Humanities desk
< March 27	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 29 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 28

Mana Expedition to Easter Island

Where are the original photographs of the Mana Expedition to Easter Island held at the present? Thanks.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:14, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Katherine Routledge and William Scoresby Routledge articles, William (having survived Katherine) deposited most of the "artifacts" from this and other expeditions in the Pitt Rivers and the British Museum, and her papers to the Royal Geographical Society, which in due course acquired his as well. I'm sure contacting those three institutions directly would yield an answer. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.12.83.127 (talk) 07:37, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I find the answers by IP users most helpful even though other vandal IPs may be a nuisance for the admins here.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 15:55, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone know if Routledge took the photographs on the expedition or did another member of the expedition take the photographs. Thanks.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 21:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Majority of professors being conservative

Was there ever a time when the majority of professors in United States were conservative? -- 07:50, 28 March 2017 Uncle dan is home

See the article Liberal bias in academia. It also really depends on what you mean by conservative. Dmcq (talk) 11:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

One of my history professors quipped that when he started teaching (in the 50s) he was considered a liberal... by the 60s he was derided as being a conservative... and by the 80s he was back to being seen as liberal again. He said his views never changed... what changed were the political views of his students, and how his students reacted to his views. Blueboar (talk) 11:24, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

LOL! Yes I can see that happening quite easily :) Dmcq (talk) 11:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Uncle_dan_is_home -- I strongly doubt whether there is much useful statistical information more than a few decades old, but in the late 19th century, it seems like a lot of academics were influenced by Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner, and so would have been opposed to just about all attempts of government to affect or "reform" the economic system. According to Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought: "In the three decades after the Civil War, it was impossible to be active in any field of intellectual work without mastering Spencer. Almost every American philosophical thinker of first or second rank... had to reckon with Spencer at some time. He had a vital influence on most of the founders of American sociology..." -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:51, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I really don't know why "Social Darwinism in American Thought" is a redlink, since it's been a reasonably influential book for 70 years... AnonMoos (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can tell you exactly why. It may well be on various people's lists of articles to write, but nobody has yet got around to writing it. Or maybe nobody has ever planned to write it because they all assume, like you, that someone else would be doing it. In the end, it comes down to YOU. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:55, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why the responsibility is mine, since I don't feel particularly qualified to write an article on the book, and I only found out yesterday that there isn't an article on the book. I just thought that it's a slightly odd gap after 15 years... AnonMoos (talk) 09:58, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. We do have an article on a 1997 book "Social Darwinism in European and American Thought 1860-1945" with a similar title by a different author. It may be a good book, but I doubt that it's had remotely the same intellectual influence as the original Richard Hofstadter book, so there seems to be a certain recentism bias... AnonMoos (talk) 10:06, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The number of people who do feel qualified to write an article on such an abstruse topic is probably pretty low, for starters. The intersection of "People who feel qualified to write this particular article" and "People who are active Wikipedians" and "People who have this article at the top of their list of priorities" is ... well, you work it out. See, expressing surprise that a certain article doesn't exist yet is a perfectly natural response. But wondering why that may be the case can only lead to wild speculation. And that's not really our thing here. See what you made me do. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:10, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's a specialized topic, but not really an "abstruse" one, since it's been a fairly influential book (in the U.S. at least) for over 70 years. And I wasn't speculating, just saying that I didn't know why there wasn't an article. AnonMoos (talk) 00:48, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why Lee Harvey Oswald's tax records are classified?

Resolved

If the Warren Commission, and HSCA believed he was acting alone, then under what reasoning his tax records were classified? I am trying to ask here is, what explanation did these committees provide to make these records classified? —usernamekiran (talk) 13:13, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

According to Tax return (United States), that information is confidential. More specifically, were they discussed anywhere in the Warren Report or House Select Committee report? And besides that, how do you know there were any? He only got back in 1962. Did he file one for 1962? He wouldn't have filed for 1963, being dead. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where does the OP get his/her information that his tax records are classified? --Jayron 32 15:27, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Usernamekiran -- there's a difference between being "classified" in the sense of a national security secrecy classification, and merely being personal and confidential information (like all unreleased income tax returns, or census forms less than 72 years old). Is there any indication that his tax returns are "classified" in the strict meaning of this word? AnonMoos (talk) 15:31, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. The OP is assuming facts not in evidence. The OP also appears to be a conspiracy theorist, so that may be why he's asking. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some of this information has been released: [1]. As to the rest, the OP may have been influenced by this: [2] 81.151.128.189 (talk) 15:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

erm, he did file tax assessment in 1962. But these tax records have been withheld.
@Baseball Bugs: I've studied JFK assassination extensively, and I still do. But I'm not a conspiracy theorist. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:23, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "tax assessment"? That sounds like property tax. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:42, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What others seem to be saying is that it isn't a case of the US government making a special effort to "withhold" Oswald's returns.... everyone's tax returns are considered confidential for a certain amount of time, and are thus unavailable for research. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can I ask, as a practical matter, who would have the power to obtain or authorise the release of a dead person's confidential records? The Next of kin? The executor of the estate? Regardless of the chances of them saying "yes", if the OP wanted to ask, whom would Oswald's records belong to, such that s/he could request them from the IRS and give a copy to the OP, if they were so minded? Eliyohub (talk) 17:37, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

26 U.S. Code § 6103: is relevant here. Quoting relevant passages:
(a) [no one] shall disclose any return or return information obtained by him in any manner in connection with his service as such an officer or an employee or otherwise or under the provisions of this section (does not include exceptions for people releasing information to placate conspiracy theories)

(c) The Secretary may...disclose the return of any taxpayer...to such person or persons as the taxpayer may designate in a request for or consent to such disclosure.

(e)(1) The return of a person shall, upon written request, be open to inspection by or disclosure to: that individual, the spouse of that individual [under certain conditions] and the child of that individual (or such child’s legal representative) [under certain conditions]
The rest of the document consists of specific procedures for disclosing the information to various agencies for specific purposes. It does not appear to have any expiration for general confidentiality; that is unlike census records, which become publicly available after 72 years, tax records never become public. This is standard procedure, and is not being done specifically for Oswald. The only people who may release the information are the President themselves, and under specified circumstances "the Secretary" (which is vague in this section, but I presume is the United States Secretary of the Treasury) may release the information to the filers designee (presumably through power of attorney), a spouse, or a child. There is no provision under, say, the Freedom of Information Act (United States) for someone not so related to the filer to request and expect a tax return. --Jayron 32 17:55, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is some provision for bypassing the confidentiality. There are a few tax records included in the Warren Commission. There are other instances where someone's tax records were disclosed (even though not to "public") to investigating angencirs, and in some instances the tax records were made public. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:16, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well yes, but I noted exactly that. There's a LONG list of disclosure procedures to various agencies and for various reasons; but there are no provisions for disclosure to the public as a matter of course. --Jayron 32 18:31, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Laws for police powers in the US

Afternoon (for me anyway!),

In the UK, a large proportion of police powers stem from the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (as well as some subsequent legislation like the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, and a few others including an upcoming Policing and Crime Act 2017.

Is there an equivalent of PACE for law enforcement in the United States? A body of legislation which contains the majority of police powers in one act/bill/whatever you call it there? If so, if there a copy of it online, if there is an American version of legislation.gov.uk.

Regards,

2A02:C7D:7B04:BE00:958D:5473:D2E5:F255 (talk) 13:45, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In the US, there are 50 states, each with their own police forces which are locally regulated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:49, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

that must cause issues, you would imagine. Is there any notable example of one comprehensive piece of legislation for a particular force, that from which - say - the NYPD derives its powers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:7B04:BE00:958D:5473:D2E5:F255 (talk) 13:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You could read Law enforcement in the United States. The NYPD is locally controlled. The Fed may make their services available to local police forces to aid investigations, and also to hear civil rights complaints and the like, which are matters of federal law. But otherwise, each state and city will have its own laws about how the police departments operate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:03, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A quick survey of the articles on the NYPD, the Chicago PD, the LAPD and the FBI leads me to the conclusion that they were mostly created by executive action, rather than by an Act of the relevant legislature. For example, the FBI was created by the Attorney General while Congress was in recess.. However, the NYPD was created by the Municipal Police Act in 1845. Rojomoke (talk) 14:09, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a DOJ article that describes more fully what federal restrictions exist on local police departments.[3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:10, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a body that would codify good practice? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:55, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Best practices are generally codified by accreditation agencies, such as Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies or lobbying groups such as the National Criminal Justice Association. --Jayron 32 15:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is this place

It is in relation to a reference in Werner Weber who worked here in 1951. Cant find it. It is some kind of German advanced school. Cant find the Dr Brechtefeld anywhere. I've looked all over the shop. Weber was a heavy duty mathematician and cryptographer. End of his carer I guess, but can't locate it.

Institut Dr. Brechtefeld" in Hamburg scope_creep (talk) 14:56, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The address for that school is given as Holzdamm 36, Hamburg. That later appears as the address of a different school, which now appears to have moved round the corner. The building now appears to be either offices or residential. By the way, the link should be Werner Weber (mathematician) - the one you picked is a Swiss canoeist. Wymspen (talk) 15:17, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Assessing damages in defamation case - pre-lawsuit situation? Or post-lawsuit?

(Obligatory "not legal advice" notice: I do not consider this a "legal advice" question, as it does not relate to what is or isn't legal, in either a criminal or civil sense - merely how damages are calculated. Nor can I see it influencing any reader's actions, either in or out of a courtroom).

My question relates mostly to jurisdictions outside the United States, as the requirement to prove Actual Malice is a massive obstacle to defamation lawsuits in the U.S., which does not exist anywhere else in the world, to my limited knowledge. However, U.S. precedent or case law on this question would be of interest to me too.

It has often been pointed out that when someone sues for defamation, they often attract significant attention to the very material they are suing over. The so-called Streisand effect is a specific example, but the issue is broader. Take this common situation:

A relatively anonymous individual sets up a relatively obscure blog or facebook page. The page attacks a prominent individual with defamatory material. The page attracts few readers, and thus, limited damage is done to the victim's reputation.

The prominent victim then sends the blogger a Cease and desist letter, which the blogger refuses to comply with.

The victim then sues. Given the victim is high-profile, the lawsuit gets significant attention in the mainstream media and elsewhere. Readers curious to "see for themselves" what the fuss is about, now flock to this previously obscure blog / facebook page. The blog's readership swells massively - often by an order of magnitude. The page or blog can now easily have fifty times as many readers as it did previously. Readers which it almost certainly would never have attracted, had the victim not sued.

If a Judge finds that the material is indeed defamatory, on which basis would they go about calculating damages:

On the pre-lawsuit situation, where the defamatory material had a limited audience, and thus inflicted limited damage on the person's reputation?

Or on the post-lawsuit situation, where, as a result of the lawsuit itself, and the associated publicity, the defamatory material has now been seen by a massively larger audience, and thus the damage to the victim's reputation is far greater?

@John M Baker: and @Newyorkbrad:, as our resident lawyers, do you have any thoughts on this? Anyone else have any legislation, case law, or precedent to quote on this question? Eliyohub (talk) 15:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't my area, but I don't really see an argument for excluding post-filing damages. Defamation law is included to cover even future damages, if non-speculative. In your example, the blogger was on notice of the defamatory nature of the material, but continued to disseminate it to a wide audience. The defendant cannot now be heard to complain that a smaller audience was intended. In addition, the defamation lawsuit, if successful, will in theory give the plaintiff a complete remedy (assuming the defendant is not judgment-proof), in the form of corrective information and damages. This is really different from the Streisand effect, where the plaintiff does not want any disclosure at all and the plaintiff's efforts to seek a remedy are self-negating. John M Baker (talk) 18:07, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

French presidential election 2017 quebec and francafrique

What are the policies of each candidates on the Quebec sovereignty issues and Francafrique issues? Donmust90 (talk) 18:13, 28 March 2017 (UTC)Donmust90Donmust90 (talk) 18:13, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, suggest you read the French wikipedia article. Beneath each campaign logo is a small text link "Positions" which will take you to summaries of what is known of the published positions of each candidate. At least Cheminade, Dupont-Aignan, Fillon and Le Pen have mentioned Africa. Le Pen's article has a reference to the lukewarm reception she received in Quebec. 174.88.10.107 (talk) 18:50, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Effectiveness of suicide prevention hotlines

I know suicide prevention hotlines are over the place, but a long time ago, one of my instructors said that suicides are actually very rare. If suicides are rare among the total population, then how can one estimate the effectiveness of suicide prevention strategies, let alone the effectiveness of specific hotlines? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Suicide prevention hotlines are commercial companies. Their effectiveness is measured in dollars. Jahoe (talk) 20:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

These are not for-profit companies though. A lot of them, such as National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, are non-profits funded or entirely run by governmental organizations. They are not expected to provide an obvious return on investment. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:44, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) In fact, many crisis hotline services are nonprofits funded by donations or government grants, at least occasionally operated directly by governments. Citations are needed for the claim that "their effectiveness is measured in dollars". — Lomn 20:49, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The main service in the UK is provided by The Samaritans, a registered charity. Alansplodge (talk) 11:04, 30 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Categorizing the effectiveness of preventative measures is very difficult. Generally, social scientists will attempt to find natural experiments that model the effect in question. For instance, suppose that Colorado and Wyoming had similar suicide rates, controlled for various factors, and that Colorado (but not Wyoming) implemented and promoted a widespread anti-suicide hotline. Scientists could examine the change in suicide rates in Colorado as opposed to the change in rates in Wyoming to estimate the efficacy of the new hotline. — Lomn 20:49, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And to answer your question, no one really knows. The most effective way to prevent suicide is to restrict access to the means of suicide. This means keeping guns and potentially lethal drugs away from at-risk persons, and setting up fencing or suicide nets around lethal jumping points. "Awareness programs" in schools have a smaller but measurable effect. Crisis hotlines, however, are very hard to study. You can't control who calls, it can be challenging to do followup, and any sort of controlled study of suicide hotlines where you turned them off for certain parts of the country, or at certain times, would be unethical. The effect size is also believed to be rather small, so it's hard to assign causation to any change in suicide rates after a new hotline is launched. The clearest thing that can be said is, the rate of calls to hotlines does go up with awareness programs [4]. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There's a whole psychiatric field dedicated to the study of suicide - suicidology - and how to prevent it - suicide prevention. There are some ways of testing the effectiveness of an intervention. You can measure the effect on the suicide rate after you put a sign with instructions and a telephone directly connected to a crisis hotline, for example. This has been done on the Golden Gate Bridge and Niagara Falls State Park. You could also ask for a feedback from the callers about how they feel after the call. But assessing pain, any pain, including psychological pain is based on self-reports and therefore pretty shaky. This PsychCentral article might provide more links about how suicide hotlines are evaluated. Hofhof (talk) 12:02, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How to determine a death is actually a suicide?

I know the coroner does the job of determining the death, but how to tell if the person has killed himself through some kind of unusual procedure? Maybe a person is extremely depressed and disappointed with his life, and with no close friends or close living relatives, he decides to kill himself slowly by eating junk food until he becomes morbidly obese and succumbs to diabetes or heart disease. Or, he may run away from society and attempt to live off wild plants until nutritional deficiencies take his life. So, would the physical reason (morbid obesity) be more important or the mental reason? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 21:22, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You left out cigarettes, but same idea. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:43, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We have a (poor) article at Self-destructive behavior. You might use that term as the starting point for a search of PubMed for literature on the subject. Broadly, suicide requires intent. A good medical examiner or coroner will only declare intent insofar as it is obvious from the evidence. The one place I can think of this coming up is lawsuits over alleged life insurance scams, wherein the policy had prohibited payout in the event of suicide. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I found this interesting court case, in which the California Supreme Court ruled that a death-by-self-destructive-act is not to be treated as such legally if the victim was "unable to understand the physical nature and consequences of his act", but it can be treated as a suicide even if the victim "was unable to control his conduct and that the act therefore was the result of an irresistible impulse". There are a number of other legal opinions in this domain, but in every case it appears to be suicide by some immediate method. There are plenty of people asking whether shortening one's lifespan by self-destructive behavior is suicide, but this does not appear to have arisen as a legal issue as far as I can tell. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:48, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The key question would be how or if it's possible to tell if self-destructive behavior is actually suicidal behavior. Johnny Carson was a lifelong smoker, and he once told Ed McMahon, "These things are killing me." Which they were, and he died from emphysema. But that doesn't mean he had a lifelong death wish. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:11, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are six Death Wish movies and Wikipedia has six causes of death for Charles Bronson. All perfectly natural. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:11, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As they say: smoking is suicide by installments. For your life insurance company your official cause of death would be cancer. Your health insurer might have a clause about this to bail out from a cancer treatment though. Hofhof (talk) 12:38, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Except it isn't. Suicide is about intent. If my goal is to end my life right now, that's called "suicide". If my goal is to get a drug into my body because I like how it makes me feel, then it isn't suicide by any definition. "May increase the chance of death by cancer many years down the road" is not "suicide" as well. Smoking is a nasty habit ^{[original research?]} and foul and disgusting ^{[original research?]} but calling it "suicide" is propaganda that stretches the meaning of words beyond reason. --Jayron 32 14:54, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Overdosing on heroin is apparently homicide in a patch of Pennsylvania now, though this guy disagrees with the coroner. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:11, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Individual instances of stupidity do not change the general meaning of words or concepts. --Jayron 32 15:16, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

" it isn't suicide by any definition": actually it is. Obviously, it isn't suicide according to the denotative meaning, and it won't appear as cause of death in law, medicine, or statistics. The word, however, has other ancillary meanings: "The destruction or ruin of one's own interests: It is professional suicide to involve oneself in illegal practices" or mine above "smoking is suicide by installments."- Hofhof (talk) 18:16, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We're all dying of something. Under your definition "suicide by installments" is "life". When you use a word for emotional impact rather than for precise communication, that's propaganda. --Jayron 32 18:30, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed and I'm OK with that. More exactly it's anti-tobacco propaganda.Hofhof (talk) 19:09, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Even more exactly, it's anti-smoking. And if you think this issue is something new, the song "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" just had it's 70th anniversary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:33, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair in the other direction, smoking (and other tobacco use) is pretty fucking unhealthy by a wide consensus. It doesn't need to be called "suicide" as a means of scare tactics. Propaganda for the right ends is still propaganda. Spades should be called spades. --Jayron 32 23:41, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't legally qualify as suicide, especially as it's actually an addiction that is hard to conquer. Thinking also of Roger Miller, who died at 56 from the effects of his lifelong cigarette habit. He even wrote a song about it, "A Man Can't Quit". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:44, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually bugs, if anything it doesn't legally qualify as a suicide because it's not quick enough. In the court case I cited above, the California Supreme Court explicitly rejected the claim that "uncontrollable urges" legally excuse a death from the label of suicide. The only explicit exemption they made was for people who in their mental state did not understand the consequences of their actions. The court never explicitly touched the issue of immediateness, but that seems to be all that's left. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:39, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There ya go. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Rod Serling was something of an expert, having lit approximately ten billion cigarettes before dying at 50. It wasn't that he didn't know this reckless behaviour could turn any man into a killer, but suspected the deadly weapon was our old nemesis fire rather than mild and completely satisfying smoke.

Forty-five years later, Smokey the Bear throws a lit cigarette on the ground on international television, with the new slogan, "You want me to put it out? Fuck you, pay me, alright?" He's come a long way, baby, but still fairly on the money when it comes to general prevention. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:14, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]