Talk:The Third Wave

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I've read the novel of this, but don't know what really happened and what was fiction, but somebody who is familiar with the actual experiment should fill in more details of how far it went - in the novel, for example, it turned really nasty at the end (like the SS or the Hitler youth sort of mentality), and I was wondering if more could be added about the real event. Saccerzd 18:56, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ron Jones story was highly embellished?

There is an argument to be made that this "Third Wave" experiment did occur, but that Ron Jones' version is highly embellished. I personally find it implausible that this happened as described, especially in the course of five school days. Lyle Burkhead's site (see below) seems to make a good argument that Jones embellished.

Unfortunately Burkhead doesn't seem to have documented his debunking. And as I read further I developed doubts about Burkhead's reliability, starting with his playing down of Nazi actions in WWII (Hitler likened to the Sorcerer's Apprentice), but especially when he started going on about Jews, and continuing as I read more about his interest in, shall we say, unorthodox ideas... whacky, if you prefer.

Even apart from my doubts about Burkhead, his site doesn't qualify as a source for Wikipedia purposes. But I can find nothing else suitable.

It might be accurate to say that Ron Jones' account has not been verified, and students who were involved in the experiment have not spoken out publically. However, we must avoid original research. So, it would be very valuable to find reliable sources on the reliability or unreliability of Ron Jones' story.

For now, I have changed some wording to reflect the fact that the story is Jones' version, and not independently verfiied.

Here are the sections of this Wikipedia article which have been removed (27 April 2006, edit summary = removed neo-Nazi links) - I sympathize with the removal, but am concerned that the article is now endorsing Ron Jones' version of events:

There exists some doubt that the experiment took the full form described by Jones. The Catamount, the school newspaper at Cubberley, reported details that conflicted with Jones' published account.

and from External links:

The concerns about accuracy may also be relevant to The Wave (book). -Singkong2005 06:14, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I added a link, which does seem to add some support to the story: Remembering the 3rd Wave, 1991, Leslie Weinfield, on Ron Jones' website. It quotes from students Neel, Hancock, Coniglio, Moore, Reit, plus has a comment from the president of the school board on why Jones' teaching was considered unsatisfactory. If the quotes from students are to be believed, it was a very significant experience not unlike what Jones described - but it would still be useful to have better sources on the students' versions.
The link also mentions the influence on Philip Zimbardo (Stanford prison experiment).

[edit] Removal of link

I removed this page from external links.

The homepage of a Holocaust revisionist, containing 'evidence' that six million jews weren't gassed and that the Third Reich was a utopia, is not a reliable source on anything critical of Nazism. If you can find these statements on a neutral site (that is, neutral from both sides, which means that neither stormfront nor ADL are reliable), please add the link. Joffeloff 20:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

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