Talk:Al Seckel

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This article was nominated for deletion on June 5, 2006. The result of the discussion was speedy keep.

The subject of this article, Al Seckel, has edited Wikipedia as Al Seckel (talk • contribs).

Archives
Archive 1 (June 2006)

This article should be edited in accordance with the policies and guidelines outlined in Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.

Contents 1 Previous discussions archived 2 Comments on current version 3 POV check 4 Libel risk 5 Completeness 6 Word of caution to editors

[edit] Previous discussions archived

I have moved the previous discussion to an archive. Please do not edit the archived discussions. If you want to bring up an prior topic, mention it fresh here. Remember, no personal attacks, please.

For the sake of everyone, please add comments at the bottom of the page, of if you are adding them immediately below a preceeding comment, indent by adding colons at the front of each paragraph (one for each level of indent). If you are starting a new topic please create a new section. And remember to sign your comments by typing 4 tildes, like this (~~~~). Thanks. Thatcher131 03:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on current version

I am sure this version contains a little bit to annoy everyone.

• Regarding the Darwin fish, it is clear to me that the Knight-Ridder story about the origin of the symbol is a better source for details about it's origin than other articles that are really about how clever secularists are to beat the Christians at their own game. However, Gilman is definitely part of the story and can't simply be left out; he is mentioned in multiple sources.

• Regarding the amicus brief in Edwards v. Aguillard; Seckel wrote an article for the Skeptical Inquirer in which he described his role as the person who had the idea to get involved in the case. After learning from an attorney friend (Lehman) that the court accepted amicus briefs, Seckel's group SCS agreed to pay for part of the cost, and SCS board member Murray Gell-Mann recruited the signatories. I understand Tmciver's view that Seckel (being the author of the article) wrote himself into a bigger role than he deserved, I find it hard to believe that the editor and editorial board of Skeptical Inquirer (members of CSICOP, another of the brief's sponsors) would knowingly print a falsehood, or that Lehman would allow Seckel to take undeserved credit and not complain (the SI did publish corrections of other articles from time to time). So I left it in.

• Regarding CalTech, a google search for Seckel's name restricted to the Caltech.edu domain amply proves he was associated there in the past. The fact that Seckel has not published any peer-reviewed journal articles on perception does not mean he can not call himself an "expert" based on his other writings and activities. (Whether the label is warranted on wikipedia is yet to be determined.)

Thatcher131 03:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• Please do not count me among the annoyed. I greatly appreciate your efforts. For the record, I never questioned that Seckel had a role in the amicus brief, but rather what that role was. In an undated comment in this discussion page, he stated that he, Lehman and Kaufman wrote the SI article; but in fact it is under his name alone, and written in the first person. The brief itself does not mention Seckel. I never questioned that Seckel was affiliated with Caltech, but rather what his status there was, since he was not listed in the directory. I never questioned that Seckel had a relationship with Feynman, but rather his description of it. I never questioned that Seckel deserved to be called an "expert," but did dispute claims such as "world's leading authority," etc. Relatively speaking, the current version, following editing by Thatcher131 et al., is *vastly* superior and more accurate than the original version.Tmciver 13:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem that Gilman is mentioned. I do have a problem that there is a controversy about the fact that the Darwin fish was created by him or that there is still any controversy about this, as this matter was settled legally and through the discovery process, and referenced in the Knight-Ridder story.

It should be pointed out that Seckel was NOT the sole author of that article in Skeptical Inquirer, but that article was also authored by the two attorneys on the case Beth Kaufman and Jeffrey Lehman. This is another example of McIver convienently distorting facts about my career. AlSeckel 14:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)Al Seckel

(please add comments after the preceeding person's signature and not interspersed, it makes it difficult to know who said what) Thatcher131 15:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the SI last night but I only saw you credited as author. Was there a co-authorship note somewhere in the piece that I missed? Thatcher131 15:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the article was jointly authored by all of us, but in the Skeptical Inquirer piece, Jeff Lehmann and Beth Kaufmann (at their request) wanted to keep their names off of it for impartiality sake; however, when the piece was reprinted again in full in Freethought Today, Vol 3, no. 9 (October, 1986) their names were added on.

[edit] POV check

Please review this article. Early versions were largely written by the subject, Al Seckel. Another editor, who has had disputes with Seckel in real life, disputed much of the article and nominated it for deletion. This editor then began adding negative information based on original research (letters he had, phone call he had made, etc.) My concerns include:

• Are there any autobiography problems to address?

• Has important information from earlier (Seckel-written) been removed in an overly-aggressive attempt to deal with the autobiography problem?

• Are potentially controversial claims sufficiently referenced. (I suppose to understand the controversy, you will have to check out the talk page archive.)

• I'm sure Seckel would prefer the article focus on his current work with optical illusions; however, when I began looking for sources, there were more sources for his freethought and skeptical activities, so the article may lean too heavily in that direction.

• Seckel's original entry highlighted his friendship with famed physicist Richard Feynman (for example here. Verifiability issues have been raised, regardless of that, is it encyclopedic?

• Are potentially controversial claims sufficiently referenced. (I suppose to understand the controversy, you will have to check out the talk page archive.)

Feel free to leave comments here or just dive in and edit the article. Thanks. Thatcher131 03:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

---

My references come from peer-reviewed and respected journals, books, articles (Science, Nature, Discover, Skeptical Inquirer, NY Times, caltech domains, etc.), which conform to Wikipedia standards.AlSeckel 14:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

This is because my original entries on visual illusions and perception were edited out by McIver. Although I was associated with the Skeptical movement in the past, I have not been so in the last 16 years or so, and have focused my area of research on cognitive neuroscience, which I did at the California Institute of Technology. This is the area of research that I am most well-known and respected for (award winning and notable ground-breaking books in the field (which were peer reviewed!), and is what is deserving of an entry into Wikipedia. To me, the freethought and skeptical material, while interesting, is incidental. The editor McIver does not cite any peer reviewed journals, books, articles, etc. in cognitive science, perception or vision that negatively comment on my work in this area. AlSeckel 14:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I was well known for my relationship to Feynman and he had a tremendous influence on my outlook and approach to science. McIver disputed my relationship to Feynman (as he disputes everything in my life) and stated that there was no source on Feynman that referenced me. I countered this with an acknowledgment in Feynman's definitive biography by James Gleick "Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman," New York, Pantheon Books, 1992, p. 442, where I am clearly referenced. AlSeckel 14:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)Al Seckel

I removed your personal attacks as they are not relevant to the present question. Your original entry was first edited by JDoorjam on May 1 because it violated many of the principles provided in Why autobiography is discouraged. (I won't go into great detail, but calling yourself "the world's leading authority" is fine for your personal website but not for wikipedia, and some of the descriptions of your illusion books sounded like advertisements.) The present question is whether other experienced editors who look at the article based on the request for a point-of-view check and compare it with your earliest versions will find things in the early version that should not have been trimmed out by JDoorjam or myself. (I hope you noticed that I did restore some of the missing illusion material.)

Likewise, there may be things that happened in a person's life that were significant to them but are not judged significant from the point of view of an encylopedia entry. The question for others to consider is not whether your relationship with Feynman (as described in earlier version of the article) was real but whether it is sufficiently important and relevant to be included in the entry. Thatcher131 15:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Libel risk

As mentioned elsewhere (I am to lazy to find the link at this moment), there might be an issue with libel at this page. For that reason, I will delete some entries of the archive because with this, it is better to be safe than sorry. The entries can be restored if required, and be viewed by admins. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks. The deleted entries could be recovered if there was a pressing need but it is best to leave them deleted for the time being. Thatcher131 04:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

As it stands now, and because of the demonstrably false statements and claims made by the editor McIver, and because of the link to the "controversial" nature of the bio on the home page, it is unacceptable. All of this needs to be removed. AlSeckel 14:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)Al Seckel

• I'm sorry, what link? Are you talking about the article or the talk page, and which version (date and time) please. Thatcher131 16:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Completeness

Articles are never complete, and the current situation with this article is to get it free of potential libel. If there is potential libel, please be specific, general comments are difficult to act on. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 14:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I am referring primarily to assertions and questions about my life, career, academic history, etc., that have been made by the editor McIver and are kept in either the discussion page or in the archives. This needs to be removed. Any negative or positive statements made by an editor without reliable backup sources (his own undocumented assertions in Saucer Smear) or vague references to "phone calls," etc. can not be considered reliable. I have pointed numerous times through credible (and Wikipedia approved sources) that his assertions can be shown to be demonstrably false. Even your own editor Thatcher found out that his claims about my past affiliation with Caltech (and how he phrased it to call it into question), my work with assembling a scholarly archive in molecular biology, are spurious and false, etc. This calls this (McIver) editor's credibility into serious doubt and he should be blocked from making further comments. AlSeckel 15:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)Al Seckel

I have removed yet another personal attack. Please stop the threats or implied threats of legal action and please stop referring to the other editor in personal terms. It is fine to say that he is wrong, mistaken, mis-using sources, or whatever, but when you use stronger language directed at him personally you skirt into dangerous areas.

I do not have time to thoroughly every contribution at this moment. I have removed many allegations from the original talk page. (Let me explain there are 3 "levels" of deletion. 1-Comments can be erased from a page but remain in the edit history for all to see. 2-Sysops may delete page versions from the history; they remain in the database but are only viewable by other sysops. This is the step I have taken. 3-Only the software developers can completely remove page versions from the database entirely; this is rarely done.)

I will not remove basic content disputes. For example, he is entitled to say that he is suspicious of your role at CalTech and that he could not verify it to his satisfaction. (He is not further allowed to make strong perjorative personal remarks.) Likewise you are allowed to accuse him of selective use of sources but are not further permitted to make perjorative personal attacks against him.

When I have time I will re-review both the archived and current talk page and the history of the article to make sure that page versions containing personal attacks have been removed. Thatcher131 15:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for all the work you have done here. I do not intend to edit the entry any further, and have confidence in the Wikipedia review process. The personal attacks must, however, stop.Tmciver 15:57, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Word of caution to editors

I am going to issue a word of caution to both User:Tmciver as well as User:AlSeckel. Wikipedia is NOT the place to resolve your disputes. This is a place to build an encyclopedia, and it is based on verifiable reliable sources. Anything out of the view of the world cannot be used at all for wikipedia; if you have something to add, provide resources that can be checked by anybody who would read the article. Anything beyond that is off limits for wikipedia. Furthermore, whatever your feelings are towards eachother, they are irrelevant here. Discuss the content, not the editors! -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

This is what I have wanted ALL along. Just information posted that is both factual and verifiable according to standards of academic scholarship. AlSeckel 18:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)Al Seckel

The standards are the Wikipedia standards as indicated in the links above. These differ at points from the academic scholarship criteria you want to use. Articles in major newspapers for example are acceptable as source, which in academic context would not. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

IF ONLY, newspapers could be considered always reliable, and could conform to the standards of academic scholarship...  ;-) AlSeckel 01:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)Al Seckel

Maybe unfortenate for you, but wikipedia has its own set of standards, and those are not the academic. If you feel that those policies or guidelines should be changed, you are welcome to discuss that at the talke pages of verifiability and reliable sources. However, we can not set different rules for this page than we set normally for editors at other places, the policies and guidelines are universal across wikipedia. However, if a source is not reliable, I am sure that is either clear because of the type of source (Tabloids versus the NYT) and related, or because there is a better source making a different claim. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)