Talk:Geoffrey Miller (psychologist)

message: When did that happen?
Based on personal knowledge and consulting his CV, I agree and have removed that.  Pengortm (talk) 04:59, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: He's an economist now?

message: I enjoyed reading Geoffrey Miller's book but felt he had not acknowledged other possibilities for human creativity besides his stated belief that it is related to mate selection. -- 18:06, 14 October 2005 User:Marvin Khan
:Please sign your name. Tony 01:45, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I feel that Miller's book The Mating Mind would deserve an article on its own, as it has become widespread with a large number of readers through the world. --Philipum 12:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've read it myself and I agree, but I wouldn't know what to put there that isn't already covered here. For now I've created a really cheap redirect page; if you think of an appropriate way to move some information there and write a well-formed article on the book itself, without duplicating content between that article and this one, please feel free to do so. ozy` talk 07:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Except that this article is quite short. Why not make a section for the book within it? Tony 07:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally I'm not even sure that the book deserves a section; the extent of the duplicated information would be that great. ozy` talk 21:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Mating Mind 

message: Should add a reference to winning the 2008 ig noble prize for his work showing that exotic dancers earned more money when ovulating.
Jonahstein 00:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Congratulations to him!  See  -- AnonMoos (talk) 07:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Ig Nobel win

message: If there isn't an article on that, maybe someone could add just a paragraph here about it. German page: :de:37%-Regel. Regards --WissensDürster (talk) 17:54, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[37 percent rule]] 

message: You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of   Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:47, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to Human Intelligence 

message: Continued from above:
"At this point, I am certainly not a fan of the man. And I agree with earlier comments that there are insufficient secondary sources for the earlier parts of this article. But I think that Mr. Miller is an important and notable figure in the area of Evolutionary Psychology. Here's my evidence. Using Google, I identified the three journals that appear in the top of Google searches on "Evolutionary Psychology". They are: "Evolutionary Psychology", "Psychology Today", and "Science Daily". Searches for Geoffrey Miller in these journals find him as a writer, reviewed writer, or topic in 23 articles in Evolutionary Psychology, 12 articles or posts in Psychology Today (although 2 of those are about the obesity controversy), and 103 posts on Science Daily (although many of these seem to be duplicates, including the same line about his as a "Young Turk"). Of course some of these articles are speaking poorly of him, but that doesn't prevent him from being notable. And the top journals in his field do, according to this basic search, find him to be quite notable. Chaveyd (talk) 03:54, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Going to bed soon so will have to sleep on this and return in the AM.  In the meantime, here's a resource I've been looking at while thinking about this (notability of academics).  The main criterion that Miller would meet is the first.  I guess this leaves us at an impasse about whether & where to put the twitter thing. Firecatalta (talk) 04:06, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi all - so I agree, Miller seems notable by wiki standards for academics.  UNM and NYU are investigating Miller due to his claim (not the university's) that this was part of a research project.[1]  Where do people currently stand on the twitter issue, given that info? Firecatalta (talk) 13:28, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The Twitter thing is just so trivial. The man is a significant figure in bringing together and extending several aspects of evolutionary psychology in highly productive ways. If people insist on including trivia, WP:BALANCE indicates that it should not overbalance the relatively short article by occupying a whole section of its own. A short not at the bottom is quite sufficient. I'd not even bother with that. Tony (talk)  15:00, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  You may wish that the Twitter thing was trivial, but speaking as an academic, it really is a big deal. This is one of the very few kinds of things that can get a tenured professor fired, especially since having been on graduate admissions committees, he may have made his university susceptible to lawsuits. And if his claim that this post was part of his "research" is correct, that places him in some serious trouble. Every university of any note requires such research to be approved by the IRB (Institutional Review Board), and if he's receiving any federal funding then he's required by law to have such research approved by the IRB. (I was chair of our institution's IRB for four years, so I'm speaking from experience.) If he was receiving federal funding, then it's likely that he would be banned from future grants for something like 5-10 years. Even if he wasn't receiving federal funding, the normal action for such IRB unapproved research is that every research project he wants to work on for the next 5 years (or so) would have to be approved by the chair of his home institution's IRB. So this has certainly been a big deal in the feminist blogs and lots of news articles and shows, but it's also a big deal in terms of his academic reputation and his career future. And since his only reason for being included in Wikipedia is because of his academic reputation, something like this that threatens to dramatically challenge that reputation is significant. Chaveyd (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

text: Thanks Tim bates!  What's your opinion on the notability of the twitter issue? Firecatalta (talk) 00:49, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Tony, I understand that you don't want information on the twitter incident included on this page at all, let alone in such detail.  However, I agree with Chaveyd above that since this man is solely notable for his academic work, a tweet that brought him under such heavy criticism in his capacity as an academic is notable and in balance with the rest of the article, especially since we now know that he defended it and UNM and NYU are investigating it.  If this "scandal" were about a personal incident such as receiving a DUI, then I agree that the incident should not be included in the article, and if somehow it were notable enough for inclusion (which of course it would not be), then it would deserve one line at best.  But again, as Chaveyd says above, this tweet reflects on and could impact his academic future.  If you want to exclude it from the article, it would be best to weigh in on the specific reasons why you think it is not notable.  Firecatalta (talk) 12:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Not exclude it, but express it in proportion. Tony (talk)  13:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes sense.  One solution would be to take the information stored in the thread above this one and add it back in with reliable sources, which would be a good idea in any case.  A second solution would be to reduce the amount of information contained in the twitter section, but I think it would be hard to do that without removing the factors that explain why this tweet was notable.  I'm definitely open to ideas for how to do that, though.  A third & less usual solution would be to create a separate article for the twitter controversy, and include a 1-2 line description on Miller's page with a link to the twitter controversy article for more information, e.g. "Geoffrey Miller (twitter controversy)."  Thoughts?  Firecatalta (talk) 13:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

text: I most certainly have not had anything to do with Miller.  I'm trying to propose solutions to help you achieve your goal of minimum inclusion of the twitter information while helping Chaveyd achieve their goal of including the information.  If you would prefer to ignore these potential solutions and talk about COI instead, that's fine.  You created the article.  Do you have a COI you would like to disclose? Firecatalta (talk) 16:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Seeing as he brought it up, I see Tony lists him among the 6 "people whose work continues to have the deepest impact" on him, which is a clear COI issue given his edits. I also note that related searches like '"geoffrey miller" obese' return more results than "geoffrey miller" psychologist on major search engines, in case anyone is any doubt about the legitimacy of including the section or it's proportionality.87.113.102.210 (talk) 23:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: "So what?" (to all of your assertions). You appear to be on a smear campaign against the subject of the article. Tony (talk)  12:28, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article & twitter notability 

message: My edit summary got cut off by an accidental hit of the return key, so I'll put it here.  I think Miller's claim is offensive and ridiculous too, but unfortunately we would either need a reliable source to include that information in the article in its current form (i.e. a stated fact), or else to have some grounds to cite it as a notable source criticizing Miller for inaccuracy.  Firecatalta (talk) 00:48, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The source is Pascal Wallisch, research scientist at the Center for Neural Science at New York University, PhD (University of Chicago) 2007. His blog claims that it was selected as one of the official blogs for the Society for Neuroscience. So this seems like a reliable source. However, I don't like the way the contribution was worded: "it has now also been shown that the tweet lacks a factual basis" is, IMO, an inappropriately strong statement for a study that was based on a volunteer, opt-in survey. It seems like a useful and relevant discussion, possibly worth a link, but it is nowhere near as definitive as the previous contribution implied. Chaveyd (talk) 05:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi there! Wikipedia standards for reliable sources usually require that the source have editorial oversight (see WP:RELIABILITY for more details), but I can see where you're coming from, in that WP:SPS allows for the reliability of the author to make the source reliable in some cases.  For facts & figures, it's still preferable to put a link to the study itself, and more preferably to a relevant review article. We can definitely include that information along the lines of, "Pascal Wallisch, research scientist at the Center for Neural Science at New York University, criticizes the tweet on additional grounds, saying that in addition to being offensive, the tweet has no basis in fact."  I think the fact that a prominent neuroscientist from Miller's guest university is criticizing the tweet on factual grounds is most relevant to this particular discussion in any case.  Overall, I agree that the info is useful and relevant, and that the edit was certainly in good faith.  Firecatalta (talk) 12:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  I like that solution, and will add that. I still think the phrase "no basis in fact" is a little strong, so I'll use "factually incorrect", which I think is just a bit weaker. In his own conclusion, Wallisch writes "Just because *this* specific way of probing the relationship [between obesity and Ph.D. completion] didn’t work does *not* mean that there is no possible relationship", so I think we should be careful not to overstate his conclusion (which I think the original contribution did). A more accurate phrasing might be "in addition to being offensive, statistically the tweet does not agree with available evidence". That might be a bit too wordy, but if others think it's better to be cautious, I would certainly view that as a 'friendly amendment'. Chaveyd (talk) 15:04, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:   Agreed - I think your edit does a great job of stating his point without emphasizing it in a way he might not have wanted, and I think it's definitely fine to sacrifice brevity for accuracy.  Thanks for your work on this!  Firecatalta (talk) 16:46, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit summary for revert of revision 560373318 

message: It would probably be worthwhile adding to the career section the podcast entitled "The mating grounds" which he authors/hosts with Tucker Max and Nils Parker. Details found at http://www.thematinggrounds.com/about-mating-grounds/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.45.88.44 (talk) 09:43, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems reasonable: is the book out? podcast/book certainly seems a change in direction so worth noting Tim bates (talk) 16:18, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Mating Grounds podcast / book 

message: I just removed the following "including the website Jezebel, the magazine XOJane, and Disrupting Dinner Parties criticized his public statement about obese individuals," the problem with this is that it was sourced by these 3 websites themselves; these are primary sources, not se3condary sources and so fail to establish their own notability to be here. What is required is some piece (not copied from here) which talks about these 3 sites commenting on Miller's tweet, and because so far we dont have that I have removed all 3 sites. Other information in this section may be similarly vulnerable thought he initial wire ref looks fine to me. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:30, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO the section looks fine now and I trust nobody will now either attempt to remove any of the sourced material which is there (as some ips have been trying to do) or to re-add these 3 websites unless of course a reliable secondary source can be found. Remember this needs to be a WP:BLP living persons policy compliant article and adding negative material without secondary sources is not acceptable. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 05:33, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

text: Further to the above: I've just removed a line about another tweet by Miller, because this was only sourced to the tweet itself and had no commentary on it from reliable secondary sources. We can't describe comments as 'controversial' without any evidence of an actual controversy over them. Robofish (talk) 14:57, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Twitter and secondary sources

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This section is exclusively based on primary sources, which is not compatible with Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Avoid_misuse_of_primary_sources. To make things worse all sources are websites. Not a single reliable secondary source. And such reliable secondary sources are mandatory in biographies of living persons, in particular if contents is concerned that is injurious to a person's reputation. So, according to our rules, the section definitely needs to be removed. I know what steps to take if the removal is undone again. Please refrain from undoing it again. --Saidmann (talk) 19:00, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Because there have been no objections against the above arguments, the section will now be removed. --Saidmann (talk) 12:01, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Your assertion that there were no reliable secondary sources in this section is obviously false. NY Mag, HuffPo, Inside Higher Ed, and The Atlantic are all reliable secondary sources. Restored. Bueller 007 (talk) 18:37, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: These are journalistic sources reporting gossip. Gossip is no reliable information. What we need is a reliable secondary source from the field of science, because the person we are dealing with is a scientist. Please wait until the discussion on this talk page is settled before reverting anything. --Saidmann (talk) 12:35, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: This clearly had an impact on his career. Even if it were gossip in some narrow sense (which is subjective) it's still encyclopedically significant. You do not have consensus to remove this content. The burden is now on you to gain consensus. Grayfell (talk) 01:39, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If it has "an impact on his career", it should be able to support such a statement by scientific sources. This has not been done. The "burden to gain a consensus" is always on those who want to have something in. "Tweets" are no reliable publications. As such, they are not even primary sources according to our rules. They are internet gossip. Online news media reporting about such gossip are therefore no secondary sources according to our rules. Reliable secondary sources are, however, mandatory in articles about living persons according to our rules. Please stop reverting things before the discussion here is closed. --Saidmann (talk) 11:21, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  The so-called "Twitter incident"