Talk:Ian Stevenson

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POV: "provides evidence suggestive of reincarnation." ?

It does do that; the cases are in fact extremely compelling, no matter how difficult a theoretical challenge they offer in result (to my own beliefs included). Recommend pulling the POV tag since you appear to have already made the edit anyway. 69.145.82.2 06:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Deaths in 2007

It is official that this man died on February 8 2007, so why this was ever removed, I do not know. However, that means that he now has to go in the 2007 deaths category, and should not be counted as a "Living person". ACEOREVIVED 20:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tom Shroder

I think it would be good to have a paragraph about journalist Tom Shroder and the extended time he spent with Prof. Stevenson on fieldwork. Does anyone have more info? Thanks. Johnfos 02:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I have the book and am reading it now. What sort of inforamtion are you looking for? Arundhati bakshi 08:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Carl Sagan quote

The Washington Post obituary of Ian Stevenson was written by Tom Shroder, the editor of the Washington Post magazine, who also wrote the well-regarded book on Stevenson's work, "Old Souls." The reason that Shroder included the quote from Sagan is that Sagan was a leading debunker of claims of the paranormal -- indeed, that is a major part of what "The Demon-Haunted World" is about -- yet even Sagan grudgingly recognized that there was something in the work that Stevenson had pioneered that deserved further investigation. Sagan was clearly talking about Stevenson's work -- that's why Shroder put it in the Stevenson obituary, see? (The first time you removed the Stevenson quote, you substituted the statement, "However, the Washington Post has reported that Stevenson was no less a luminary than famous astronomer Carl Sagan," which was completely erroneous -- I honestly thought this was deliberate vandalism, since there was absolutely nothing in the Shroder obituary that compared Sagan to Stevenson.) The fact that the same Sagan passage that I have quoted is also referenced on the ]]Reincarnation Reserach]] page is not an argument against including it on the Stevenson page, but rather, another demonstration of its pertinence to the Stevenson page. So I am putting it back in.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by FedDoc (talk • contribs) 12:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

I appreciate that you are trying to make a contribution to this article, but the quote you're putting in seems not particularly relevant, interrupts the flow of the text, and is rather long and confusing. I think you're pushing a POV about the importance of reincarnation research.
Maybe if you indent the quote and close it with quotation marks that might help a little. And explain its relevance in the text. Maybe then things will be a bit clearer.
One thing that I think the article could do with is a paragraph about Tom Shroder's time with Stevenson. Can you help with that? -- Johnfos 20:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think you're way off base on this. The passage you are referring to does not break any flow. It is a single sentence at the end of a section. It immediately follows a sentence that notes some people have criticized Stevenson's research methods -- citing a rather obscure source. Quoting the observation of the famed scientist and debunker Sagan balances things out. The relevance of the Sagan quote was apparently also evident to Tom Shroder -- the closest person there is to a Stevenson biographer -- and to other editors at the Washington Post, or the passage would not have been included in the Stevenson obituary that Shroder wrote and the Post published. They didn't consider this sentence too long and confusing for Washington Post readers, and I don't think it is too long and confusing for Wikipedia readers, either. As to expanding on the Shroder angle, I will see what I can find that is linkable.FedDoc 23:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The article is a bit of a mess now. I'm not sure why you are using so many long quotes. You need to rely more on your own words. Introducing the source (eg., Washington Post) of a long quote in the main text is part of what interrupts the flow and I'm not sure why you do that. And I'm not sure why you would use two long quotes in a row.

I still think you're pushing the point of view that reincarnation research is important and I'm not sure why you see the reference that is critical as being "obscure". I think you are playing down criticism of Stevenson. As it stands there is only one short sentence in the whole article that can be seen as direct criticism of him: "Further, some have questioned his objectivity in drawing conclusions from his research". And then immediately the tack is changed with the use of "However" and then we have five lines of response. There is no balance achieved here or in the article as a whole. And I really don't think it is very helpful to see Stevenson referred to as a "scientific legend" and "hero" in an encyclopedia article. So I'm adding a POV tag. -- Johnfos 03:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

There is no rule against quoting paragraphs in encyclopedia articles. In a biographical article, it may often be appropriate to quote a paragraph or two, or more, from a well-regarded biography of the subject.
I didn't label Stevenson as a "scientific legend" and a "hero." That is part of an overview of his career offered by Tom Shoder, the Washington Post editor who wrote the only decent mainstream book about Stevenson. Shroder was observing that many people regarded Stevenson in those ways -- but this in the same paragraph that observes that Stevenson was "largely ignored by his mainstream peers." If somebody wants to dig up some more scholarly critiques of Stevenson's work and quote some of them,too, that would be fine by me. But the negative review currently linked as [10] is a rather juvenile piece of polemic by somebody named Richard Rockley, regarding whom absolutely no credentials are provided, posted on a, pardon me, obscure website. I am sure that somebody out there can do a lot better than that. FedDoc 00:35, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page not reporting what he wrote or what his ideas or conclusions were, heavily BIASED AGAINST RE-INCARNATION

The page has a large bias against re-incarnation the subject that Ian studied in great detail. The page is dis-service to his efforts. He is dead, now we should do justice to report more facts about what he did and what he said then what we feel about those things.

 Discussions on this page may escalate into heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when commenting here. See also: Wikipedia:Etiquette.

It's a shame, the fanatism and the lack of intelectual honesty of the skeptical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.129.235.235 (talk) 00:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stevenson's research is discussed in many WP articles

Articles which discuss Ian Stevenson's research include:

Links are provided to these in the Ian Stevenson article. -- Johnfos 20:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Skeptical Inquire

The Skeptical Inquire is basically a collection of work by atheist Nazis. NOT KIDDING. These guys want to put crippled people and Christians into gas chambers[citation needed].

I agree, atheists are mentally ill. That's why only a few humans are athiests because it's an abmormality in the brain.151.204.28.114 (talk) 11:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)