Talk:H. Allen Orr

message: I suggest: (a)we put Orr's: "Good science demands two things: that you ask the right questions and that you get the right answers. Although science education focuses almost exclusively on the second task, a good case can be made that the first is both the harder and the more important. Getting Mendel's laws from Mendel's data may not be easy, but surely the hardest part is daring to ask Mendel's question: Despite all appearances to the contrary, might heredity obey simple laws?" (which comes from his Science review) into the main article. It puts a well-established point very well.  (b) With regard to the other reviews, there is a clear precedent here in the reviews of The God Delusion which have been basically stable for some months and reflect a hard-won consenus.  What do people think? NBeale 20:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it's clear from his writing that Orr is something of a philosopher as well, and indeed it turns out that his first degree is in biology and philosophy. This help explain why his reviews are so emphaised in his CVs and citations - one of them has even been re-published by the Royal Institute of Philosophy.  So I think it is only right to cite his philosophical work as well and not to restrict ourselves entirely to his science. FWIW ("H Allen Orr" Philosophy) gets 11.5k ghits vs 22k for ("H Allen Orr" Science) - I know this is a crude measure but it suggests that a 2:1 ratio might be about the right balance. NBeale 06:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Keep working on the persuasion! But let's see if anyone else has anything to say here before jumping in. I note from one of your edit summaries that you "don't wholly agree with" his review of Rocks of Ages! Dare I remind you that that is entirely irrelevant? By contrast, I agree almost completely with what Orr says about TGD, but I still think it's dangerous to start quoting from the review here. As for those ghits measures - well... utter rubbish, of course. Someone who is principally a scientist may write about "philosophy", but would be much less likely to write about "science", preferring such terms as "adaptation of DNA sequences". Snalwibma 07:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well better ratio is that ("H Allen Orr") gets 33k ghits, so on the web about 1/3rd of his notability seems to be related to "philosophy".  Of course my view is entirely irrelevant - that's want I meant by "who cares". NBeale 10:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Way forward with reviews

message: Some more problems that we shouldn't forget
# There are some extensive quotations and possible copyright violations. This is not difficult to fix, just requires people with good English skills to rephrase and simplify material.
# Biographical information is hard to find about him. I couldn't even find his birth date. His CV can be found on google cache, as the official website seems down.
# We would really benefit from some third party sources outlining his work. His book has been reviewed in many places, these perhaps outline some of his other research as well.
Ok, that's all, I will now continue enjoying my so-called wikibreak :)  --Merzul 10:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other concerns... 

message: It's better to characterise Orr's work outside the narrowly scientific as Philosophy, Science and Religion.  Although some of his reviews (eg of TGD or Rocks of Ages) are in Science & Religion, really it seems to be the philosophical aspects that interest him at least as much.  No time to do the editing now, but directionally I think that's how we should go. Something like "Orr considers that <sourced statements about science and philosophy>.  He is critical of Gould's NOMA ... He denounces <intelligent design ....>. But he is also critical of <Dawkins, Pinker, Dennett...>" NBeale 23:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like this general idea, but I thought he liked NOMA, I have to read the Gould review, because now I really want to know, what is he not critical of? --Merzul 23:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: lol ... apparently anyone can be a critic ... as I have clearly demonstrated on this article!!! Vast improvements have been made here. Less in your face with the anti-Dawkins;  I would offer help; but I have no access to his actual science publications (assuming I would even understand them) and he has limited references on the web (other than books reviews). Maybe someone will stumble upon this and expand it with more direct knowledge of the man. --Random Replicator 06:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've just read this article and I still don't know what are his beliefs and philosophy. It seems that he is against everybody and everything on these topics. -- 200.234.115.67 (talk) 10:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Thank you for keeping it much less polemical, but I would still like to trim it down a bit, but let's see what other people think. --Merzul 23:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy, Science and Religion 

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thread_title:  External links modified