Talk:The Gene Illusion

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[edit] Hi Coroebus

This seems a very good summary (bearing in mind that I only know Joseph's arguments from his own summary in the book Models of Madness). The only thing I'd say is that starting with the Peter Breggin quote is probably a bit NPOV as he's hardly an impartial source and the quote looks like the publisher's blurb you get on book jackets.

Otherwise, a much needed addition to Wikipedia. Thanks!

- Vaughan 22:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone has added in some fairly unsubstantiated editorialising to this article - it needs cutting down - if it isn't made more NPOV I'll delete it when I get a chance. --Coroebus 22:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to delete

This is a rather uncritical discussion of just one book. It does not seem appropriate for Wikipedia to devote a whole article to any single book that ever appeared. Of course, important books can and should be the subject of their own article. This is not the case for this book. I admit to my ignorance: despite working in this field (behavioral neurogenetics) and editing one of the major scientific journals in this field (Genes, Brain and Behavior), I had never heard of this book or this author until I saw it on Wikipedia.

Apart from the above, the discussion of this book in this article is very uncritical. The main theses fly in the face of much current biological and genetic research. The article reads more like a vanity article than a serious discussion of a book.

Crusio 07:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Well I started the article so I'm probably biased, but I'm afraid that this book is incredibly well known in the anti-psychiatry movement. While I hadn't heard of it from working in the field it came up very quickly when I looked into the psychiatry 'survivors'/anti-psychiatry movement. The book may well be fundamentally wrong, but that doesn't stop it from being notable. --Coroebus 12:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Strange about the comments that were inserted into the article, I certainly did not do that. It looks like some automatically generated text, probably by the prod tag. Anyway, if the book is well known in the anti-psychiatry movement, it should perhaps be mentioned there. I still don't see why it merits a whole article. For instance, does Wikipedia devote whole articles to books just because they are "notable within the astrology community"? The discussion of the book and the ideas therein is completely uncritical, which does not seem to agree with Wikipedia's policy on neutral point of view. Crusio 13:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, this book has been an influential critique of psychiatric genetics and is quite widely cited by both supporters and detractors as can be seen from a Google Scholar search - Vaughan 15:31, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Vaughan, if you put "gene illusion" between parentheses in the Google Scholar search, only 38 hits are left. That's not really that much. Most hits appear to be book reviews and antipsychiatry websites. The book itself turns up as first hit and is cited by 14 (but only 13 turn up if you click that link). Again, that's not really much and Wikipedians will have a lot of work to do if every book cited this much would be deemed notorious and need a large article to describe it. In short, I don't think it's widely cited and it is not notorious or influential. Crusio 16:17, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if it is paricularly notable or not, but it does read much like a book review to me, rather than an encyclopaedia article. It could certainly do with a bit of a prune of the chapter summaries. If you still have notability concerns, Crusio, you can always nominate it for AfD and let the community decide. Rockpocket 17:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
For a book that was published in 2003, 38 references is a lot. Also look at which scientific journals have cited or reviewed it from that list: American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent, The Psychologist, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Human Development, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Behavioral Genetics, British Journal of Learning Disabilities. The article as it stands is pretty poor, but I would argue it does merit a Wikipedia entry. - Vaughan 20:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Vaughan, it's not 38 references, it's 38 hits (sites that mention the book), which is not the same thing. Some of these hits refer to the same item. Google Scholar lists 13 direct citations, several of these are again websites. Only a few are from scientific journals and those are not very impressive either: two citations from the Am J Psychiatry, for example, are the results of a letter to the editor by Joseph himself, citing his own book, and a response of the authors on whose work he commented (who therefore also had to cite the book). The Science Citation Index (for the moment a much more reliable source than Google Scholar, but not everybody has access) lists just 11 citations (one of them by Joseph himself). Several of those are just book reviews. If one compares this citation record with many articles that were also published in 2003, they get cited much more. We cannot include all that in Wikipedia! So I maintain that this book is not really notable. Crusio 21:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thats a pretty convincing argument. However, any other editor is permitted to remove a prod if they see fit. So you are better going to AfD now anyway. Rockpocket 21:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

I don't think it is meaningful to look at scholarly citations for this book, since, as I pointed out above, it isn't supposed to be notable as science, but as prominent in the anti-psychiatry movement (how many citations does Peter Breggin's stuff have? Interestingly, you get more google hits for "gene illusion" AND 'anti-psychiatry' than you do for "gene illusion" alone). I'm not sure what the best yard stick would be, interestingly Breggin's 'Toxic Psychiatry' (which doesn't have an entry) has a similar number of Lexis Nexis newspaper hits as The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (or, indeed, Madness and Civilisation), which I think would be a similar sort of thing (not scientifically credible but out there in popular culture). 'The Gene Illusion' only gets 13 Lexis Nexis hits, suggesting that it isn't anywhere near that, but I'm not sure where to draw the cut-off for something that is a fairly marginal field anyway (anti-psychiatry). Why not list on AfD? You may want to have a go at the Critical Psychiatry Network while you're at it (7 Lexis Nexis hits). --Coroebus 21:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Looking at a similar book Richard Bentall's 'Madness Explained' (the main reason for Bentall's notability, but not an article itself) we get 35 Lexis Nexis hits, and for the Hearing Voices Network/Hearing Voices Movement/the book 'accepting voices' we get 13 hits and I'd say that the whole hearing voices thing is notable enough for wikipedia (which includes articles like Pallywood, Billy Eisenberg, Angela Beesley, Least I Could Do, and Dune universe).
This page also has a fair few incoming wiki links. --Coroebus 09:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether comparing books that were published in the 60s, 70s and early 90s make for a good comparison for a book published in 2003 in terms of a raw citation list. Seems a somewhat biased measure. Being reviewed in the scientific journals mentioned above is a good measure of notability. Hundreds of books on mental health get published every month, one or two get reviewed in the AJP. To be reviewed in several journals suggests it's notable. Also, the book is not 'anti-psychiatry', it's a book making a scientific argument about the link between genetics and mental illness. However, it's used by the antipsychiatry crowd because it agrees with some of their views. The two shouldn't be confused. I research neuropsychiatry and don't buy a lot of Joseph's arguments, but it is probably the most coherent critique of psychiatric genetics and is known in academic research. As an aside, I think Breggin's Toxic Psychiatry also need an entry as this has been an influential critique, whether you believe it or not. - Vaughan 06:41, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Think that Coroebus and Vaughan have put it well. Further, this really seems to be more about an over dependence on the current method of gauging 'impact factor' and not taking any Impact_factor#Skewness into account. From sitting on various committees and things, I get the very strong impression that Romme and Escher's book 'accepting voices' has had a far greater impact over the last few years (with many copies being passed around -I did not have to pay for my copy either) than 'madness explained' which -despite selling vastly more copies- tends to be left on the shelf unfinished, because perhaps its promising title fails to deliver any new insights to anybody already well versed in the subject. I can understand Crusio's point of view but with the general public being bombarded with 'genes cause this' and 'genes causes that' a book such as this has proven effective at toning down the absolute determinism suggested by in the 'headlines' written by a hack rushing to meet a deadline, who's degree didn't really cover genetics in any depth -if at all. Reading though the article, it does not seem long to me. Rather it explains the areas covered in clear non technical English. I have been told that I am prone to roll my eyes a bit, and murmur the odd grown of exasperation whilst reading a hacks rendition and over simplification in my area of expertise, and I think this is all Crisio is doing. Maybe he ought to leave his editor’s translucent green visor behind in the office when its time to go home and edit WP  ;-) --Aspro 09:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Joseph Reference List

Joseph has published widely in peer-reviewed journals since 1998. For a reference list, see the following link to his web page: [1] --Berkeley99 22:45, 9 May, 2007

[edit] pov tag

S/he who has POV tagged the article has to explain the reasons. Thank you. —Cesar Tort 03:10, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Any objections to remove the pov tag? —Cesar Tort 05:27, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the points raised above under "proposal to delete" indicate serious problems with this article. I think the pov tag should remain until these are addressed. As I still feel that it would be better to delete the whole thing, I am obviously not the right person to do that. Crusio 08:38, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

We did suggest that if you think it should be deleted that you list it on AfD. --Coroebus 16:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
What about removing the pov tag and leaving the {{Notability|date=May 2007}} tag? My point is that, according to WP rules, any user who places a pov tag must explain his or her reasons in talk page. Do you know who placed it? —Cesar Tort 15:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Crusio, his argument is outlined at the top of the page - essentially that he hasn't heard of it and works in the field of behavioural genetics, and that the article is uncritical. Subsequent comments argued that it was indeed notable, and I think they are fairly convincing. The objection that it is uncritical is fair, but few people have criticised it (since it has been largely ignored in the field) - I included some criticism when I started the article but it was rightly removed as OR. --Coroebus 15:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. The proponent for deletion has to fill an AfD and explain his reasons why the article is POV tagged, as per WP policy. Otherwise we may feel free to remove the tags. —Cesar Tort 22:47, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I tagged the article POV for the very simple reason that it is a completely uncritical description of a book that tries to show that whole scientific fields (notably behavior genetics and psychiatric genetics) are wrong. So this article is advancing a definite point of view. It reads more like a blurb or some information that a publisher might provide than anything else. Coroebus, you confuse me. You write in the paragraph above "..argued that it was indeed notable" and "..has been largely ignored". Aren't those two statements contradictory? Crusio 01:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Nope, largely ignored by those involved in behavioural genetics, psychiatric genetics, and related fields, influential in more critical and touchy feely circles. --Coroebus 11:44, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Then we simply mention the published critical book review (I think it has only been one or two) and remove the tag. We cannot mention Crusio's opinions here.
I am not familiar with WP:Afd, but we really need to vote here or in Afd in order to ascertain whether or not the article will survive in WP. As I can see in the above discussion, it probably will.
—Cesar Tort 02:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Next step

Coroebus: which is the next step in these cases? Shall we vote here to ascertain if the article will stay? —Cesar Tort 20:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert but I would think that the majority opinion here is that the POV and notability tags are unwarranted. Therefore someone can remove them (I won't as I created the article, so I'm perhaps a bit biased). If Crusio still thinks the article is not notable he can list for AfD on those grounds, if he chooses not to do that but still regards it as being POV I would recommend he edits the article to deal with this POV - think the problem there is that he just disagrees with the book (as do I to some extent) but does not have any sources to include that criticise it directly (includng his own criticisms would be OR). I understand the frustration that he perhaps thinks the reason it has not been criticised is that it is blatantly absurd (or somesuch), unfortunately that is just the way Wikipedia works, I suppose he could write an academic article criticising the book, although that does seem rather circuitous, I think we could include a reference/link to other articles on Wikipedia noting that the consensus in this or that field is contrary to Joseph's conclusions. --Coroebus 20:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Good idea, Coroebus. In fact, the psychiatry articles I started (like Joseph I belong to a minority view about bio-psychiatry) include a final paragraph explaining that it is not the majority view. —Cesar Tort 20:24, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, well. Thanks to Berkeley99 the article already has a critical section. What about removing the pov tag? —Cesar Tort 03:04, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It's a start, although I think more needs to be done. AS I put in the POV tag, I guess I should remove it too. Thanks to Berkeley99 at least an informed reader can now see that Joseph's stuff is marginal, not accepted wisdom. Crusio 12:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Crusio. Can something be done to remove the other tag? —Cesar Tort 15:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
In other words, since this article won't be deleted do you mind if I remove it? —Cesar Tort 00:41, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
If no objections I will do it. —Cesar Tort 19:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Done —Cesar Tort 20:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drastically cut down the page

There was way too much crap on here for such an unimportant article. I think this also solves all the issues, was almost tempted to nominate for deletion but decided we may as well keep it in its new reduced state. Restepc (talk) 17:31, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

someone has reverted my edit, I'm going to revert back. I think it's fairly obvious that if you revert an article to a state where you need to put multiple problem tags back on it, it's a revert that shouldn't be done. If there is anything in particular I remove that you want to reinsert try putting in just that instead of a re including all the bloat, or better still, come discuss it here :) Restepc (talk) 14:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)