the basis for his views. Whatever makes him think that split-gender education is beneficial is both noteable and controversial, and should be summarized in the intro.  I think every single corporation out there says in its promotional materials that the reasons it does what it does is to in some ways improve the human condition.  However, this is not how a wikipedia article should summarize their activities.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by DarwinPeacock (talk • contribs) 21:31, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: DarwinPeacock:  To quote once again from Wikipedia policy:  "This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. . ."  Your assertion that Dr. Sax has "theories of sexual dimorphism" is unsourced.  In fact, that assertion is false.  Dr. Sax does not have, and has never had, "theories of sexual dimorphism."  Please provide some source from Dr. Sax's own writings which supports your assertion! Another note for DarwinPeacock:  your assertion that none of Dr. Sax's papers have been cited in PsychInfo is also false.  In fact, both of his papers for Behavioral Neuroscience as well as his papers for Annals of Family Medicine and Psychology of Men and Masculinity, all are indexed in PsychInfo.  His paper for the Journal of the American College of Nutrition is not to be found in PsychInfo because that article is about sex differences in calcium/phosphorus metabolism, not a topic covered in PsychInfo. Fritzvonturin (talk) 01:54, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

text: DarwinPeacock:  I have removed several sentences you wrote about the importance of Mark Liberman's blog.  Your version of this article gives four times as much space to Liberman's blog as it does to David Brooks' article in the New York Times, a publication which you profess to revere.  To paraphrase your comment:  you may be too much of a fan of Mark Liberman to speak in a neutral voice regarding Liberman's blog. More substantively, I have changed Sax's category from "psychologist" to "author."  I think this may have been the source of some of your confusion.  Sax is not a professor of psychology, nor is he a scholarly academic.  He is an author of two books for parents, books which are based primarily on his 20+ years as a practicing physician.  Those books are what he's primarily known for.  Google "Leonard Sax" and the majority of the first one hundred hits will be a reference to one of his two books.  You are jumping all over his advocacy of single-sex education.  Single-sex education is controversial in the United States, but it doesn't seem fair to brand every advocate of single-sex education -- such as Hillary Clinton or Sally Ride -- as being "controversial" merely because they are strong supporters of single-sex education. Likewise for Dr. Sax.  If you look at the list of articles he has written in the past several years, you have to go back to March 2006 to find one which is primarily about single-sex education.    Fritzvonturin (talk) 02:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Fritzvonturn:  Sexual dimorphism simply means biological sex differences.  Even a casual glance at "Why gender matters" will find plenty of talk about biological differences.  Just because Leonard Sax does not use those words, does not mean that they are not the subject of his text.  Perhaps I have not done a very careful search on PsycInfo, but when I checked I only saw two matches for Leonard Sax as the author, with neither of them being peer reviewed.  I apologize if I did not look careful enough.  Why would me being a fan of Liberman (which I am not) lead me to *mis*represent his views?  My goal is only to have this page display his criticism properly.  I think you misunderstand the nature and uses of wikipedia.  We must not represent every bit of trivia about a person here, but only the notable ones.  Thus, the serious criticism Dr. Sax has received from a number of senior scholars should be quite a bit more prominent than a reference to a small bit by an opinion columnist.  The trivia bits about all of Sax's media appearances are not particularly notable and can be dropped.  However, I do not expect you to listen to this.  You are clearly not editing in good faith, and I suspect that you are actually an employee of Leonard Sax's (or, perhaps, Leonard Sax himself).  Thus, I am requesting administrator intervention.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by DarwinPeacock (talk • contribs) 06:23, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: DarwinPeacock:  "Sexual dimorphism" does NOT "simply mean biological sex differences."  Please read chapter 9 of Dr. Sax's first book Why Gender Matters, the longest chapter in the book, in which he explains the importance of variation WITHIN each sex and the importance of cherishing and understanding boys who prefer poetry to football, or girls who prefer football to poetry. Regarding the Cambridge University scholar you want to cite:  his name is Michael Younger.  Mr. Younger (he has no doctoral degrees) and Dr. Sax both spoke at a conference hosted by Professor Judy Kleinfeld.  Dr. Sax says that Mr. Younger was upset by comments made by Sax.  Mr. Younger denies it.  Your version of the page simply says that Mr. Younger criticized Dr. Sax.  In fact, Elizabeth Weil (author of the NYT Sunday Magazine article) could easily have contacted Professor Kleinfeld or any of the other hundred-plus witnesses; but, typically for this article, she either made no effort to determine what really happened, or she didn't want to report what other witnesses had to say.  NPOV in this case would mean reporting both sides of this story, or not reporting it at all.  Your version reports only Mr. Younger's side of the story.Fritzvonturin (talk) 12:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

text: My version faithfully reports the contents of an article in a respected source.  Whether you or Leonard Sax believe it to be untrue is immaterial.  It is your word against that of the New York Times. DarwinPeacock (talk) 22:18, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Note to DarwinPeacock:  Leonard Sax asserts that the Elizabeth Weil's article for the New York Times was wrong on many factual points, including the color of his hair.  If the New York Times article says that his hair is brown (which it does), but his hair is actually black-and-grey (which it is), does that mean that Dr. Sax is wrong and Elizabeth Weil is right?  The dispute between Dr. Sax and Michael Younger is a he-said/he-said controversy which really doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article.  Also:  could you please explain why you deleted the link to the Scientific American review of Dr. Sax's book?  Are only negative links permissible?  Fritzvonturin (talk) 23:55, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Fritz, you should read over WP:V.  It clearly states that the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Themfromspace (talk) 05:01, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

text: == Removing POV dispute label ==
Fritzvonturin was banned a little over a week ago for violating WP:NPOV, and since then there has not been any edit conflict.  So it looks to me like the POV dispute may be over.  Thus, I am (optimistically?) removing the POV dispute label. DarwinPeacock (talk) 06:41, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

text: The article is divided into "Praise" and "Criticism". That's a stabilized war, not a peace. There's still rather meager information about Sax's actual work or arguments. --Vuo (talk) 10:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: (Three years later!) I found and corrected (to some extent) what appeared to me to be strong POV problems in the "Criticism" section. I object to what I found there and would like to remind editors that this is a "biography of a living person" (WP:BLP). Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Susan, this article is definitely pretty flawed: there was a whole bunch of editor conflict over this page a while ago, and the content as it stands is a reminder of that.  Essentially, this page was likely being used for pretty over-the-top self promotion, and the criticism section grew out of an effort to push back against it.  It looks like someone had just blanked much of the criticism section earlier last month, which is part of why it looked like it was mostly coming from one person.  I strongly suspect there is more published criticism to be found if someone makes a concerted effort.  For now, I am just going to restore the part that was blanked in January.  Please edit it if you think it's inappropriate.  I do think that, given how controversial Sax's views are, the criticism section needs to remain pretty robust.  It would be wonderful if you could supplement your edits by trimming some of the promotional fluff from the praise section as well. Anyway, thanks and good luck! - Darwin/Peacock[Talk] 05:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the background, DarwinPeacock. I read her whole article and think that "lengthy piece deeply critical of Sax's advocacy" is an innaccurate summary of Elizabeth Weil's work. So I will try to edit that paragraph. Also if possible I would like to write a separate DYK article about Why Gender Matters. You had a very helpful assessment of probable "over-the-top self promotion" so I'll try to be careful. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh man. I decided this was worthwhile if it turned out to really be true that male's retinas are thicker than female's. So what to my wondering eye did appear? "Sexual dimorphism and aromatase in the rat retina". That reference turned out to be so poor I decided no deal. Thank you again, DarwinPeacock. See you around. -SusanLesch (talk) 01:20, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compromise proposal 

message: Hello again. I would just like to say that, "[Elizabeth Weil] concluded that graduates of single-sex schools are less likely to understand American principles of "commonality, tolerance and what it means to be American." is almost complete hogwash. I appreciate that this article had some problems and has a history of struggle between editors. But whoever wrote that needs to go back and read what she wrote, "Given the myriad ways in which our schools are failing, it may be hard to remember that public schools were intended not only to instruct children in reading and math but also to teach them commonality, tolerance and what it means to be American." -SusanLesch (talk) 19:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Struck. I don't plan to follow this up. -SusanLesch (talk) 01:22, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: 
Very poor summary in "Criticism"


message: When was he born?--Jsjsjs1111 (talk) 14:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  born 

message: The use of "criticism" and "praise" sections is disfavored stylistically; it's better to integrate the commentary into topics. Accordingly, I've set up subheads for his views on gender and his individual books, advocacy for single-sex education, etc., and moved all discussion into the relevant subsections. Nothing was deleted. 
I noted that David Brooks is a conservative opinion columnist; since we would ordinarily look to neutral professional reviews, and he's a political columnist with no particular expertise in education or pediatrics or gender. 
The "media" appearances section is a bit much and strikes me as somewhat promotional, but I haven't touched it -- it would be better to have these things woven into the article to support particular statements. Otherwise, it should be treated as a bibliography -- put in bullet points.  But we don't generally do that sort of thing in most biographical articles, so it looks more promotional.  I'll leave that to another time or editor. --Lquilter (talk) 16:25, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  criticism & praise sections, reorg, media, labeling 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Leonard Sax. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20040317225535/http://home.cfl.rr.com/mpresley1/fn.pdf to http://home.cfl.rr.com/mpresley1/fn.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Suggested edit ... New study suggests Adolf Hitler was a quarter Jewish
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/study-suggests-adolf-hitler-was-a-quarter-jewish-597966
https://www.leonardsax.com/aus-den-gemeinden-von-burgenland/
SteveBenassi (talk) 00:03, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested edit ... 

message: Should we include his study on Hitler here? 2600:100C:A205:743B:C06B:F5C6:17E7:986A (talk) 03:14, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hitler study