Talk:Just-so story

message: Another name for just-so stories is "pourquois stories." Which of these two terms is more commonly used?  Joyous | Talk 21:08, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Affirm that recommendation for a separate page and then provide cross links between them. While similar, pourquois stories sound more positive similar to Kiplings Just So Stories. A Just-so story here has more of a negative context. There are also relatively few references to pourquois stories compared to numerous Just-so story examples. e.g., see Amazon, vs scholar.google.com. DLH (talk) 22:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree too with alteripse, no need for merge. Mathmo Talk 03:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pourquois stories 

message: * Just So Stories
* Rudyard Kipling
* Evolutionary biology
* Evolutionary psychology
* Is-ought problem
------------End proposed section------------
Please comment add et.DLH 21:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: See also

message: Moving those here from the article itself. Should provide good sources to include in the article, but shouldn't appear in the article itself like this. ~ trialsanderrors 04:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External Links

message: Scholarly works citing "Just-so story" or "Just-so stories" See following Google Scholar searches:
* Anthropology "Just-so story" anthropology ~464 cites; "Just-so stories" anthropology ~605 cites; 
* Biology "Just so story" biology ~557 cites; "Just-so stories" biology ~1050 cites
* Common Descent "Just-so story" "Common Descent" ~52 cites; "Just-so stories" "Common Descent" ~73 cites
* Creation "Just-so story" Creation ~468 cites; "Just-so stories" Creation ~708 cites
* Darwin "Just-so story" Darwin ~412 cites; "Just-so stories" Darwin ~766 cites
* Darwinian "Just-so story" Darwinian ~ 468 cites "Just-so stories" Darwinian ~880 cites
* Evolution "Just-so story" evolution ~706 cites; "Just-so stories" evolution ~1260 cites 
* Evolutionary"Just-so story evolutionary 810 cites; "Just-so stories" evolutionary ~1330 cites
* Psychology "Just so story" psychology ~612 cites; "Just-so stories" psychology ~883 cites;
* Sociology "Just-so story" sociology ~309 cites;  "Just-so stories" sociology ~338 cites
* Taxonomy "Just-so story" taxonomy ~ 138 cites; "Just-so stories" taxonomy ~188 cites
Evolution Advocates
* Gould: "Just-so story" Gould ~ 286 cites; "Just-so stories" Gould ~ 542 cites
* Dawkins: "Just-so story" Dawkins ~ 247 cites; "Just-so story" Dawkins ~367 cites
* Dobzhansky "Just so story" Dobzhansky ~98 cites; "Just-so stories" Dobzhansky ~149 cites
* Pinker: "Just-so story" Pinker ~ 215 cites; "Just-so stories" Pinker ~280 cites
Alphabetized. Added creation. DLH 04:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We're not Google. The fact that the term is frequently cited was relevant to the AfD but is (mostly) irrelevant to the article. If you want to make the point that the term is frequently used provide various examples from different notable authors in different fields. The links should give you enough material. ~ trialsanderrors 06:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. WP:NOT applies here. Particularly since there's a distinct whiff of soapboxing with these links. FeloniousMonk 05:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External Links

message: --CopyToWiktionaryBot 04:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  2007-02-7 Automated pywikipediabot message 

message: I'm adding a POV-check header to this article.  I don't disagree with anything currently written, but the lengthy section in defense of EvPsych needs to be balanced by some examples of the correct application of the "just-so story" criticism.  Dfranke (talk) 03:01, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality Check 

message: This section is totally inappropriate and relies on a poor interpretation of ONE reference. There is an entire section accusing evolutionary psychology based on one review of a book that related to the possibility of explaining the development of consciousness through naturalistic processes? This is a pure example of a misuse of the term "just-so". The example explanation put forth was not a theory of how consciousness developed, but rather pointed out that plausible naturalistic explanations COULD be made. Following from that you have Holcombe's paper three years later specifically outlining how inference related to and informed data collection. This runs totally counter to the suggestion that such hypotheses were "just-so" stories. http://www.springerlink.com/content/h527008p37277m73/. Long story short, I am removing this section since the matter is dealt with later in the article anyway. Ninahexan (talk) 03:44, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've deleted it. To be added back it should be described as such by a logician, not by a POV partisan in the dispute itself. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:53, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evolutionary psychology 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Just-so story, pourquoi story, etiological myths, and origin stories all seem to be narratives (stories or myths) that explain some phenomenon. They are narratives, and are not intended as falsifiable hypotheses.
It is true that the different terms are used in different contexts for different rhetorical purposes. But Wikipedia is not a dictionary that describes words; it describes concepts. We don't have separate articles for "German people" and the various pejorative terms for them: "Hun", "Fritz", "Kraut", "Boche", etc. although each was used in a different context, with different nuances.
So I think we should re-open the question of merging them. --Macrakis (talk) 21:54, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: What's the difference again?

message: It's odd that no one can actually cite the supposed Gould's use of this term in 1978. At best, they refer to a New Yorker article (such as this article) which is an unfortunate dead end. Where did Gould actually do this?
Also, I wondered if this paper could be helpful on this question, and apparently not, but it still might be useful for this article. -Reagle (talk) 18:39, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The entry in 978-3319196497 has a number of useful sources including:
* Gould, S. J. (1978). Sociobiology: The art of story-telling. New Scientist, 80, 530–533.
* Gould, S. J. (1980). Sociobiology and the theory of natural selection. In G. W. Barlow & J. Silverberg (Eds.), Sociobiology: Beyond nature/nurture? (pp. 257–269). Boulder: Westview Press.
* Gould, S. J. (1996). The tallest tale. Natural History, 105(5), 18–23.
* Gould, S.J. & Lewontin, R. C. (1979). The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London BProceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 205, 581–598.
-Reagle (talk) 19:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gould source and new paper? 

message: This article gives the reader absolutely no idea what Gould meant when he used the term "just-so-story" to critique certain strands of evolutionary theory. We do not learn what types of evolutionary explanations Gould was criticizing with the concept, or the context in which he employed the term. There are no citations of Gould's work in this article. These issues were pointed out in 2010 and are still present. Then the article goes in to multiple lengthy paragraphs responding, rejecting and rebutting Gould's critique, all with relevant citations of the literature in question. This section would be too long even if the article contained an adequate exegesis of Gould's concept. Given that it does not, the article simply reads like a hit piece against Gould, with nothing approaching neutrality. I will attempt to improve this article over the coming weeks and to give an idea of the concept and the critiques levelled against it. Toadchavay (talk) 07:43, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zero description of Gould's concept, disproportionate space given to rebuttal