This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
J. B. S. Haldane article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute. |
This
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on December 1, 2019 and December 1, 2022. |
|
Wikipedia has an entire entry devoted to Haldane's Dilemma. I suggest we insert either a mention, with a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane%27s_dilemma, or perhaps a suggestion summarizing the dilemma. Thoughts? [Oops, forgot to sign on Aug 3, 2012] Bob Enyart, Denver radio host at KGOV ( talk) 21:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Haldane emigrated to India in (I believe) 1956. He took Indian citizenship and described himself as being a Hindu. He lived there for 8 years, until his death. However, almost all of his career was spent in Britain (Oxford and London) and virtually all of the work that we are describing occurred there. I realize that Indians are proud of his move there and his identification with India. Nevertheless calling him a "British-born Indian geneticist and evolutionary biologist" seems off the mark. It would be like calling Joseph Priestley a British-born American chemist (his last 10 years being spent in the U.S.) or Albert Einstein a German-born American physicist (as he spent his last 21 years in the U.S.) Maybe call Haldane a "British, later Indian, geneticist and evolutionary biologist"? Felsenst ( talk) 17:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
As of 18 July 2009, the Infobox entry for Residence shows a U.S. flag as well as British and Indian ones. Yet nothing in the text mentions any U.S. residence. I think either a time of U.S. residence should be included in the text, or the U.S. flag removed. 09:49, 18 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by WmMBoyce ( talk • contribs)
Seeing no section to discuss his political views, I will make this section do for now. Whoever wrote the section on his dissembling on the USSR genetics mess, made it pretty clear that JBSH was intellectually dishonest when dealing with the real nature of Communism, the USSR, Stalin, etc. It seems to me that intellectual dishonesty rarely confines itself to a single subject. Why should a disinterested scholar give ANY credence to what JBSH wrote on ANY subject, rather than assuming it was all contrived or "spun" by him to support some political or social goal? WmMBoyce ( talk) 09:57, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
The article "forgets" the fact that this man was an eugenist. In fact, he was among the subscribers of the Eugenics manifesto, in 1939. Agre22 ( talk) 19:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)agre22
Such as Conrad Hal Waddington and Lancelot Hogben, J. B. S. Haldane was an eugenist. In fact, he was a famous eugenist, being among the signatores and supporters of the eugenics manifesto in 1939. Facts are facts and that's all. Agre22 ( talk) 13:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)agre22
I have removed the ridiculous assertion that Haldane owned a bordello. As far as I can see, it is just month-old vandalism that we all failed to notice. If anyone has a source for this and thinks it is real, let us all know here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Felsenst ( talk • contribs) 20:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
"His father was a scientist, a philosopher and a Liberal, and his mother was a Conservative."
Do we really want that in the article? What do we mean by Liberal and Conservative? 98.198.83.12 ( talk) 09:00, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
I note that Haldane's principle is a redirect to this article. In the article, the principle is discussed in the section on On Being the Right Size. Would it be better to redirect to that article? Obviously, we would also ensure that the principle is discussed in that article, which it currently is not. Yaris678 ( talk) 21:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
On another note, the article currently describes Haldane's principle as finding application in "secession theory," where it then links to the article on sEcession, as the Confederacy did from the United States. What is almost certainly intended is ecological sUccession, right? Both understandably deal with changes in the size of complex systems, but one of course seems much more relevant here. 98.192.41.184 ( talk) 21:02, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Groan. Here we go again. Indian Pride has struck again. Of course Indians are proud of Haldane's emigration to India and his identification with it. He was there the last 8 years of his life. Almost all of his major works were done before that. I would have called him either "British" or "English" and added "... later, Indian". But no, we are simply told that Haldane was "Indian". But I guess we have to give in, in which case we should also start referring to Albert Einstein as a famous American physicist ... Felsenst ( talk) 04:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
can someone confirm that Haldane received a PhD under Hopkins at Cambridge with an appropriate reference? Encyclopedia Britannica lists an MA in 1914 but after the war he already started as a reader (second in charge of the department) in biochemistry (e.g. Crow JF Genetics 130: 1-6). I can not find a reference to his thesis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PTN52 ( talk • contribs) 10:33, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes--I missed the note. It would certainly be useful to highlight it as Clark writes on page 32 of the online version of his book that JBS never held any scientific degree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PTN52 ( talk • contribs) 13:03, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
The note is perhaps also a little confusing as the MA was awarded in 1914 and work with Hopkins only started in 1923. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PTN52 ( talk • contribs) 13:12, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
This section fails to give a balanced view of his motives for leaving England. The evidence is in Clark, p229/235: "Haldane had in fact been considering emigration to India two years before the Anglo-French aggression [ie Suez]. In October 1956 he had written to a friend 'I also am to retire in two years, but I propose to retire to India,,, Climate grand, living cheap, great demand for teachers'." Macdonald-ross ( talk) 19:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
I performed a revert of content that belongs to the talk page and not the article. I've retained a couple of typo/grammar fixes, but removed the rest. I'm not familiar enough to know the correct version for the bits of commentary, so I'm leaving it at the stable version level now. — Spaceman Spiff 14:10, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
I notice these edits add info about his work on mines... which sounds more like John Scott Haldane. The cited book is also about JS, rather than JBS. Yaris678 ( talk) 16:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Agree. It also says "his wife Kathleen". John Scott Haldane's wife was Louisa Kathleen Trotter (JBS's mother). JBS himself was married twice, to women whose names were Charlotte and Helen, never to anyone named Kathleen. Felsenst ( talk) 06:23, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Why no reference to his activities as a soviet spy? Royalcourtier ( talk) 07:31, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
If Haldane had a "strong opposition towards any form of authoritarianism", why did he support the Soviet Union and Communism? You cannot get more authoritarian than that! And how could "this political dissent" have made him leave England to became a "proud" citizen of India? Britain is the least totalitarian country on earth, and India in 1956 was not dissimilar - though if anything more totalitarian. Royalcourtier ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:35, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
The introductory blurb says that Haldane coined the terms "coupling" and "repulsion." He most certainly did not. Those were coined by William Bateson and explored in his experiments with RC Punnett. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22076/ and, [1] p. 129. Can't figure out how to edit those intro blurbs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Terraplane34 ( talk • contribs) 14:47, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
References
Peter Wright in Spycatcher (1987, p. 236) accuses Haldane of passing secrets to the Communist Party of Great Britain during the Second World War. The Party, he says, forwarded those to the GRU of the Soviet Union. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.174.0.229 ( talk) 03:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
On the 300th anniversary in 1949 of Charles I's decapitation, he wrote in the Daily Worker "If Charles I had been a geranium, both parts would have lived." The source is only my memory, I'm afraid. Seadowns ( talk) 12:20, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
'a scientific explanation of the air raids that Britain was to endure during the Second World War'
????
Notreallydavid ( talk) 08:58, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Ronald Fisher is described as British, is there any reason why we don't describe Haldane as British? ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 12:41, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Haldane's sieve needs an article (and at least some indication in the article about J. B. S. Haldane himself what it is). I could probably deal with the latter, but it needs someone more expert to write a stand-alone article. Maybe Felsenst could be persuaded to do this -- I cannot think of anyone better. Athel cb ( talk) 15:44, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
In a somewhat rare case of a Wikipedia entry being examined in some detail in a reliable source, there is this paper. Sadly the authors did not seem to be aware of the possibility of citing specific revisions of Wikipedia and it is hard to see what they are referring to without a careful examination of the article history, hopefully someone can do that. Shyamal ( talk) 04:09, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
J. B. S. Haldane article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute. |
This
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on December 1, 2019 and December 1, 2022. |
|
Wikipedia has an entire entry devoted to Haldane's Dilemma. I suggest we insert either a mention, with a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane%27s_dilemma, or perhaps a suggestion summarizing the dilemma. Thoughts? [Oops, forgot to sign on Aug 3, 2012] Bob Enyart, Denver radio host at KGOV ( talk) 21:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Haldane emigrated to India in (I believe) 1956. He took Indian citizenship and described himself as being a Hindu. He lived there for 8 years, until his death. However, almost all of his career was spent in Britain (Oxford and London) and virtually all of the work that we are describing occurred there. I realize that Indians are proud of his move there and his identification with India. Nevertheless calling him a "British-born Indian geneticist and evolutionary biologist" seems off the mark. It would be like calling Joseph Priestley a British-born American chemist (his last 10 years being spent in the U.S.) or Albert Einstein a German-born American physicist (as he spent his last 21 years in the U.S.) Maybe call Haldane a "British, later Indian, geneticist and evolutionary biologist"? Felsenst ( talk) 17:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
As of 18 July 2009, the Infobox entry for Residence shows a U.S. flag as well as British and Indian ones. Yet nothing in the text mentions any U.S. residence. I think either a time of U.S. residence should be included in the text, or the U.S. flag removed. 09:49, 18 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by WmMBoyce ( talk • contribs)
Seeing no section to discuss his political views, I will make this section do for now. Whoever wrote the section on his dissembling on the USSR genetics mess, made it pretty clear that JBSH was intellectually dishonest when dealing with the real nature of Communism, the USSR, Stalin, etc. It seems to me that intellectual dishonesty rarely confines itself to a single subject. Why should a disinterested scholar give ANY credence to what JBSH wrote on ANY subject, rather than assuming it was all contrived or "spun" by him to support some political or social goal? WmMBoyce ( talk) 09:57, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
The article "forgets" the fact that this man was an eugenist. In fact, he was among the subscribers of the Eugenics manifesto, in 1939. Agre22 ( talk) 19:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)agre22
Such as Conrad Hal Waddington and Lancelot Hogben, J. B. S. Haldane was an eugenist. In fact, he was a famous eugenist, being among the signatores and supporters of the eugenics manifesto in 1939. Facts are facts and that's all. Agre22 ( talk) 13:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)agre22
I have removed the ridiculous assertion that Haldane owned a bordello. As far as I can see, it is just month-old vandalism that we all failed to notice. If anyone has a source for this and thinks it is real, let us all know here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Felsenst ( talk • contribs) 20:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
"His father was a scientist, a philosopher and a Liberal, and his mother was a Conservative."
Do we really want that in the article? What do we mean by Liberal and Conservative? 98.198.83.12 ( talk) 09:00, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
I note that Haldane's principle is a redirect to this article. In the article, the principle is discussed in the section on On Being the Right Size. Would it be better to redirect to that article? Obviously, we would also ensure that the principle is discussed in that article, which it currently is not. Yaris678 ( talk) 21:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
On another note, the article currently describes Haldane's principle as finding application in "secession theory," where it then links to the article on sEcession, as the Confederacy did from the United States. What is almost certainly intended is ecological sUccession, right? Both understandably deal with changes in the size of complex systems, but one of course seems much more relevant here. 98.192.41.184 ( talk) 21:02, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Groan. Here we go again. Indian Pride has struck again. Of course Indians are proud of Haldane's emigration to India and his identification with it. He was there the last 8 years of his life. Almost all of his major works were done before that. I would have called him either "British" or "English" and added "... later, Indian". But no, we are simply told that Haldane was "Indian". But I guess we have to give in, in which case we should also start referring to Albert Einstein as a famous American physicist ... Felsenst ( talk) 04:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
can someone confirm that Haldane received a PhD under Hopkins at Cambridge with an appropriate reference? Encyclopedia Britannica lists an MA in 1914 but after the war he already started as a reader (second in charge of the department) in biochemistry (e.g. Crow JF Genetics 130: 1-6). I can not find a reference to his thesis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PTN52 ( talk • contribs) 10:33, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes--I missed the note. It would certainly be useful to highlight it as Clark writes on page 32 of the online version of his book that JBS never held any scientific degree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PTN52 ( talk • contribs) 13:03, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
The note is perhaps also a little confusing as the MA was awarded in 1914 and work with Hopkins only started in 1923. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PTN52 ( talk • contribs) 13:12, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
This section fails to give a balanced view of his motives for leaving England. The evidence is in Clark, p229/235: "Haldane had in fact been considering emigration to India two years before the Anglo-French aggression [ie Suez]. In October 1956 he had written to a friend 'I also am to retire in two years, but I propose to retire to India,,, Climate grand, living cheap, great demand for teachers'." Macdonald-ross ( talk) 19:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
I performed a revert of content that belongs to the talk page and not the article. I've retained a couple of typo/grammar fixes, but removed the rest. I'm not familiar enough to know the correct version for the bits of commentary, so I'm leaving it at the stable version level now. — Spaceman Spiff 14:10, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
I notice these edits add info about his work on mines... which sounds more like John Scott Haldane. The cited book is also about JS, rather than JBS. Yaris678 ( talk) 16:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Agree. It also says "his wife Kathleen". John Scott Haldane's wife was Louisa Kathleen Trotter (JBS's mother). JBS himself was married twice, to women whose names were Charlotte and Helen, never to anyone named Kathleen. Felsenst ( talk) 06:23, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Why no reference to his activities as a soviet spy? Royalcourtier ( talk) 07:31, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
If Haldane had a "strong opposition towards any form of authoritarianism", why did he support the Soviet Union and Communism? You cannot get more authoritarian than that! And how could "this political dissent" have made him leave England to became a "proud" citizen of India? Britain is the least totalitarian country on earth, and India in 1956 was not dissimilar - though if anything more totalitarian. Royalcourtier ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:35, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
The introductory blurb says that Haldane coined the terms "coupling" and "repulsion." He most certainly did not. Those were coined by William Bateson and explored in his experiments with RC Punnett. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22076/ and, [1] p. 129. Can't figure out how to edit those intro blurbs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Terraplane34 ( talk • contribs) 14:47, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
References
Peter Wright in Spycatcher (1987, p. 236) accuses Haldane of passing secrets to the Communist Party of Great Britain during the Second World War. The Party, he says, forwarded those to the GRU of the Soviet Union. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.174.0.229 ( talk) 03:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
On the 300th anniversary in 1949 of Charles I's decapitation, he wrote in the Daily Worker "If Charles I had been a geranium, both parts would have lived." The source is only my memory, I'm afraid. Seadowns ( talk) 12:20, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
'a scientific explanation of the air raids that Britain was to endure during the Second World War'
????
Notreallydavid ( talk) 08:58, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Ronald Fisher is described as British, is there any reason why we don't describe Haldane as British? ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 12:41, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Haldane's sieve needs an article (and at least some indication in the article about J. B. S. Haldane himself what it is). I could probably deal with the latter, but it needs someone more expert to write a stand-alone article. Maybe Felsenst could be persuaded to do this -- I cannot think of anyone better. Athel cb ( talk) 15:44, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
In a somewhat rare case of a Wikipedia entry being examined in some detail in a reliable source, there is this paper. Sadly the authors did not seem to be aware of the possibility of citing specific revisions of Wikipedia and it is hard to see what they are referring to without a careful examination of the article history, hopefully someone can do that. Shyamal ( talk) 04:09, 15 August 2022 (UTC)