Talk:Robert Lanza/Archive 1

Archive 1

A source

Here is an article about Robert Lanza:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,72910-0.html?tw=wn_index_23

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.201.236.3 (talk) 13:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Critique section

WHOA! I am just an ordinary editor like you... not a point of authority.

The wp:criticism article is not a rule to be enforced, but simply a guide... it may be that the criticism section should stay. In any event, please stop stomping one another's edits and talk.- sinneed (talk) 15:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

At the top of the article, "This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion."- sinneed (talk) 15:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Now, beyond that, you are as a group wp:edit warring. Rather than tossing out one another's work, please consider integrating the too-long quotes into the section on Biocentrism.- sinneed (talk) 15:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

During this break from editing while the article is protected

Please consider and discuss compromise that might meet the requirements of the various editors.

• Should the quotes be included at all?- sinneed (talk) 02:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
• Should they be shortened?- sinneed (talk) 02:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
• I encourage consideration of a section for the work on biocentrism, and include the criticism of that work there... perhaps in a subsection on on "reception" which has certainly not been uniformly negative.- sinneed (talk) 02:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
• What other ideas might make whatever edits you oppose less objectionable?- sinneed (talk) 02:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I have reintroduced the referenced, critical quotes regarding Lanza’s controversial “Theory of Everything”. These statements on the plausibility and value of Lanza’s recent article and book are from eminent authorities (2 physicists & a philosopher) who have very high reputations themselves. I believe it important to retain the full quotes (especially the one by Lindley) for full context so readers can appreciate the critique. Clearly these experts each take the view that Lanza has embarrassed himself by stepping outside his field of qualification. Countervailing statements defending Lanza can also be added in the section for a “balanced” view. Dogwood123 (talk) 14:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's disputable that this criticism exists. However, it is too long. I recommend shortening that quote up considerably, and maybe striking the last Dennett part. That might be acceptable to all editors. Tan | 39 14:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Dennett is probably the most eminent intellectual of the three. I suggest all the quotes stay. "Balance" if you will.... 140.139.35.250 (talk) 15:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC) I also think "merging" & doing away with the "Criticism" section would be a mistake. Many less controversial people have "Criticism" sections. It's no great disgrace... 140.139.35.250 (talk) 15:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I can understand about the Dennett bit. However, the main, long quote is just simply too long for an article of this size or even of a person of this notability scope (if that makes sense). It needs to be summarized, or shortened to 1-2 sentences. Tan | 39 15:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

For wp:BALANCE I perhaps a + reaction from a prominent physicist? And how about an "interesting but time will tell" from one? We have 1 medicine positive, 2 x physics negative, 1 x philosophy negative. This seems a bit imbalanced. On the other hand, we start off with a Medical Nobel positive... which skews a bit the other way. *shrug* Just thoughts- sinneed (talk) 16:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• Proposed wording. Shortened the long quote. Please consider simply adding the long quote back, rather than restoring the criticism section... but that quote is way too long. Surely the key bits can be summarized?
• I propose a section for "Biocentrism" - If his theory is correct, I think it will be much more important than the cell work. If not, then not. I doubt we will know in our lifetimes.- sinneed (talk) 15:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with a philosophy that says one must *always* balance a discourse with 2 for, 2 against, etc ,etc... There is such a thing as one side prevailing in an argument when it has the best points ... That said, I think a good balaance has now been struck with the existing "Pubs" section (although I personally would prefer that the "Criticism" section stay). (Beware edit warriors!) Dogwood123 (talk) 16:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, that didn't last long, did it.... Dogwood123 (talk) 16:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I strongly recommend everyone give this a break - one postive quote and one negative quote. Regener (talk) 17:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as the Dennett quote, it was previously pointed out that Lanza and Dennett have publicly criticized each others theories. It would be inapproapriate to quote this feud out of context (and adding that in here would be too much). This is not the place for a pissing match between different philosophies. Surely you can find other forums to get your views across (the "Robert Lanza" Wiki page is not the most suitable site for this) Regener (talk) 17:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I propose (as was done before) 3 positive quotes to "balance" the 3 negatives. I don't know that there's any "feud" between Lanza & Dennett. Just a professional disagreement (in an area where Dennett is the established expert). Dogwood123 (talk) 17:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Enough, all of you - you all accuse each other of edit warring but fail to realize you are doing it yourselves. Page protected for two weeks. Tan | 39 17:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

During this 2nd break from editing

Please make proposals, offer thoughts and continue to communicate. I do think a bit more positive presentation, and perhaps NOT having the Medicine Nobel guy 1st, and a section for this issue that is clearly important at least to some WP editors.- sinneed (talk) 18:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• My reasoning in arguing the Nobel laureate not be 1st is that the Medical Nobel prize carries HUGE respect, and gives wp:undue weight to his opinion about Physics.- sinneed (talk) 19:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC) Edited:Cap for medical, italics for medical and physics --- sinneed (talk) 22:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• My reasoning in arguing the other side of that... that there should be at least a positive physics opinion... is for wp:BALANCE. I agree, we don't have to have identical numbers of plus and minus. I also oppose quotes so long they need blockquotes... wp:undue and just plain ugly.- sinneed (talk) 19:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Both the Medical Nobel and the Physics Nobel are way prestigious, no doubt, but my take would be that a Medical Nobel laureate weighing in on a matter pertaining to physics/metaphysics/cosmology could suggest someone getting out of their depth (like Lanza himself!). It has less credibility. As to finding a "positive physics opinion", good luck... That may be hard to come by. (Although there is the Johns Hopkins prof's quote about political correctness.) On blockquotes being ugly: Aesthetics will always be subjective. I rather like them. Dogwood123 (talk) 14:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• You have restated my point well on the Nobel... his Medical Nobel lends his physics statements weight in readers' minds (IMO). Putting his comment 1st, again IMO, adds even more weight.
• I agree about block quotes... clearly subjective and many many people dearly love them. One argument beyond aesthetics sometimes go like this: For argument - using a block quote avoids breaking up the text, the quote is easy to skip to get to the real article. Against argument - yes but it makes the quote stand out, and may lend wp:undue weight to it.- sinneed (talk) 15:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Two other points on the present state of the article: (1) The 2007 "biocentrism" article is mentioned, but not the 2009 book. That should be fixed. (2) The current laconic "A says X, B says Y, & C says Z" presentation is rather stark & without context. Maybe a preliminary sentence that states that the "theory" has proven controversial could be put there... Dogwood123 (talk) 14:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with both.
• Maybe something like "Reception of the theory in the scientific community has been decidedly mixed"?
• It is important to remember that this is an article about the man, not the book. The book/his-version-of-the-theory itself is clearly notable, there is enough here for it to have its own article, though it might be best integrated into biocentrism. The criticisms I have read have been of the book, not the man... people aren't saying "omg he'z like dumb and stuff!" or "'e's barkers!"... they are saying the theory isn't a theory, it is brilliant, it isn't philosophy, it is just an essay, it is a new way of looking at the world, it is revolutionary, it's a yawn,blah blah... - sinneed (talk) 15:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The Biocentrism article itself is a mess. It goes into several definitions of the word and in a generally incoherent way. One way around this might be to create a separate article like "Biocentrism (Lanza)", but personally I don't think the concept is even notable enough to have it's own article. IMHO Lanza's "biocentrism" will soon be completely forgotten. (So why do I care so much? Got me!) Better to stick with the article on the man, who is notable (tho not for his Biocentrism concept...) Dogwood123 (talk) 15:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Biocentrism - article rework. Please help. I expect to argue strongly that more bulk for Biocentrism belongs in the article, ugly or not.- sinneed (talk) 19:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Images

Lanza himself has submitted some images to be included in the article, but I have not added them at this time due to the full protection. I request they are added after the protection is lifted. They are saved as File:Robert Lanza.jpg and File:Robert Lanza and Barbara Walters.jpg. J Milburn (talk) 13:49, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I have added the images to the article. There is no issue with using these images merely because of the fact they were provided by Lanza- there is an entire system in place to allow article subjects/their representatives to submit images to Wikipedia- see Wikipedia:Contact us/Photo submission. J Milburn (talk) 15:42, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

COI concern

NOTE: 140.139.35.250 is hosted by "cs.detrick.army.mil" and "may be shared by multiple users" You should be aware that this computer may be a party involved in an internet harrassment case targeting Robert Lanza. Thus, this individual's neutrality is in question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Regener (talk • contribs) 19:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Lanza's involvement in his own article would violate Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. He may also have been personally involved in the recent "edit war" over a "Criticism" section. 140.139.35.250 (talk) 13:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Which editor are you saying is Lanza? Also, I can't really imagine how a COI flag will help the talk page, and it is distracting, and I removed it. If that was incorrect, please restore, and please accept my apology.- sinneed (talk) 13:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

"involvement in" - well no... it is certainly ok for someone to shoot an image to WP commons, even if it is of themselves, if the image addition itself is appropriate.- sinneed (talk) 13:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The COI flag went to the talk page because the article is currently locked to edits. It could go there when unlocked. Which among the several recent anon editors might be Lanza is unknown. 140.139.35.250 (talk) 14:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• I think I hear you saying "there are anons editing, so one of them could be Lanza, so one of them is Lanza, and therefore the article needs a COI flag"?

No, the COI flag says "a major contributor to this article appears to have a conflict of interest..." I agree with your first 2 clauses, but not the last 2. The vehemence with which the anon editors (which could be one or more people) resist even well referenced, authoritative "critical" quotes (which he/they characterize unrealistically as "bashing") is very striking & strongly suggests personal bias. Lanza is now stated (above) to be aware of the article & actively providing material for it. Nothing inditable here, but I think it clearly justifies a COI flag. 140.139.35.250 (talk) 14:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• That makes sense. I think your interpretation of the COI is more correct than mine. Thanks.- sinneed (talk) 15:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

POV

As soon as the lock comes off, I am going to put up a POV flag. I wish there were a "queue the harps and violins" flag for the serenade in the " His home life was less than the Norman Rockwell ideal." and " Like Emerson and Thoreau -- two of the greatest American Transcendentalists – Lanza’s youth was spent exploring the forested woods of Massachusetts that teemed with life. His understanding of nature began on those journeys." POV...not encyclopedic.

There is a wp:BLP violation about the daddy and sisters... no reason to think they are dead, I should think. And... what is wrong with being a gambler? POV. What is wrong with choosing not to finish US high school? POV. No wonder his critics are unhappy with the article.- sinneed (talk) 14:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparent copyright violations

I am very dubious.

• The images in the article appear on copyrighted pages at web sources for ACT and WFU.
  
• Much of the text I checked was a straight paste from the websites or from the USNews article. All are wearing copyright flags.

I fixed what I saw, and directly attributed the quote. - sinneed (talk)21:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Lanza works at ACT and WFU, so it should be no surprise he would allow them to use the images of himself Regener (talk) 14:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• No, it wouldn't be surprising. Nevertheless, I observe that the image here appear identical, and the ones on the other web sites (this is just a website) are wearing copyright tags saying they belong to those sites. No more, no less.- sinneed (talk) 15:52, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay. BTW The ACT website even furnishes a high-resolution version of the image for download. Most scientists and institutions routinely provide permission to use headshots/pictures for scientific meetings, the media, and the publicRegener (talk) 21:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC).

Desperately wrong

Something is desperately wrong when an editing war occurs, and the only result is that three (3) very negative quotes are added. So much for WIKI objectivity. WikiWatch31 (talk) 01:36, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

wp:talk - De-escalation is needed here, rather than escalation.- sinneed (talk) 03:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Idly, this is one of the (many) reasons wp:edit warring should be avoided. The article will likely be locked in some random state.- sinneed (talk) 03:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Time for a reality check

Folks- I'm sure no one wants to hear this, but it may be time to step back and use some common sense. Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that an individual/s is so obsessed with adding negative after negative quotes about this guy? The escalation is ocurring because you're feeding this person. You don't have to be a psychiatrist to realize that this individual is bashing - these quotes are vicious. Wikipedia editors and administrators should be trying to prevent- not encourage- this kind of abuse from ocurring on Wikipedia. As far as the edit wars- this guy came in with his/her cannons and started blasting away, and Wiki pats him on the back. Gee, I can't imagine why that might trigger an edit war. Prosody31 (talk) 16:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, that was most helpful. Tan | 39 16:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

"use some common sense" - Well, I guess I don't have any, as you see the world.

I fear I am not as intelligent as Tantalas39, and I have no idea what you are saying. "pats him on the back"? - what? "this individual is bashing"? "quotes about this guy?"

No need to explain for me, I am just not bright enough to see through, I guess.- sinneed (talk) 16:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

And thank you, Prosody31, for creating your account and completing your 1st post on this discussion 9 minutes later.- sinneed (talk) 16:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

No offense was intended. You are to be commended for your efforts Prosody31 (talk) 17:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

"Folks- I'm sure no one wants to hear this, but it may be time to step back and use some common sense." - It is always time for this.

"Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that an individual/s is so obsessed with adding negative after negative quotes about this guy?" - wp:AGF - " obsessed " - don't do this again.

"negative after negative quotes about this guy?" - Quote one, please. There are quotes about a book/article/theory.

• Cutting that down... I am used to seeing edit wars like this. A person, group, theory, flower, gardening style, or color of fabric offends someone and they put that into the article. Its fans take it out. Spiral up. Parkinson's Law of Triviality might apply.

"these quotes are vicious." - Which?

"Wikipedia editors and administrators should be trying to prevent- not encourage- this kind of abuse from ocurring on Wikipedia." - Like, by locking the article when the editors who should be reasonably reaching consensus to leave the quotes out... instead just revert revert revert revert... then become insulting? *You* are a Wikipedia editor. What compromise have you offered? Have you provided quotes to provide wp:BALANCE?

"As far as the edit wars- this guy came in with his/her cannons and started blasting away, and Wiki pats him on the back." - Nope.

"Gee, I can't imagine why that might trigger an edit war." Editors edit warring cause an wp:edit war. Nothing else. If you don't edit war, you will never have an edit war.- sinneed (talk) 18:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Request for reconsideration

You have rightly stated that “De-escalation is needed here, rather than escalation.” Administrator Tan placed a two-week “protect” on the disputed material to stop the edit war. By copying the entire disputed section involved in the edit war over to the "Biocentrism" page, it seems to bypass his intent. As someone vested with official Wikipedia authority, I’m wondering if duplication of an entire section (especially material protected on another page) is permitted under Wiki guidelines?

Also, I’m puzzled how this helps de-escalate the situation? In my eyes, this seems counter-productive and only serves to escalate the edit war to a second Wiki page. As is, one side has been rewarded with a 3-to-1 negative vs supportive quotes locked on the “Robert Lanza” page for 2-weeks. I understand how difficult your position is try to mediate between warring parties and would very much appreciate it if you would be willing to correct this situation. Thank you for considering this request and for the time you have invested helping to preserve this valuable online resource. Regener (talk) 16:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wrong talk page. "By copying the entire disputed section involved in the edit war over to the "Biocentrism" page" - Please join the discussion there if interested. Please see wp:talk. "it seems to bypass his intent." - Intent: stop edit war. "As someone vested with official Wikipedia authority," - I have no idea what you are talking about. wp:talk - Focus on the content, not the editors - firmly "I’m wondering if duplication of an entire section...is permitted" - Please cite a guideline that you are concerned about. Please join the discussion there if interested. Please see wp:talk. "I understand how difficult your position is try to mediate between warring parties" - I stopped mediating and started editing. I trusted that the edit war was over. Mistake. " and would very much appreciate it if you would be willing to correct this situation." - Please join the discussion there if interested. Please see wp:talk. - sinneed (talk) 17:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Christ, Sinneed. Stop with the word-by-word refute of everything anyone says; you look like a dick. Tan | 39 17:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Tut,tut.- sinneed (talk) 20:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Sinneed is out of control

..and a rude person —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.42.73.102 (talk) 02:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

To answer Regener's question, I am not aware of any policy that would forbid an editor from transferring text from one Wikipedia article to another, even from one that was currently blocked. If material on an article is libelous, however, it would need to be deleted from any article. That seems to be a misunderstanding here: Regener and others (if they are others) take the view that the "negative quotes" on Lanza's "biocentrism" are somehow personal, insulting, libelous, etc... They are not, they are intellectual, academic disagreements & departures from Lanza's views. Get over it. Dogwood123 (talk) 12:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Some material to help add balance

This was posted on the “biocentrism” talk page. It may be helpful here as well, since it’s about the same section (which is caused the edit warring). Whatever the final consensus, it should probably be for both. Staff3 (talk) 14:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

"It’s not neutral adding three quotes in a row that make biocentrism look nutty. There are LOTS of other top scholars and scientists in the world who think very highly of biocentrism. Here are just a few (I recommend the first four quotes be added for balance):

"Having interviewed some of the most brilliant minds in the scientific world, I found Dr. Robert Lanza's insights into the nature of consciousness original and exciting. His theory of biocentrism is consistent with the most ancient wisdom traditions of the world which says that consciousness conceives, governs, and becomes a physical world. It is the ground of our Being in which both subjective and objective reality come into existence." - Deepak Chopra, one of the top icons of the century (2)

"It is genuinely an exciting piece of work.... The idea that consciousness creates reality has quantum support and also coheres with some of the things biology and neuroscience are telling us about the structures of our being. Just as we now know that the sun doesn't really move but we do (we are the active agents), so [it is] suggesting that we are the entities that give meaning to the particular configuration of all possible outcomes we call reality." - Ronald Green, renowned scholar, Eunice & Julian Cohen Professor, and Director of - Dartmouth College's Ethics Institute (1, 3)

"This new theory is certain to revolutionize our concepts of the laws of nature for centuries to come." - Anthony Atala, internationally recognized scientist, W.H. Boyce Professor, and Chair and Director at Wake Forest University. (1,3)

“Reading Robert Lanza’s work is a wake-up call....” - David Thompson, astrophysicist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (3)

“I like to see books published that challenge my own ideas and thoughts in ways that make me think, but not ones that simply throw dogma at me. The essay is definitely of the former kind.” - -R. Stephen Berry, James Franck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago (3)

“It’s a masterpiece-truly…magnificent. Lanza is to be congratulated for a fresh and highly erudite look at the question of how perception and consciousness shape reality and common experience....his arguments [are] both convincing and challenging.” - Michael Lysaght, Professor of Medical Science and Engineering at Brown University and Director of Brown’s Center for Biomedical Engineering (3)

“Like A Brief History of Time, it is indeed stimulating and brings biology into the whole…. Most importantly, it makes you think.” - E. Donnall Thomas, 1990 Nobel Prize (3) “What Lanza says in this book is not new. Then why does Robert have to say it at all? It is because we, the physicists, do NOT say it––or if we do say it, we only whisper it, and in private––furiously blushing as we mouth the words. True, yes; politically correct, hell no! – Richard Conn Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University (4)

There lots of possible references, but these 5 cover all the above quotes:

1) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/1933771690/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books 2) http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/health-care/dr-robert-lanza-featured-guest-deepak-chopras-sirius-xm-stars-radio/ 3) http://www.moxiestudio.com/designsamples/BenBellaBooks_Spring2009_Catalog_Final.pdf 4) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/biocentrism.pdf "

Fixed spacing - it all ran together Staff3 (talk) 14:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

"Deepak Chopra, one of the top icons of the century (2)"...50.147.26.108 (talk) 14:41, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

A consensus appears to have been reached

FYI At last, a consensus appears to have been reached on the disputed material (all sides 'grudgingly' said it was acceptable on the Bicoentrism page).WikiWatch31 (talk) 20:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

- Reception -

Lanza's article and book on "biocentrism" has received a mixed reception.

David Thompson, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center called the “work is a wake-up call.” [10] Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine) E. Donnall Thomas stated that "Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work. The work is a scholarly consideration of science and philosophy that brings biology into the central role in unifying the whole."[11] Arizona State University physicist Lawrence Krauss stated “It may represent interesting philosophy, but it doesn't look, at first glance, as if it will change anything about science.[12] Wake Forest University scientist Anthony Atala stated "This new theory is certain to revolutionize our concepts of the laws of nature for centuries to come."[13] But in a email message posted online, USA Today astrophysicist journalist David Linley responded to Lanza’s essay, calling it a "...vague, inarticulate metaphor..." and stating "...I certainly don't see how thinking his way would lead you into any new sort of scientific or philosophical insight. That's all very nice, I would say to Lanza, but now what?"[14] Daniel Dennett, a Tufts University philosopher, says he does not think the concept meets the standard of a philosophical theory. "It looks like an opposite of a theory, because he doesn't explain how it [consciousness] happens at all. He's stopping where the fun begins."[15] Richard Conn Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University points out that Lanza's theory is consistent with quantum mechanics, “What Lanza says in this book is not new. Then why does Robert have to say it at all? It is because we, the physicists, do NOT say it––or if we do say it, we only whisper it, and in private––furiously blushing as we mouth the words. True, yes; politically correct, hell no!” [16] Noted author Deepak Chopra stated “Lanza's insights into the nature of consciousness [are] original and exciting” and that “his theory of biocentrism is consistent with the most ancient wisdom traditions of the world which says that consciousness conceives, governs, and becomes a physical world. It is the ground of our Being in which both subjective and objective reality come into existence."[17]

My apologies (didn't mean to make this two sections). WikiWatch31 (talk) 20:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear Tan - a consensus has been reached on the disputed material that is now holding on the "Biocentrism" page (which everyone involved in the discussion agreed). Would it be possible to lift your protect now and see if the edit war has been resolved. I think it has, but if for some reason it resumes, you can always add the protect again. WikiWatch31 (talk) 16:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

As recommended, I added new section for the material related to biocentrism (which includes the consensus version reached on the “Biocentrism” page)WikiWatch31 (talk) 17:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"A consensus appears to have been reached"? Really? I see only a certain "WikiWatch31" talking to himself above... 140.139.35.250 (talk) 20:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there has been intensive discussion on this for two weeks both on the "Robert Lanza" and "Bicoentrism" pages by dozens of people. Please do not barge in here and vandalize the page againStaff3 (talk) 20:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

140.139.35.250 Please review the discusion on this on "Biocentrism" Again, please set aside any agenda - Chopra is a physician and writer (no need to start throwing adjectives around that taint him one way or the other. WikiWatch31 (talk) 20:58, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Question: "Staff3" and "WikiWatch31". Are you not actually the same person? 140.139.35.250 (talk) 15:07, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Sock puppetry: "The general rule is: one editor, one account. Do not use multiple accounts to create the illusion of greater support for an issue, to mislead others, to artificially stir up controversy, to aid in disruption, or to circumvent a block. Do not ask your friends to create accounts to support you or anyone else. Multiple accounts are not for collusion, evasion, disruption, or other misuse." 140.139.35.250 (talk) 15:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you have evidence to start a sockpuppet investigation? If so, please start an official inquiry. If not, please don't make unfounded or poorly founded accusations. Tan | 39 15:50, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no "accusation" above. Just a calm, clear question which the editor(s) have yet to respond to. I reject the notion that I must either start a formal investigation OR keep quiet. A civil, polite query is entirely in order..... Let him/them respond. 140.139.35.250 (talk) 17:26, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

You are insinuating that these editors are one and the same. In my opinion, this is an ill-considered accusation of impropriety, a breach of WP:CIVIL. Either you have evidence or you do not - your quote of WP:SP shows that you are directly implying that you think these editors might be one and the same. If you are merely fishing, please stop. If you have evidence, present it. Tan | 39 17:36, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

You are entitled to your opinion. It is true that I "...think these editors might be one and the same." I am allowed to say so. I cite Wikipedia:Call a spade a spade and its "duck test". But let them/him speak. I may be wrong.... 140.139.35.250 (talk) 17:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. Just don't go overboard. Tan | 39 17:53, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

140.139.35.250 - this is getting silly. Question: Aren’t you and Dogwood123's (as well as others) the same person (your editing history includes very similar entries – some exactly the same)? I may be wrong as well. Staff3 (talk) 18:18, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair question. I am not "Dogwood123". I will take your response (or lack of one) to my question as an affirmative. Are you also " Regener" and "Prosody31"?? 140.139.35.250 (talk) 18:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

"As an affirmative"? WP:AGF. I typically hate that policy, but cmon. Also, take it off this talk page - this should be for article-related conversations. If anyone is going to formally accuse, do it through WP:SPI. Otherwise, cut it out. This is a final warning. Tan | 39 18:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: David Lindley

The reference quoted explicitly states Lindley’s position. This is how the article starts:

“Astrophysicist and science writer David Lindley's full response to Robert Lanza's article. This is an e-mail message that was sent exclusively to USA Today's Dan Vergano and is posted here with Mr. Lindley's permission: "Staff3 (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, no mention of Lindley being a USAToday staff writer. He is an unaffiliated writer and guest essayist for USAToday. Dan Vergano is the staff writer. Thus, the wording in the article must be changed. 140.139.35.250 (talk) 17:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I would just change that; seems uncontroversial. Tan | 39 17:53, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, will do.... 140.139.35.250 (talk) 17:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

You may be right - after re-reading the sentence it's not clear what his exact affliation with USA Today is. However, a quick scan on Google reveals that he has spent most of his career as a writer/auhtor and or editor at various journals. For instance, The American Scientist (link: http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/david-lindley) refers to him as “Astrophysicist and author” 72.165.90.110 (talk) 17:58, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

So, "science writer" seems to be the best bet, I think. Generically specific. ;-) Tan | 39 17:59, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - science writer is best. Also, the piece was never published in USA Today - however, it would indeed be corect to say "In a message posted on USAToday.com" Staff3 (talk) 18:05, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

No. The piece is featured (and titled) as an "Exclusive" to USA Today Online. So it is very definitely "published". 140.139.35.250 (talk) 18:18, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Article flags - 2009 Aug/Sept

Removal of POV flag

This was removed. I oppose that, and have restored it. The massive coverage of a very minor theory outside the man's area of expertise seems not to belong in a wp:BLP. The content is not about the man, but about a theory, and does not belong here. Adding offtopic to the section.- sinneed (talk) 20:32, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. I won't restore either if they are removed. Just wanted to formally express my concerns.- sinneed (talk) 20:35, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Sinneed - there have been no disputes or concerns expressed (whatsoever) for over a week. I even posted a message on the administrators page the other day asking if it was okay to remove the POV flag seeing that peace had been succesfully achieved. You are the first one - out of the blue- to suddenly have a new concern that until now had not been an issue. It seems hard to believe that after the long and hard fought consensus over this that it's being brought up now that its been resolved Regener (talk) 13:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

The POV flag is no longer relevant, unless you consider Sinneed's position a "POV." As far as the offtopic flag, biocentrism is Dr. Lanza's theory and there are 10s of thousand's of entries on "biocentrism" on Google associated with his name. So I guess it wouldn't be considered offtopic. 94.228.35.133 (talk) 14:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Regener and anon: Remove your focus from me entirely.- sinneed (talk) 17:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

The "Biocentrism" section in the "Robert Lanza" article is definitely not "off topic". His "theory" of "biocentrism" is a big component of his public reputation and image now. He's written a book about it. It is controversial. The fact that his "biocentrism" has it's own article does not change that. 140.139.35.250 (talk) 14:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Off-topic flag wp:UNDUE

Anon is right: Is Einstein's relativity theory offtopic for a page about Albert Einstein? Is the theory of evolution offtopic for a page on Charles Darwin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.228.35.133 (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course biocentrism is relevant to "Robert Lanza" (it's his theory after all) 213.175.203.74 (talk) 15:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This minor theory has more content in his article than his work on stem cells. This seems incorrect.- sinneed (talk) 16:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Let the tag stay in a bit, and let established editors comment, please. This is a request to allow editors to have a chance to notice the flag, comment on it. It is only a request. I will not reapply the flag immediately, but it harms no one in any way, and calls attention to the section.- sinneed (talk) 16:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Sinneed - you're all alone on this one. It's a no-brianer. It isn't even logical to say that Dr. Lanza's theory doesn't belong on a page about lanza. And over a hundred-thousand links about it on the web isn't exactly minor, regardless of any personal views you might have on the topic. Also, Lanza is a biologist, so biology is not outside his field. If you read Lanza's theory, you'll realize that the whole premise is "bio-centrism" (that biology is central). In any case, that's not really for you or I to decide here. Staff3 (talk) 01:35, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

You are correct: It's a no-brainer. I never said it. I never implied it. If you actually inferred it, you erred. If you reread carefully, you may be able to see my statement that this is covered in too much depth, rather than that it should not be covered at all. So no, I am not alone. The straw man being attacked is alone. All the best, and happy editing.- sinneed (talk) 02:35, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I misunderstood you (I apologize). Yes, I agree with you too much depth, but do you think you (or we - or anyone) can trim it down? I'd be happy to try, but I'm not sure I'm up for triggering any kind of a battle. Any thoughts? Staff3 (talk) 13:50, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

As I said, my suggestion is to let the flags stay in the article, and let other editors have a chance to discover the article and express their opinions. I continue to object to the removal of the POV flag. The fact that those who argue the article is not in wp:BALANCE have stopped posting does not mitigate their earlier and unaddressed arguments. The flags harm nothing and no one and allow readers to see that there are concerns about the article. WP is patient. If it is a year before an uninvolved but interested editor takes action, that is OK.- sinneed (talk) 14:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Currently, the "Biocentrism" section has 5 statements in favor of the concept and 3 against. If the complaint is that the section is too long, I would be OK with taking 2 of the "pro" statements away (making it 3 vs 3). I would NOT be OK taking the Krauss, Lindley or Dennett statements out. Chopra would be a good candidate for removal. (I even say that knowing that taking him out would actually strengthen Lanza's arguements, since he [Chopra] is a well known "flake" with essentially no scientific credibility, despite his popularity on Oprah, etc...) Henry would also be a good candidate. He has some academic credibility by virtue of his position, but his statements are rather frothing-at-the-mouth... If taking out 2 is not acceptable, I think we are stuck....140.139.35.250 (talk) 15:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

At this point there is peace - I highly recommend we leave it that way. There are already three very negative quotes (which is excessive). Staff3 (talk) 13:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Pax vobiscum. But three is NOT excessive. They are the 3 most eminent authorities among the 8 quotes & represent the majority opinion among scientists & philosophers who have an attitude about Lanza's "biocentrism". BTW, most scientists & philosophers have responded to Lanza/Berman's book this way: They ignore it. Have you noticed that Lanza's idea has NOT set the scientific or intellectual world on fire? It is not even reviewed in Science magazine, Nature magazine or other leading journals of science or philosophy. Or even in Newsweek, Time, New York Times, etc.... That is because it is not considered important enough to review. It is considered light-weight nonsense.... (This is why I have always had such a concern about the *glowing* statements about it in the Wiki article. They do not reflect reality...) 140.139.35.250 (talk) 14:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

"Leading"? Please!

I see there are much bigger fights going on over the content on this page, but it is worth noting that both of the "citations" that supposedly support the claim that Lanza is a "leading" scientist are links to descriptions that Lanza wrote himself. I don't know what the hell "leading" scientist is supposed to mean in the first place, but if it has any significance at all surely one does not become a "leading" scientist just because one says so oneself. The description "leading" scientist should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.192.61.7 (talk) 21:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Completely agree, good call. Term removed. Tan | 39 21:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The "Books" Section

The opening to the "Books" section reads: "Lanza has authored articles and books on topics involving tissue engineering, cloning, stem cells, and world health, including the Handbook of Stem Cells and Essentials of Stem Cell Biology...." Actually, most of the books listed (including Handbook of Stem Cells) are collections of essays that Lanza co-edited. He is the "author" of very little material on the list. I recommend either (a) dividing the list of books into two parts: one described as "Books Authored" and one as "Books Co-Edited" or (b) changing the intro to the list to read "Lanza has authored articles and books and co-edited collections of essays on topics involving...." Either would be an improvement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.192.49.178 (talk) 13:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

The following accounts, which have edited as single-purpose accounts on this article and the related biocentrism (cosmology) page, have all been identified and blocked as sockpuppets of a single user:

• Regener (talk · contribs)
• Reviewer4 (talk · contribs)
• Staff3 (talk · contribs)
• WikiWatch31 (talk · contribs)
• Prosody31 (talk · contribs)
• Actioncat3 (talk · contribs)

Editors are advised to check the contributions of each of these accounts, and IPs possibly related to them, for neutrality issues, and watch out for any new socks that may yet appear. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:51, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Also:

• Other (apparently unrelated) sockpuppets that have contributed
• Dogwood123 (talk · contribs)
• 140.139.35.250 (talk · contribs · 140.139.35.250 WHOIS)
• 96.231.137.242 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• Valerius Tygart (talk · contribs)

- Sinneed 16:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, not sure, are you saying these are related to the same sockfarm, or just a different sockfarm? Their contributions to these pages appear to be only marginal, or am I missing something? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Different socks, it seems. The old edit war that resulted in what I see as massive overquoting on Biocentrism was between the 2 sockfarms, as I read it. I am afraid I was the one that led the socks to the Biocentrism article. Instead of defusing things, breaking out the contentious theory from its creator simply let them war on 2 fronts.- Sinneed 16:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Hope that is clearer. Sorry to have made things more confusing. - Sinneed 16:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Too much glow about stem cell work.

I cut: He believes that stem cell technology will have a substantial importance in the future of medicine. According to Discover magazine, “Lanza’s single-minded quest to usher in this new age has paid dividends in scientific insights and groundbreaking discoveries.”

Maybe it belongs in "Awards and accolades" or some such, but I don't see it, and I really don't see how it belongs in the stem cell work. I won't cut it again, but I would love to understand how it improves the encyclopedia article.- Sinneed 15:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

As I tried to note in the short space provided to comment on changes, I restored the second sentence because the Discover magazine comment helps to establish the significance of the work he has done. The first sentence ("He believes...") sounds like something from a press release or that would be on a personal website, so did not restore it. His beliefs about future work are not important. That his work has been "groundbreaking" is. 99.192.55.216 (talk) 03:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I dropped it again. The readers can look at the body of work and draw their own conclusions. Discover does not need to do it for them. Again, this section is about his work, not about how single-minded he is, or how great the benefits or risks or ethical whatevers are.- Sinneed 05:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

First you say "I won't revert if someone restores" as you edited it out and "I won't cut it again" here, but then when I restore it you say "If the effort to turn this into an wp:advert continues, the article can be protected again". That's very odd. Now you also say "readers can look at the body of work and draw their own conclusions." With due respect to the readers (myself included), they probably can't. With achievements in specialized disciplines like scientific research you can tell a lay audience (myself included) what someone has done, but they don't necessarily have the background needed to know how important that is. Also, the point of the Discover quote is not just to say "he's done important work", it's to say "he's been recognized in the scientific community for doing important work". The question of how notable someone is, no matter who the article is about, is something an article should legitimately address.

So since you have said two completely opposite things about what you would do in case of reversion and since I still think it is a legitimate element of the article, I'm going to restore it again. At least I am consistent in my position. 142.177.25.158 (talk) 14:39, 31 January 2010 (UTC) (aka 99.192.55.216)

Note:

1. 142.*/99.*: given the many problems with socks on these pages, I would very much prefer if you could please edit logged-in when you deal with this article. Thanks.
2. An edit summary of "See discussion page before changing this again" is not a very good thing to say when you are yourself making a repeated revert as a first reaction before responding to the other editor's latest contribution to talk. In general, in a case like here, I think it is a reasonable expectation that when some content is contentious and there's an ongoing discussion about it, the default interim solution is that it should stay out until the discussion has concluded. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:51, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

(1) Done. How do you like the user name?

(2) I understand your point, but given that Sinneed reverted my change after specifically saying twice that he would not revert such a change, and in the process of reverting it he threatened to put protection on the page to prevent further changes, I didn't see my actions as really out of line.

Thanks for your input. 142 and 99 (talk) 15:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. May your friends call you 241, or just 2? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I changed my mind. Unfortunate, that. In any event, I have placed it, *briefly* in a renamed "awards" - retitled "awards and public commentary" section. I have corrected the statement to match the fact... Discover did not say that, an author whose work was published there did. It is an wp:advert, and I will probably remove it promptly unless there is a reason it belongs. And it doesn't. It is both a teaser for the interview and generic praise for the subject. It is opinion, not fact, and opinion on which there will be experts in the future, but not now. And the author is an interviewer, not a master of Who's-who in genetics... and any such master would STILL not be appropriate for such a statement, as I read wp:sources wp:BLP.- Sinneed 01:01, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Pamela Weintraub is not just an "interviewer", she is a senior editor at Discover magazine. She's also an editor at Psychology Today and was the editor-in-chief of OMNI. But furthermore, if you are right that even if she were an expert that met your standards of expertise it would still not be appropriate for the article, then you are saying that no comment in any article should be allowed that says that a person's work is significant. That's just crazy. Also, you seem to think that the quotation is a comment that speculates about the future significance of Lanza's work, but it does not. She says his work "has paid dividends", not merely that she thinks it "will" pay dividends. That not a prediction but a comment about present significance. One more thing: By moving the quotation you have made a comment that was specifically about Lanza's stem cell work look like it is describing all of his work. So it was much more appropriate in the stem cell section.

I've read wp:advert, wp:sources, and wp:BLP and challenge you to point to any section of any of those pages that this quotation violates. It's easy to throw around vague references to regulations, but that does not establish that any of them have been violated.

Clearly S(p)inneed has an agenda and is determined to treat this article as his own private property. He talks as if he can revise the article anyway he likes by his whim of the day, create or radically change sections while announcing the intention just to remove it later. How about add it one day, then remove it and threaten to protect the article from yourself the next? That could be fun. There's no point arguing with crazy people, so I'm done here. If anyone is foolish enough to take on the insane, at least I hope I have left here some information they might be able to use. Until then, enjoy your private little playground, Sinneed. 142 and 99 (talk) 02:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) I revisited this after some time to find her red link gone. I dug in a bit and sourced the awards listed to support the "numerous awards" statement. One is from Wired, one is from the no-artcile "Mass High Tech" weekly. Sourced the 2006 MHT award to MHT, dropped red link for the never-going-to-have-an article Rave Award. Re-added the red link for the editorial writer, briefly. I expect to kill this bit of personal opinion by a journalist unless someone argues it belongs.- Sinneed 21:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

"...unless someone argues it belongs." I have already argued that it belongs right above your comment. So if you really mean that you won't remove it if someone argues that it belongs, then you won't remove it. As I noted above, you previously commented that you "won't revert if someone restores" and "I won't cut it again", but then you just decided you would change your mind and contradict that. Unless you really do think you own the article, and if you ever really mean what you say, then you should not remove that bit of text. But I'm not holding my breath here.... 142.177.21.186 (talk) 00:02, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyone else have a concern? Anyone have a WP-centric concern other than "I like it."?- Sinneed 01:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

No one has said it should stay because "I like it". My argument, which you can see above, is that it is standard that articles include assessments of the significance of the subject. The article for William Shakespeare, to pick just one example, starts with the claim that he is "widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist". The claim is properly sourced. Lanza is no Shakespeare - far from it. But there are serious scientific publications that have noted that the work he has done on stem cells is significant. Discover is a noteworthy scientific publication and Pamela Weintraub is a senior editor at Discover magazine, an editor at Psychology Today and was the editor-in-chief of OMNI. There is no reason to doubt her assessment, and so it should stay. You made it clear why you oppose the comment in the article by the title you gave this section. You did not object that the source was not credible. You just decided there was "too much glow". If she had said he was the most brilliant scientist to ever live, you'd be right. But given what she said, one can only see your objection as "I don't like it".142.177.21.186 (talk) 01:27, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

My objection is that we are including the quoted opinion of a random, non-notable journalist in what is supposed to be an encylopedia article, and is in this bit instead an wp:advert. It fails wp:NPOV: too much glow.- Sinneed 02:02, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You say she is "a random, non-notable journalist". But, as has been mentioned twice already, she is a senior editor at Discover magazine, an editor at Psychology Today and was the editor-in-chief of OMNI. I don't see how that can possibly count as "random" or "non-notable". I would suggest that you might solicit input from another Wikipedia editor who has no prior editorial involvement with this article to look at this question to help settle the issue, as it looks unlikely that we will agree on this matter.142.177.21.186 (talk) 02:40, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Easy: wp:notability. She fails. To settle the issue, other interested editors will comment, if there are any.- Sinneed 02:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The question here is not should there be a Pamela Weintraub article on Wikipedia. So your citation of wp:notability is irrelevant. I don't see the harm in asking a neutral third party to weigh in. I'd do it myself, but I don't know where I would go to ask. I do believe, however, that there is a commonly used Wikipedia editing procedure for doing that. If you don't want to ask someone, can you tell me how I would go about doing it? Like I said, I don't think you and I will agree so the only hope for any kind of resolution is asking someone else. 142.177.21.186 (talk) 03:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

"Anyone else have a concern? Anyone have a WP-centric concern other than "I like it."?" - Anyone at all?- Sinneed 07:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Again, no one has said it should stay because "I like it". We have my WP-centric concern that it should stay and yours that it should go. There is no concensus thus should be no change unless another editor can settle the disagreement.99.192.59.44 (talk) 15:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I just reviewed again, and I see no rule, no guideline, no policy, or even an essay that says why this comment should remain. Did I miss it? I see where one poster argues that there is no policy that REQUIRES it to be removed. Was their something else? The quote is not factual: it doesn't say he did something. It claims he accomplished a nebulous result and categorized his work ethic: it is personal POV of a non-notable person. As to the consensus bit: there was no consensus to add it. But we don't work by "Mother May I", we work by editing. - Sinneed 15:21, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

(1) I should have logged in earlier for this discussion, but just so there is no question, I should confirm again that (as my log in name suggests) that the posts by IPs beginning with either 142 or 99 on this page are all mine. (2) Since Future Perfect at Sunrise has intervened helpfully on this page before, I have posted a request that he drop by and offer an opinion (or help get an opinion) to break the deadlock. 142 and 99 (talk) 15:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

"deadlock" - there is no deadlock. You have edit warred a change into the article (long ago). I have moved it out of that section, and into this one. After a month of no one else weighing in, I have proposed to delete it. Is there any rule, guideline, policy, or even an essay that says why this comment should remain? Does anyone else have a concern about removing this (as I read it) non-factual opinion by a non-notable individual?- Sinneed 15:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC) Interestingly (to me), I am having the obverse of this discussion at the theory article. An editor wants to remove a factual statement by Lanza (a notable person, and author of the subject theory). I and another editor have opposed the removal.- Sinneed 15:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

If there is no deadlock, then FP@S or some other editor who comes to check this discussion will say so and problem solved. I suggest being patient to see if he or someone comes by today to offer an opinion. Maybe he will agree with you 100%. But until that happens, we have you wanting to take something out and me wanting it to stay, so there is no agreement and without further input no solution about how to stabilize the article. 142 and 99 (talk) 15:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Again: the article is stable: your change remains in the article. Focus please.- Sinneed 15:47, 5 March 2010 (UTC) Sorry, expanding: I encourage you to engage, and cite some Wikipedia document that might indicate we should leave this in... one might be wp:BALANCE as there is a lot of negativity, but that doesn't seem appropriate.- Sinneed 15:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

((OUTDENT)) I just checked the Biocentrism (cosmology) page to see what dispute you were talking about, and it seems pretty clear to me that you are right and Peter Grey is wrong. I also see that Jordgette has weighed in on your side. Without an additional editor voicing an opinion you just have disagreement, and the potential for an edit war. Yes, this article is "stable" in the sense that it is not undergoing rapid change, but it is not "stable" in the sense that there is an agreed equilibrium point, if you will. How about we just wait until the end of the day to see if FP@S or someone else comes by to offer a third opinion? That's what I plan to do now. 142 and 99 (talk) 15:56, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Too much glow about stem cell work-random section for easy editing

??? It has been a month. Unless someone wanders along and comments, I don't expect to delete this this MONTH. WP is patient: there is no wp:BLP issue, copyright, grossly-misleading, insulting, etc. I think you are assigning your emotions/methods to me, but we digress. Do you have anything WP-centric to add to the discussion of whether or not this quote should be added to WP (if I take it out, if no one else objects)?

"stable": In the sense you are using the word, no WP article will ever be stable until WP dies.- Sinneed 16:03, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

To review, my argument against the quote is that it is a teaser for the interview: it is an overt wp:advertisement for the interview article in which it appears. These are throwaway remarks, like headlines. They are not useful as sources, in very general.- Sinneed 16:21, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

This:

Discover magazine senior editor interviewed Lanza in 2008, and wrote “Lanza’s single-minded quest to usher in this new age has paid dividends in scientific insights and groundbreaking discoveries.”

...is the chunk of text I expect to remove unless there is a Wikipedia-specific reason it belongs in Wikipedia. Editors who are even mildly interested are encouraged to lend their thoughts.- Sinneed 20:13, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I still hold the same Wikipedia-specific reason to keep the text. I am right now in the process of requesting a third opinion. 142 and 99 (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

I'm not an expert on stem cells or Robert Lanza. I've never edited this article. I'm not here to judge, I'm just here to help. I'm assuming the issue is inclusion of this quote in the "awards and commentary" section "Pamela Weintraub, Discover magazine senior editor interviewed Lanza in 2008, and wrote “Lanza’s single-minded quest to usher in this new age has paid dividends in scientific insights and groundbreaking discoveries.." The quote is properly referenced, and it is indisputable that she said it. However, the fact she said it adds nothing to the article, and neither does the quote itself. See Wikipedia:Peacock#Exception_for_quotations for criteria on adding quotes using "peacock" terms. Such indirect or direct quotations may be useful in presenting important perspectives, especially on contentious subjects, or in summarizing a widely held view. This particular quote neither adds perspective on a contentious subject, nor does it summarize a widely held view. Weintraub's comment does not appear to be particularly notable. She is, as has been mentioned, a journalist and editor. Her comment is given as an introduction to an interview. And just as "glowing introductions" for speakers at conferences are not particularly notable, neither are introductions to interviews. I would leave it out.—Work permit (talk) 23:33, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

What happens next?

• If my opinion misses the point

Explain why you think I missed the point. Give me a reasonable time to justify or revise my opinion. I'm not an expert on the topic and may have unintentionally overlooked a detail.

• If my opinion needs clarification

Please reply in Plain English. I'd appreciate references to Wikipedia guidelines and policies. If I was confusing or you can not see which part of the referenced material applies, then ask me for further clarification. Please remember to remain civil.

• If my opinion is not accepted

If my opinion is firmly rejected, it's probably not worth while going over the same ground again. Ask the non-accepting party to clarify their viewpoint and summarize the current situation. Remember to stay cool and give reasonable time for contributions from other editors who may act as local mediators.

Your next step is probably to consider one of the other dispute resolution options. The most common of these at this stage are:

1. A request for comment, a good solution for agreeing a proposed exception to the guidance, or rejecting it.
2. Raising a Wikiquette alert, a fair way of dealing with another editor who consistently shows what you think is poor etiquette. Going through the third opinion process should demonstrate that you have made reasonable attempts to resolve issues locally before raising the alert.
3. Requesting advice on a Wikipedia noticeboard. For example Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard is particularly helpful in those cases where the inclusion of problematic biographical material for a living person is under debate.
4. Requesting advice on a Wikiproject talk page. Nearly all articles fall within the jurisdiction of a Wikiproject, and the members of that project can be helpful in further bringing about consensus on that page.

• If my opinion worked and resolved the dispute

Don't forget to express thanks to everyone involved. Positive feedback is encouraged as it shows that their contributions are appreciated which will help to ensure the future of the third opinion project. If my third opinion was especially thoughtful or particularly helpful, you might consider awarding a Third Opinion Award on my talk page.

Well, I disagree with the verdict, but the process has properly been followed, so the result should stand. I'll make the edit myself. 142 and 99 (talk) 00:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It isn't a verdict. It is just another opinion. Thank you for seeking a 3PO. Thank you, Work permit, for doing the 3PO thing.- Sinneed 03:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Biocentrism

There is too much bulk and way too much quoting. The theory has its very own article, now. I propose to drastically shorten the coverage here, dropping all the feedback, leaving the sources, and just saying something to the effect that reception has been mixed. If that is objectionable, how about 2 very brief summaries of the pro and con, with no quotes? - Sinneed 15:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I like the idea of the drastically shortened section. Leave all the details of the pro and con debate for the biocentrism (cosmology) page. At a glance, I'd say that paragraphs 1 and 2 in that section can stay and paragraph 3 can go without any loss here. The last sentence of paragraph 2 can probably go as well. The debate is well covered on the biocentrism (cosmology) page. 99.192.55.216 (talk) 03:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

:: "Making deletions recommended in January on talk page" - No, you didn't. You just cut out all the opposition. - Sinneed 18:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC) My bad. Sorry. But no. - Sinneed 18:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I deglowed it. May well be too short now, and we need some of the sources back, I think. Maybe some of the words, without peacock wording.- Sinneed 18:55, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Added the book, with date and cite book.- Sinneed 21:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Citation 34 is a dead link — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.240.78.110 (talk) 02:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism

This article looks vandalized -- Lanza was mentored by B.F. Skinner and Jonas Salk??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.173.56.72 (talk) 22:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

20 W of energy

Apparently, Mr. Lanza thinks that energy is measured in Watts, see [1]. In my country people who believe that cannot not properly graduate high school. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Please keep your comments polite and your personal epithets away from BLP talk pages. Thank you! Jeremy112233 (talk) 17:20, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

It's verifiable:

Think of the 20-watts of energy as simply holo-projecting either this or that result onto a screen. ... I thought about the 20-watts of energy, and about experiments that show a single particle can pass through two holes at the same time. ... Whether it’s flipping the switch for the Science experiment, or turning the driving wheel ever so slightly this way or that way on black-ice, it’s the 20-watts of energy that will experience the result.

— Robert Lanza, Does Death Exist? New Theory Says ‘No’

Me dumb or he dumb? Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:38, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

For the second time, avoid using epithets against living people please, on talk pages or their Wikipedia profiles. Jeremy112233 (talk) 18:14, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, speaking only of myself, I have a big cognitive dissonance between "Lanza is an authority on physics" and "Lanza says that energy is measured in Watts". I won't call him names, but the problem is very real. I hope you understand that even if we don't use any epithets, the problem won't go away. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. This article is about a notable medical doctor, not a member of the physics community. One of his dozens of books is at best a footnote for the page; though yes, the controversial nature of the theory is a major part of the theory's own separate entry. Jeremy112233 (talk) 20:02, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

He claimed to be an authority on physics through writing a book proposing a paradigm shift for physics. That was my problem: he either is an authority on physics or he isn't, and speaking of "20-watts of energy" is a telltale sign that he isn't. And therefore Wikipedia articles discussing physics should not quote him as an authority. Critics who told he was doing quatum flapdoodle were right, since he does not even understand the difference between energy and power. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:54, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. WP:SYNTH keeps one from making those kinds of inferences on Wikipedia though--for instance, we don't mention spelling mistakes on the personal websites of famous authors and then combine this with a few unfavourable reviews of their work as aggregative evidence they are bad writers. Jeremy112233 (talk) 21:06, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't say that I would do original research and put that into an Wikipedia article, but his article got quoted in many newspapers and websites, it got translated in many languages and people are led to think that "20-watts or energy" is meaningful because a leading scientist has put it in writing. The same way as New Age people came to talk about "energy fields", when in physics there is no such thing as an "energy field" (there are only force fields). Or like people are saying "I used 2500 kW of electrical energy this year" because they forgot what they learned in school about energy. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:27, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The error that Lanza makes is absolutely not of the same class as a spelling mistake. Lanza, who asserts that he has special knowledge of the nature of space and time, lacks the understanding that the Watt is a unit of the change in energy over time. This is a clear indication that he lacks the understanding of physics expected of an American high-school student in a physics course. This is not a personal attack, it is an objective criticism.50.147.26.108 (talk) 14:49, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Reliable source

The debunkers blog article has been reposted at http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/4769-biocentrism-demystified-a-response-to-deepak-chopra-and-robert-lanza-39-s-notion-of-a-conscious-universe , therefore it should be considered a reliable source snd notable criticism, since it bears the stamp of approval of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:12, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Please review the long, exhaustive discussions on this source on the Biocentric Universe page. In addition, this content already exists on that page in a very thought out, discussed format so including it here is a) repetitive and b) circumventing established Wikipedia consensus. Largely though, we have a Biocentric Universe page for a reason, which was split from this page in order to give full context to the subject matter. Jeremy112233 (talk) 17:19, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

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Biocentrism

OK, so we have four different versions of this content

pre-exising version (version)

In 2007, Lanza's article titled "A New Theory of the Universe" appeared in The American Scholar. The essay addressed Lanza's idea of biocentric universe, which places biology above the other sciences. Lanza's book Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the Universe followed in 2009, co-written with Bob Berman.

References

This post-AfD version (diff)

Lanza, with Bob Berman, has published ideas about a "biocentric universe." The ideas are based on the anthropic principle, and hold that time and space are products of human consciousness. Arizona State University physicist Lawrence Krauss stated, “It may represent interesting philosophy, but it doesn't look, at first glance, as if it will change anything about science." Daniel Dennett said that he did not believe that the idea meets the criteria of a theory in philosophy. In USA Today Online, theoretical physicist and science writer David Lindley asserted that Lanza’s concept was a "vague, inarticulate metaphor" and stated that "I certainly don't see how thinking his way would lead you into any new sort of scientific or philosophical insight. That's all very nice, I would say to Lanza, but now what? I [also] take issue with his views about physics."

References

this post-AfD version

In 2007, Lanza's article titled "A New Theory of the Universe" appeared in The American Scholar. The essay addressed Lanza's idea of a biocentric universe, which places biology above the other sciences. Lanza's book Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the Universe followed in 2009, co-written with Bob Berman. Reception for Lanza's hypothesis has been mixed.

References

this post-AfD version

Lanza, with Bob Berman, has published ideas about a "biocentric universe." The idea sees biology as the central driving science in the universe, and an understanding of the other sciences as reliant on a deeper understanding of biology. Lanza believes that life and biology are central to being, reality, and the cosmos—consciousness creates the universe rather than the other way around. While physics is considered fundamental to the study of the universe, and chemistry fundamental to the study of life, Lanza claims that scientists will need to place biology before the other sciences to produce a theory of everything. Critics have questioned whether the concept is falsifiable, which can raise questions whether it falls more in the range of science or pseudoscience. Lanza has claimed that future experiments, such as scaled-up quantum superposition, will either support or contradict the theory.

Lanza claims that biological observers actually create the arrow of time. In 2016, Lanza and Dmitriy Podolskiy published a paper in the physics journal Annalen der Physik. In his papers on relativity (also published in Annalen der Physik), Einstein showed that time was relative to the observer; in their paper, Podolskiy and Lanza argue that quantum gravitational decoherence is too ineffective to guarantee the emergence of the arrow of time and the “quantum-to-classical” transition to happen at scales of physical interest. They argue that the emergence of the arrow of time is directly related to the way biological observers with memory functions process and remember information. They cite Lanza’s American Scholar paper on biocentrism, stating that the “brainless” observer does not experience time and/or decoherence of any degrees of freedom.

The reception to biocentrism has been mixed. Physician and Nobel laureate E. Donnall Thomas said of biocentrism, "Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work. The work is a scholarly consideration of science and philosophy that brings biology into the central role in unifying the whole." However, some physicists have commented that biocentrism currently does not make testable predictions. Arizona State University physicist Lawrence Krauss stated, “It may represent interesting philosophy, but it doesn't look, at first glance, as if it will change anything about science." Daniel Dennett said that he did not believe that the idea meets the criteria of a theory in philosophy. In USA Today Online, theoretical physicist and science writer David Lindley asserted that Lanza’s concept was a "vague, inarticulate metaphor" and stated that "I certainly don't see how thinking his way would lead you into any new sort of scientific or philosophical insight. That's all very nice, I would say to Lanza, but now what? I [also] take issue with his views about physics." Stephen P. Smith conducted a review of the book, asserting that Lanza is actually describing a form of idealism. Smith found Lanza's claim that time is an illusion to be unfounded since the premise was that time was not understood fully. He concludes that, while lacking in scientific and philosophical rigor, "Lanza has a colloquial style that is typical of good popular books, and his book can be understood by non-experts".

References

I think that is all of them. How do we adjudicate this, i wonder? Jytdog (talk) 22:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I am happy to see it discussed here, thank you Jytdog for reverting to pre-edit war version first. 2605:8D80:6C5:74DC:4840:8CEC:7B1F:74F1 (talk) 22:37, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I am ignoring you, IP, as you are most likely the SOCKing editor. This is the last and only time I will address you. Jytdog (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

We need to keep WP:UNDUE in mind, btw. "Biocentrism" is not a huge deal in Lanza's life and career. Jytdog (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Looks like this has all been resolved now by the admin Josophie (talk) 23:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

It has not been resolved! The section is almost the same length as it was before the Afd. This is not a compromise in any sense of the word. -Jordgette [talk] 23:52, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I can live with what DGG did. Jytdog (talk) 23:55, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I can live with what's on the article page now as well.Josophie (talk) 00:06, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Edit request

I would be thankful if these few lines can be added to my page. There are proper sources provided. I have also requested on the talk page. And from now on will do the same by requesting edits from the talk page. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

“Lanza and his colleagues have published peer-reviewed scientific work supporting his ideas, including a paper in the same journal Einstein published his papers on relativity, showing that “quantum gravitational decoherence is too ineffective to guarantee the emergence of the arrow of time and the ‘quantum‐to‐classical’ transition to happen at scales of physical interest. The emergence of the arrow of time is directly related to the nature and properties of physical observer… in a sense, the “brainless” observer does not experience time and/or decoherence of any degrees of freedom.”

“Nathalie Cabrol, the director of the SETI Institute Carl Sagan Center, said “A biocentric ‘theory of everything’ could take life’s origins all the way back to the beginning of the universe…a paradigm shift that fundamentally changes our relationship to our planet, to our biosphere and to our universe.” LanzaRobert (talk) 07:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for making an edit request. The first paragraph would be fine but it's pretty opaque. In many ways, it's best for us to give our own summary of what a paper says, with proper weight: it avoids confusion, and lengthy quotes are problematic because they seem to give more weight than is due. Here, I think an appropriate summary would be something like this: "Dmitriy Podolskiy and Lanza wrote in Annalen der Physik that for the arrow of time to be coherent, it requires a physical observer." Or whatever; suggest what you'd like. NB: Mentioning Einstein and peer review is unnecessary and borders on self-promoting.

Regarding the second paragraph, I can't make heads or tails of what it means. Urve (talk) 11:30, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Dear, Urve Thanks for your reply. You guys are doing great work for this community. I would appreciate it if you can implement the first paragraph in your own summary. Also, the second paragraph is a quote, I guess quotes are allowed in Wikipedia. It's like a comment/compliment given to me by Nathalie Cabrol, a respected astrobiologist. I think getting his compliment on my page will is a great achievement for me :) LanzaRobert (talk) 16:32, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The "Daily Galaxy" is manifestly an unreliable source, and the quality of several others in that collection doesn't look great either. Pop-science blogs are of questionable usefulness thanks to the industry's well-known tendency to sensationalism and superficiality. The New York Times item has nothing to do with the quote it is ostensibly supporting. And yes, name-dropping Einstein is poor form. In addition, secondary sources reporting on and evaluating the Annalen der Physik paper would be helpful, as we write about things based on the amount and kind of influence they have had. Wikipedia articles are not CVs, listing papers merely because they have been published. There doesn't seem to be much in that regard, however. XOR'easter (talk) 18:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I would agree with XOR'easter that the "Daily Galaxy" reference should be removed. I also agree with XOR'easter that the New York Times item has nothing to do with the quote it is supporting, and thus, should also be removed. But because questions were raised about Lanza’s ideas not providing “scientific insights” and are dismissed here as “rank pseudoscience” (an over the top put-down from a skeptic who could hardly be considered neutral-- and especially inappropriate on a living person's Wikipedia page) it is important to provide factual balance. Under the circumstance, it would be only be considered fair and appropriate to mention that Lanza and his colleagues have published peer-reviewed scientific work supporting his ideas, and to provide a quote from a peer-reviewed factual source. JamesHsieu (talk) 16:00, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

an over the top put-down from a skeptic who could hardly be considered neutral-- and especially inappropriate on a living person's Wikipedia page. Why would a skeptic not be considered neutral for the purposes of WP:NPOV? In fact, Novella is fairly neutral precisely because he is not connected nor does he have any disconfirming prior conflicts or relationships with Lanza/biocentrism that I've been made aware of. I don't think this is particularly harsh criticism given the context. But, more than that, it is properly attributed, so it's not being said in Wikipedia's voice thus I have a hard time understanding the problem with that source.

I would be okay quoting Podolskiy et al. if there were independent notice of this paper or specific quotes in it that connected it to the subject of this article/section. I haven't seen any coverage of that, however.

jps (talk) 00:24, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I assumed with good faith that the sources supported the statement; would have looked before addition. I have no reason to doubt XOR'easter (haven't looked), so getting secondary coverage of these ideas would be good. Otherwise, it might be okay to list the paper in an author bibliography, but I'd have to check MOS. Urve (talk) 00:37, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Dear, Urve "Regarding the quote from the paper, I think wording along the lines you suggest above is appropriate and definitively a step in the right direction. I propose a slight modification of what you wrote to accommodate everyone's concerns: "Lanza and his colleagues have published peer-reviewed scientific work supporting his ideas, including a paper in Annalen der Physik showing that the arrow of time requires a physical observer to be coherent." This eliminates concerns about mentioning Einstein or quoting directly from the paper." https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/andp.201600011 JamesHsieu (talk) 18:47, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

And also the second para, if it's possible as getting compliments from Nathalie Cabrol, is a great achievement for Lanza. JamesHsieu (talk) 18:49, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Please, Can the Kirkus Review quote be also fully-added because the last part is missing: “its notions are exciting ones, and they do a sound job of linking them to observable, replicable experiments.” JamesHsieu (talk) 18:51, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

The blog post by Cabrol is not peer-reviewed, and the quote above is from its title, which (given how websites operate) may or may not have been written by Cabrol. Titles and headlines often aren't attributable to the author. Scientific respectability isn't built on headlines, or on general-audience book reviews. Why should we expect the unsigned author of a Kirkus blurb to have the expertise required to judge when scientific experiments are feasible? What peer-reviewed papers other than the Annalen der Physik one exist? Are there secondary sources that actually evaluate what those papers say and what they can reasonably be said to support? The Annalen der Physik paper doesn't use the word "Biocentrism" and makes only a parenthetical reference to any prior publication by Lanza. Plenty of people have worked on the gravity/decoherence idea; what indicates that Podolsky and Lanza's article is such a significant contribution to that field that we need to detail it? XOR'easter (talk) 19:02, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• • I do not understand the purpose of repeating an edit request that merely recapitulates the same problems, from preening to poor sourcing, that have already been pointed out. I remain unconvinced that any changes have to be made; there seems to be an absence of peer-reviewed secondary sources bolstering the significance of Lanza's claims, and Wikipedia does not attempt to lead the consensus of the scientific community. XOR'easter (talk) 17:26, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I guess this paragraph can be included in a more neutral way as suggested by the respected editor User:Urve. “Lanza and his colleagues have published peer-reviewed scientific work supporting his ideas, including a paper in the same journal Einstein published his papers on relativity, showing that “quantum gravitational decoherence is too ineffective to guarantee the emergence of the arrow of time and the ‘quantum‐to‐classical’ transition to happen at scales of physical interest. The emergence of the arrow of time is directly related to the nature and properties of physical observer… in a sense, the “brainless” observer does not experience time and/or decoherence of any degrees of freedom.” JamesHsieu (talk) 17:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• You don't need to keep repeating your suggested text. The Wired item is an interview, which is a kind of source that should be used sparingly, and it is from 2007, so it is obviously not talking about a paper published in 2016. Moreover, there remains the problem that we have no indication that the paper is significant enough to write about. Given the currently available information, your suggested text isn't just in need of minor modifications; it is simply inadmissible from the beginning. XOR'easter (talk) 18:10, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

including a paper in the same journal Einstein published his papers on relativity} This gave me a hearty laugh. So the public segment you want to reach are those who are so extremely stupid that they are impressed by contagion magic. Einstein's genius seeps into the journal, which infects Lanza! Impressive, to some people.

No, such sleight-of-hand is unencyclopedic and does not belong here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:21, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

And you're hoping to reach editors who are so stupid they cannot tell the difference between self-promotion-by-way-of-association and sympathetic magic. But thanks for your comment...you are clearly a very smart person. -Jordgette [talk] 18:18, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

We do not have any article about contagion magic, but the sympathetic magic article explains both types. Sorry you did not get that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:29, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

That article is about magic. Lanza is trying to promote himself in Wikipedia. They aren't the same — but if you think they are, feel free to point to a paragraph in the article that's relevant to self-promotion, or attempted virtue by association, or anything else non-magical. -Jordgette [talk] 20:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay. Okay. Let's all calm down. I personally wouldn't have described it as "magic", but I do see some similarities between Steven Novella's critique of biocentrism and cargo cult science. Can we move on now? jps (talk) 23:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Hmm not optimal sources, The Independent one, although not clearly tagged as such, seems to be a press release for a book, calling biocentrism a scientific theory, versus philosophical idealism and quantum mysticism... —PaleoNeonate – 04:55, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

The NYT one is on another topic and may be usable. It's from 2006, there may have been developments since with better context? —PaleoNeonate – 04:59, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Partly answering my own question after rereading the article. It already has information going up to at least 2012 in relation to stem cell research, afterall. —PaleoNeonate – 05:07, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

References

Edit war

See WP:FTN. Lanza's knowledge of physics is inane, he thinks energy is measured in Watts. See Talk:Robert Lanza/Archive 1#20 W of energy. Verity defense: if it's true, it ain't libel: truth is a complete defense to libel and defamation claims [2]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:13, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

He has tried over the years to pair himself with physicists, but he seems to have been unsuccessful in recruiting any physicists except those who are consciousness causes collapse adherents. jps (talk) 00:47, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Of course, he could have said 20 Watts of power, but that does not pander the prejudices of the New Age folks. Energy could be conflated with energy (esotericism), but energy divided by time can't. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:44, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Needs Update

Almost no research is mentioned since 2012, which seems odd for someone of his prominence. Books published more recently seem to be theory not research. Can anyone (inc Lanza himself) provide more recent research citations, particularly in regard to stem cells, curing macular degeneration, and other breakthroughs? Surely something new after 9 years? Martindo (talk) 12:12, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Revised Proposal

I am withdrawing this proposal and will start a discussion of narrower requests in a new section below Sapphire41359 (talk) 16:44, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

In 2007, Lanza published, “A New Theory of the Universe,” in The American Scholar, an essay in which he proposed his theory of biocentrism. He argues that the grand theories offered by physicists to explain the ‘origins of everything’ fall short, because they do not take into account the essential role that biology plays in creating a conscious perception of physical reality. Lanza’s biocentrism hypothesis met with a mixed reception,with one physicist in 2007 saying it contained “no scientific breakthroughs about anything” and “may represent interesting philosophy, but it doesn't look, at first glance, as if it will change anything about science” while other scientists said his view is “fully in line with the perspective from quantum mechanics that the observer plays a huge role in how reality is observed.” Lanza published three books that subsequently developed his theory of biocentrism: Biocentrism: Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death, and The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality.

References

Discussion

• Comment "one physicist" rejected the theory wile "other scientists" supported it? Evidence, please. I think the record shows that the vast majority of scientists and other commentators who have examined the theory have either rejected or ridiculed it. The idea that consciousness creates everything and that the was nothing in the billions of years before there was consciousness is a completely WP:FRINGE view that has been rejected by mainstream science. I don't think any proposal that shoots for WP:FALSEBALANCE as the above proposalsn does will ever get a single editor to support it. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:34, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
• Comment He argues that the grand theories offered by physicists to explain the ‘origins of everything’ fall short What are these "grand theories"? Is he referring to grand unified theory? If so, they absolutely do not fall short because they do not take into account the essential role that biology plays in creating a conscious perception of physical reality. They fall short because there hasn't been observational confirmation of the theory yet. jps (talk) 17:39, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment One aspect of this entire issue I think needs to be addressed and has not. Lanza appears to have published this theory in a literary magazine. Now, I have a good friend who is an author and English professor, so I do understand that being published in some literary magazines is definitely a BFD in that field (and American Scholar seems relatively prestigious), she's certainly been thrilled when she gets published in magazines like this. But these magazines are primarily focused on literature, on fiction or sometimes non-fiction like memoirs and life stories. American Scholar seems more the place to publish, say, a short story from Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem (novel) than a place to publish an actual physical or mathematical solution to the Three-Body Problem. Lanza has also written several popular books through non-academic publishers. But I think that we do need to recognize and acknowledge that Lanza does not appear to have published his "biocentrism" in any peer-reviewed journals or academic press, and no other researchers have cited his work on biocentrism (compare to his unrelated biomedical research, for example).
  Now, obviously we don't need strict peer-reviewed sources to cite that he has come up with this theory, his own books are fine for citing the assertion that he has written about this and believes this, because it is essentially a self-citation, so that's fine. But at the same time, we do need to recognize that there really isn't much that we can cite in support of his theory. We can cite that he has written these things, but realistically we also have to mention that this is just not a real scholarly or scientific theory. Hyperion35 (talk) 17:54, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Excellent point. The counter is that lately Lanza has been collaborating with serious physicists on peer-reviewed journal articles. I think that can be mentioned in the text, but one of the things I noticed in reading those articles is that they do not mention biocentrism. I hope that Lanza continues to investigate ideas that interest him in whatever way he wants, but the expansive claims of biocentrism being a theory of everything with the attendant explanatory power a physicist (for example) might expect from such an enterprise do not seem supported by reliable sources. Moreover, it is not at all clear to me how this particular proposal is more developed than other consciousness causes collapse/anthropic principle proposals which have been popular with various people (including some of the people who positively reviewed Lanza's forays), but suffer from some very severe critiques by many actual quantum physicists. That there are enough mysteries left in interpretations of quantum mechanics to allow for this kind of wild speculation is perhaps interesting from a philosophy/sociology of science perspective, but it just means that Lanza has either wittingly or unwittingly discovered a niche he can fit into without being completely drummed out. (Unlike, for example, another medical doctor I know of who used his expertise in medical imaging to claim he could debunk the cosmic microwave background.) jps (talk) 18:07, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - everything I wrote about the first proposal applies also to this sadly emasculated version. This is exactly the direction the article must not go in, it's utterly unacceptable to cut out all the bits that one or two people connected to the subject don't find comfortable, including the trenchant criticism from all the famous scientists and philosophers. Wikipedia is uncensored and must maintain balance and freedom to say what is out there, whoever doesn't like it. WP:NPOV doesn't mean being bland and cosy, it means describing all the opposing viewpoints clearly and fairly. That's what the article did before these proposals, and that must be maintained. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:18, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose In addition to the points raised above, there's the problem that statements like Lanza published three books that subsequently developed his theory of biocentrism presume that Lanza actually developed his theory, rather than adding new vague statements on top of his old ones. Calling biocentrism a theory in the scientific sense is something we can't do in wiki-voice. XOR'easter (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Narrower Discussion/Proposed Edits

Can editors address some narrow, discrete issues rather than the proposal for a rewrite which I made above. Please note COI disclosure above.

1. I think the article at least needs an actual description of the theory which it now lacks. It is very difficult to follow what the 199-word criticism refers to absent a description of the theory (which has now been discussed in three books and two peer-reviewed physics journals.) The description in the current second sentence of the Wikipedia page is incomplete and does not represent the theory:

"The essay proposed Lanza's idea of a biocentric universe, which places biology above the other sciences."

Here is a proposed second sentence with independent reliable sourcing:

Biocentrism proposes that consciousness is the basis for understanding the existence of the universe. The theory “proposes that the physical world that we perceive is not something that's separate from us but rather created by our minds as we observe it.”

I propose this as a starting point for discussion. Note that I have linked "conscious perception" to the article about observer effect (physics) because the two are closely related and the theory makes much more sense in relation to physics in this context.

2. I also think that it would be helpful to include the two recent papers in peer-reviewed physics journals, written with well-regarded physicists. This was suggested by jps above. Both papers discuss Lanza’s biocentrism theory. The first paper references the original article in The American Scholar -- it is somewhat difficult to find because the reference only contains the title of the American Scholar and the word “biocentrism” is only in the subtitle of the original article. The original American Scholar article is in reference 41 here. ("the “brainless” observer does not experience time and/or decoherence of any degrees of freedom (as was earlier suggested in 41)." In the second paper the authors refer to their previous paper from the Annelen der Physik (which explicitly relies on biocentrism) as reference 49. The second paper has recent press coverage by a science journalist in an independent media source. [3]

There is an extended discussion of theory underlying biocentrism in the Introduction:

We deem these observations generally interesting also because the described setup, quantum gravity with disorder, represents a rare case in theoretical physics when the presence of observers drastically changes behavior of observable quantities themselves not only at microscopic scales but also in the infrared limit, at very large spatio-temporal scales. Namely, in the absence of observers the background of the 3 + 1-dimensional quantum gravity remains unspecified. Once observers are introduced, coupled to the observable gravitational degrees of freedom and integrated out, the effective background of theory becomes de-Sitter like. Rather than being a fundamental constant of the theory, the characteristic curvature of effective cosmological constant is determined by the intrinsic properties of “observers” such as the strength of their coupling to gravity and distribution of observation events across the fluctuating spacetime. Physical observers thus play a critically important role for our conclusions implying a necessity of proper description of observer, observation event and interaction between observers and the observed physical system for theoretical controllability of the very physical setups being probed."

To the extent that editors think that because the papers don’t use the word “biocentrism” in the body of the texts (even though the underlying principles are discussed) that they shouldn’t be included in this section, then I propose just changing the subsection title to “Biocentrism and related papers” to account for the ongoing peer-reviewed publications of a well-known scientist, all on closely related topics. These papers are useful in allowing more academic readers to evaluate the theory and Lanza’s credentials.

3. Finally, since it seems editors would rather work to improve the current version than substitute it, I’d propose adding a new third sentence to the second paragraph from a renowned physicist, Richard Conn Henry. (From Wikipedia: “Richard Conn Henry (born 7 March 1940[1]) is an Academy Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, author of one book and over 200 publications on the topics of astrophysics and various forms of astronomy including optical, radio, ultraviolet, and X-ray.”) The quality of the source is secondary to the very high quality of the expert in this case.

In a review of his book ' 'Biocentrism' ' , Johns Hopkins physicist Richard Conn Henry comments that the Lanza’s theory that the “animal observer creates reality” is “factually correct”, if not novel, and worth exploring because it’s what physicists “only whisper… in private.”

The arguments against including positive quotes have been that they haven’t come from qualified physicists. It’s not an applicable argument with this physicist. Sapphire41359 (talk) 16:48, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Regarding (3), it seems wise to note that Henry says the individual principles of the biocentric model "have no individual value" rather than selectively quoting the praise. Also, the bit about whispering in private is meaningless. Urve 17:33, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. Moreover, there are specializations within physics. Astrophysics is not quantum foundations, for example. Expertise in one does not necessarily translate to expertise in the other. Henry is opining about an area of physics that is separate from the one in which he has a demonstrated track record. XOR'easter (talk) 18:36, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

As I noted below, the review is published in JSE which is why, I believe, we had rejected its inclusion in the past. jps (talk) 18:55, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Biocentrism description

Here I critique Sapphire41359's first proposal

Biocentrism proposes that consciousness is the basis for understanding the existence of the universe.

This is a pretty anodyne statement here that doesn't seem to add much except for the WP:ASTONISHing and hidden claim that the observer effect is based on consciousness (the observer effect can actually function without any consciousness whatsoever). If that's actually the claim that Lanza is making here, then it's related to consciousness causes collapse ideas which are maligned but, more importantly, I don't see third-party sources identifying that clearly. There is a reading of this sentence that is almost tautological. Understanding anything likely requires "consciousness". However, I imagine what is intended here is something a bit more expansive, so we will have to explain that. We have sources which talk about the primacy of biology in Lanza's proposal. We don't have sources that talk about consciousness explaining the observer effect. Unless you can find one that does so.

The theory “proposes that the physical world that we perceive is not something that's separate from us but rather created by our minds as we observe it.”

Yuck, not particularly enthused by what is being proposed here. There is, of course, an old form of solipsism and related philosophical arguments that would align with the text itself. That's not precisely what Lanza is saying, I think. Moreover, I'm not a big fan of these sources. Paul Ratner seems to have simply accepted everything Lanza has to say at face value and not gone looking for other sources. BigThink doesn't really have a good editorial policy, after all. The Alan Boyle blog is similarly no good -- perhaps even worse from an editorial perspective though I appreciate that at the time he asked for feedback (would have been better if he had actually sought it out). Finally, I cannot get access to the Eckelbecker article.

In short, to me, this isn't that promising as an improvement.

jps (talk) 17:06, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Published papers

We already link to The American Scholar piece, so I'm not sure what is being asked in that case. As for the Annelen der Physik article, I'm not opposed to mentioning that he collaborated on that, but even the quoted piece doesn't so much as define what an observer is beyond what is typically meant in QM -- that is any process which causes wavefunction collapse. Now wavefunction collapse is still debated and is mysterious, but there is nothing to preference consciousness in this mystery either in the paper itself or in general. That the paper was published seems to be a testament to the authors explicitly not drawing such conclusions. So, aside from a brief mention such as "Lanza has collaborated with physicists to publish a paper on quantum mechanics." I'm not convinced much more deserves inclusion here.

jps (talk) 17:12, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

It's a bit weird in any academic biography to mention the publication of an individual paper, unless that paper was particularly influential. I mean, publishing papers is what we do. The only peer-reviewed citations to the Annalen der Physik paper seem to be passing mentions, and there aren't many of them; to my eye, this raises WP:UNDUE concerns. XOR'easter (talk) 18:27, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I think it is a bit unusual for someone this out on a limb to (a) find a collaborator in a completely different discipline and (b) publish in a respectable journal in that discipline as an author. Yeah, it would be good for there to be a secondary source that mentions this, but it is still a remarkable wrinkle in this particular biography. I'm trying to think of a scenario that is comparable but am drawing a blank. jps (talk) 21:21, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it's much more remarkable than Espen Gaarder Haug publishing what looks like respectable work on option pricing with Nassim Taleb and then going around the bend into fringe physics and typical viXra stuff. Weird stuff happens on the edges. I'd happily speculate on my own time about how it came to be, but at the end of the day, I don't think that a paper that sank nearly without trace is something that a Wikipedia article should be covering. XOR'easter (talk) 22:01, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm willing to concede that the lack of secondary sources make this a bridge too far. jps (talk) 03:33, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

JSE review

We typically do not accept stuff published in Journal of Scientific Exploration. I'm sorry. jps (talk) 17:14, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Some sources

First, some unreliable sources. Unreliable sources may be useful on a talk page -- never in an article -- to help the Wikipedia editor to gain insight about a topic, but they often range from opinions to outright lies. Unreliable sources (especially using Wikipedia as a source) may also contain links to reliable sources that we can use.

While I think a selection of excerpts from reliable sources and works by Lanza is useful (and which I have greatly expanded below User:Guy Macon’s list below), I don’t believe it’s a good idea to fill Wikipedia Talk with excerpts from unreliable sources. I also think the list is heavily slanted toward armchair critics. But as long as it’s going to be up, I’ve added more unreliable sources, including quotations from well-regarded scientists. I’ve also added more excerpts from Lanza’s central works and from reliable sources. (I think these are the most useful so I put them on top of my section.) These sources are below the long list posted by Guy Macon, and a short discussion on unreliable sourcing. Please note my COI, disclosed above in the RfC.Sapphire41359 (talk) 17:12, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

• What do physicists think about Robert Lanza's theory of Biocentrism? --Quora

"After 15 seconds perusal of his website, my crackpot alarm is blaring."

• Book review: 'Biocentrism' by Robert Lanza --the !n(tro)verted yogi

"There’s a major challenge to biocentrism that results from the fact that we are fairly certain that the universe is 13+ billion years old and our planet didn’t come into existence until about 9 billion years after that (i.e. Earth is about 4.5 billion-years-old.) Even if one assumes the conscious life grew up elsewhere before us, it’s hard to imagine it having happened instantaneously with the beginning of the universe. Lanza’s end run around this can be found in his sixth and seventh principles of biocentrism which state that time and space are illusory in the absence of an observer. Of course, this raises questions of how this could be so and why we might believe it is so — because 'it’s essential to my case' isn’t a good reason to believe anything."

• In shedding our shells --Editorial in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

"Lanza also says consciousness is what creates the universe rather than the other way around... Hmm, wait just a second here. Where have I read that same pronouncement? Something about in the beginning was the Word?"

• Arguments for life after death from Robert Lanza --International Skeptics Forum

"I had the time to check out the actual Science article. It is an interesting article involving the known dual wave and particle properties of light. But it does not come anywhere near, nor is it in any way relevant, to the bizarre interpretation made by Lanza. Another example of 'Quantum is spooky! So I can prove anything I want if I use the word quantum!' "

• OMG Lanza --The Skeptics Society Forum

"The core of Lanza’s argument rests on a misunderstanding of quantum mechanics...Lanza argues that nothing exists without an observer, and actually cites the double-slit experiments for support. [He confuses] 'observer' with 'consciousness' (actually his entire premise rests upon this fallacy). This is wrong. The results of the experiment depend not at all on the presence or absence of an observer or a consciousness. What matters is whether or not there is a detector in each slit, detecting the presence of the photon as it passes through the slit. In other words, if the photon has to interact with any particle of matter, then the probability wave must collapse and it behaves like a particle. If the photon is not detected, however, then it continues to travel as a wave until it hits the film or photon detector on the other side of the slit, at which point the wave function collapses. The only thing that matters is whether or not the photons are detected or interacted with in any way prior to or after passing through the slits. This has absolutely nothing to do with consciousness or an observer. This is the common misunderstanding of the quantum gurus."

• A Critique of Robert Lanza --Morten Tolboll (PDF Version)

"It is sad to see a mainstream scientist like Lanza give in to such rank pseudoscience, and then use his credentials to sell that pseudoscience to the public. Take a look again at his website... notice how he places his picture alongside Darwin and Einstein. Meanwhile, biocentrism is not even science. It is bad philosophy"

• Biocentrism: Robert Lanza’s Controversial View of the Universe --Sam Woolfe

"Lanza asserts that time and space do not exist. In an interview with Wired magazine, he says: 'There is something very unusual about them [space and time]. We can’t put them in a marmalade jar and take them back to the lab for analysis. Space and time are forms of animal sense perception. Space and time are not objects or things — they are forms of animal sense perception. This is a very challenging concept for the physicists out there because it would contradict Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which states that time is embedded in the fabric of the cosmos."

• (Added 15 June 2021) A Biotech Provocateur Takes On Physics --Forbes

"E. Donnall Thomas, a Nobel Laureate and former director of clinical research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute, praises the paper in the release. 'Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work,' Thomas wrote. 'The work is a scholarly consideration of science and philosophy that brings biology into the central role in unifying the whole.' But many physicists who were sent the essay were underwhelmed. Several said that the work should be published in a scientific journal. All said Lanza's theory needs to make clear predictions of experimental results, so that it can be tested. Lanza believes experiments already in progress or recently completed could validate his idea, but many scientists disagree. 'This looks like a philosophical essay,' wrote Lawrence Krauss, a professor of physics at Case-Western Reserve University. 'There are no scientific breakthroughs about anything, as far as I can see. It may represent interesting philosophy, but it doesn't look, at first glance, as if it will change anything about science.' "

---

Next, some primary sources written by Robert Lanza

• Biocentrism Wiki --Robert Lanza

Here, Lanza grabs a deleted (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biocentric universe (2nd nomination)) Wikipedia article and in a clear case of copyright infringement slaps a "© 2021 Robert Lanza. All rights reserved." on it, and calls it a wiki! Extra points for misusing Wikipedia's trademarked logo.

• Robert Lanza: The Theory of Biocentrism, Part 1 --Youtube

Part one of Robert Lanza's talk on Biocentrism at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2010

• Robert Lanza: The Theory of Biocentrism, Part 2 --Youtube

Part two of Robert Lanza's talk on Biocentrism at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2010

• The Impossibility of Being Dead --Robert Lanza, writing in Psychology Today

"Sure, that dead dog in the road isn’t going to get back up and again put his muddy paws on your pants. But in terms of awareness, you’ll never not experienced consciousness and its myriad sense impressions, nor will this parade ever cease. You can count on that. To help understand this, let’s take a look at the mind-twisting thought experiment called quantum suicide, which can be used to explain why death has no true reality. We’ll see that life has a nonlinear dimensionality, like a perennial flower that always blooms."

• Do You Only Live Once? Experiments Suggest Life Not One-Time Deal -- Robert Lanza, writing in the Huffington Post

"Although our individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the 'me' feeling is just energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn't go away at death. One of the surest principles of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed... A series of landmark experiments show that measurements an observer makes can influence events that have already happened in the past..."

• What Happens When You Die? Evidence Suggests Time Simply Reboots --Robert Lanza, writing in the Huffington Post

"Without consciousness, space and time are nothing; in reality you can take any time -- whether past or future -- as your new frame of reference. Death is a reboot that leads to all potentialities. That's the reality that the experiments mandate."

• A New Theory of the Universe --Robert Lanza, writing in The American Scholar

"The urgent and primary questions of the universe have been undertaken by those physicists who are trying to explain the origins of everything with grand unified theories. But as exciting and glamorous as these theories are, they are an evasion, if not a reversal, of the central mystery of knowledge: that the laws of the world were somehow created to produce the observer. And more important than this, that the observer in a significant sense creates reality and not the other way around. Recognition of this insight leads to a single theory that unifies our understanding of the world."

---

Finally, some sources that I believe we can use per WP:PARITY:

• Through Me, the Universe: A Stroll through the Curious Solipsism of Biocentrism --Skeptical Inquirer

"And it is at this point that things go from a misguided but intriguing romp to an out-and-out farce, as biocentrism holds some set opinions about the consequences of its “mind creates reality” mantra that run histrionically off the rails. Since we create reality, time, and space by observing them with our conscious minds, the idea of there being something before or after us is absurd, and therefore, Lanza holds, we cannot die. In what is a perhaps not entirely rigorous statement, he offers, 'The mathematical possibility of your consciousness ending is zero.' You will stay conscious and connected to everything, forever, the culminating moment of a philosophy that, more than once, relies on, 'It just doesn’t feel right for this not to be true' as its central motivating device."

• The Nobel disease --Skeptics Dictionary

"The MD disease: an affliction of certain medical doctors that causes them to embrace strange or scientifically unsound ideas, even outright pseudoscience... Examples of the MD disease include: Robert Lanza (biocentrism)"

• Nice debunking of biocentrism --Science Blogs

"Robert Lanza and Deepak Chopra (just the fact that he is associated with it should discredit it right there) have been peddling this bizarre notion of Biocentrism, the idea that the universe is the product of human awareness — it's a kind of upscale version of The Secret, gussied up with more science vocabulary. "

• Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s Notion of a Conscious Universe --Nirmukta

"As science and reason dismantle the idea of the centrality of human life in the functioning of the objective universe, the emotional impulse has been to resort to finer and finer misinterpretations of the science involved. Mystical thinkers use these misrepresentations of science to paint over the gaps in our scientific understanding of the universe, belittling, in the process, science and its greatest heroes. In their recent article in The Huffington Post, biologist Robert Lanza and mystic Deepak Chopra put forward their idea that the universe is itself a product of our consciousness, and not the other way around as scientists have been telling us. In essence, these authors are re-inventing idealism, an ancient philosophical concept that fell out of favour with the advent of the scientific revolution. According to the idealists, the mind creates all of reality."

• One of the Leading Scientists in the World? --Center for Genetics and Society

"ACT's extraordinary publicity coup in 2001, when they claimed to have cloned a human embryo, though it failed to develop beyond the six-cell stage. The news of "this ludicrous, outrageous, failed experiment " was published in an obscure on-line journal (from which three board members resigned as a result, one saying it was "of little or no scientific value"), simultaneously with a feature Lanza and colleagues themselves wrote in Scientific American and the US News & World Report story. Biocentrism may have been intended as Lanza's ticket out of ACT, as well as being the final formulation of ideas he has been mulling for two decades. But it doesn't seem to have worked. His ideas were ridiculed in 1992 and called "kind of dopey " in Wired in 2007, when he published an article in American Scholar , but he finished the book and promoted it with blog posts and articles , some co-written with Deepak Chopra . More ridicule and debunking followed, and the publisher's press page is notably short on serious reviews, though it lists some rather strange references "

• "Biocentrism": is it woo? --Jerry Coyne (subject-matter expert)

"No observer is there when we leave a sand castle on the beach and return to find it effaced by the tides, no observer is there when you forget to take the cake out of the oven and it burns. Are these phenomena, then, 'created' by consciousness? If so, how; and why are they 'created' in a predictable way? Lanza’s big mistake, it seems to me, is to say that a combination of the 'observer' effect (which doesn’t apply on the macro level) and the fact that reality is filtered through evolved neurons, together suggest that reality does not exist. If it doesn’t, it’s curious that the illusory reality we create with our consciousness—and Lanza includes 'death' as such an illusion—certainly behave in ways that are predictable and perceived identically by different people, changing in expected directions even when no observer is around."

--Guy Macon (talk) 05:24, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, First, thank you for your encouraging words to not give up after one try. In fact I am working on this right now, as you suggested. It is much shorter.

I agree that longer excerpts from reliable sources and from Lanza’s work might prove very useful. But I think using unreliable sources -- and then only choosing unreliable sources that are attacks on Lanza - is not a good idea and not in keeping with how decisions on Wikipedia should be made. It seems like an end-run around the policy that the Talk page discussion should be limited to the merits of the Wikipedia matters at hand, and not fall into a discussion about the substance of the article itself.

I’d suggest you delete all the unreliable sources from this section, so I don’t have to go to the trouble of creating an equally long or longer list of unreliable sources (many with comments from well-regarded scientists) that frame Biocentrism as a highly credible or proactive or masterful theory, etc. What is the point of having two long lists of unreliable sources that oppose each other? Any controversial theory widely discussed in the mass media is going to attract a wealth of comments from armchair critics -- there’s a reason why these types of comments are excluded from Wikipedia. Plus, there is a preponderance of reaction to his initial essay 14 years ago (when the mainstream media covered it) and none, that can I tell, that reacts to his recent books and peer-reviewed journal articles, written with physicists, that rely much more on difficult mathematics. These are naturally much harder for armchair critics to address.

Then I can focus on completing a list of missing, germane excerpts from Lanza's work (your section two) and missing germane excerpts from reliable sources.

In any case, thank you for keeping an open mind about a redraft of the proposal. Sapphire41359 (talk).

I believe that my listing of sources complies with both the letter and spirit of WP:TPG and WP:TALKDD. If anyone agrees with Sapphire41359 and thinks that the list is not appropriate, now would be a good time to speak up.

Not all of the unreliable sources I listed were critical. I picked six representative unreliable sources, one of which was very favorable: In shedding our shells. Then I followed this with seven sources that were written by Lanza himself, and thus of course support Lanza's theories.

I challenge you to do what you claim you can do: create a list of five unreliable/opinion sources that "frame Biocentrism as a highly credible or proactive or masterful theory, etc." And to be fair, please add one negative unreliable/opinion source to match the one positive unreliable source I found. I don't think you can do it. I couldn't find more than the one. There are many that are favorable towards Lanza but the support for biocentrism is close to zero. You will find a similar situation with Linus Pauling (vitamin C) and William Shockley (race & IQ). Many sources acknowledging the good work they have done in their own field while rejecting their fringe theories in areas they have no expertise in.

Finally, I just fixed a bad link in the above list. The most likely reason you didn't find it (and the reason you missed the positive comments in one of the sources) was that you didn't bother to open and read the links.   :(   --Guy Macon (talk) 20:32, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I think your list and analysis are fairly close to my own, Guy. Good work. jps (talk) 13:03, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Please note that with each iteration of Lanza’s books and papers, his theories bring together more data and precision, reflecting developments in advancements in quantum theory and physics. Lanza’s most recent paper [[4] is co-authored with Andrei Barvinsky, one of the world’s leading theorists in quantum gravity and quantum cosmology, from the Theory Department, Lebedev Physics Institute, Moscow, Russia. [5] This process of continuing challenges and refinement is how science moves forward. Sapphire41359 (talk) 17:12, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of a lot of wacko ideas have been developed in this fashion which I can point to if you would like. The point is, however, that we are unable to tell what kind of proposal biocentrism is. Long and the short of this matter is that it is irresponsible for us try to evaluate this idea as anything beyond WP:FRINGE. jps (talk) 17:33, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Additional Reliable Sources Excerpts

• A Biotech Provocateur Takes On Physics - Forbes (2007)

“Now Lanza is advancing what he says is a new theory of the universe, an idea to which he says he has devoted his entire life. He believes his thoughts could revolutionize physics, the study of the mind and artificial intelligence. At its most basic, his idea is that much of what physics has observed is not actually physical, but a creation of the mind. The world, as we perceive it, is real to us, but we are actually sensing an underlying informational framework. To make things more complicated, the act of perceiving this information changes it, putting biological consciousness at the center of the universe.”

“E. Donnall Thomas, a Nobel Laureate and former director of clinical research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute, praises the paper: "Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work," Thomas wrote. "The work is a scholarly consideration of science and philosophy that brings biology into the central role in unifying the whole."”

“Arthur Zajonc, physicist from Amherst College: "I do think the issue for me that he's raising is an interesting one.””

• Theory of every-living-thing - MSNBC (2007)

“As physicists learn more about the constants that govern how the universe works - including the cosmological constant that appears to govern how fast the universe is expanding - they're starting to come around to the view that we've benefited from an astronomical stroke of luck that arranged things just right for life and consciousness to develop. Lanza, however, sees it a different way: that we observe these features in the universe because we are biologically built to see things in this particular way. ...Many physicists may well protest that the "create-your-own-reality" mantra does nothing to reconcile the micro world of quantum mechanics with the macro world of general relativity - the stated aim of the quest for the theory of everything. But as far as Lanza is concerned, the contradictions and weirdnesses that arise from the quantum world serve as signals that a new approach is needed, with more weight given to the role of observers.”

• Will Biology Solve the Universe? - Wired (2007)

“Lanza says scientists will establish a unified theory only if they radically rethink their understanding of space and time using a "biocentric" approach. His article is essentially a biological and philosophical response to Hawking's A Brief History of Time, in which he questions how we interpret the big bang, the existence of space and time, as well as many other theories -- assertions that might ruffle the feathers of some physical scientists.”

• The universe in your head - NBC News (2009)

“Lanza admits that the reviews haven't all been glowing, particularly among some physicists. "Their response has been much how you'd expect priests to respond to stem cell research," he told me Monday.”

“Other physicists, however, point out that Lanza's view is fully in line with the perspective from quantum mechanics that the observer plays a huge role in how reality is observed.”

• Book Review of Biocentrism - Richard Conn Henry, Academy Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University (2009)

“And what is their underlying thesis? They present it as a long list of Principles of Biocentrism that have no individual value, in my opinion––but the heart of it, collectively, is correct. On page 15 they say “the animal observer creates reality and not the other way around.” That is the essence of the entire book, and that is factually correct. It is an elementary conclusion from quantum mechanics.”

“So what Lanza says in this book is not new. Then why does Robert have to say it at all? It is because we, the physicists, do NOT say it––or if we do say it, we only whisper it, and in private– –furiously blushing as we mouth the words. True, yes; politically correct, hell no!””

• Review of Robert Lanza & Bob Berman's Book: Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe - Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, review written by Stephen P. Smith, Physics Department at the University of California, Davis. (2010)

“Lanza’s book is not a rigorous scientific treatment, but the science he refers to is rigorous. Neither is his book a comprehensive philosophical development. Rather, Lanza has a colloquial style that is typical of good popular books, and his book can be understood by non-experts. This is a very important book for the right audience.”

• Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death - Booklist (2016)

“Wandering between textbook, philosophical meditation, and strident manifesto, the book synthesizes physics, botany, The Bhagavad Gita, quantum entanglement, and other seemingly disparate topics into an amalgam that’s as provocative as it is woolly-headed. A clear inspiration is Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time (1988), a superior but denser and less casual book. Science-minded readers open to philosophy with a New Age bent will find more to like here.”

Additional Unreliable Sources Excerpts

• RobertLanzaBiocentrism.com - Endorsements of Biocentrism (n.d.)

David Thompson, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said that Robert Lanza’s “work is a wake-up call.”

Anthony Atala is a renowned scientist and W.H. Boyce Professor, Chair, and Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine: “[Biocentrism] takes into account all the knowledge we have gained over the last few centuries; placing in perspective our biologic limitations that have impeded our understanding of greater truths surrounding our existence and the universe around us. This new theory is certain to revolutionize our concepts of the laws of nature for centuries to come.”

In his book “The Unobservable Universe,” physicist Scott M. Tyson wrote that “The views that Dr. Lanza presented in this book changed my thinking in ways from which there could never be retreat. Before I had actually finished reading the book, it was abundantly obvious to me that Dr. Lanza’s writings provided me with the pieces of perspective that I had been desperately seeking. Everything I had learned and everything I thought I knew just exploded in my mind and, as possibilities first erupted and then settled down, a completely new understanding emerged. The information I had accumulated in my mind hadn’t changed, but the way I viewed it did –in a really big way.”

• How Life Creates The Universe - Biocentrism Book Review - Warrior.do (n.d.)

“a mind-bending adventure that attempts to explain how consciousness creates the universe as we know it today.”

• Robert Lanza - Certified Consumer Reviews (n.d.)

“Understanding this simple yet revolutionary idea more fully yields answers to several major puzzles of mainstream science. It offers a new way of understanding everything from the microworld to the forces, constants, and laws that shape the entire universe.”

• Robert Lanza doesn't seem to be kidding - Wired Blog (2007)

“Thing is, I have a lot of respect for Lanza. His biology is really interesting and cutting edge, and I find it admirable that he's trying to tackle the problems on the border of physics and philosophy. They're the fundamental stuff of reality, and they are what we should all spend some time thinking about—addled by dorm-room smoke or not. What bothers me is that he seems to have been a little lazy about it, and for a scientist of his caliber...that's just weird.” (Negative review)

• Midwest Book Review: Reviewer's Bookwatch, July 2009 - Stephen J. Hage (2009)

“What makes this book both interesting and worth the effort of reading it; is the unique perspective Lanza brings to the subject matter as a physician. Physicians are, by definition, intellectual chimeras because the discipline of medicine is an amalgam of hard science, healing, philosophy, metaphysics and ethics. Each physician must decide what to take and use from that intellectual palette and the decisions they make, in that regard, to a large extent define who they are, how they practice and what kind(s) of relationships they cultivate with patients and colleagues. I know this because I worked with physicians for most of my adult life in hospitals.”

• Book Spotlight: Biocentrism - SciGuy - Eric Berger (2009)

“The book is an out-and-out challenge to modern physics, and its inability to reconcile the fundamental forces of nature and make sense of our universe. Lanza believes that is because physicists fail to take consciousness into account as part of their theories.”

“As a result he proposes a new theory, biocentrism, that says the universe cannot exist without life and consciousness. The book basically has three components: the attack on physics, the explanation of biocentrism and details about Lanza’s personal life.”

“I found the attack on physics to be pretty compelling, I’m not yet sure what to make of Lanza’s theories. But they’re certainly worth debate.”

• Robert Lanza's Theory of Biocentrism and the Afterlife - Matt Feshbach (2013)

“I found it to be amazing and refreshing to see this kind of a direction and discovery in the field of science.”

• Biocentrism Explains Why There's No Time and No Death - Robby Berman (2016)

“Of course, not everyone buys biocentrism, but it’s an interesting system, and an extrapolation of other revered thinkers’ thoughts. It’s comforting, too. Now it just needs to be right.”

• Hot Off the Presses - The-Scientist.com (2016)

“Given the pace of research not only in basic biology, but in neuroscience, cosmology, and theoretical physics, it’s conceivable…”

• Biocentricism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe - Josh Wulf (2017)

“After reading a lot on relativity, quantum mechanics, and consciousness, this is the first book where I felt that the author had a solid grasp of all three and was able to bring something to the conversation.”

• Biocentrism – Robert Lanza -Systems Community of Inquiry (2018)

This is a good synopsis of Lanza’s theories, books, and papers through 2018. (Does not include 2020 book and 2021 peer-reviewed article.)

• Book review: 'Biocentrism' by Robert Lanza -- the !n(tro)verted yogi (2018)

“I should point out that these digressions are the main reason for my mediocre rating of this book, and not disenchantment with the case for biocentrism. (I think we know too little about consciousness and about it’s odd interactions at the quantum level to draw any firm conclusions in that regard.)”

“I found this book to be fascinating – even some of the digressions were interesting, though not helpful to discussion of the topic at hand. It’s a thought-provoking work. I have no idea whether it will prove to have merit as a description of how the world works. I’ll leave it to readers to determine whether they think it is a sound interpretation of observed reality or a physics-envy based attack on the stronghold of physics as the heart of science or an attempt to reduce the fear of death in a way consistent with science (i.e. time as we perceive it being an illusion makes us all immortal.) If you are interested in the big questions of why the universe exists and what is the nature of reality, you may want to give this book a read – not that it’ll answer all your questions, but it will provide an alternative to mainstream views that you may find useful.”

• Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death - CBC Radio Ideas (2018)

“But this model not only fails to fully address the conundrum of consciousness. It also fails to answer other puzzling questions: what was there before the Big Bang? Why does the universe seem exquisitely designed for the emergence of life? Why is there something instead of nothing? This is where Dr. Lanza's biocentric theory of the universe comes in, to show us the inherent flaw in the standard explanation for origins of the universe.”

• Biocentrism – Is seeing believing…or creating? - Nina Burrowes (2018)

“Lanza’s starting premise is that conscious awareness remains one of the greatest mysteries of science. It is the basis of everything because we experience everything through our perception and yet, it’s still a complete mystery to us. Lanza makes some bold suggestions using data from experiments in quantum physics to explain the biocentric understanding of human consciousness.”

• Separating scientists from their beliefs is vitally important - Robert Lea (2018)

“The cover of ‘Biocentricism’ is littered with praise for Lanza’s achievements in his field, he even appears credited as ‘Robert Lanza, MD’. But this is all just slight of hand. None of it qualifies him to discuss quantum mechanics…. Part of the reason I believe Lanza’s theories on quantum physics are excepted without too much question by some people is a result of the ‘doctor/scientist’ trope perpetuated by the media. How often do we see in popular fiction an expert on one area of science called to solve an issue in a radically different field?” (Negative review)

• Quantasia Blog - The book Biocentrism by R. Lanza - Claudia Vece (2018)

“Robert Lanza, writes the fascinating theory “Biocentrism: a New Theory of the Universe” based on Biocentrism in which he exposes the revolutionary vision of life that creates the universe instead of the contrary, attributing the responsibility of creation to the observer rather than the observed. The idea that consciousness creates reality is supported by quantum physics, is consistent with aspects of biology and neuroscience and takes into account all the knowledge we have acquired over the last few centuries.”

“This theory is also consistent with the most ancient traditions of the world which affirm that consciousness conceives, governs and becomes a physical world. Lanza therefore suggests that we are the ones giving meanings to the particular configuration of all the possible results that we call reality.”

• GRAND BIOCENTRIC DESIGN - Kirkus Indie Reviews (2020)

“Not all readers will be persuaded by the authors’ case, but its notions are exciting ones, and they do a sound job of linking them to observable, replicable experiments. Fans of revolutionary science—or just big, cerebral questions—will enjoy this ambitious work. A thought-provoking dispatch from the frontier of physics.”

• Is reality created by our consciousness? - ScoopCube (2021)

“awareness is the driving force behind the existence of the universe. He therefore thinks that reality flows from our own mind. According to the authors, the physical world we live in is not something that is separate from us. Instead, it would be created by our minds when we observe it. As one of the emblematic figures of the biocentrism theory, Lanza considers, according to Big Think, that “space and time are a by-product of the ‘vortex of information’ in our head that is woven into a coherent experience by our minds”.”

• Reality, Consciousness and a theory called Biocentrism - Recknsense (2021)

“I like to think I follow the science and steer away from the ‘woo’ theories. But this is quite a compelling book and there is no denying some of the ‘spooky’ science that the authors detail. There is no explanation in many cases. In a typical quantum scientist response, we have to ‘shut up and calculate’ as many attempt to shut down the wilder theories.”

Additional works by Lanza and co-authors

• Lanza, Robert; Berman, Bob Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe (2009).

“Currently, the disciplines of biology, physics, cosmology, and all their sub-branches are generally practiced by those with little knowledge of the others. It may take a multi-disciplinary approach to achieve tangible results...”

• Lanza, Robert; Berman, Bob. Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death (2016).

What we “see” is a complex construction generated in our head. One of the best proofs of this is the neurological phenomenon called “blindsight.” These patients are blind due to injuries or lesions in the striate cortex of the brain. Although blind, they can navigate an obstacle course and even recognize fearful faces.

• Dmitriy Podolskiy and Robert Lanza, On decoherence in quantum gravity. Ann. Phys. (2016)

Abstract: “It was previously argued that the phenomenon of quantum gravitational decoherence described by the Wheeler-DeWitt equation is responsible for the emergence of the arrow of time. Here we show that the characteristic spatio-temporal scales of quantum gravitational decoherence are typically logarithmically larger than a characteristic curvature radius R-1/2 of the background space-time. This largeness is a direct consequence of the fact that gravity is a non-renormalizable theory, and the corresponding effective field theory is nearly decoupled from matter degrees of freedom in the physical limit Mp-->infinity. Therefore, as such, quantum gravitational decoherence is too ineffective to guarantee the emergence of the arrow of time and the “quantum-to-classical” transition to happen at scales of physical interest. We argue that the emergence of the arrow of time is directly related to the nature and properties of physical observer.”

• Lanza, Robert; Pavsic, Matej; Berman, Bob. The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality (2020).

“Now, if we follow the logic of Parisi and Sourlas—where a system in spacetime with dimensionality of D + 2 with disorder present roughly translates to a system in spacetime with dimensionality D without disorder—we see that quantum gravity in four spacetime dimensions, in the presence of a large number of observers (disorder), is in fact the same as quantum gravity in a spacetime with two fewer dimensions.”

• Dmitriy Podolskiy, Andrei O. Barvinsky and Robert Lanza, “Parisi-Sourlas-like dimensional reduction of quantum gravity in the presence of observers” Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (2021)

Abstract: “We show that in the presence of disorder induced by random networks of observers measuring covariant quantities (such as scalar curvature) (3+1)-dimensional quantum gravity exhibits an effective dimensional reduction at large spatio-temporal scales, which is analogous to the Parisi-Sourlas phenomenon observed for quantum field theories in random external fields. After averaging over disorder associated with observer networks, statistical properties of the latter determine both the value of gravitational constant and the effective cosmological constant in the model. Focusing on the dynamics of infrared degrees of freedom we find that the upper critical dimension of the effective theory is lifted from Dcr = 1 + 1 to Dcr = 3 + 1 dimensions.”

I look forward to more discussion.Sapphire41359 (talk) 17:12, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: I spent quite a bit of time compiling an excerpts source list in the same style as yours. As requested, some of the excerpts are negative. I pasted them all at the very bottom, but I think it would be more fair if we combined them into a single list with mine immediately following yours. I wanted to see what you thought about that. I also think you’ll find the source list provides a pretty compelling argument that this is not a fringe theory, which is why these lists should be combined. His latest journal articles from 2020 and 2021 are co-authored with world renowned physicists and are in prestigious journals -- it is natural for a scientific theory to evolve and become more refined over time. The 2007 article had the most general statement of the theory, As the science becomes more complex, the armchair critics can no longer weigh in based on their reading of mass media columns about the theories. It is also natural that a theory that challenges some mainstream physics will attract criticism from some physicists -- an exchange of ideas between scientists is not the same thing as a fringe theory. Please especially look at the quality of the journals publishing Lanza’s actual work -- from 2007 through the present. These are not fringe journals. I think the new proposed draft is balanced correctly. Do you think the right place to discuss the new proposed draft is in the RfC, where I placed it, or should it be here? Or a new section? Sapphire41359 (talk) 17:49, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

His latest journal articles from 2020 and 2021 are co-authored with world renowned physicists and are in prestigious journals This is great, but these journal articles co-authored with Podolskiy do not actually mention "biocentrism" as a specific proposal in them. They are much more focused on certain "perhaps relevant but perhaps not" case studies. jps (talk) 17:57, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes. In addition, "world renowned" and "prestigious" seem excessive praise. XOR'easter (talk) 18:52, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Re: where is the the right place to post, I don't think it matters. Everyone concerned appears to be keeping up with everything written anywhere on this talk page. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:13, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

It is disheartening to read through the above. I'm with XOR'easter and jps on this one: Nothing in the article as it currently stands seems to be unfair. Anyway, Wikipedia is not the correct forum in which to polish one's reputation. It doesn't even have the right audience. Want to convince the leading intellectuals of our age that biocentrism is correct? Engage them on their turf. Wikipedia is not the place to advance an agenda. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 22:17, 13 July 2021 (UTC)