Talk:Maurice Allais

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Contents 1 POV Material 2 Allais cannot be considered a physicist 3 Allais effect 4 edits by user:Moroder 5 edits by user:Harald88 6 NPOV in this article 6.1 Please proof your addition 6.2 Reverted after further review 7 Be careful what you bring in when you revert

[edit] POV Material

Hi, I reverted the work of 67.170.224.36 which appears to be either an attempt at original research or a personal rant. Regardless, it is not NPOV and doesn't belong in the quotes section. I hope the author of this material will take the time to include it in the article more professionally. Coleca 08:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Allais cannot be considered a physicist

Maurice Allais cannot be considered a physicist even though he made some claims related to physics. He has no peer-reviewed publications in this field and his claims are highly controversial at best. This is not enough by any standard to claim oneself a physicist the same way as no well known physicist expressing opinions on economics could be considered an economist. LeYaYa 13:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

He has a general science degree and the NASA calls him a physicist; apparently he does have peer-reviewed publications in phyiscs - http://www.comptesrendus.org/phy/index.php . Harald88 20:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Allais effect

I vaguely remember to have seen a very plausible sounding explanation that it was caused by air pressure changes that occur during an eclipse, but I don't remember the reference. Maybe someone else knows? Harald88 15:25, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] edits by user:Moroder

Moroder, I revert your edits as they were incompatible with policy. As you are unexperienced, here is an explanation:

• 1. This article is about Maurice Allais and it should inform the readers about his notabale ideas and claims. That information must be verifiable, preferably cited from his own publications. In this case we linked to an "antirelativity" site that contains a carbon copy; you don't seriously claim that there is substantial doubt that that copy is reliable, or do you? See also WP:V.
• But if you claim that "antirelativity" above his work gives a negative impression, so that the link could be interpreted as making a negative suggestion about Allais, that may be something to consider. From what I read I don't think that he would be offended. Harald88 19:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• 2. Original research, such as making POV suggestions about quality of works that can not be verified is not allowed. In this case: error bars are of little importance for correlation analysis, except if the correlation is low. The statement "lack of error bars" is your POV (which doesn't belong in Wikipedia); it wrongly suggested that there is a notable and verifiable criticism that addresses his work and according to which that is a shortcoming. See WP:NOR.

Harald88 19:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

As he/she insists in removing references against WP:V and continues to write in a biased way against WP:NPOV, insisting on keeping his/her WP:Original research, I now added the appropriate banners and indicators... Harald88 21:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] edits by user:Harald88

harry, I took out your reference to the crackpot website www.anti-relativity.com

• Allais paper is not peer - reviewed, as an "experienced" wikipedian you should know that repeatedly quoting it is a no-no. If you want to express your POV, feel free to do it elswhere. Moroder 21:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV in this article

Moroder -

This is not the same situation as twin paradox. Under WP:NPOV, you cannot just tear into the subject (or subjects) of the article. You simply cannot write things like "[This paper] suffers from the conspicous absence of experimental error bars". However, you can say that the paper has been criticised for lacking experimental error bars, and provide a supporting reference.

Think of yourself as a reporter here, and remember that your audience is the general public, and not just fellow scientists. Your job is to report the facts in the text, not to judge them. That Allais' article "suffers" is very biased terminology which violates WP:NPOV. However noting that it has been "criticized as suffering ..." is not as you are now reporting another fact. I advise reading WP:NPOV#Let_the_facts_speak_for_themselves and WP:NPOV#Attributing_and_substantiating_biased_statements.

Note that I fully support your content. The issues are in the style and the tone. --EMS | Talk 04:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I corrected the tone, the message is the same. BTW, harry picked up the Allais "paper" of the www.anti-relativity.com website. Next time you will need to be more careful about the reversals Moroder 07:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Moroder - This article is about Maurice Allais, not special relativity, and what is significant or an acceptable source is going to be very different given that Allais himself is the subject. There is no way that www.anti-relativity.com can be a reliable source for a relativity article. However, it is a reliable source for information about an anti-relativist like Allais. So I have no qualms about reverting back to Harald's version, as his text was sourced and NPOV while yours was not.

[edit] Please proof your addition

The flow and wording of your addition are not good. Please read it over carefully and fix it up. It just does not read well. --EMS | Talk 16:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted after further review

Moroder - As I read and reread what you wrote, it became more and more obvious that you are just trashing the newer Allias article with a few references added. It is not NPOV to outright trash an article like that. You keep writing first-person opinions instead of third-person opinions (i.e. "this article suffers ...." instead of "X has shown that this new article suffers ..."). Also, by expanding the assiciated text you are giving added importance to this newer article at the expense of the other, better known work. That is also inappropriate.

I did make one change in the revert: I added spacing above the note that modern experiments comfirm the predictions of SR to make it more prominent. The difference is subtle, but it brings ones eyes to the most important thing about these articles. --EMS | Talk 17:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Be careful what you bring in when you revert

EMS, the so-called Allais paper is lifted off the Anti Relativity forum where it sits side by side with the Chritopher Bjerknes "science". It is not peer reviewed. As such, it should not even be mentioned AT ALL. So, please take down the reference alltogether Moroder 17:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Moroder - This time I haver restored that reference on purpose. If this article is going to discuss that analysis, then it is damned well going to cite it! WP:Verifiability demands that. (See WP:Verifiability#Self-published_and_dubious_sources_in_articles_about_the_author.28s.29). The issue is not whether the reference belongs in that text. Instead it is whether that text belongs in this article! Maurice Allais is most notable due to his 1954 observations that came to be called the Allais effect. I am not at all sure that this 1988 research is notable itself, but given a refutation or two in ArXiv or even in the peer-reviewed literature, I am more that willing to admit it as such.

My advice is to let Allias be hung in this article by the basic facts surrounding his work: That it has received attention but has never stood up to scrutiny. I need to look at the links removed by the last revert I did of your edit now, as I think I removed two links that refuted the 1988 work that would be useful inthis context. I also know that there are a number of articles that refute the Allias effect itself. The most important of the anti-Allias effect articles should be discreetly cited here, along with the original Alias effect article and also the citation for Dennis Miller's research.

Dealing with people like Allias in Wikipedia is an art. If you are going to write about them at all, then sources that would normally not be reliable do be come reliable. Look at it this way: I would not look to www.anti-relativity.com for good physics, but it is a fine place to go to find a good biography about Allais or a copy of a controversial but unpublished analysis by Allais. Please keep in mind that this is a biographical article, not a scientific one. That is why somewhat different rules apply here. That is not to say that you should hype the work of these people, but you need to keep a neutral point of view and you discreetly make it clear what the status of Allais and his work is within the sceintific community. --EMS | Talk 05:38, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

EMS, thanks for taking the effort of spelling out to Morodor what he did not read. Also I agree that Allais is best known for his Nobel prize in Economics as well as for the "Allais effect" and for which now rather down-to-earth explanations have been given. Harald88 13:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

EMS, the Allais "paper" is not peer reviewed. As such, the article should not even be in wiki. Please remove the whole entry as you have done for the Unnikrishnan "paper". Thank you Moroder 15:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no interest in removing that content, as IMO it helps to show that Allias is a physics "crank". Please not that a self-published and/or non-peer-reviewed item can be included in a biogracphical article under WP:RS#Self-published_sources_in_articles_about_themselves.

Moroder - IMO both you an Harald88 are failing to take the context into account in applying WP:NPOV and WP:RS. Material that is appropriate for one kind of article may not be appropriate elsewhere. Science articles and biographical articles are two different things. In talking about Allais, WP:NPOV#Undue_weight admits items that are a joke in a page like special relativity. So what is needed is not dogmatism but balance. --EMS | Talk 17:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi EMS, as I tried to explain the same in my words based on what I did, I wonder what made you think that I didn't do as I said. Anyway, thanks for trying to point that out to him in your words. Harald88 12:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)