Talk:Margaret Sanger

From Conservapedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Reginod (Talk | contribs) at 16:11, April 2, 2007. It may differ significantly from current revision.

Jump to: navigation, search

Michael Crichton, is an author of fiction and a non-practicing MD—is he really a proper source for historical quotes? I think not. I would, therefore, argue in favor of removing the last paragraph from this page unless better sourcing for these quotes can be found.--Reginod 10:17, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

That's the kind of censorship I came here to avoid. Wikipedians made the same argument, but I don't buy it.
On what grounds do you reject the quote?
  1. Writing fiction discredits all non-fiction written by an author.
    • Bio-chemist (and science fiction author) Isaac Asimov wrote a History of Chemistry which I read as a teen. Bad source, right?
  2. When an MD stops practicing or never even starts, he forgets everything he learned at university and his degree becomes worthless.
In your reply, please refer to the numbered list above. --Ed Poor 10:41, 2 April 2007 (EDT)


First, I am not censoring anything – Michael Crichton’s views are appropriate to place on his entry, I am simply suggesting he is not a good source for Margaret Sanger’s views, I didn’t delete the quote I simply asked that someone justify Crichton as a source or that a better source for the quote be found or that the quote be removed. So please do not accuse me of censorship. If I were a censor I would have simply deleted the quote and moved on.
As to your points I do not reject the quote for either of the reasons you suggest that I am rejecting the quotes. I am saying the two qualifications Chichton has are popular fiction author and non-practicing MD—this means that he would be a good source on writing, the publishing industry, how to provide publicity for a book (etc.), and he would be a good source for those things one would learn in earning an MD during the time period he was earning his MD (this rules out, for example, modern practice in dealing with premature births as that technology has greatly changed since he earned his degree—but does not rule out how to set a broken arm). What Sanger said is not in his area of expertise, not in either of them.
So I am rejecting the quote for reason number 3 (not 1 or 2—both of which, you are quite right are bad reasons to reject a statement):
3. What Margaret Sanger said is not in Michael Chrichton’s field of expertise and he, therefore, is not a proper source for what she said.
If she said what Chrichton claims she did a better source can be found, if a better source cannot be found it should be removed. --Reginod 10:57, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for taking the time to clarify your remarks. Returning the favor, let me point out that I do not consider you a "censor" - I was perhaps unclear about that. I meant that removing the quote 'would be' censorship.

I appreciate you listing your grounds for removal of this passage:

According to Michael Crichton, Sanger was a supporter of eugenics. He quotes her as having said, "Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty … there is no greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles." [1]

Crichton also writes that 'She spoke of the burden of caring for "this dead weight of human waste."' [2]

But "not in Michael Chrichton’s field of expertise" doesn't seem like a good enough reason. Everything in the passage is easily checked. Would you like to dig into this matter, and tell us whether Crichton was right and/or whether I've cited him properly?

The points in question are:

  1. Was Margaret Sanger a supporter of eugenics?
  2. Did she say "Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty … there is no greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles."?

If you've got time, we could sure use your help on this. It could even turn into a guideline on Use of quoted material. :-) --Ed Poor 11:12, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

  1. That Margaret Sanger


Thank you for the reply and the clarification.
I’ll take a stab at researching these quotes, but I want to suggest that you are misplacing the burden of proof. If you (or anyone else) is going to say that someone said, “X”, then the burden to prove that the person did indeed say “X” should be on the person making the claim. To meet this burden I would suggest that the person asserting the quote should have to point to an eyewitness account, a text written or signed by the person in question, a newspaper report, a history text, or some other reliable source for historical information. I think that is the standard that should be applied to all quotations.
I worry that a more relaxed standard—like the one you are proposing here (I take it that you are suggesting that so long as I can find a person (or possibly a person who has some degree of education or a person who has an easily recognized name—I’m not sure why exactly you would accept Chrichton’s authority here) who attributes the quote to the person in question, it is acceptably posted to their article) will lead to bad information being posted in articles.
The standard I am proposing is that sources have to be roughly what they would have to be if a person were writing their addition to the article as part of a college (or even a high school—assuming the high school is sufficiently strict) paper—a source used as a reference has to be reliable either by virtue of expertise or by virtue of it being an eyewitness account (or in the case of some newspaper articles a second hand eyewitness account). I’m not sure what standard you are proposing, but I would be very interested to know what exactly it is and why you think it is superior. --Reginod 12:01, 2 April 2007 (EDT)
A quick search finds the first quote attributed to Herbert Spencer here [3]. A bit more reaserch finds it here [4] as part of an epigram to a chapter of a book Sanger wrote. So, I would argue that it is absolutely out of contex. --Reginod 12:09, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

References

  1. http://www.michaelcrichton.net/fear/index.html
  2. http://www.michaelcrichton.net/fear/index.html
  3. http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/LeBon/LeBon_1899/LeBon_1899_24.html
  4. http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/~rauch/abortion_eugenics/sanger/sanger_05.html