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Archive 1 |
Fischer and Wright? which? who are they? can we wikify them?
Is he significant enough to work into the history of science —Preceding unsigned comment added by DennisDaniels (talk • contribs) 17:22, 27 October 2002 (UTC)
The page Haldane redirects here. Given the text of the article "the son of the medical doctor John Scott Haldane and his wife Louisa Kathleen Haldane, and descended from Scottish aristocrats (see Haldane family)." Is J.B.S. Haldane really the only important Haldane, or should the Haldane page be converted to a disambiguation page? There are about 10 Haldanes with a Wiki page, and that doesn't include the two craters Haldane (crater). (I was looking for the enzymolygist, myself) -- 14:48, 31 May 2005 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.104.112.72 (talk) 14:52, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
The second photograph does not look like that of a man born in 1892. It is probably John Scott Haldane, not his son JBS. 21/2/2006. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.78.226.49 (talk) 09:27, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Haldane was (I think) born in Oxford (I thought it was his father who was from Edinburgh?), educated in England, and spent much of his working life in England. I don't recall ever reading that he worked for any significant period in Scotland, but I make no claims to be a definitive expert on The Life of JBS Haldane, and I may be wrong. Did he consider himself Scottish, British, or (latterly at least), neither? It is not clear to me that he considered himself Scottish, nor is it clear that his work and life were significantly affected by his Scottish roots. I do not personally feel it obviously appropriate that he be described as 'Scottish' in preference to 'British'. Having had a quick glance around Wiki, it strikes me that the editor who made the change (Mais Oui) may have something of a political agenda, as opposed to a strictly encyclopaedic one. Certainly however, if anyone has evidence that Haldane considered himself to be Scottish as opposed to British, or that he would have strongly favoured one assignation over the other, then I will of course yield to the consensus. I realise this is a prickly issue for some and I don't want to provoke anyone's ire- but this IS still an encyclopaedia, not a soapbox. Cheers, Badgerpatrol 00:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I should note in addition that the quote from JBS about his conversion to socialism during WWI was: "If I live to see an England in which socialism has made the occupation of a grocer as honourable as that of a soldier, I shall die happy". Note: England, not Scotland. I doubt he made a big distinction between England and Britain, but when he mentioned his country it just came out by default as "England". Joe Felsenstein
On looking at the Clark biography I see that he asked to assigned to a Scottish regiment when Word War I started, which is certainly some Scottish identification. He may have been born in Edinburgh (that isn't stated in the biography) but his family was living in Oxford during that time, so he wouldn't have stayed long in Edinburgh, and he grew up almost entirely in Oxford, worked all of career in England and India, and used the name "England" for his country in the quote I mentioned earlier. That would seem to warrant the designation "British". But as people seem adamant about wanting him to be Scottish, I will leave this inaccuracy uncorrected. (I will be interested to see whether Ewan MacColl is also claimed as Scottish by the same criterion!) Felsenst 13:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
John Maynard Smith is declared the student of Haldane's "most like him". I saw JBS Haldane lecture and listened to him talk to others (in 1963) and I did know John Maynard Smith quite well. Although JMS admired JBS enormously, in many ways he wasn't like him. JBS was bristly, often got into disputes with authorities, and enjoyed outraging people. JMS was sociable, talkative, entertaining, and kindly. Joe Felsenstein —Preceding undated comment added 05:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC).
The text says that his book "The Causes of Evolution" was a major work of the evolutionary synthesis. This is a myth of sorts. It had an appendix that summarized a series of papers JBS published in the 1920s on the mathematics of natural selection in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (1924 through 1927). The material in "Causes of Evolution" is just a popularization of those important results. Of course he also made many other innovations in population genetics, including the branching process approximation to the probability of fixation of a single advantageous mutant and the effect of truncation selection on a normally distributed trait. The present wording perpetuates a Great Books myth that ignores the role of scientific papers. Joe Felsenstein
The infobox has just been removed from the Haldane page. Please enter your discussion here as to whether there is a consensus for retaining it or removing it. To remind you what it looked like, here it is:
J. B. S. Haldane | |
---|---|
Born | November 5, 1892 |
Died | December 1, 1964 |
Nationality | British, then in 1961 a naturalized Indian citizen |
Alma mater | Oxford University |
Known for | Population genetics, enzymology |
Spouse(s) | Charlotte Burghes (née Franken), Helen Spurway |
Children | None |
Awards | Darwin Medal (1952) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Biologist |
Institutions | Cambridge University, University of California, Berkeley, UCL |
Doctoral advisor | Only obtained an M.A., but then worked under Frederick Gowland Hopkins |
Doctoral students | John Maynard Smith, Krishna Dronamraju |
bunix 15:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
OK, that's cool. I can easily blank out the fields that you don't like. No problemo. However, before I go ahead and do this, and revert the infobox, does anyone else have any arguments for or against those fields? Speak now or forever hold your peace :-) bunix 08:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi Dunc, The intention was that anyone can correct the infobox, in the same way they correct articles. Thank you for your correction that he had no children. I also had difficulty trying to dig up his doctoral advisor...can you help with this one? If not, once the infobox is displayed, I'm sure someone out there will be able to fill it in...wiki is a collaborative idea after all! I hope we can all help each other dig up the info.
He was born in Scotland, so I am interested to hear your reasoning for suggesting he was not Scottish...your help with correcting such things is appreciated. Incidentally, what was he? The idea of the Erdos Number/Handedness field is that people (and scientists themselves) are interested in such things. These fields can be commented out if you wish. No problem. However, the actual reason for the fascination with these parameters can be seen at: and and ....though I agree these details may be deemed a little esoteric and thus if there is consensus, we can easily comment them out. Easily fixed. Before I revert the infobox with Dunc's & Shymal's corrections, does anyone else have any arguments for or against retention of any fields? bunix 12:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Re: nationality, I think he was born in Oxford, but has Scottish ancestors on both sides, and anyway even if he was born in Edinburgh (Clark should know), he was educated at Dragon School in Oxford and then Eton, and Oxford.
If you are going to use infoboxes, you must keep them simple -- as in very simple -- I'd ditch pretty much everything apart from dates and places of death and field. Because the wiki database structure is so simple, you must keep things simple (and whatever you do, don't do something because you think it's l33t because it invariably looks crap). Secondly, if infoboxes are to be used, they must be used across subjects to produce a uniform appearance to articles, which again brings us onto simplicity. — Dunc|☺ 13:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi Pete, I take your point about exact birthdates...it is rather "fine grained." However, I include it simply because of biographical convention. So to prevent the ire of serious biographers, exact date is needed. For the general public, they love the exact dates too, for a less serious reason...and that is because they love it when a famous person shares the same birthday as them. Makes good dinner time conversation :-) So dates are needed by popular demand. Erdos number is also becoming increasingly popular, and while I take Badger's point that it is a little esoteric, at present, I guess we have to look ahead a little and see that it will be popularly demanded more & more over the next few years. I'm happy to leave Erdos in or out, as the present consensus demands. Any one else out there want it left in? As regards scaling, yes, the idea is *not* to list every graduate student...the intention is to have only those students that also have a wiki link to their own article or are sufficiently famous that a wiki article should be written. My policy is to display as many of them as I can find for the time being to act as "place holders" and then successive edtors and writers can trim and weed them as time goes on. With the whole infobox thing, my intention is to err on the side of putting more in (for now) and let editors naturally weed it over time. It is better than putting nothing in and leaving blank space for people to work with. (The potter needs some clay, so to speak). Hope this all explains my intentions. On your point of verifiability of handedness of scientists, this is fortunately quite easy (even for dead ones) as there is invariably a photo of them writing on a blackboard. Also handwriting experts can tell this from the writing. My personal policy has only been to enter handedness, if I have been able find two independant photos that confirm this. In the case of J.M.S., it was a little easier, as he & Sheila visited me on a research trip, when he was alive...so I watched him like a hawk :-)
So a radical question I have for Dunc & Badger is this: how happy would you be with just leaving the infobox as it is, as a starting point for weeding; with the intention to let people discuss fields and comment them out as the consensus evolves?
By the way, anyone out there know who J.B.S's doctoral advisor was? Help needed. Best regards, bunix 23:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, it appears that Dunc reverted it immediately after after I put the box back. About 20 days have gone by. I posted some questions on his talk page to try to understand his actions but there has been no reply. As he seems to have lost interest, and that there doesn't seem to be anyone else objecting, I put it back now. In order to come to some compromise I'm making it even shorter this time. Please discuss here what you think. bunix 11:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I dislike the box, it is blaoted with unnecessary metadata.--Peta 12:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I removed the photo, which was obviously wrong. I also recommend the box just be removed altogether. Canadian popcan 04:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't someone (not me) put in some material on his contribution to physiology of breathing? His self-experiments on this are mentioned, but not the actual results. Although his father is rightly famous for the work on carbon monoxide and the "bends", JBS made major contributions. He is apparently the originator of the standard sets of tables of gas mixtures used in diving, and is regarded as a great pioneer of diving, celebrated by people who haven't a clue that he ever worked on evolution. See this entertaining account: Felsenst 21:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
According to , there is a jurassic mammal of that name but there does not seem to be any available material on Kototherium, perhaps it is Nototherium ? Shyamal 03:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I changed the bit about Maynard Smith being "most like himself [JBS]" on the advice of Joe Felsenstein above. Joe is quite a well known geneticist himself, and although younger than Haldane and Maynard Smith was old enough to encounter both and didn't find their personalities very similar. Perhaps changing blanket similarity to sharing similar political (Haldane and Maynard Smith were both Marxists who later became disillusioned with the Soviet Union) and scientific interests (much of Maynard Smith's work is a continuation of that of Haldane) would be more accurate. Jonathan Badger 16 Aug 2006.
I call for the removal of this completely useless section. Canadian popcan 04:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Seeing no section for discussing his justification for his atheism, I'll stick it in here. In June 2009 this "god, angel, or devil" quote was reproduced in an "Opinion" piece in the Wall Street Journal. As a mathematician, well versed in logic, I conclude that this quote is both arrogant and illogical. The unstated assumption is that if any "spirit" existed, then that "spirit"s highest priority would be to "interfere with" (which seems to mean "mess up") Haldane's experiments. I am reminded that soon after WW II, I moved to a small town that had a small Air Force training base nearby. The citizens of that town truly believed that their town would be a prime target when the Russians attacked, because of that tiny AF base. Similarly Haldane's ego was such that he could not accept that "God" was not busy paying attention to HIM and his experiments. He would prefer to believe that God did not exist, and thereby risk "eternal damnation", than allow himself the thought that God might think that "he" wasn't worth bothering with. (Not to mention the even more devastating idea that his experiments worked, not because of Haldane's own brilliance, but because some spirit had lent him a helping hand.) WmMBoyce (talk) 10:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
There's a short story, entitled Rats (copy here which I read as a kid which is attributed to J.B.S. Haldane, presumably this guy himself. Anyone know enough about this to include his fiction in the article? Donald Hosek 04:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Tapsell (not signed in) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.145.242.108 (talk) 19:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
There's also a children's book called "My Friend Mr Leakey" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.243.112.20 (talk) 03:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree thst the queer world quote needs a RS. Pete.Hurd 15:56, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi, where does the quote "an inordinate fondness for beetles" ultimately come from? I've seen someone on the Internet mention it was reported by G. E. Hutchinson, "1959, Amer. Natur. 93:145-159" but that's about all I've found. --Kjoonlee 17:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
"There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of the distinguished British biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, who found himself in the company of a group of theologians. On being asked what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation, Haldane is said to have answered, "An inordinate fondness for beetles."
The Rupert Allason article refers to him as the head of a GRU spy ring during WWII. Anyone have any more information on this, as it should surely be included. 62.25.109.195 10:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
J.B.S.Haldane is said to have been born in Oxford and Edinburgh.
His birth certificate is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.79.38 (talk) 13:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Likewise, he is at two different places in the article described as having married Charlotte Franken. He is now only described as "born in Oxford" but is in the category of "People from Edinburgh". I do know he grew up in Oxford, but do not know where he was born. Felsenst (talk) 03:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
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