User talk:Pierre-Alain Gouanvic

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Welcome!

Hello, Pierre-Alain Gouanvic, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!  John Vandenberg 03:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Regarding Your Comments at the Vitamin C Page

I found your comments below and at the vitamin C megadosage page to be very sensible. I do not understand where Jack is coming from. Perhaps working together, we can "take back" the page. Are you interested or have you moved on to other things?

Is there a better way to contact other Wikipedians than visiting and editing their home pages? I apologize in advance if I'm not doing this the best way. shbrown 04:08, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] License tagging for Image:GA1 posture.jpg

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[edit] Italics in page titles

No worries, I just happen to be a recent changes patroller, and we generally keep a close eye on pagemoves (long history you'd probably rather not know). In answer to your implied question, I'm not aware of any way to get italics in a page title -- in the article's text, of course, it's quite possible. Looks like you have, already. :) If you use 5 -- like this -- you'll get both bold and italics. Just FYI. Cheers! – Luna Santin (talk) 03:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vitamin C article

Hi, thanks for your edits to the article vitamin C, and welcome to Wikipedia! Glancing over your edits, would I be right to assume you're a megadoser? If so, You may want to glance over our policy on maintaining a neutral point of view. Look forward to working with you! — Jack · talk · 16:11, Friday, 9 March 2007

Hi, I understand that you strive to keep a neutral point of view. I don't see however how your guessing that I would be a megadoser would have an impact on the facts I brought in the lead section on Vitamin C. I don't understand that you suppress the fact that all primates have in common that they have Vitamin C as a... vitamin while others don't, and that humans is the only subspecies amongts primates to eat 10 to 20 times less vitamin C (than other primates). This deserves to be in the main section: tell me why it shouldn't;
  • primates are exceptional in that they don't produce vitamin C;
  • humans are exceptional in that they don't consume as much Vitamin C as other primates;
  • where do you see any lack of neutrality in stating the obvious?
You have put back the earlier misunderstandings about vitamin C synthesis in the 3. Macronutrient section: Nobody, and I mean, nobody at all, ever said that humans or their primate ancestors once produced those amounts. This is not the point that Stone and Pauling (and Bourne and Milton) make. These researchers just watched what happens in nature. This fiction that you help to propagate makes great disservice to these researchers and to... well I won't go further on that. If you do read the references (I took care to provide FULL TEXT articles), you'll find that they confirm that those gram amounts are grams of ascorbic acid consumed, not biosynthecized. I expect you to read the references you found fit to keep (you suppressed the comments I made on those references, which I did read) and decide whether or not these references, support what I brought (and that you suppressed under the name of neutrality). There's no basis to what you're bringing back, it hurts me to see such falsehoods, but I wish you'd understand before the evidence comes back in this article. Oh, BTW, I do think that vitamin C is quite helful. But your remark that I would be a megadoser is ad hominem. Not relevant. Stick to the facts.Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 04:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, first and foremost, I apologise for upsetting you, I know how much it sucks to be reverted. I've been there too. However; in your response you used a lot of words there that you probably shouldn't've. Cool it, dude. By asking your position on a matter of debate, I was trying to figure the chance of a conflict of interest. I did just glanced over your edits, I'll look them over properly when I'm more wide awake. Until then, I'll answer your queries:
  • in the intro — primates and our relationship to them may be exceptional in a genetic context, but not in the vast world in which we live. The biology gets a mention, but you also have to mention the chemical, political, dietary and medical sides of the subject. It's supposed to be a summary
  • in the megadose section — I saw that you'd wrote things like "Humans carry", replacing "Hickey believes that humans carry"; "Which begs the question" - sounds too much like an essay; and "This implies that vitamin C was misnamed as a vitamin", rather that "If true, this means that...". I apologise that the rest of what you wrote got lost in that.
Generally, you perhaps need to learn a bit more about the scientific method. Yes these researchers observed and noted the things you mention. But that doesn't mean the whole scientific community will go all up in arms and say "How can we have been so foolish?! Clearly they speak the immaculate truth." No. A new scientific theory takes a hefty beating (think of poor Darwin) before it is grudgingly accepted into the canon. Falsificationism, is a great idea - it tells us to only accept an idea if it cannot be proved wrong and can be proved right. S'what got us out the dark ages. Otherwise we'd be saying "Meh, god did it." Rambling now. I guess my point is, if your gonna say "stick to the facts", know what a fact is before you stick — Jack · talk · 04:51, Saturday, 10 March 2007
(technical question) Please le me know if, when I reply on my own talk page (here), you automatically receive a notice of it (just take a few seconds, please.. thanks ;-). (Other things: ) Concerning the scientific method: you describe resistance to facts, which is certainly something that happens in science. This phenomenon is also covered by the "author" of falsificationism. It is not always a problem that is scientific in nature: it is a matter... yeah you're guessing it... of paradigm. For instance, the "vitamin C"-as-a-vitamin is a paradigm that is contradicted by facts. But leaving the comfort zone (the consensus, the peer... pressure), for most, is not easy; it is not, however, a matter of scientific method. Now I have to go, but I wish we could go further on this paradigm concept, in relationship to vitamin C. I'll read again my earlier response to formulate due apologies or explanations if necessary. Last thing. I agree that my "this begs the question, blah, blah" was not appropriate. I'll provide the reference to support "Humans carry". Since OMIM ascertains it, I felt it was not a priority (i.e. easily referencable). The "Hickey says" and the rest (the vitamin c biosynthesis thing) appeared as groudless falsehoods (just plain misunderstandings) that had to be taken care of manu militari! OMIM even quotes Stone, so it will be quite helful. I'll be back soon, but til then, I take your apologies (about the unwanted edits) and tell you that I am reassured now that you formulated them. Your colleague,Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 14:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
No, the only person to receive a notice of a change to a usertalk page is the user who owns it. Unless that user made a change to it themself, or someone else adds it to their watchlist.
With regards to the article, anything you wish to add/change/delete can be helpful. However, its can easily be deemed unhelpful, and my be reverted. Best not to take offense. As the edit box says "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." I've recently edited back in the point you made about consumption (here). To be honest, I've never really understood the idea of a paradigm, could you help me on that? — Jack · talk · 01:57, Sunday, 11 March 2007
First, thanks for editing back. It is rather moving to see one's own words come back, like that! Then, you might tell me that WP editing requires a thick skin. I don't have that!
I think your mention of the WP editing policy might help to resolve a disagreement. In WP, there is excess deletion, excess editing and all kinds of bad actions (with vandalism and even worse at the far end of the spectrum) that are condemned by WP. On the other hand, there is this "merciless editing". I think that it all comes down to editing vs. deleting. Let me give you a real life example. You know WP, but bear with me. I work as a medical translator. My trainer believes that her way of understanding the source text (Technical, medical, English) is better and that her way to write in French is also better. With this paradigm in mind (just joking), she feels totally justified to use the red pen "mercilessly" (for deleting) but not the blue pen (for editing; to enhance my own translation). However, others who are more experienced confess they can be merciless (but they will explain why they know their option is better); they also know it takes about 5 years to train a translator, so they try to put themselves in the novice's shoes. And, often, they discover new ways of seeing problems or problems they had never seen. This is how I undestand "merciless editing". Subjectivity should not bias editing. You won't let something in an article just because editing it might hurt someone's feelings. But one shouldn't be reckless (you know, be bold, but not reckless[1]), and WP is about cooperation.
This brings me to the bold idea of putting a notice on ascorbate biosynthesis deficiency right in the first sentences and to the notion of paradigm. I read the paradigm page again (well, of course, some parts require much more thinking but and I come up with these 4 aspects of a paradigm:

* a. what is to be observed and scrutinized,

  • b. the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject,
  • c. how these questions are to be structured,
  • d. how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted.
I would say paradigm is a very, very powerful word describing "mental determinism"; being determined by one's culture, society, etc... ; how can we see from inside the box (cf the paradigm article) what it looks like from outside ...? Do we even know we are in a box? Personally, I understand paradigm shifts by living them, at my own scale, by peeking outside the box, but I can't necessarily understand the whole paradigm we're in, and I believe that philosophy of science's work (and sociology's) is to understand all basic aspects of current paradigms, as opposed to scientists (like us!) who want data, good data. So I can only give an example, and another, and another, but thinking about the whole knowledge-producing machine is a nightmare sometimes. I'm working very hard on that, and I might come up with something in about a year.
Think of the basic questions a five year old would ask, like: why does my guinea pig needs different food from my hamster's? (no Vitamin C synthesis) Are there other animals who are like my hamster? (yes, us, and large apes) How much do they eat of this vitamin? (From 2000 to 8000 mg a day) And how much do we eat (If you eat all your fruits and veggies, my boy, you'll get a huge 200 mg) Its quite small when you compare. Why????? (It is called a vitamin, my boy, so you don't need so much) Why is it called a vitamin? (Because!) Dad, why are you angry? (Because when I was young they told me that vitamin deficiencies were rare in developped countries and vitamin C is a vitamin and we are in a developped country, and apes are not, that's why! Now shut up and eat your fruits.)
Ok, this is not yet the perfect ad campaign for a supplement company, but we're getting there.
So we don't ask why we are or should be so different from others of our descent with regards to Vit C. (i.e. item b.) Actually, most of us forget or don't know that we primates are exceptions in nature (GULO deficiency) (i.e. a.) We rely on RCTs of vit. C which use dosages that are lower than normal amounts (for other primates) and end up with reviews of trials showing rather weak effects (generally, but not always), and brush aside the minority of research on non-primate animal dosages (higher than what primates consume) (i.e. c.) and d)). There are other examples, but it is precisely my purpose, in contributing to Wikipedia, to show neglected facts. You can check my contribution to zinc (zinc deficiency as a cause of zinc deficiency; potentially a paradigm breaker (the paradigm of one-size fits all nutritional requirements, RDAs). Funny, isn't it? Not so actually, I know, when one thinks of it... I am actually involved with such a case around me (but i don't I have a conflict of interest. I swear... ;-)
So, yes, to conclude, putting those infos on gulo deficiency and how those affected cope (primates, humans, guinea pigs, FRUIT-eating bats) in the beginning is fundamental; it is the founding problem: what does "vitamin" means? Saying that the term "vitamin C" might, and I say might, not be accurate because vitamins are different things/amounts is fundamental. Of course, the opening sentence should be properly edited: "Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid is an essential nutrient required in small amounts in order to allow a range of essential metabolic reactions in animals and plants." Small like what? Like other vitamins? Sorry, this is not neutral at all! A literary reference, to finish: it's like in Orwell's novel (careful, just an analogy): the ministry of propaganda was called the ministry of truth (and ministry of birth control becomes "ministry of love", ministry of war becomes ministry of peace, and so forth). I hope I didn't waste your time. Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 05:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Saw your note on my talk page, try reporting them for harasment and highjacking the page. The Stroll 23:13, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] French language Wikipedia

Heh, your user page is totally you. Or at least as far as I've come to know. On another point, have you thought of getting an account on the French Wikipedia? I just noticed you speak fluent French, and I wouldn't be surprised if you have an account already. If you don't, you might like to know that it's the third biggest Wikipedia (of about 250), and may be a great chance to see what we must have looked like when this place was finding its feet (roughly when I joined here). I'm sure they need every bit of help they can get, just like us here at the English version. — Jack · talk · 05:41, Wednesday, 21 March 2007

Thanks a lot for the input. You're right, I already have an account on fr-WP. But there's sooo much work to do! It looks like a mountain to me. And there's so little help... But I'll try and find contributors. It's important, I totally agree. Thanks again. Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 14:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC) PS. I'll add more on my page soon.

[edit] Re:Recent comment : is scientific peer review over on the ascorbate page?

The last comment dates to eleven days ago, so it certainly seemed that way. One of the guys on regular peer review said that he was "directed" there from the other review page. I wouldn't be surprised if others thought so as well.--Rmky87 14:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Great piece of communication

Thank you Pierre-Alain for the thoughtful comments on my talk page. It's a pleasure to see an editor seek consensus in a friendly and open way. Here is my major concern, and when you hear it, it won't sound that bad. My concern is that there have been many studies on medication and that these studies conclusively show that medications significantly decrease symptoms of ADHD. I do try to follow all the information out there about ADHD including supplements but I may not be totally up on issues. I remember recently seeing studies that showed some positive results. Yet one of them was qualified, the parents reported seeing positive results but the teachers didn't. Another study found better focus but no change in behaviour. Each study usually has some stated reservations by the authors and then critics can also find further variables that have to be considered when interpretating the findings. I try not to interpret. I do know that the proper controlled double blind study of supplements is relatively new. We will learn more in the future. Perhaps we are at a point where generalizations can be made. So how do you put generalizations in Wikipedia?

With Wikipedia primary sources such as single studies don't mean that much. What they are looking for as sources are secondary sources such as the Surgeon General, Chadd, NIMH etc. If say the New York Times states that ADHDers have nutrient deficencies then I would accept that. Also with Wikipedia since the addition is yours, you would have to find a secondary source that supports your viewpoint. They may state something different from what we have both suggested..who knows? Would it be too much to ask you to search?

The Wiki policy on primary and secondary sources can be found here. WP:PSTS The danger of primary sources is this WP:SYN--scuro 03:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


Me again
No, I just don't have the background to interpret scientific studies. I can assume what they are saying but sometimes when I do talk to researchers or academics, I am surprised by what they see in a study or what I missed. Secondary sources in Wikipedia is top drawer. WP:PSTS
For instance I'd be thinking about these questions: "low or deficient levels of nutrients"...what is low or deficient? how certain are we that low nutrient levels cause changes in behaviour and is there a cut off line? Who states that? Could they be biased? What about the American college of Nutrition? Could there be bias in such an institution or journal reporting on this information? How reliable is information from this source? I don't know the answer to these questions and I don't want you to answer them. From a Wikipedian view, the answers would be best if they came from a secondary source. If a researcher states something point blank, that carries weight. Certainly double blind controlled studies carry weight, and major reviews of such studies carry even more weight. Double so if they are published in esteemed journals and/or by leaders in the field. Still, secondary sources carry the most weight with Wikipedia. I spent a little time searching and had a hard time finding secondary sources that supports the deficiency model. I'm not going to look further.
Back to the page. I am totally cool with the statement below.
"It is increasingly recognized that supplements like n-3 fatty acids, Zinc, and Magnesium have benefits with regards to ADHD symptoms". Personally, if you want to mention deficiencies on the main ADHD page I'd find a good secondary source and quote like this, "the New York times states...." I haven't read anyone one in the field who supports the deficency model as you do. Certainly the treatment page could be almost completly rewritten. That would be a real benefit for Wikipedia. Hope that helps...and hey...I'm not a Wikipedian expert either! So don't be afraid to question or ask others.--scuro 12:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vitamin C megadosage

For your interest, the clinical trial that was being discussed on the Vitamin C Megadosage article is a Phase I trial.[2] Take care, Antelan talk 15:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please WP:AGF

I strongly suggest that you WP:AGF with various editors over at VitC rather that not doing so by slapping them with a label. The problem is, you think a group of editors that you disagree with are "Quackbusters" and they are against you. The problem is not with these other editors, it is with you failing to assume good faith and failing to follow Wikipedia policy. Unfortunately (for you) this has the appearance of a cabal, or a conspiracy (or whatever) but unfortunately, it is you running into the Wikipedia community. I suggest that you review WP:NOT and WP:OWN to help you forward with future editing, rather than assuming bad faith with your fellow editors. Thanks Shot info 22:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your comments at AfD

At the Cathcart AfD, you said to Djma12, "This lack of respect is now over. I'm now ignoring you, indefinitely. Don't write on my userpage, like Antelan did."

To be clear, I'm asking you this here because it is not relevant to the AfD. I assume that this in reference to when I messaged you 10 days ago regarding the factual question that we were collectively unsure of on the Vitamin C page. Your statement implies that my message informing you of the results of the search was disrespectful. I want to clarify that it was in no way meant to be so. If you're unsure about my or another Wikipedian's intentions, ask first - there's often a good-faith reason behind editor's actions. If we had talked about this last week, I could have allayed your concerns about any lack of respect, instead of letting it carry over into other aspects of editing Wikipedia. Antelan talk 21:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)