Talk:Human/Archive 21

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"Define themselves..."

I removed the self-definition part again (as previously discussed at Talk:Human/Archive 19#Intro comments). I feel it to be awkward and out of place—when reading an article, I don’t think how a group defines themselves is relevant in the introduction. Their self-beliefs are certainly important and should be discussed, but to me it doesn’t seem to belong in the introduction. Do others disagree? — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Support this, "define themselves" is absurd as I have stated previously. KillerChihuahua?!? 07:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
I also support this removal. I am not sure about the following sentence either: "They are the dominant sentient species on planet Earth". When did this one appear? Can we honestly write this in an objective way? David D. (Talk) 16:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
I would not object in the least if that sentence were removed entirely. KillerChihuahua?!? 16:30, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

The self-definition part is not necessary, but resulted from extensive discussion and compromise. If removed from the Featured Article version, the first sentence reads something like: "The word Human has biological, social, and spiritual meanings." Focusing on "the word" human (word ownership) may be a useful approach. Tom Haws 19:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Certainly this approach is better than self definition. David D. (Talk) 19:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
...he asserted, vacantly. — goethean ॐ 20:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
The puppy objects. Strongly. KillerChihuahua?!? 21:04, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
"Human" in what dictionary has a spiritual meaning? Sure, there is a spiritual aspect, and a social aspect, to what we may regard as the essence of being human, which is explored thoroughly in the article. This does not belong in the opening. Take a look at Frog: "Frog is the common name for amphibians in the order Anura." Elephant starts "Elephantidae (the elephants) is a family of animals, and the only remaining family in the order Proboscidea." Details of how they live and interact is later in the article, where it belongs. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!? 21:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I guess that I think that human beings are different from frogs. — goethean ॐ 21:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Which is why this is the Human article and not the frog article. Are you deliberately misunderstanding me (in other words, was that intended to be humor or a point?) or am I being unclear in some way? KillerChihuahua?!? 21:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
You seemed to be implying that the first sentence of this article should be modelled on that of the frog article. I was pointing out that that's absurd. — goethean ॐ 21:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Why is that absurd? It's about as NPOV as you can get. David D. (Talk) 22:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
(ri) No, an animal is an animal is an animal. Humans and frogs are animals. Period. Jim62sch 21:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • And sanity battles insanity once again. Let's see if, this time, sanity will win out—that is, the rational and reasonable view that humans, even if they are the soul-filled magical God-blessed chosen ones that many religions believe them to be, are still animals, by the very definition of the word "animal" (and still "primates", by the definition of the word, and still "bipeds", by the definition of the word!); science and religion are not "at war", are not just equally valid differing "POVs" (the idea that science itself can be considered a "POV", rather than the methodologically-unified body of research and study it is, is remarkably absurd), and Wikipedia is not an outlet for religious or spiritual indoctrination or proselytizing. Religion should certainly play a large role in this article: in sociological and psychological discussions of human beliefs, society, and , not in defining the very meaning of "human", a word that is no more challenging to define than "frog" or "hat" or "boy", and only Wikipedia's systemic pro-human bias (easily one of the most reality-twisting and grievous biases of all Wikipedia) could potentially convince anyone otherwise. No self-respecting, reliable dictionary in the entire world defines the word human in a more "spiritual" light than any of its other definitions, nor should Wikipedia (or Wiktionary, for that matter) do so. This is not biased; the opposite (the "compromise" besmirching this article's intro, in reality one of the most embarrassingly biased, meaningless, and twisted bullshit-isms in the whole of Wikipedia, that only still exists because a team of dedicated POV-pushers fight any change or progress every step of the way whenever it crops up) is what's biased, and is, in fact, the epitome of bias. -Silence 22:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Ditto -- well said! Jim62sch 22:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, calling your opponents or their views "insane" definitely helps to prove your point. However, you should have said "Period." at the end. That would have really hammered them. — goethean ॐ 22:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Hyperbole is one of my favorite tools (that, or just one of my bad habits). However, I meant no offense; if I seemed a bit too zealous or critical in my above paragraph, it was meant to emphasize, not to insult. So, I apologize if my delivery was a bit too brash or my word choice excessive—and I don't, and will never, apologize for the message, which is perfectly valid. This is an article about human beings, not about "how humans define themselves" (which could make a good article topic in its own right) and not about the word "human" (which is more of a dictionary than an encyclopedic topic). The sole reason anyone has for such a ridiculous beginning to an article as "Humans define themselves in..." is, apparently, to namedrop spirituality in an attempt to further an agenda and propagate the mistaken notion that science, spirituality, and sociology are somehow at odds, incompatable, or distinct (clearly nonsense when it comes to "sociology", which is as scientifically-based as history, psychology and anthropology). You yourself have demonstrated this bizarre and inexplicable anti-scientific bias in the past, goethean, and are no doubt one of the main forces keeping this article's intro a religious sermon and stopping it from becoming an encyclopedia article. Religion is one of my favorite encyclopedia topics of all, and I spend almost all my time on Wikipedia editing and researching articles on religious issues, but there's a time and place for everything; starting the article on "humans" by namedropping the "spiritual perspective" is deeply, fundamentally biased and meaningless. It would be like starting it by saying that humans "define themselves in mathematical, scientific, and geographical ways"; it's patent nonsense. So maybe "insane" was too strong a word, but it got the point across: there's literally no reason to word the beginning of this article so awkwardly and misleadingly. -Silence 22:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Agree again. Jim62sch 23:03, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Why all the animosity? I it really necessary? Is Wikipedia only a scientific encyclopedia or a never-attempted-before repository of all human knowledge? Fact is that to remain NPOV this article needs to reflect all POVs including these that may not be ours. So far, I think we are doing a commendable job of once and for all hammer-down an intro that we can all feel proud of, and hopefully regain the coveted "star" for FA that we lost a while ago. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely concur, Jossi, and btw good catch on the "language" addition to the introduction, (as well as your other tweaks and edits today.) thanks. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I feel no animosity whatsoever for any of the people involved in this discussion. I can stronly, strongly disagree with someone without feeling any ill-will towards that person. I'll try to tone it down a bit, if you promise to think about the fact that "Is Wikipedia only a scientific encyclopedia?" is like asking "Is Wikipedia only an encyclopedic encyclopedia?" Being encyclopedic requires a working acceptance of scientific methodology; such a requirement is implicit and universal, to the extent that even saying it is unnecessary. If not for this basic and fundamental aspect of encyclopedicness, the sun (as opposed to solar deity) and heart (as opposed to heart (symbol) articles would not start with the current widely-accepted, experimentally-proven facts and theories on these topics, but with random, arbitrary, untested beliefs about them like "The sun revolves around the earth" or "The heart is the seat of thought and emotion". Of course Wikipedia is scientific; this doesn't mean that it can't contain unscientific information. On the contrary, it must contain all noteworthy views per its POV policy (and per common sense, why hide information just because it's false?), properly referenced and in their correct context (for example, compare eschatology, a sociological article, and end of the universe, a cosmological one). Encyclopedias, like all modern reference tools (i.e. a mathematics textbook, as opposed to a book of holy scripture), assume a secular, scientific methodology, simply because there's no other consistent, unbiased, reliable way to analyze and present knowledge. It's no more biased or POVed to utilize science (rather than religious dogma) in an encyclopedia article than it is to utilize air (rather than water or sand) for breathing. -Silence 23:13, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Here's my take on it: I think it does sound quite out of place for a reference work to discuss how a group defines itself over what it is (whatever that means) and it does seem quite unusual to describe humans in this way. I don't mean to imply the biological aspect is more important than the spiritual aspect, but it is more obvious. Keeping in line with my comment above, I think we should attempt to write this article as if from a disinterested viewpoint, perhaps as if we were aliens observing Earth and humans. We start out with the most obvious: humans are animals, bipedal primates. Next we observe the social behavior, civilizations, technology. Next we learn about their remarkable culture. Finally we begin to understand their religious beliefs; that many believe they possess far deeper levels and so on. Does this make sense? It's kind of a hierarchy, from the most readily apparent to some of the deeper characteristics. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
It does make sense. Whichever way we slice it, we have to include all these aspects. If only we could become a bit dispassionated (would that be ever possible?) and think of the reader for a while, rather than to think with our POVs, we could make some progress. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree strongly with both of the above comments. The reason to start this article with a simple and straightforward explanation of "human" is not just an empty gesture to make a point; it serves a deeply and absolutely practical purpose, to make the article more accessible and meaningful to readers and to provide first the most fundamental and simple information (i.e. the definition of "human being" as a reasoning, bipedal primate in the genus Homo), then to grow to increasingly specific and field-focused information that would require the initial context to make sense. At this point, even "Humans are featherless bipeds" would be a better start than "Humans define themselves as...." How can someone understand the human soul before they know what human itself is? Y'gotta know that we have four limbs and a head before you can start worrying about divine spiritual ascension or the vicious karmic cycle of samsara, sorry. -Silence 23:13, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Wow, déjà vu all over again. No offense, Seeker, you are correct. I'm merely noting that we've stated all of this previously (including the bit about aliens -- well, assuming that they are friendly aliens) Jim62sch 23:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Not friendly aliens, Jim62sch—neutral (but interested) aliens. If they were friendly, that'd miss the point entirely. :) -Silence 23:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Good point, Slience. As long as they are not bearing a book entitled, "To Serve Man".  ;) Jim62sch 00:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Scientific POV

This page has been decimated by the SPOV and Pathological skeptic community. It requires a massive NPOVing in order to have a chance at becoming a Featured article again, rather than further degenerating into a partisan and contested wasteland in our world of collaborative editing. Sam Spade 22:28, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, calling secular ideologies "scientific" gives them too much credit. As User:Silence mentioned above, calling science a POV is sort of like calling theorizing or perception a POV. This is not about science versus religion. This is about my ideology versus your ideology. The interesting thing is that we have agreed to include their ideology, but they insist on excluding ours. — goethean ॐ 22:35, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Edit conflict -- Only the nonsensical intro Sam tries to reinsert every few weeks. Religion, along with every other human activity, has its place in the article. The word human has no inherent spiritual meaning. In addition, the insistence on removing "like all primates" is both a sign of scientific ignorance and a very clear POV that will never be remediated. Jim62sch 22:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Not just our POV, but the overwheming majority POV of all Human's ever, scientific and otherwise. Hence my link to pathological skepticism ;) Sam Spade 22:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Which I note you almost completely rewrote moments prior to linking it here. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Marcello Truzzi has stated that some self-described "skeptics" are misrepresenting their opinions: "Since 'skepticism' properly refers to doubt rather than denial — nonbelief rather than belief — critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves 'skeptics' are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping that label."[1]

Of course I did! You think I link to anything without editing it? What kind of editor do you think I am?! ;) Sam Spade 22:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Goethean, Sam, although one could argue that Scientism is extreme, and that maybe some editors amongst us may held such extreme views or the opposite views, highlighting these extremes will not move us any farther. Rather, we ought to find ways in which we can collaborate rather than just disagree. If an article on our species, cannot be made factually accurate, verifiable and within the safety provided by NPOV, how can we claim as Wikipedians that this is indeed a great project? I am of the opinion that unless and until we can reach agreement on this article, there is no chance in earth or in heaven (pun intended) that we can declare: Wikipedia and its policies, work. Proof: read Human. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I've said that a few times before on this very page ;) Sam Spade 22:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Only the nonsensical intro Sam tries to reinsert every few weeks. Religion, along with every other human activity, has its place in the article. The word human has no inherent spiritual meaning. In addition, the insistence on removing "like all primates" is both a sign of scientific ignorance and a very clear POV that will never be remediated. Jim62sch 22:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Sam, let me understand. Are you disputing that we are primates? I don't understand....≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
This might help you understand: diff. And in the interest of disclosure, my response: diff KillerChihuahua?!? 01:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I see... but the differences are not insurmountable, as thank God (pun intended) we have NPOV to allow us to present the different POVs that are widely held. Humans are primates, as defined by the taxonomy of species. Spiritual perspectives characterize humans by their having a "soul", etc. Other POVs can also be described. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
You are correct that a scientific perspective identifies humans as primates (by definition). You are correct that some (but not all) spiritual perspectives identify humans as having souls. Where both you and Sam Spade seem to have made a massive error is in assuming that these two perspectives are in any way contradictory, or that they are in any way about the same topic (the former is about defining humans on the most basic, biological level, the latter about exploring possible metaphysical properties or significance of humans), or that they are nothing but "different POVs" on the same matter. Most people who realize that humans are primates also believe that humans have souls, and vice versa. To argue that "humans are primates" and "humans have souls" are opposing views is like arguing that "humans walk on two legs" and "Jesus Christ is our lord and savior" are opposing views. Not only are they not in any way contradictory, but they aren't even remotely on the same topic. Just as going out of our way to mention Jesus in the intro of "humans" would be monstrously biased, completely unhelpful to our readers, and deeply out-of-place topic-wise, and just as saying "Humans are defined in biological, mathematical, and Christian ways. Biologically, humans are classified as walking on two legs... etc." is profoundly absurd, so is "Humans are defined in biological, social, and spiritual ways. Biologically, humans are classified as hominic primates... etc." is equally biased, meaningless, and off-topic, reflecting an agenda on the part of the editors to try to mislead readers into thinking that sociology, biology, and spirituality are somehow at odds. Such a claim, whether implicit or explicit, requires massively convincing sourcing if we are to permit its inclusion on the article, because the claims are so outrageous and internally contradictory. So while the human article should certainly deal with religious perspectives (broadly, not specifically; that's what religion and dozens of other articles are for), it shouldn't try to push a POV by starting the article with a claim as ridiculous, wishy-washy, New Age-ish, unsourced, and nonsensical as "Spiritual perspectives on humans state that they are spiritual beings whose destiny and purpose transcend the biological body..." (which is a blatant lie, as only some spiritual perspectives state that). -Silence 19:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
...as ridiculous, wishy-washy, New Age-ish, unsourced, and nonsensical as...
Please tone down your tiring overblown rhetoric — some of us have to read this stuff. We have had lots of imperfect attempts at a fair, neutral introduction. Personally, I would rather have an imperfect, compromised intro than a partisan one (...and you would too if your opponents had the upper hand). It's much easier to unthinkingly dismiss text that you dislike than to attempt to write a fair article. We've seen your attempt, and it wasn't remotely acceptable or fair. I will not assent to this article being turned into a diatribe about why spirituality and religion are nothing more than superstition. If you have a better suggestion, let's hear it. Otherwise, please spare us your outrage. — goethean ॐ 23:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
(ri)Actually, I found Silence' response a pleasure to read, very nice prose, good grammar and syntax, hit all of the highpoints, is factual, etc.
As to the second assertion, I don't think anyone suggested to turn the article into a diatribe against spirituality or religion. However, I thank you for mentioning the nexus between spirituality, religion and superstition. Jim62sch 00:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Silence, I did not say that the "scientific" POV and the "spiritual" POV are opposing views. I said that are different views. They may be compatibe for some and incompatibe to others. Per NPOV we ought to describe all POVs that are verifiable and substatially held. As for the type of conversation that you guys/gals are having above, I can only say this: these type of exchanges and escalation will not provide any long standing results. A little refresher from WP:NPOV, below.
Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, which means it is a representation of human knowledge at some level of generality. But human beings disagree about specific cases; for any topic on which there are competing views, each view represents a different idea of what the truth is, and insofar as that view contradicts other views, its adherents believe that the other views are false and therefore not knowledge. Where there is disagreement about what is true, there's disagreement about what constitutes knowledge. Wikipedia works because it's a collaborative effort; but, while collaborating, how can we solve the problem of endless "edit wars" in which one person asserts that p, whereupon the next person changes the text so that it asserts not-p?
A solution is that we accept, for the purposes of working on Wikipedia, that "human knowledge" includes all different significant theories on all different topics. So we're committed to the goal of representing human knowledge in that sense. Something like this is surely a well-established sense of the word "knowledge"; in this sense, what is "known" changes constantly with the passage of time, and when we use the word "know", we often use so-called scare quotes. Europeans in the Middle Ages "knew" that demons caused diseases. We now "know" otherwise.
Silence, Jim62sh, Goethean: Can we abide by this non-negotiable polciy and get on with editing this article? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Etymology

I would like to add a section on the etymology of "human". There are some very interesting perspectives, for example the notion of "earthly beings," as opposed to "gods". In Hebrew adam means "man" and adamah "earth". Then we have the Sanskrit Manu, the Proto-Germanic Mannaz that is, the word is connected with the root "men" ("to think"), or the Finnish "ihminen", which means one that is "wondering". Fascinating stuff. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The link between man and to think is highly hypothetical, and is only given as "akin to", not as "men" being a root...that's not to say it's wrong, there just isn't enough evidence to support it given the development of PIE. My guess would be that "man" preceded, rather than was derived from "men", concepts tending to come after the tangibles. Jim62sch 00:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I am only proposing that it will be very interesting to describe the different etymologies, based on verifiable information from scholars that study languages. It says a lot about how we as a species describe ourselves, through the use of language. Would you agree that this is a good idea or not? I see this as very fascinating material for our readers.≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
It may be, but be careful with the etymology -- in my spare time (as if I had any) I'm a linguist, and a pretty good one. For example, the word we're discussing, human, comes from homo, which is probably from PIE root *ghthem meaning ground, earth, which in English became guma as in bridegroom. On the other hand, the Greek anthropos comes from PIE *andher meaning spout, and Gk ops meaning eye. There's no real meaning to the word in and of itself -- in all languages it goes back to the time when naming objects was important, and concepts had yet to be thought of. Jim62sch 00:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
It's a good idea. It will be difficult to do neutrally, however, given the number of languages that there are in the world. — goethean ॐ 16:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
We'd probably better stick to english for the most part, this being the english wiki. Sam Spade 17:01, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Eh, I agree with goethean. We're the English Wikipedia because we're in English, not because the topics we cover are only about English. This sounds like an interesting topic, though if there are large plans for it, you might consider merging etymology with "terminology" and creating a daughter article for more in-depth analysis, since the human article is already quite large. Also be careful not to just make it a list of different languages' words for "human"; that's what Wiktionary is for. -Silence 17:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. I will attempt to add a sentence or two about these aspects to the "terminology" section, in the next day or so. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

A call for reason

We all have made it quite clear already that we can disagree and that we held our POVs quite strongly. But I would argue that edit warring has never produced in any long term benefit to an article. Just wikistress, and waste of precious time. Massive reverts "restoring" a previous version that was not supported by consensus, is not the way to go. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree. This isn't simple. And I don't believe it is solved yet. I wish I knew the solution. Tom Haws 19:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Keeping in mind that this is an encyclopedia would go a long way to achieving reason. Jim62sch 01:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that anyone here has forgotten that this is an encyclopedia. Nor do I think that anyone here is acting in bad faith, or doing other than what he thinks is best for human. Both parties seem to feel that their version is an effective and unbiased compromise to help resolve this issue, and that the other party's version is a deeply flawed and POVed work of propaganda; this is not the case for either party, however, as both sides have already sacrificed their ideal versions of the article and now feel that they're proposing the ideal middle-ground between the two extremes in this dispute. The difficulty is that which "middle-ground" is "middler" is impossible to tell, and also that sacrificing factual accuracy and NPOV for the sake of a "compromise" is surely, both sides can agree, a very bad potential end-result. So there is also a dispute over which version is or isn't NPOV, with both sides flavored and influenced to a large extent by their personal prejudices, including their feelings regarding spirituality. But how we personally happen to feel about spirituality, whether we believe that we have souls or not (I'm looking at you, Sam), is rather beside the point, isn't it? Wikipedia is not a reactionary, POV-proving work of god-given truth—it is, as has been pointed out, an encyclopedia. As such, this discussion should not be concerning it self so excessively with whether there's an evil (insert "secular", "religious", etc. at your discression) conspiracy to poison people's minds, but rather with how best to organize the layout of the human article for the benefit of our readers' comprehension of the topic.
The source of this discussion is a simple disagreement over what topics are directly relevant to the introduction of the "human" article. Both sides agree that spirituality and religion play a significant role in understanding humanity, so both agree that the article should cover that topic. But the disagreement is chiefly over the extent to which spirituality and religion needs to be covered in the introduction to this article, which should ideally be only two or three concise paragraphs long, and which thus obviously cannot cover every single topic related to humankind in depth. That's what this article's sections are for, and indeed we have multiple sections devoted specifically to dealing with exactly these issues: the human soul, God, and all sorts of metaphysical concerns. And beyond those sections, we have whole articles to go further into those topics in intimate detail. So the question is: do we really need an entire paragraph in the introduction to a general article on humankind dealing exclusively with spirituality? How useful, informative, and relevant is this, relative to all other information in the world about humankind? We don't have paragraphs (or even sentences, in many versions of the intro that have been proposed!) devoted to the arts, music, and literature, nor to society, history, or war, nor to the numerous cultures and nations of the world. There's simply not room to do everything in the intro; on this, surely, we can agree. In my view, we should spend about a sentence on religion and spirituality, about a sentence on art, music, dance, theatre, literature, etc., etc. These topics, while enormously relevant to the article, do not need to be expounded on in brutal detail before we've even explained that humans have two arms and two legs, that they are social creatures, that they are profoundly gifted at processing abstractions and comprehending symbols (like language)! All of this is relevant, but some of these topics are more immediately relevant than others, and there's just no avoiding that.
I know that people for whom spirituality plays a central, overwhelmingly essential significance in their lives (and who thus, not altogether unreasonably, assume that the same must be true for most everyone else), the only path that may seem to make sense is to have the introduction to the "human" article discuss the wealth of religious beliefs that people profess belief in. It's completely understandable that this matter is a source of such controversy, for some especially sensitive people may take it as a slap in the face, or even as an attack on their faith, to not begin this article with a discourse on the human soul or spirit—but this is simply not the case. What topics the introduction needs to concern itself most with is a matter of practicality and usefulness to our readers, not a matter of "which is better, science or religion?!", as Sam Spade very strangely seems to think it is (don't we have other articles for dealing with that topic?). Readers who know nothing about humankind need first to understand the very nature of human biology ("humans are mammals", etc.), society ("humans are very social", etc.), and thought ("humans have advanced brains, capable of comprehending complex patterns, analogies, and symbols", etc.), before any interested (but as-yet-uninformed) reader could possibly make heads or tails of a topic as complex, contentious, and abstract as religion and spirituality. As has been proposed above, we're not explaining the scientific facts before the religious doctrines or beliefs in some absurd attempt to denigrate religion to obscurity, but as a simple and clear matter of organizing the article in a way that makes logical sense and provides the maximum potential benefit to any reader who honestly doesn't know much of anything about humans (which is how all articles on general—as opposed to specialized—topics need to be written).
This is not a culture war between closed-minded godless secularists and irrational dogmatic spiritualists, it's not a battle between two directly-conflicting POVs ("humans have souls!" "no they don't!" "yes they do!" irrelevant...), and it's not an exercise in educating people about what the definition of the word "encyclopedia" is—it's a normal, everyday, relatively trivial dispute over how this article should be layed-out and organized. The relevant and noteworthy information will all be provided; the question is how to provide it so as to benefit our readers (remember, encyclopedias are written for their readers, not their editors and writers) the most. -Silence 01:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Well spoken, Silence. Thank you for taking the time and explain this. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Do we really need an entire paragraph in the introduction to a general article on humankind dealing exclusively with spirituality? How useful, informative, and relevant is this, relative to all other information in the world about humankind?

That’s a good question. We could on the one hand consider the average human in the world today, 84% of whom are active religious practitioners. On the other hand we could consider humankind all the way back to his earliest roots, where we know next to nothing about his life outside his deeply held religious beliefs, inspiring him to art and burial. Indeed it is only in the last 50 years or so that secular conceptions of man have caught on with any widespread acceptance; their minority position even today in the 21st century is particularly telling. What is the most important thing in most people’s lives, or on the news? It has to do with religion, more often than not. Ignoring that does a service to no one, no matter how intense their disbelief.

What topics the introduction needs to concern itself most with is a matter of practicality and usefulness to our readers, not a matter of "which is better, science or religion?!", as Sam Spade very strangely seems to think it is (don't we have other articles for dealing with that topic?).

Of course this is not a debate about what is better to believe, I see I need to ask you not to speak for me. The only subject which ought to be discussed here is what is most suitable for our encyclopedia article. Privately held opinions can be discussed on our talk pages, or off-wiki. The policy is clear in that regard.

As has been proposed above, we're not explaining the scientific facts before the religious doctrines or beliefs in some absurd attempt to denigrate religion to obscurity, but as a simple and clear matter of organizing the article in a way that makes logical sense and provides the maximum potential benefit to any reader who honestly doesn't know much of anything about humans (which is how all articles on general—as opposed to specialized—topics need to be written).

False dichotomies will not help a debate this intractable, nor will the misuse of the word "facts", or any other rhetorical tricks. The only absurd position I am seeing here is that which assumes a SPOV bias is logical, and that the exclusion of the majority POV in the intro would benefit the reader, rather than offending his sensibilities.
NPOV is NPOV. It is "absolute and non-negotiable". I think you need to re-read "views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all.", or perhaps given it a thorough reading for the 1st time.
In sum, teach the controversy, rather than telling mankind "your a dirty ape; get used to it."
Sam Spade 06:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
“…the average human in the world today, 84% of whom are active religious practitioners”. Interestingly, this means that 16% (or 1.04 Billion) are not active religious practitioners. This would seem to support the claim that neither religion, nor spirituality, is inherent to humans. Thus, you see, there are two ways to present the data, and an inference that you had not intended, but one that logically follows, can be drawn with ease.
”.. where we know next to nothing about his life outside his deeply held religious beliefs, inspiring him to art and burial” The reality is that both art and burial rites postdate the evolution of ‘’homo sapiens sapiens’’ (which does not, by the way, mean “very wise man”). Additionally, there is nothing that indicates that burial rites are a sign of either an established or a burgeoning religion, other than our own present day bias. Rather, it is likely that early burial rights were more a sign of respected for a recently departed loved one. The inclusion of art here is especially troubling, as the earliest art seems to represent a somewhat stylized yet quite primitive representation of the rigours of daily life – tales of the hunt, hopes for more children, shapes that were likely decorative rather than steeped in meaning.
You rail at “False dichotomies”, stating that they “will not help”, and then naturally introduce one of your own by noting that the problem, “here is that which assumes a SPOV bias is logical, and that the exclusion of the majority POV in the intro would benefit the reader.” The irony aside, you have introduced the straw man fallacy, in the guise of the ‘’vox populi’’ – ‘’at least as you yourself see it’’. That many religious people have no problem with the scientific explanation of man seems to have eluded you.
This argument is clearly specious as it is misrepresented (yet another fallacy): “NPOV is NPOV”…” views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all”. Your definition of tiny majority rests on your absolute assurance that only the non-religious see things in what you call an “SPOV” view. The patent ridiculousness of this definition would lie, for example, with the Catholic Church, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, etc., who have accepted evolution as a fact, and who therefore see no conflict with the definition of humans in biological terms. Besides, even were that not the case, “tiny minority” does not refer to 16%, especially when dealing with the entire mass of humanity, but rather to much lower percentages. Your admonition to Silence and Jossi that they “need to re-read "NPOV…", or perhaps given it a thorough reading for the 1st time” rings hollow. I would suggest that rather than cherry pick through the NPOV policy and accuse two good editors of POV, you might yourself benefit from reading “The neutral point of view” and “Bias” subsections of the policy.
Lastly, this statement sums up your inability to participate in this article in any semblance of an NPOV manner, “In sum, teach the controversy, rather than telling mankind "your a dirty ape; get used to it."” Rather sad, really. Jim62sch 22:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

User:KnowledgeSeeker's claim that only biological classifications exist

Since this heading refers to me by name, I believe I am justified in noting that my comment was "...the only method for classifying species is biological" (emphasis added) — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:00, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

There are many ways to classify things. The secularists are insisting on beginning this article with biology. The very least we can do is to inform the reader that the classification we are starting with is a biological one. It is not a redundancy. I am reverting. — goethean ॐ 19:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

And I'm reverting back. Homo sapiens means NOTHING outside of biology. and that is the only meaningful way of clasifying humans as it is the only absolute trait all share. Jim62sch 22:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Wrong. There are many ways of classifying things. we could classify things by location or origin. By that classification, we are all earthlings. we could classify things by size. we could classify things by what they are for. But in the sentence in question, we are classifying things according to biology. Under that classification scheme, we are primates. — goethean ॐ 22:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
We can also classify by height, but that would be descriptive not classification per se. This is a red herring. See Talk:Human/Archive 19#NPOV dispute? under 11.1 Moving on to the problem parts, 11.1.1 Tweaked Version. KillerChihuahua?!? 23:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Human beings are not frogs.
You are dodging the point, and ignoring most of my post. There are an infinite number of possible ways to classify things. The way the article does it is a biological classification. I will revert again after 24 hours. — goethean ॐ 23:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Hm. Oddly, you seem to be dodging their point at least as much as they are dodging yours. Noone has argued that human beings are frogs; responding to reasoned and specific criticisms by saying "human beings are not frogs" is at best extremist overgeneralization (by suggesting that because humans aren't frogs, they have absolutely nothing in common with frogs), and at worst straw man rhetoric. Even if there are "many ways to classify things", since you clearly have no interest in adding "are biologically classified as" to all other articles on organisms, the burden is on you to explain exactly why humans necessitate this strange disclaimer and no other article on Wikipedia, out of thousands of articles related to the field of biology, do. Certainly humans are different from frogs; but both are organisms, which is why both have the taxonomical box in the upper-left hand corner of the article. Surely you do not dispute that humans are alive? So, if humans are alive, then they are studied in the field of biology, which is literally the "study of life". There is nothing inexplicable about this, is there? Why would any reader be any more confused by biological facts beginning an article on a living thing than they would be for historical facts beginning an article on a historical event? I'm not trying to suggest that humans are exactly the same as every other living thing—no two living things are exactly alike. But they're not so different that it isn't even possible to study them in the same scientific field as other organisms! So there's no reason to believe that not stating the name of the relevant field, "biology", at the very beginning of the article, would cause our readers any distress or confusion.
C:I can see two potential reasons to add an insertion like "are biologically classified as". First would be if there was concern that people would mistake the information we were given as belonging to some other field, or some other system of classification. However, actually looking at the information we provide in the first sentences makes it clear that it would be just about impossible for anyone to mistake any of the following as belonging to a classification by "location", "origin", "size", "purpose", "height", or any other of the "infinite number of possible ways to classify things" you allude to: species, Homo sapiens, biped, primate, superfamily, Hominidae, Hominoidea, and even ape are all terms which are specifically and exclusively biological! You can't classify humans by location or height and end up with anything remotely resembling "a bipedal primate of the superfamily Hominoidea", obviously. So there's no risk of someone being confused as to what field or classification is being discussed at the beginning of the article, and anyone who is confused is better-served by simply clicking the specific links provided, like species, than by some arbitrary insertion of "are biologically classified as". The other of the two possible reasons I can see for such an insertion is to address concerns that someone reading this section without the mentioning of "biologically" would believe that biology is the only field of human knowledge, which also seems like a rather absurd and strange fear in this case. Why would someone think that just because biological facts are mentioned at the start of the article, biology is the only thing that exists? Why would anyone think that because humans are members of the species Homo sapiens or walk upright on two legs, spirituality or archaeology or shoelaces or anything else for that matter doesn't exist? Why does the inclusion of simple, relevant, uncontroversial scientific data in an article indicate a "secularist" (in goethean's words) agenda? Please do explain what misunderstandings or misinformation or mistakes would arise from not including "are biologically classified as" at the start of the article. -Silence 02:33, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

In general, I think it's a bad idea to refer to editors by name in discussion headings, as it can tend to promote conflict, not calm it. Arguments should not be carried out through section headers. My edit summary was "remove redundancy; the only method for classifying species is biological"; I'm not certain how that can be interpreted to imply that only biological classification exists. The species is a unit of biological classification, which is why it seems redundant to label it a biological classification. Certainly other classification systems are possible, although none that I know of have been developed so systematically and completely as Linnaeus's system of binomial nomenclature, (though several biologists are working on a new classification system called PhyloCode).

Agreed. The addition of the term "biologically" does nothing to benefit the article, it is merely an attempt to appease one or two malcontents with clear and radiccal POV's. Jim62sch 22:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Bless User:Silence's effort

I really appreciate the effort User:Silence has taken, because it helps to clarify his/her position. Because he has so effectively presented his understanding, let me say I agree in large part with it. Let me clarify, however, a few points that she seems to have misunderstood.

Both sides agree that spirituality and religion play a significant role in understanding humanity, so both agree that the article should cover that topic.

But both sides do not agree that spirituality and religion play a significant role in defining humanity. And that is where NPOV should come to the rescue if we let it. Please understand that one of our greatest grievances is the continual push to frame spirituality as as aspect of religion, which is in turn an aspect of humanity. Does this make any sense?

do we really need an entire paragraph in the introduction to a general article on humankind dealing exclusively with spirituality?

No we don't. All we have to say is, "For many, humans are spirit." And need to qualify in the intro that biologically speaking, humans are great apes. And when later in the article we expand on the widely-held POV that humans are essentially spirit, we must do it right. Rather than saying "Humans also are spiritual" we must restate the thesis of the intro by saying, "According to widely held perspectives, concepts of spirit are fundamental to the identity of humans."

Readers who know nothing about humankind need first to understand the very nature of human biology..., society ..., and thought...

This is perhaps most troubling of all. Readers who know nothing about humankind need first to understand the very nature of humanity. Period. You can't qualify that, and I can't qualify that. Only NPOV can come to the rescue. It appears that you have not accepted the fact (yes, I am using that word) that we are disagreeing not about what to say about humans, but what is the essential human. Yes, I know that goes against a key point that you were expressing, and I don't wish to contradict that point. I agree that it is the article we are discussing, and that we don't need to argue about what a human is. But we need to give due prominence to significant points of view on what a human is.

Let me say again what I think the article should say:

Humans are intelligent living beings that are, biologically speaking, the species.... Because humans have apparently anomalous aptitudes, habits, and accomplishments--such as fire building, clothing, reading, writing, industry, and technology--the pre-eminence, or even transcendence, of humans in and over the known universe has historically been widely presumed. In addition to concepts of biology, and pre-eminence, many current and historical perspectives on humanity have focused on concepts of a non-physical presence in humans, expressed as spirit or soul.

Whew! That is original if nothing else. Please say something nice about it.  :-) Tom Haws 21:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict)

Well, it was long.  :) No, written from the standpoint you wrote it, it's good. However, the compromise intro copvers all of those issues. However, the spiritual, religious (these are two different things and many spiritual people are non-religious, while many religious people are effectively non-spiritual), philosophical and artistic traits are not shared by all humans, while the biological traits are. It really is that simple.
Wait. You still aren't understanding what we are saying. Spirit is a trait of every human. You have a spirit, I have a body. You are a spirit, I am an ape. You are still confusing the beliefs of the human authors with the traits of the humans subjects. (I will repeat this below if necessary, because it is extremely important.) Tom Haws 21:58, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but spirituality is not inherent in humans. The argument of the existence of a "soul" essentially developed from the realization that we could think, that our thinking takes place within our heads (away from the body so-to-speak), and that this must in some way give us two aspects -- body and soul. From a scientific standpoint, only the body ad the electrical impulses and chemical reactions in the brain can be proven. The existence of a soul cannot be, it is merely belief. Jim62sch 22:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
In terms of NPOV, it's probably the best effort yet. Other versions consistently assert that religion originated in the mind of human beings, which is tantamount to claiming that religions are false. Your version sets forth a reason for the existence of religion and spirituality that both naturalists and supernaturalists can live with. — goethean ॐ 22:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Ah, so using your rather interesting logic, philosophy, science, art, music, language, etc. are all false because they originated in the human mind, yes? Jim62sch 22:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Not unless the particular work of art in question claims to have a transcendent origin. If a novel claimed to have been written by god, then my saying that I wrote it would contradict that novel's claim. Similarly, religions claim to have a transcendent origin. Thus, our claim that religion originated in the human mind is tantamount to the claim that those religions are false. — goethean ॐ 22:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it is not. Something's origin has nothing to do, necessarily, with its truth-value. A religion inspired by God is just as likely to be untrue as one invented by humans, unless one makes various additional assumptions like "God cannot lie" or, more commonly, cyclic affirmations like "my religion is true because it is true". But all of that's beside the point, I don't mean to ramble. This is an article about the human species, not about religion. Hence the taxonomical box at the top of the article. -Silence 00:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Please read Species: (my highlight) In biology, a species is the basic unit of biodiversity. In scientific classification, a species is assigned a two-part name in Latin. . ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Uh, and? Jim62sch 22:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
(responding to Tom)
Thank you for the very thoughtful response! I too am gaining a better understanding of the other side's perspective thanks to clear explanations like this. Thank you for your praise as well; I'm glad that I've finally managed to make a response that doesn't piss off everyone who disagrees with it (my above rants tended to get rather one-sided compliments). So, to respond:
"But both sides do not agree that spirituality and religion play a significant role in defining humanity." - Apparently. I use the dictionary definitions: "A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.", or, to be even more explicit (as Wiktionary's entry on "human being" makes clear), "A large, mostly hairless primate of the species Homo sapiens; a person.", whereas "primate" is defined as "Any mammal of the order Primates, including the lemurs, monkeys, apes and humans." (dictionary.com, like just about all dictionaries and encyclopedias, agrees). If this dictionary definition is incorrect, then, the dictionary being the basic tool and guide to using the English language such that Wikipedia can provide meaningful and understandable information to its users, the first step you and those who agree with you should be taking is surely to change (or expand on) the definitions provided by dictionaries (including Wiktionary). Can we agree on this? Wikipedia should not be used as a tool to try to change the definitions of words (as that would violate WP:NOR), ergo the personal definitions that various individual editors prefer to use can never override cited, well-established dictionary definitions in providing basic descriptions for these topics. There are words in the dictionary that I, too, would like to redefine (or add new definitions to), but since I can't, I must live with the current, broadly-accepted definitions of the word.
You are right. We are lazy at times, and there is core truth to what you say. Here is what I have previously written: According to the three largest religions, that together have adherents totalling 70% of the world, humans are beings of soul. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church a human is a being of body and soul in the image of God. According to Islam, every human "is composed of three parts—spirit, carnal soul, and body" [2] and humans are the "vice-regents of God" [3]. According to Hindu Advaita thought, "no such thing as a human exists. The human phenomenon (supposed to consist of the mind, vital energy, and physical body) is an illusion. Only God exists." And according to Hindu Dvaita thought, "humans, like all creatures, are souls of God (or divinity) enclosed within a complex of bodies ranging from very gross (the physical body) to very subtle (the ego). Humans, however, are unique among living things in that they have the potential to realize their divinity." Tom Haws 22:10, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
"Please understand that one of our greatest grievances is the continual push to frame spirituality as as aspect of religion, which is in turn an aspect of humanity." - I don't fully understand. If anything, religion is an aspect of spirituality, not the other way around. Religions tend to be spiritual, but many (modern) spiritual people are offended by people labeling them as "religious" (especially spiritualists who define "religion" as consisting only of "organized religion"). This seems pretty straightforward to me, even if the definition of "religion" and "spirituality" isn't exactly straightforward or universally-accepted. Where is this "continual push" coming from?
"Does this make any sense?" - Not yet, but I have faith that you can explain it to me. What, exactly, is the nature of this grievance? Also, keep in mind that Wikipedia should not be used to push agendas, even justified and true ones; "grievances" should probably be left aside in matters of actual article content, lest Wikipedia turn into a vehicle for reactionary thought alone.
"No we don't. All we have to say is, 'For many, humans are spirit.'" - I'm glad that we agree that only a sentence or two is necessary in the intro dealing with spirituality, religion, etc. Now, however, we'll need to work out what the contents of that sentence should be, since clearly we disagree dramatically on this. Merely saying "For many, humans are spirit" will cause more confusion than enlightenment for our readers; they'll be left wondering how these "many" are, whether this is a scientific theory, a novel hypothesis, a common personal belief, a proven fact that many refuse to acknowledge, etc. Moreover, without actually defining what "spirit" is, most people will be left entirely in the dark. Moreover, without a verifiable and noteworthy citation, this sentence violates Wikipedia's guidelines against using weasel words and policies against original research (which is a general problem I have with every version of the intro thus far, hence my adding "find lots more citations" to the To-Do list). But at least the two of us agree on about how much the intro of the human article ought to address religion and spirituality, even if we haven't hammered out the details yet. I'm confident that we can sort out an appropriate compromise with further discussion.
Please remember that at Wikipedia, a proven fact that many refuse to acknowledge is not a fact. A fact here is something that is not disputed by otherwise resonable people. Not Wikipedia fact: I am an ape, and you are a spirit. Wikipedia fact: You say I am an ape, and I say you are a spirit. Have you read WP:NPOV very many times? I'll read it again if you will. Tom Haws 22:20, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Uh, yeah, right -- can you show me that in writing? Is there some place that Wiki says that if many people think the moon is made of cheese even though we know empirically that that ios not the case we have to present the cheese fiction as fact? Jim62sch 21:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
"And need to qualify in the intro that biologically speaking, humans are great apes." - I disagree. "Great apes" is itself a biological distinction. Starting this article with such a bizarre and pointed disclaimer without beginning the frog article, or any other article dealing with a biological topic whatsoever (including evolution and hundreds of other borderline articles), with "biologically speaking...", will mean only that the article will demonstrate a profound bias towards humans, based solely on the artile being written by humans. If Britannica can avoid such a bias despite its editors being just as human as Wikipedia editors, then we should be able to do just as well—if not even better. The only reason anyone objects to established, undisputed facts and theories in the field of biology being stated without wishy-washy disclaimers on this article, even though no other article in the entire mass of Wikipedia articles in existence deals with the field of biology so tentatively, is because some people, for purely emotional and connotational [I acknowledge this without apology. Connotation is important. Tom Haws] reasons, are disgruntled by the notion that they are "biological", that they exist in reality and conform to the same scientific fields as other real beings, that somehow the existence of chemical reactions in human bodies is demeaning. Being offended by the biological existence of oneself would be as silly as a supernova (even a supernova with a soul!) objecting to being described in terms of astrophysics because such unpoetic and neutral language makes it squeamish. There is nothing that demeans human nature or the indomitable spirit of man in the field of biology, anymore than the field of mathematics or geology is an insult to humanity, and WP:NOR forbids us flavoring the simple presentation of scientific facts with our personal sentiment or our spiritual convictions, no matter how deeply they run or how profoundly we believe them to be true. Yes, different noteworthy POVs belong on Wikipedia, but they do not belong on Wikipedia misrepresented as being something other than they are—Intelligent Design is not misrepresented on evolution as a scientifically valid, broadly-accepted theory, but is rather presented, in great detail in its own article, in the controversial context it actually exists in. Other spiritual beliefs must be presented in the same way—not as simple, clear, undisputed facts, or as "definitions" of a word (that doesn't seem to actually exist in any mainstream dictionary), but rather as common beliefs, which may or may not necessarily be true. Something being believed in, if it is believed in widely enough, is indeed noteworthy enough to be included in Wikipedia, but not to be presented as fact, or as an "alternative" to science, which is itself a deeply POVed and misleading way of organizing the informtaion. "Great ape" is by definition a scientific classification. A disclaimer like "Biologically speaking, humans are great apes" is as misleading and counterintuitive as starting the heart article with "Biologically speaking, the heart is a hollow, muscular organ in vertebrates that pumps blood through the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions, or a similar structure in annelids, mollusks, and arthropods.", and, even worse, followed by "For many, the heart is the seat of emotion or the soul." or "Spiritually speaking, the heart is.."
"Rather than saying 'Humans also are spiritual' we must restate the thesis of the intro by saying, 'According to widely held perspectives, concepts of spirit are fundamental to the identity of humans.'" - I agree. Though, again, I feel this could be worded much better. "According to widely held perspectives" is grammatically-lacking jargon. We should also be clearer about what the definition of "spirit" or "the soul" is, so our readers gain an actual understanding of it: explain, in the religion section, that it is the concept of an abstract vital principle or animating force within all humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion, and often conceived as an immaterial, possibly immortal, entity, transcending the material body. (A more succint definition may be merited in the article itself, depending on how the page ends up layed out.) Don't just assume that all people know what a "spirit" is.
"This is perhaps most troubling of all. Readers who know nothing about humankind need first to understand the very nature of humanity. Period." - I don't understand what you find "troubling" about anything I said. Notice I said the nature of humankind, not the essence (though perhaps even "nature" was a poor word choice). You may want to review the guideline page Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Fundamentally.2C_at_heart.2C_essentially. The matter of something's "essence" is an immediate and singular concern for philosophers and preachers, not for encyclopedias. To encyclopedias, "essence" is no more or less important than any other metaphysical topic. Wikipedia should not concern itself with human "essence" at the top of the "human" article—that's what the essence article is for!
"You can't qualify that, and I can't qualify that." - If nobody can qualify that, then obviously that's not the first thing that somebody needs to know to understand humanity. If nobody agrees on what the "essense" of mankind is (and very few people do), clearly we can't explain that, and the mere conviction that it's "important" is not good enough to actually benefit our readers. We should begin the article with the simplest, most general information—scientific information, which is infinitely less controversial, and infinitely more verifiable, than spiritual beliefs.
"It appears that you have not accepted the fact (yes, I am using that word) that we are disagreeing not about what to say about humans, but what is the essential human." - If that is the way you prefer to see the debate, that is your choice. I don't dispute that we disagree on what the "essential human" is (we disagree on lots of things, surely!), but the reason I didn't frame the debate in that way in my above discussion is because what we consider the "essential human" is irrelevant. Even if 100% of the editors of human believed that humans are essentially beings of spirit, it would be deeply inappropriate and POVed to begin the article with such a claim. The personal spiritual convictions of editors is not what should shape how spiritual or secular a random article is. I'll gladly debate spirituality and philosophy with you any day of the week; if you're interested, I'd love nothing more than an in-depth discussion on our Talk pages. But our articles should not be shaped by our POVs; that's the entire reason WP:NPOV and WP:NOR exist, since there's no way of being consistent in what spiritual views each article's editors happen to have.
"But we need to give due prominence to significant points of view on what a human is." - The question of "what a human is" is much less controversial than you seem to think it is. The essence or "soul" of humans may be a matter of great controversy and dispute, but this article is about humans themselves, not about speculation regarding humans' "essence" or "spirit". In reality, defining the word human is actually quite easy and straightforward, unless all my dictionaries are baldly lying to me.
"Let me say again what I think the article should say:" - My problems with your version of the intro include:
  • "Humans are intelligent living beings" - What does "intelligent" mean? Dogs and dolphins are intelligent, by some definitions of the word. Intelligence is a scale, with amoebas and hydras and so on at the bottom and humans at the top, not an "either/or" question as such. Also, "living beings" is just a colloquial expression for the more clear and explicit word "organism", so that word is preferable.
  • "that are, biologically speaking, the species" - Species is a biological world by nature, and humans, being living beings, are naturally studied in the field of biology, not in the field of geometry or thermodynamics. This insertion is unacceptably stilted and misleading, and deeply POVed considering that no other organism begins with a similar disclaimer.
  • "Because humans have apparently anomalous aptitudes, habits, and accomplishments" - What do you mean by "anomalous"? What does "anomalous" mean here—anomalous relative to what? And what does "apparently" mean? Who is it apparent to? It's not apparent to me, apparently.
  • "such as fire building, clothing, reading, writing, industry, and technology" - Not a very efficient listing of human achievements. "Fire building" and "clothing" can both be considered basic manifestations of "technology", "reading" and "writing" are just two sides of the same coin (without one, what good would the other do?), and "industry" is surely a side-effect of other, more significant human behaviors (like trade), not a specific, detached innovation in itself like "clothing".
  • "the pre-eminence, or even transcendence, of humans in and over the known universe has historically been widely presumed" - This clause is meaningless jargon. Who has "widely presumed" this? Why? When? Please review WP:Weasel. Personally, I don't see anything "pre-eminent" about humans, and this seems like a blatant example of humans' natural pro-human POV, assuming that they must, being themselves, be the best. Such claims, therefore, must be cited and placed in their proper context (which is not the introduction to an article on human! this is not an article about historical beliefs about the technological or spiritual pre-eminence of humans, but about "humans" themselves!), not baldly stated as simple, plain facts, when they are in fact pointed, presumptuous claims. Even worse is the "or even transcendence" insertion, which almost seems like an attempt at religious indoctrination because of the lack of context provided for this view. If fire-building, language, and clothing somehow make us "transcendent" over the entire universe (which almost sounds laughable in the way you worded it), cosmic transcendence must be a lot easier (and less spiritual, metaphysical and divine) than most people think.
  • "In addition to concepts of biology, and pre-eminence, many current and historical perspectives on humanity have focused on concepts of a non-physical presence in humans, expressed as spirit or soul." - Terribly-written and thematically inconsistent. What do biology, anthropocentrism, and belief in a soul have to do with each other?!? Only the latter two could possibly, conceivably be considered in any way linked, or even in the same topic or field of knowledge. I'm developing a headache.
"Whew! That is original if nothing else. Please say something nice about it.  :-) " - ......... It could be worse? :( Sorry, I tried for like ten minutes to come up with something positive about this paragraph. I'm too honest for my own good. Please don't be offended, I think we're making progress! -Silence 00:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Could you please italize Tom's text that you are quoting, otherwise I it is very difficult to follow yur response above. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Sure, I'll do that now. Sorry for the confusion. -Silence 01:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I like your new introduction, Silence, and I think it nicely displays the progression from basic to higher functions that I mentioned above. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:20, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it could use a lot of improvement myself, in terms of clarity, comprehensiveness, and organization, but I also think it's a dramatic improvement over the pre-existing versions of the page (and the version it's subsequently been rereplaced with), so I'd like at least parts of it to be used, or to use a version like this as a starting point from which to craft the final version of the intro. Most of the people who objected to my intro, unfortunately, seem to have been blinded by the fact that it doesn't mention "are biologically classified as", the completely unnecessary clause they stubbornly demand, at the start of the intro, and entirely ignored all the other changes I made, even uncontroversial and clear improvements like word-choice and consistency fixes. These kneejerk reactions to trivial word-choice issues are overriding any possibility of a compromise... -Silence 11:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

No, words like "kneejerk", "trivial", "blinded" and "stubborn" are the problem here. When you begin to judge and appraise another editors character and motivation, you have lost sight of what were here to do, and the environment we are required to do it in.

The answer to this problem is clearly compromise and inclusion. The various proposed intro's need to be merged together. Perhaps we can go thru the long and tedious discussion and votes which led us to the FA intro. Restoring this article to the FA status I once helped it achieve is definitely my primary goal here. Sam Spade 12:06, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

"When you begin to judge and appraise another editors character and omtivation, you have lost sight of what were here to do"?! Who are you?! Are you the same editor who three days ago said, "This page has been decimated by the SPOV and Pathological skeptic community", who constantly attacks the character and motivations of everyone involved in the human article who disagrees with him, who consistently and regularly misrepresents the arguments of all other editors with absurd strawmen, going so far as to translate the universally-accepted scientific term "primate" as "dirty ape"?! (I thought this was the Human article, not the Planet of the Apes article?) You ask us to "Teach the Controversy", but you have yet to prove that there is any genuine controversy, except in your own mind and in this talk page! (And many things are "controversial" on Wikipedia that aren't noteworthy enough to merit mentioning in any article, including controversies as massive as the "userbox" affair.) I apologize if I offended you with my strong language, but how many textbooks and academic resources are there in the world that claim that humans aren't primates, that they aren't animals, that they aren't organisms?! Heck, even the full dictionary definition of "human" includes the word "primate" (and many definitions of "primate" mention humans as an example), so to claim that labeling humans as primates is "controversial" seems to be rather distanced from reality. You haven't objected to human being in Category:Apes or Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates, after all, have you?
I do not retract my characterization of the repeated deletion and reversion of other editors' attempts at improving the intro as "kneejerk"—it's the epitome of kneejerk, being an emotional and automatic response to a specific trigger phrase related to an issue you are personally involved with on a profound and spiritual level (related to your clear bias against what you call the "Scientific Point of View"), rather than a reasoned, carefully-thought-out, circumspect decision. I do not dispute that you, goethean, and everyone else involved in this is acting in good faith, nor that you have done a lot of good work for this article, nor that you are not trying to insert your own POV into the article—but, one must face facts, that's exactly what's happening here. It is not POVed to state "humans are primates"; it's (part of) the definition of "human". It is POVed to try to reorganize the paragraph to implicitly attack such statements of fact, without providing verifiable and noteworthy sources—and even if such sources were supplied, it demonstrates a bias to try to wage this battle in the opening paragraph of human, rather than on one of the many sections or pages where it could actually belong (for example, a noteworthy citation related to some people's emotional reactions to the description of humans as "animals" or "primates" or whatnot would be much more appropriate and relevant on the animal and primate articles).
So, sorry, but we've tried your way before. "Merging all the opinions together" indiscriminately (in other words, not even trying to mute the influence of editors' bias over the article, but just going with whatever spiritual views editors are most comfortable expressing in an article that's not specifically about a spiritual topic!), and thus basically abandoning any pretense of trying to provide our readers with reliable, carefully-selected and verifiable information rather than a hodgepodge of randomly-selected biases, is exactly the version you've been endorsing for months, since it gives you a chance to interject the POV you believe strongly in (that humans are fundamentally beings of spirit) into the introduction of a major article, spreading misinformation in a bizarre attempt to undermine scientific facts and dictionary definitions with vague hearsay ("people think..." "people say...") and subtle religious indoctrination. To go with an intro like this is not a compromise: even though it's not the ideal version you'd like (since you would apparently be happiest with an intro that supports your specific ideology, rather than merely mentioning it, which you've settled for in lieu of that), it's hardly a "compromise", since a majority of editors involved object strongly to it, and since a version almost identical to it is, in fact, exactly what started this whole controversy! (When people first started objecting to the intro, it already mentioned the "biological perspective" and "spiritual perspective" side-by-side; reverting to a version like that is backtracking and going in circles, not making progress or proposing a new solution.)
Since you want this article to be an FA again, eventually you will have to face up to the fact that that's never going to happen as long as you continue to use the article as a vehicle for your beliefs, even if those beliefs were once supported by a long-defunct "consensus" over an earlier version of this article. "NPOV" refers to noteworthy, cited, relevant POVs, not to the POVs of the editors of the article. If half the users working on sun believed that the sun revolved around the earth, would that mean that we would need to present the two views on the matter (that the earth goes around the sun, and vice versa) equally prominently in the intro? Of course not! We'd present the view exactly as prominently as we portray it now (as a variant, archaic belief with no scientific support or justification), no matter how many of our editors believed in it. Wikipedia is shaped by reality (through the world of sources around us) and the actual body of knowledge that exists, not by the random mix of biases that its editors bring to the field. The only way this article will ever be FAd again, ironically, is when more editors realize that this article wasn't good enough to be an FA the first time it was FAd. That's why attempts at reverts, reverts, reverts, why all these arbitrary conservative attempts to stave off any improvements and new solutions, have consistently failed to restore this article to "its former glory"—it wasn't any better in the past. A more scrutinous and careful eye is merely being placed on it now, and it will have to change in order to satisfy Wikipedia's current standards, not stay stuck in the mud or get bloated with variant theories and shabby "compromises" shaped by the arbitrary biases of editors (including myself :)). This controversy reflects solely a controversy that exists on this Talk page—it does not reflect a genuine, noteworthy scientific or cultural disagreement over the definition of "human". As a result, to try to solve this disagreement by "Teaching the Controversy" (when no such controversy exists) is both irrelevant (this article is about humans, not about "the human controversy" or "varying human self-definitions") and Original Research. Incidentally, you may want to read the evolution article sometime in the future; you may be surprised to learn that current Wikipedia consensus is to not "teach the controversy" (when no substantiated controversy exists among scientists and experts in the field) on scientific articles like evolution—instead, distinct articles deal with this fabricated "controversy", which is relevant to sociology, politics, religion, etc., not to science. No significant academic resource (or indeed, any source at all that's yet been provided) disputes the clear and simple fact, true-by-definition as it is, that humans are Homo sapiens, primates, mammals, animals, organisms, etc. As such, there is no reason to add silly disclaimers and "opposing views" to the introduction of a largely-unrelated article (this is "human" we're talking about, not one of the "religion/science controversy" topics) just because it makes a few editors squeamish. The best compromise is to simply present the basic information on humans, not to try to invent a controversy where none really exists. The day dictionaries and biology textbooks and academic resources in general (or at least news organizations) start wising up to this "controversy" is the day it will be noteworthy and real enough to merit inclusion somewhere (most likely in the "terminology" section of this article, not the introductory paragraphs). Until then, we should not try to create such a controversy using Wikipedia as a tool, no matter how strongly some of the editors believe that humans aren't, as Sam Spade puts it, "dirty apes". -Silence 12:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I do not dispute that you, goethean, and everyone else involved in this is acting in good faith, nor that you have done a lot of good work for this article, nor that you are not trying to insert your own POV into the article—but, one must face facts, that's exactly what's happening here.
So I'm subconsciously inserting bias into my writing. Your point is that you are not? That's...interesting. — goethean ॐ 15:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, like the good citizens of Dayton, Tennessee circa 1925, you fear science. If science is to be seen as a POV then we as a species would best serve the planet by joining the dinosaurs and dodo birds in extinction. Jim62sch 21:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Curse talk page ranting

I'm sorry some people are so worked up, but I think its time we got back to work. I for one am not here for drama. Step one appears to be NPOVing the intro. Shall we start listing our options? Sam Spade 15:17, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The new modus operandi appears to be to ignore Wikipedia policy and to push their POV through by force. That is not how Wikipedia works. — goethean ॐ 15:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Now we have progressed from personal attacks to bullshit paternalism in the edit summaries. Still sticking with the patently false claims, however. — goethean ॐ 19:33, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


Now that was one of the funniest comedy routines I've ever seen. Well done. Jim62sch 23:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Fresh start

Lets start over fresh. What ideas do we have about proposed intro's? I'll start off w a couple below. Please don't edit other peoples proposals w/o their consent. You can rename the "spov intro" and "inclusionist intro" headers if you support them however, I just gave them the first name that came to mind. Sam Spade 12:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed lead sections

The paragraphs are here arranged side-by-side to make comparing them easier. To assist further in comparison, they are also divided into three parts based on their general topic:

  1. the first part (encompassing the first paragraph of Version 1, the first paragraph of Version 2, and the first two paragraphs of Version 3) seeks to give a basic definition of human and humanity's most noteworthy/unusual biological characteristics;
  2. the second part (encompassing the third paragraph of Version 1, the second paragraph of Version 2, and the fourth paragraph of Version 3) seeks to explain human society, culture and the arts (though Version 1 also touches on science, technology, self-awareness, and personality, which is covered third part for the other two versions);
  3. and the third part (encompassing the second paragraph of Version 1, the third paragraph of Version 2, and the third paragraph of Version 3), which is the part with the most dramatic differences between each version, either discusses spirituality and religion (Version 1), discusses the general human desire to understand and influence the world with religion, science, philosophy, etc., as well as human self-awareness and personality (Version 2), or touches on a variety of loosely-connected and somewhat disorganized topics, including the mind, soul, arts, feelings, self-definitions, language, curiosity, psychology, philosophy, and religion (Version 3). -Silence 17:06, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Part Version 1 Version 2 Version 3 (from original FA)
Intro Humans are, from a biological perspective, bipedal primates classified as the species Homo sapiens (Latin for "wise man" or "thinking man") under the great apes family, Hominidae. Humans have an erect body carriage that frees their upper limbs for manipulating objects, and a highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, emotion, and introspection. Bipedal locomotion appears to have evolved before the development of a large brain. The origins of bipedal locomotion and of its role in the evolution of the human brain are topics of ongoing research. Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin for "wise man" or "thinking man") under the family Hominidae (the great apes).[1] Humans have a highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, and introspection. This, combined with an erect body carriage that frees their upper limbs for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make greater use of tools than any other species of animal. Human beings define themselves in biological, social, and spiritual terms. Biologically, humans are classified as the species Homo sapiens (Latin for "wise man"): a bipedal primate of the superfamily Hominoidea, together with the other apes—chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons.

Humans have an erect body carriage that frees their upper limbs for manipulating objects and a highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, speech, language, and introspection. Bipedal locomotion appears to have evolved before the development of a large brain. The origins of bipedal locomotion and of its role in the evolution of the human brain are topics of ongoing research.
Society / Culture Humans are distinguished from other animals in many ways. They create uniquely complex and varied social structures composed of co-operating and competing groups which range in scale from nations to individual families. Social interaction between humans has established a variety of social norms, values, stories, laws and ethics which form the basis of human society. Humans are the only living beings that build fires or clothe themselves. Their desire to understand and manipulate the world around them has led to the development of science and technology. This natural curiosity also contributes to the self-awareness of humans and the development of unusually distinct personalities. Humans also have a unique appreciation for beauty and aesthetics which, combined with a desire for self-expression, has led to cultural innovations such as art, literature and music. Like all primates, humans are by nature social. However, humans are particularly adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression and the exchange of ideas. Humans create complex social structures composed of co-operating and competing groups, ranging in scale from nations to individual families, and social interaction between humans has established a variety of social norms, rituals, traditions, values, laws, and ethics which form the basis of human society. Humans are the only species on earth that build fires, cook their food, clothe themselves, and use countless other technologies. Humans also have a unique appreciation for beauty and aesthetics which, combined with the human desire for self-expression, has led to cultural innovations such as art, literature and music. Like all primates, humans are inherently social. They create complex social structures composed of co-operating and competing groups. These range from nations and states down to families, and from the community to the self. Seeking to understand and manipulate the world around them has led to the development of technology and science. Artifacts, beliefs, myths, rituals, values, and social norms have all helped to form humanity's culture.
Mind / Spirit (?) Spiritual perspectives on humans state that they are spiritual beings whose destiny and purpose transcend the biological body. Those who hold this perspective see the biological explanation as either complimentary or secondary to the spiritual or as an illusion. Religious perspectives often emphasise a soul, qi or atman as the essence of being, and are often characterised by the belief in and worship of God, gods or spirits. The world religions include many different and often seemingly contradictory beliefs regarding the origin of humanity and the cosmos. Philosophy, which includes cosmology, attempts to rationally evaluate these perspectives through argumentation and dialogue. Humans are also noted for their desire to understand and influence the world around them, leading them to develop advanced and elaborate technologies, philosophies, and mythologies. Through science, humans have sought to explain and manipulate natural phenomena, and through spirituality and religion, they have explored mystical concepts such as the soul and God. This natural curiosity also factors into the self-awareness of humans, leading to frequent self-analysis and the development of unusually distinct personalities. The human mind has several distinct attributes. It is responsible for complex behaviour, especially language. Curiosity and observation have led to a variety of explanations for consciousness and the relation between mind and body. Psychology attempts to study behaviour from a scientific point of view. Religious perspectives emphasise a soul, qi or atman as the essence of being, and are often characterised by the belief in and worship of God, gods, spirits, or other people. Philosophy, especially philosophy of mind, attempts to fathom the depths of each of these perspectives. Art, music and literature are often used in expressing these concepts and feelings.However, these views of human aspect are exclusively under European context. Within different context of culture, "Being human" could be addressed in very different ways.

Endorsed by users:
goethean
David D., Hitchhiker89, Jim62sch, KillerChihuahua, Knowledge Seeker, Silence
Sam Spade

Both versions for vote are not NPOV

Sorry to throw a wrench in the works, but the only differences I see between v1 and v2 are quite obvious attempts to either highlight the difference between humans and animals in v1 or to dismiss these differences in v2. From my perspective both versions are subtle attempts to slant the article to support a specific POV. Wording has to be found that neither highlights nor dismisses these differences, or better, to explain that there are several widely held POVs when it comes to characterize humans. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I never put my name up there, but if I had it would prob. be on version 3, or some new version I'd write up, for similar reasons to your own, jossi. Sam Spade 18:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I would be happy to see what your prefered version is Sam. It will help me to understand the compromises you are currently making. David D. (Talk) 19:18, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Could you be more specific as to how you think version two dismisses the differences? There are two paragraphs in version two that seem to focus on the differences. David D. (Talk) 19:18, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
V1 explains what humans are from a biological perspective, while v2, misses to attribute that distinction. V1 speaks of "Humans are distinguished from other animals in many ways", v2 speaks of "Like all primates, humans are by nature social".. The POVs in both opening sentences, are er.. obvious? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Jossi, let's focus on your second example for clarity. Version two says:
"Like all primates, humans are by nature social. However, humans are particularly adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression and the exchange of ideas."
In the context of the second sentence how is the first sentence POV? Are primates not social? How about an alternative such as: "Like many animals, humans are by nature social."? Is it the comparison with primates that make it POV, or does the comparison with animals make it even worse?
The point of this pair of sentences is to comment that being social is not, per se, a human characteristic. It is other distinctions of social interaction that distinguish humans. The first version completely avoids this point. How would you convey this idea in a NPOV way, or do you consider that idea to be POV in itself? David D. (Talk) 20:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
In general, a great way to describe a thing is to first describe things similar to it (i.e, the class it's in) and then describe how it's different from those things. "Asthma is a disease of the human respiratory system in which the airways narrow...", "Star Trek: The Next Generation is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...", and so on. It seems to me to be a logical and well-established practice. The first remarks position humans in relation to other primates, animals, and life forms, allowing the reader to see how the suject fits in his universe. The introduction then moves on to discuss the remarkable way humans differ from all other life on Earth. — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Jossi's analysis of the two versions seems to be rather lacking (particularly in that he doesn't criticize "version 3", even though if anything it has the worst of both versions and absolutely no advantages over either!). He argues that both versions are equally POVed, just one in the direction of "humans and other animals are completely different" and the other in the direction of "humans and animals are completely alike". I feel that this is a deeply exaggerated and biased perspective on both paragraphs. Although I'll agree that all versions, even version 2, could use some definite improvement (I didn't recommend v2 because I think it's ideal, I recommended it because I think it's significantly better than all the options provided thus far, so it's at the least a good starting point from which we can improve, just like the rest of the article is a starting point to varying extents), I should point out that "V1 explains what humans are from a biological perspective", as Jossi calls it, reflects bias and a misunderstanding of the nature of the field of biology. I'll try to explain; forgive me if I'm unclear:
  • A number of ancient mathematical formulas have been attributed mystical significance by people such as the Pythagoreans, followers of Pythagoras, for thousands of years. Pythagoras himself was very much a spiritualist, attributing supernatural and divine significance to mathematical relationships. But that doesn't mean that we start articles on relevant mathematical topics with "From a mathematical perspective, X; from a spiritual perspective, Y" (or, even worse, starting with "From an algebraic perspective" or "From a trigonometric perspective", suggesting that certain fields of math are at odds with one another, similarly to how "biological perspective" is used instead of "scientific perspective" at the start of version 1). This is flawed for three reasons: first, because it assumes that mathematics is just a "perspective" (or "point of view"), not a field of research and knowledge; second, because it assumes that there is a single mathematical "perspective", whereas in reality mathematicians hold a full range of beliefs and world-views; and third, because it assumes that there is a single, unified "spiritual perspective", implying firstly that all spiritualists believe a single thing (when nothing could be further from the truth), and secondly that all people who are spiritual reject the field of mathematics (in other words, it introduces a false dichotomy, abusing Wikipedia's NPOV policy in an attempt to undermine mathematical facts and push an unsubstantiated and only marginally noteworthy POV into the spotlight). This is just as fundamentally flawed as laying out the intro of human with "From a biological perspective, X; from a spiritual perspective, Y"; neither biology nor spirituality are monolithic, unified ideologies! In fact, biology isn't an ideology at all, and spirituality is so vague an umbrella-concept as to encompass essentially every belief imaginable, and as to be almost entirely subjective in interpretation (not to mention being a very modern, New Age concept in a lot of ways, attempting to draw tenuous connections between radically different belief structures based on similarities that are often rather besides the point; yes, Vajrayana Buddhists and Fundamentalist Christians may both be "spiritual", but that says next to nothing about what they actually believe!). This is not to say that "spirituality" isn't a valid encyclopedic topic (indeed, I'm the person who changed the "Religion" section in the Human article to "Religion and spirituality", in acknowledgment of the fact that both are highly significant and they aren't real synonyms!), but it's neither a "perspective" nor at odds with the field of biology nor remotely unified enough to present in such a fashion without dramatically misleading our readers (especially without a single source to back up the repeated claims that spiritual people don't think humans are primates!!).
  • "Wording has to be found that neither highlights nor dismisses these differences," - Actually, there's one problem here. Not only have you mistakenly assumed that version 1 highlights the differences between humans and animals and version 2 ignores them altogether (which is incorrect for a collossal number of reasons), but you also assume that an article about a certain species of animal shouldn't in any way highlight the differences between that animal and other animals, but should merely describe every aspect of the animal in equal detail, even in the lead section, putting no more weight on, say, humans being bipedal rather than walking on all fours, being highly intelligent rather than largely instinctual, having opposable thumbs rather than non-opposable, etc., than we put on humans having two eyes rather than four, being carbon-based rather than silicon-based, giving birth to their young rather than reproducing asexually (or not at all!), etc. Although such a line of reasoning may be tempting from a hypothetical perspective, the reality of the matter is, such a way of writing the article is doing a deep disservice to our readers by overwhelming them with trivia and ignoring genuinely, clearly important details. For purely practical reasons, it is vitally important to focus more on what makes an article's subject matter unique and distinguished from similar subject matters than on what makes the article the same (though both should be addressed to varying extents, of course). This doesn't mean that we should ignore significant similarities between humans and animals—there are a huge number of very important things about humans that are not dissimilar from other animals, and those should be covered in this article (and in daughter articles) as well! But, for the same reason hippopotamus focuses more on what makes frogs different from other lifeforms (and from other amphibians in particular) and socialism focuses on how socialism differs from other economic systems rather than on how it's exactly the same as all other economic systems, human must focus, at least to some extent, on what makes humans different from animals. This should not be done in a way that exaggerates the difference between humans and animals (or that diminishes it); that would indeed by POVed. But it should be done in a way that more information is ultimately given to our readers in this article on human-specific areas (like human society, life cycle, etc.) than on areas that humans share with numerous other lifeforms (e.g., we don't need to reproduce the entire contents of mammal in the human article just because humans are mammals; humans are naturally assumed to be similar to other mammals (when we state in the first sentence that they are mammals) except in areas where we explain where they differ). Achieving an ideal balance between focusing on the significant differences between humans and non-human animals and not neglecting the similarities between humans and non-human animals is indeed a tricky subject, but that doesn't mean we should give up on treating human-specific characteristics (like the entire "culture and society" section!) in a bit more detail and focus than we treat universal, unremarkable characteristics! It's just what works best.
  • "v2 speaks of 'Like all primates, humans are by nature social'." - And you interpret this sentence (which, incidentally, has already been changed to "Like most primates" in the main article because there's at least one species of primate that isn't especially social, so your claim that we're merely saying ways humans are exactly like every other animal is already false in that one line, even though that's just about the only line in the entire three paragraphs of version 2's intro which one could possibly argue explains similarities, rather than differences, between humans and other animals! the only one!) as signifying that there's no difference between humans and other primates?!? Perhaps one could come to that conclusion—if one only read the first sentence of each paragraph and nothing more! If one read even a single word beyond the first sentence, however, very quickly the notion that version 2 is biased towards pointing out similarities between humans and other animals is dispelled entirely, for the next sentence begins "However...." In other words, even the line that is claimed to be the chief, central evidence of this supposed humans-are-dirty-apes bias (beyond the claims of the first line being biased for not saying "from a biological perspective" in relaying biological facts and definitions, which has already been thoroughly disproved several times on this talk page) is itself counterbalanced by the entire rest of the paragraph, which goes on to explicitly and in detail catalogue a huge number of dramatic and vital differences between humans and apes! If anything, removing the "Like most primates, humans are by nature social" would cause ten thousand times more bias than it would alleviate, considering that it's the only line of its nature in the intro and that it's specifically used to avoid letting the article be biased towards the idea that humans have absolutely nothing in common with other primates (which is indeed a misconception that some readers could develop if only differences are mentioned in the intro, and absolutely no similarities)! As a result of that line and the rest of the intro's contents, the article is neither especially biased towards "humans are just like animals" nor towards "humans are totally unlike animals"—which is exactly the way the intro should be, not merely because of some silly POV dispute between these two extremes, but because that's the way things actually are. The world is not black and white: humans are not chimpanzees, but they also aren't 100% unlike chimpanzees (even if one believes that there's a grand scientific conspiracy to fabricate genomes and DNA and that evolution is just a big scam, one still can't claim that no similarities exist—both have two eyes, one nose, one mouth....). So, in this case the factual, common-sensical approach and the NPOV, unbiased approach align perfectly (in the form of version 2 :)): humans aren't exactly like other animals, and they aren't exactly unlike them (whether that's a matter of coincidence, divine intervention, genetic links, etc. is left to the reader's discression), so we correctly explain both ways that humans and other primates are similar (they're both mammals, they both tend to be naturally social, etc.) and ways that they're different (humans are fully bipedal, have opposable thumbs, have law and ethics and traditions and religion and science and the countless other differences that are detailed in tremendous detail in version 2, all of which Jossi somehow must have missed). I'm not saying that version 2 is 100%, absolutely, without a single exception NPOV—as I've already said, it's the best of a number of imperfect solutions, not the be-all and end-all of the intro. But it is (very clearly, I feel) a much, much less biased, misleading, poorly-organized, and grammatically lacking version than all of the other ones that have yet been suggested (that I'm aware of). That's why I endorsed it. If you have specific recommendations for how to remedy any POV problems that linger in version 2, I very much welcome your participation in the communal process of crafting this lead section, but, at least for now, I find your examples of bias in this version to be highly unconvincing. Perhaps if you explain in more detail why you think version 2 is just as biased as version 1, I'll come around to your side, but I've reread all three versions dozens of times now, and I just don't see this monstrous bias in version 2 that you and Sam Spade claim exists. I do see some problems and I do, even, see some slant, but not the sharp "humans are exactly like all other animals! vs. humans are nothing like all other animals!" dichotomy you describe. -Silence 21:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, Silence, you will have to make an effort ans synthesize your responses. I cannot read that much. Sorry.... ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
How about my quetion above? It says the same thing in less words with regard to Silences final point. You really should read silences version too since it has a lot of good points and the basis for his/her rationale is outlined. David D. (Talk) 22:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I took the time and read Silence's long comment... But please, Silence, do not expect that I will do the same again next time. You wil have to summarize your points in the future. Thanks. I re-read the three versions again, and I must say that I find both v1 and v2 somewhat inferior to the FA version (v3), although I accept that v3 needs cleanup. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
What I am looking for is something along the lines of:
Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin for "wise man" or "thinking man") under the family Hominidae (the great apes).[2] However, human beings define themselves in social, and spiritual terms as well. Humans have a highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, and introspection. This, combined with an erect body carriage that frees their upper limbs for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make greater use of tools than any other species of animal.
≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, Jossi, but that merely puts us back where we were when all of this nonsense started. Jim62sch 01:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of proposed intro's

What SPOV do you feel is being presented in the intro you have labeled as "SPOV Intro"? This is starting out by declaring there is a fault, without specifying the fault. Further, you are setting up those who might support that intro to ipso facto declaring themselves to be supporting a non-NPOV intro, when in fact they may feel it is a very NPOV intro. This is manipulative, whether or not you intended it that way. If you feel there is an imbalance in that view, address that in a productive fashion, please. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

As stated above, if you support the intro currently labeled "SPOV intro", feel free to rename the header. As far as my objections to it, they are plentiful, and have been discussed ad nauseum above. For example it is not NPOV to state the biological paradigm regarding humans as fact, while not giving other branchs of science (such as Theology) such a status. That would be inappropriate enough on an article titled "Homo Sapiens", but is entirely unacceptable on one titled "Human", and linked to by humanity. What are your objections to the FA or inclusive intro's? Sam Spade 14:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
I renamed it to "Encyclopedia-style intro", since it is obviously the closest we come to matching other reference works (see, for example, the Encyclopædia Britannica, Microsoft Encarta, Merriam-Webster [see definition 2], Wiktionary, and so on). That version has my full support. — Knowledge Seeker দ 15:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think your renaming is an improvement. I agree that Version 2 has vastly more in common with most other encyclopedia articles on humans than the other two versions, but that should be an argument for Version 2, not a name of Version 2—the names should be as unbiased (to avoid influencing the results or causing more controversy) and specific (to avoid confusion over which version is which—though this is less important) as possible. It's hardly fair to complain about the version you prefer being given a quasi-negative title like "Scientific/Secular Point of View" (implying that it violates WP:NPOV, which is extremely disputable), and then to respond by giving it a clearly positive title like "Encyclopedic"!!
However, I object to Version 1's name ("Inclusionist") as much as Version 2's, since it (1) tries to artificially divide the voter-base based on whether they self-identify as inclusionist/exclusionist in other matters (never a good thing to predispose or factionalize editors like that!), and (2) implies that Version 2 is "exclusionist" or otherwise incomplete (even though, in fact, Version 2 includes quite a lot of things that Version 1 excludes!), and (3) just isn't accurate. So, I've given naming the three versions my try: I've simply named Version 1 "spiritual", Version 2 "scientific", and Version 3 "original FA". I don't feel that these names are perfect, either (though at least they work), so if anyone objects to them, we can certainly give them some other name (if we really can't agree, we might as well just call them Version 1/2/3 and not waste time on naming issues when we should be worrying about content), but I gave it my try.
I also reorganized the way the three versions are presented, incidentally, in an attempt to make it easier to compare them all (which is what's most important); hope y'like it! Also, I'd like to thank Sam very much for taking the time to try to settle this by presenting these three versions! Much better than this endless, running-in-circles arguing; hopefully this will refocus us on deciding on a final version for the intro, whichever it may be. I'm very hopeful that we can soon settle this, one way or another. So, here's hopin'. -Silence 17:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I would just name them "Version 1", "Version 2", and "Version 3". I did not name it "Encyclopedic"; I called it "encyclopedia-style" since as you also state it is written in a style which emulates other encyclopedias. I did not complain about the previous title. It's hardly fair to complain about me making statements I did not make. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Sam, theology is science? I'm not sure what your point is here. What theological facts are you considering when your wrote the above? Also are you suggesting that there should be a POV fork Homo sapiens? Is human not the common name for homo sapiens, as Thale Cress is the common name for Arabidopsis thaliana. Or would you consider it to be human being and human is more synonymous with humanity? David D. (Talk) 15:07, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Theology isn't strictly a "science" in the modern sense of the word; a more accurate word would be that it's a field of philosophy, like a more Westernized and theistic (hence the "theology" in the name) form of philosophy of religion. Theology has much more in common with ethics and metaphysics (both of which are clearly branches of philosophy, not science), after all, than with sociology, anthropology, physics, geology, biochemistry, etc.
However, Sam, if you have any references of reputable sources disputing any of the biological facts mentioned at the beginning of the intro (or if you find any at any point in the future, there are no deadlines for Wikipedia articles!), I'd love to see them, as they could very well be noteworthy enough to merit mentioning. Unfortunately, until we have such sources, we can't very well just assume that there's a controversy; personally, I've never seen anything in my life that's disputed whether humans are primates (or mammals, animals, or organisms) prior to reading the comments on this Talk page. This doesn't necessarily mean that there are no reputable sources which dispute this (I'm sure there are at least a few!); more likely, I simply don't travel the same circles as you, Sam, so obviously we'd each get a different conception of what aspects of biology are or aren't disputed, depending on what different people we've discussed the matter with and what resources we've read. So, I'm perfectly willing to keep an open mind on whether or not an academic "humans are primates/animals" controversy truly exists, and if you can provide some references indicating that this is the case, that would give your case infinitely more weight in my mind.
This is not, of course, to let the "scientific" side off the hook: although a few sources have been provided (unlike the complete lack of sources thus far demonstrating the existence of a "humans-are-primates-controversy") we could do much, much, much better in terms of providing noteworthy academic sources for all the scientific facts and theories provided on the page. The lack of excellent references on the human page (a disproportionate number are trivial, short newspaper articles on relatively tangential subjects found on the Internet) is, in my mind, a major cause of the ongoing disputes, since, in lieu of a strict reliance on cited sources for all our information (which is not currently possible since we'd have to delete most of the article if we only allowed already-referenced material!), we're forced to argue about our own POVs and claims, when we should be arguing about the POVs and claims of relevant, noteworthy sources on the matter. Fully referencing this article will be a major, long-term task (and again, there are no deadlines), but this seems like a good place to start, since it's the part of the article that's received the most controversy. Featured articles like Hugo Chávez and Saffron demonstrate how effective (and important) it is to cite references even (nay, especially) in the introductory paragraphs of articles. -Silence 17:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
The above debates (I've yet to even start on the archives) seem to centre around a dual purpose to the article - the physical/biological (i.e. primate/bipedal, mamalian, reporduction etc) and the more contentious mental/psychological/spiritual (i.e. humanity, beliefs, (religious) purpose/special place, actions of belief/self-organisation/culture/political). The article is quite long, so would a solution be a split into 2 articles: the biological Homo sapiens (or Mankind) and the cultural/religious/philosophical Human (or Humanity) ? David Ruben Talk 04:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
What you are suggesting seems to be tantamount to POV forking, which is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. We already have daughter articles to focus on specific sub-topics of "human", which perfectly serve the purpose of zeroing in on specific scientific and religio-philosophical topics without the redundancy and bias forks inevitably cause. For example, we have human biology and the like for scientific content, human nature and the like (and, of course, the entire topic of religion itself, which, being practiced exclusively by humans, is already quite deeply-entrenched in human-related content to begin with!) for spiritual content. Your proposal is also deeply problematic in that you suggest that "mankind" is a physical/scientific word and "human/humanity" is a spiritual one (if anything, the opposite is closer to the truth, human being a slightly more technical term and mankind being a slightly more poetic one, but that certainly doesn't amount to a "spiritual/nonspiritual" distinction!!), in that you suggest that human psychology and thoughts are more related to spirituality than biology (neuropsychology and psychiatry, anyone?), and in that you recommend page-fork names that would be completely non-intuitive, and even confusing, to any readers who aren't already familiar with the pages. Moreover, it seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist (no evidence has yet been provided that the definition of humans as "bipedal primates" is controversial in any academic or noteworthy resource—that something is controversial among Wikipedia editors does not make it controversial in the world at large), or that is vastly more trivial and contained than you may think. I believe we are already very close to reaching a suitable compromise; it's not worth dividing dozens of pages of articles just over what amounts to a dispute over two sentences out of the whole article (the first one, in the "biologically classified as" clause, and the later one on religion/spirituality). Thanks for the creative suggestion, and some more brainstormin' could just come up with the way to cut the gordian knot, but this idea's not even close to being the one. -Silence 06:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I would agree with most of your points, but I was not trying to suggest a fork; I don't think the two "purposes" are opposing POVs, just different ways of formulating a discussion about different aspects. The article is extremely long and none of the good content should be lost, so being a little more explicit, I merely suggest a break in this long article at the point between 'Biology' and 'Society and Culture' sections. A simple one-line disambiguation/outline at the top of each article refers then to the other major component. As for choice of terms, I'm really not bothered: Homo sapiens is the most scientific possible article name re biology aspects but I agree not very 'user friendly'. Whereas 'human' is an adjective and thus descriptive about aspects of us e.g. 'human endevours'/'human achievements'/'human society' (attempting to use the word as a noun is really just an abbreviation of 'human being') David Ruben Talk 00:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
(ri) I'd say that that's a bad idea for more reasons than I have time to go into right now. Jim62sch 01:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I know I've not been involved in this debate for a few months (in fact, I've contributed to Wikipedia very little lately), but I have been keeping an eye on this page. I've listed myself as endorsing "version 2" of the intro. I don't think it's perfect — there are a few phrases that I'd like slightly rewording, nothing major — but it is certainly the direction I now think we should be heading in. If I remember correctly, version 1 is (pretty much) the version I helped to write which was heavily criticised at the time for being "too spiritual". On reflection I can see that such criticisms were right and that trying to appease the the pro-spiritual, anti-primate faction to such an extent was a mistake. Hitchhiker89talk 17:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I was also involved in helping write the version one compromise. However, I also would rather see version two as the compromise version. David D. (Talk) 19:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry people, but if the conversation is one of "anti-primate/spiritual" vs. "primate/biological", then my argument is that 'both these are significantly held POVs as it pertains to the characterization of human beings. As this article is about Human, it needs to describe al significantly held POVs about what a Human is, and not one POV at the expense of the other. It can be done, if we look at this from this perspective. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
This appears to be a false dichotomy. Almost all of version two contrasts humans with primates (second paragraph) AND discusses spirituality too (third paragraph). In other words version two appears to include, the biological, it compares and contrasts with primates, and discusses human spirituality. How is that POV? David D. (Talk) 22:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Then it may be my glasses, Daycd... The weights of these two versions are clearly slanted to one POV or the other. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Facts

Sam Spade 19:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Replies

  • As an argument against humans being primates: red herring, argumentum ad populum. The fact that people believe something does not make it so; we should report on common beliefs in the present in the same way that we report on common beliefs in the past. It is POVed and inconsistent to act like a belief like "humans aren't primates" is a sound, factually-based, and broadly-accepted description of reality, while acting like a belief like "the sun revolves around the earth", which had much more support in the past than "humans aren't primates" have today, is just a pseudoscientific, baseless belief. If we have to start human with unsupported claims about humans being creatures of spirit, then we have to start the sun article with similarly unsupported claims about the sun going around the earth, the evolution article (which, unlike human, is a Featured Article :)) with similarly unsupported claims about evolution not really occurring (or being guided by God). Otherwise, you are trying to make human the random exception to the rule. I'd rather keep the article consistent with every other article on Wikipedia (even if that means changing every other article to conform to this one's treatment of spiritual beliefs as neutral, out-of-context truths), until there's a reason to do otherwise.
  • As an argument for there being a controversy about humans being primates: First, the human article is not about religious beliefs in the United States, but about all humans, so a poll of the faith of a single country is no more relevant than one of any other country's faith (and, in fact, picking a U.S. poll is less reliable than a poll in most other countries or regions, since it worsens Wikipedia's systemic bias). Second, The Bible does not state "humans are not primates", so the fact that Christian fundamentalism is a strong force in the United States does not make the field of biology or taxonomy any more genuinely controversial. If most Americans don't have a problem with humans being mammals, then clearly the only reason any object to humans being primates is an emotional reaction to negative connotations of the word "ape", which is irrelevant to an encyclopedia because we are writing using the scientific definition of "ape", "primate", etc., not slang or colloquial definitions (if we were required to use slang and colloquial insults, we wouldn't be able to call pigs "pigs" because pig can be an insult; obviously this is an unrealistic requirement). Third, the random, misunderstanding-derived beliefs of laypeople, though significant enough to mention in encyclopedias, in no way adds up to a "scientific controversy". Read the evolution page and its numerous talk page discussions, which have amounted to the established consensus that scientific facts and definitions are not invalidated or rendered any less accurate just because there's a popular opinion, based on misconceptions and/or religious faith, that a certain scientific fact or theory isn't accurate. Rather, it takes actual refutation, or at least counter-arguments, against those facts or theories, like a contrary scientific theory or research paper. If this were not the case, the evolution article would be filled to the brim with the same disclaimers you are demanding of the human article. Human, like evolution, is firstly a scientific article, as shown by the categories both articles are in; this is not because science is more important than religion, but because the scientific relevance of humans is indisputable and universally-accepted in the field, whereas there's absolutely no agreement whatsoever among spiritualists and the religious as to what the significance or nature of "humans" is. The controversy isn't among scientists as to what the definition, function, or significance of "human" is, it's 100% among nonscientific spiritualists. There's nothing unusual or unexpected about this: there will always be more disagreement between people's ideologies and personal beliefs than between the experimentally-based, falsifiable scientific theories and the observations and definitions, or "facts", they are derived from. That doesn't make those ideologies non-notable, but it means that they aren't necessarily justified alternate definitions of a word when no major dictionary supports such a variant meaning. This information belongs in the article text and in articles specifically devoted to this topic, not in the introduction, which must be based, first and foremost, on the dictionary definition (and thus usage) of the English word human. -Silence 21:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Same problems as above. Argumentum ad populum, profound and grievous cultural bias towards U.S. politics, misunderstanding of the definitions and relationship of human and primate (which is based on taxonomical classification that actually predates Darwin's theory of natural selection!—Linnaeus lived 100 years before Darwin), and overall a red herring, since this article is about human, not evolution or creationism—the human evolution article is thataway (and it's rather bizarre that you're objecting to the lead section of this article, which really has relatively little to do with evolution, just with the universally-accepted classification of human species, while on the other hand you seem to have no problem with Human#Evolution!). This article is about "human", not about the U.S. education system, and I asked for evidence of a global (and preferably academic) controversy regarding the definition of the word "human" as a type of "primate", not for evidence of an evolution/creationism controversy in the United States! Obviously I'm already intimately familiar with the evolution/creationism issue, but this article, "human", is unrelated to that controversy, particularly in the lead section, which doesn't even mention that humans likely evolved from Homo habilis or anything of the like. -Silence 21:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • And the Galileo affair, among other articles, makes it clear that the POV that the sun revolves around the earth is even more significant and broadly-based, from a historically neutral perspective. I must not only again point out that Wikipedia's job is to provide readers with knowledge, not common misunderstandings (which should be provided along with all other noteworthy POVs in the context of those who believe them, not in the context of seeking to misdefine a common word like human): if 90% of the people in the world believed that Jews eat babies, the job of an encyclopedia would be to either dispel that belief with accurate analysis, or to neutrally present that perspective as one of a number of common beliefs or legends about Jews; it would not be to just parrot back unfiltered, baseless gossip like an old fishwife in the same breath as verified, accurate descriptions of Jews. Fortunately, nowhere near 90% of people disbelieve evolution, and infinitely more relevantly: none of the proposed lead sections of human mention evolution. Taxonomical scientific classification is a system of organizing living things, not a simple catalogue of what evolved from what (you must be thinking of phylogenetic trees, which, unlike taxonomy, actually is directly based on evolutionary links). Whether or not humans evolved from other apes or primates, humans still have all the physical characteristics that make them primates, so evolution doesn't even come into play here! You will have to provide evidence that the taxonomical classification of humans as primates is disputed, not that the process or theory of evolution is! -Silence 21:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I'll try to get some software to view that file later, then; my laptop can't open PDFs yet, sorry. -Silence 21:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Sam Spade 19:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the sources! They're not quite what I was looking for (I asked for evidence of "primate" being a controversial scientific classification of the human species, not for evidence that some people in the United States (a minority of laypeople, and an overwhelming minority (almost 0%) of experts in the field) reject evolution on religious grounds), but I appreciate the effort. Hope you don't mind my responding in-between the lines of your comment so I don't have to copy-paste the links; I'll move the response if it muddles the responses too much. Also, I again encourage you to bring this issue up on Talk:Evolution rather than here, since it sounds like you'd have much more reason to object to the treatment of that article than to the treatment of this one! (also, sorry for the scooch, Cyde—edit conflict) -Silence 21:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you kidding me?! First of all, it's irrelevant what most Americans think, science is not determined by popular opinion but by scientific experimentation. And the English Wikipedia is not the "American" Wikipedia. Don't be too U.S.-centric. And as for the Scopes Monkey Trial ... are you kidding me? That happened eight decades ago. It was a lawsuit regarding the teaching of evolution in schools and had nothing to do with the scientific legitimacy of human descent (of which a lot more has been discovered in the intervening decades). They didn't even know the structure of DNA back then, and lots of the evidence of human relatedness to other hominids is genetic, so any pre-genetic "evidence" against human descent is pretty much worthless. --Cyde Weys 20:47, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Cyde, we've been trying to make those points for some time. It's nice to see that yet another editor soundly rejects the silliness of the arguments of certain editors who fear science. Jim62sch 21:35, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Is this the response for my question above with regard to what are the theological facts that warrant Sams version of the introduction. Opinion polls? Scopes trial, Sam? Cyde and Silence make excellent points, I'm not going to bother reiterating the obvious. It seems to me that this arrticle is being held hostage. David D. (Talk) 23:13, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
No, he was not responding to your request for theological facts, he was responding to my request for references demonstrating that statements like "humans are bipedal primates" are controversial. I don't believe he's satisfied my request yet either, but it makes sense that he hasn't clarified the "theology = science?" issue since he wasn't replying to that post at the time.
Also, "being held hostage" is a somewhat melodramatic assessment, don't you think? It's not like the article is under Protection (though it may, tragically, become protected in the future if we continue with the revert-warring for much longer, which would be bad for everyone since it'd halt the article's much-needed progress) or like it's completely impossible to get anything done with regards to it; the fact that the current version of the article isn't at all the one Sam and co. want shows that they're being reasonable enough about the matter to continue the discussion before reverting the intro too much more (which neither side has been very consistent about). Nothing is being "held hostage"; there are simply three editors who disagree with the current intro, so we're discussing how best to handle it. Both sides are interested in serving the best interests of our readers and the article, so this dispute is partly a result of misunderstanding (like misunderstanding "humans are primates" as denigrating humans or the human soul or being intolerant of creationist beliefs) and disagreements over policy interpretation (like where and how NPOV is to be applied in disagreements like this, and whether the "humans aren't primates" POV is noteworthy and citable enough). This misunderstanding and disagreement is not so tangled that it's irresolvable; just the opposite, I think we're getting closer to the heart of the matter at last, and expect that soon Sam (or goethean or etc.) will either provide sufficient evidence to support his claims of there being a pronounced "controversy", or will agree to hold off on inserting such a controversy into the article pending more significant manifestations of it in reputable sources (or at least more explicit links between the evolution controversy and the dictionary definition of humans as "mostly-hairless primates belonging to the genus Homo", etc.). Either way, accusing one another of "hostage"-taking is silly. :) -Silence 00:36, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Well I'm glad they are not te theological facts. With regard to hostage taing it feels that way since we have made exactly zero progress. This has been going on for months. David D. (Talk) 13:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand what the controversy is? Humans are bipedal primates. --Cyde Weys 00:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
You know that, I know that, FM knows that, Silence knows that, Knowledge Seeker knows that, but two editors who fear science, and who are reminiscent of the placard carrying characters out of "Inherit the Wind" don't. Jim62sch 01:56, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
You can't include religion in this though. There are ... what, dozens, if not hundreds of religions, each which has something different to say about what it means to be human? I suppose you could include those in an article named Religious viewpoints on humanity or something, but that's not appropriate here. Religion should be restricted to religious articles and science should be used everywhere else. When I am looking for an encyclopedia article on, say, bats, I want a good and rigorous scientific description, not some Biblical weaseling about how they're really "birds". --Cyde Weys 02:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Bat's aren't birds? Are you shittin' me? I suppose you're gonna say that they're mammals or some such.  :)
Cyde, you're attempting, like many of us before you, to inject logic into this issue. Tsk-tsk. Jim62sch 01:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

First off, don't reformat my text. Secondly, this discussion has nothing to do w what you want, or what you think is true. Instead it is about creating a factually accurate, NPOV encyclopedia entry. The opinions of verifiable others are important here, wheras our opinions are not. I clarified where the majority of americans stand. If you have alternate information, or information regarding other countries, please share. An Argument from ignorance will not do. For those of you who are still confused about the facts I presented and why, please review NPOV#Reasoning_behind_NPOV.

Sam Spade 10:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

First off, Silence didn't "reformat" your text, he responded to your points one-by-one, in a standard debating style.
Secondly, where the majority of Americans stand is irrelevant to scientific fact as has been pointed out to you by Cyde, myself and others (did you know that 20% of Americans believe that the sun goes around the earth?) Besides, this is not the "American" Wiki, it is the English Language Wiki. Huge difference.
Thirdly, as noted on WP:AN/I, "Sam's use of the NPOV tag is specious, and is now past the threshold of vandalism. Additionally, Sam lost any semblence of a preseumption of NPOV he may may ever have had, and any need to apply WP:AGF to his edits or proposals when he commented, "In sum, teach the controversy, rather than telling mankind "your a dirty ape; get used to it."" Jim62sch 02:05, 19 March 2006 (UTC)"
Fourthly, the irony in you lecturing anyone on NPOV, especially in light of the above is too rich for words.
Finally, due to your "teach the controvery/dirty ape" and other comments in the same vein, the level of seriousness with which most editors can take your comments has likely been irrevocably lowered to a point just above zero. Jim62sch 11:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I must agree with the above editors. I don't see how this addresses the introduction, unless you want to add "By the way, many people in the United States don't believe that humans and other primates share a common ancestor." It's irrelevant to the statements in any of the three versions of the introduction. Further, if you wish to make statements about humans as a whole, the onus is on you to provide the evidence. You cannot produce information about a small group and expect everyone else to find evidence for the rest. I did review NPOV#Reasoning behind NPOV, and I cannot see how you think that supports the statements you have been making. — Knowledge Seeker দ 17:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Chronic misuse of POV template

The use of the POV template on the article by several editors here to force a particular POV to be represented to a larger degree in the article is no substitute for actually showing why your personal POV deserves greater coverage. It's also disruptive. This particular POV issue has been going back and forth since 2004 with the same 2 editors. I see no legitimate reason for the POV template, and I urge the editors in question to make their case without disrupting the article or abide by consensus. FeloniousMonk 20:23, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Your actions here are a serious concern, and have been reported @ Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Human. If you fail to realise the nature of this dispute, that is your problem. Removing a dispute header before a dispute is resolved is not acceptable.
Please review: Wikipedia:Neutrality_dispute#What_is_an_NPOV_dispute.3F.
Sam Spade 20:26, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Report away. Your use of the NPOV tag is specious, and is now past the threshhold of vandalism. Additionally, you lost any semblence of a preseumption of NPOV you may may ever have had, and any need to apply WP:AGF to your edits or proposals when you commented, "In sum, teach the controversy, rather than telling mankind "your a dirty ape; get used to it."" Jim62sch 02:03, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Holy overlinking, Batman

This page has suffered the most from Wiki syndrome out of all of the pages I've ever seen. What's going on?! It hurts my eyes just to try and read it! --Cyde Weys 20:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you referring to the article or the talk page? It's understandable that the article would be much more heavily-linked than almost any other article on Wikipedia, considering how many major topics are directly significant to humanity. (Though I agree that some of the links, and even more of the examples, are unnecessary, and am actually in the process of trimming that down.) If you're referring to the Talk page, I'm not sure what you're referring to. -Silence 21:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm guessing Cyde means the article -- too many wiki links. Jim62sch 21:36, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Whereas I'm guessing Cyde means the talk page. Why else would he say "this page" instead of "this article" or similar? And a lot of comments in this page (particularly mine) use a fair number of wikilinks, and it's possible Cyde mistook the table of possible intros (which, being the intro to an article, has quite a lot of links) for a comment. Hm. But we'd best wait for him to explain. -Silence 00:39, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
The discussion page is for the discussion of the article. I thought it was assumed that all conversation on the talk page is in regards to the article it is correlated with. I can't possibly see why anyone would waste their time complaining about too many links on a discussion page :-O And yes, I do think there are waaaaay too many wikilinks in Human. The text almost becomes unreadable. In addition, there's countless duplicate links. I would suggest that some of you regular editors on this article see WP:CONTEXT. --Cyde Weys 00:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I've read WP:CONTEXT plenty of time before (as can be seen by my discussion on that page's talk page), but I disagree that there's a pronounced problem with. The reason there are so many links is because there are so many relevant and significant pages to link to; WP:CONTEXT says "only make links when they're relevant to context", not "only make links when there aren't already a lot of links on the page". Whether an article has too many links or not is based entirely on whether each individual link is relevant and helpful or not, not based on the total number or density of links. As a result, articles with relatively few relevant articles to link to will have very few in-article links, whereas articles with a lot of relevant articles to link to will have an above average number. That's just how it works. Since a significant aspect of your complaint seems to be aesthetic (i.e. you looked at a paragraph and thought "agh! too many links!", more than just looking at a bunch of individual links and thinking "agh! these individual links are unnecessary!"), it would be helpful if you'd provide some examples of this so I can either (A) agree with you, or (B) disagree with you and explain why. It's hard to tell without examples, details... For example, there are plenty of cases where linking to an article twice is merited, because the two examples of the articles are far apart, or one is starting a section where that topic's of major significance while the other is more briefly-mentioned in the context of a larger, earlier paragraph. It's very much a subjective issue. -Silence 00:59, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Cyde -- do we really need links to explain "competing", "cooperating", "cook", "clothe", etc? Jim62sch 02:11, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of the links are entirely unnecessary and basically explain everyday verbs and nouns. There really are too many links in this article and it's kind of surprising that people are defending them. --Cyde Weys 02:27, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
You clearly need to review WP:CONTEXT (which I've actually signed, so your repeated accusations that those who disagree with the threshold for notability are ignorant of the guidelines is rather ridiculous). It doesn't forbid linking to everyday verbs and nouns; just the opposite, it encourages linking to even common words when they're directly relevant and significant to the article! (i.e., human is one of the only non-cooking-related articles that should link to cooking, because cooking is a uniquely human activity. Not linking to cooking just because this isn't a cooking article or because it's a common word is akin to not linking to religion just because it's a common word.)
Here are examples of links which clearly shouldn't be linked to in this article: fruit, grains, tuber, mushrooms, European, African, prey, fire
Here are examples of links which probably shouldn't be linked to in this article: continent, brain, body, 4th millennium BC
Here are examples of completely borderline links: centenarian, lifestyle, co-operation, competition, thumb, Moon
Here are examples of links which probably should be linked to in this article (in the relevant context where they are discussed): value (personal and cultural), God, female, male, people, tool, cooking, technology, sleep, extinct language, trait (biological), space colonization, supernatural, clothing
Here are examples of links which definitely should be linked to in this article: human brain, person, origin belief, boy, man, girl, woman, agriculture, beauty, human height, infant
Link-relevance is a spectrum, not a black-or-white absolute. A large number of the links removed in these edits I agree with, and a very large number of the links removed I disagree with (sometimes to the point of abject horror). A large number of these removals are examples of a complete lack of common sense, with linking technicalities overriding what will actually benefit readers (for example, because God was linked to near the beginning of the article, it isn't linked to again in the Human#Religion section (while karma and many other spiritural concepts are) based on the unreasonable expectation that users will be willing to go on a treasure hunt through the article every time they're interested in a relevant topic to find the one point where it's linked to, even when there's a gap of 17 pages (as in this case) between the original, brief mentioning and the later point where it's discussed in more detail! There are numerous examples of this sort of stuff. I strongly endorse removing links that aren't relevant to the context, but this is not an example of correct implementation of this guideline. (Not for all the removals, at least.) -Silence 03:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Cyde, I got rid of many of those damned links. There are still a number I'm pondering, but I'll get back to it tomorrow. There are still too many links, but it's not as bad as it was. Jim62sch 02:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
You removed the only links to boy, man, girl, woman, female, male, human migration, origin belief, human height and people?!? The English language doesn't have words to describe the thoughts I'm thinking right now. -Silence 03:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I removed a hell of a lot more than that. And now Jossi's taken to putting boy, girl, etc back in as linked per WP:CONTEXT -- I'll be damned if I can see how they are relevant.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jim62sch (talk • contribs).
It may help if you think of the reader. Imagine a middle-school kid using this article for a school project. Whouldn't be useful if this kid can have access to links to pertinent articles in Wikipedia such as Art, Music, Mamals etc. that you deleted? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Maybe those, yes. If they are only linked once, but too many of these subjects were linked multiple times. And boy, girl, men, women, etc., are known to middle schoolers. Cyde's point about the article being hard to read is quite valid.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jim62sch (talk • contribs).
(please sign your comments. Thanks) I find it quite difficult to understand why not to link to boys, adult males, men, girls, women in an article about er... Humans. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Well-put. I honestly can't think of a single article in the whole of Wikipedia where it could possibly be more important to link to boy, man, girl, and woman! -Silence 23:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Let's put it this way, the purpose of links is as a reference. Should any reader of this article not know those words, odds are he knows no English, thus defeating the purpose of the links. Jim62sch 01:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
The purpose of providing links to other Wikipedia articles is to let interested readers easily access information about relevant or closely-related topics, not to provide definitions for words. That's Wiktionary's job, not Wikipedia's. How common or uncommon a word is, how many peole know its definition, is beyond irrelevant! All that matters is what WP:CONTEXT says: whether the article's topic is directly relevant to something being discussed in this article. There is no policy discouraging linking to articles about common words even when those common words are clearly significant to the article—just the opposite, that's a terrible idea that clearly disregards entirely Wikipedia's established guidelines and conventions for internal links, and would lead to the horrible result of common words being ridiculously underlinked (or not linked to at all!), and uncommon words being overlinked just because they're unusual. Again: Wikipedia is not Wiktionary. How commonplace a word is is irrelevant, on an article as broad as human more than anywhere else. -Silence 03:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
(ri) Thanks for the rant. When last I looked the overlinking was corrected anyway -- Jossi re-added some stuff and all appeared right with the Human world. Jim62sch 23:18, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Image removal

Please note that Image:Homoerectusface.jpg is a copyvio, tagged for IfD and will be deleted from WP. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

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