[WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

[K P]

On 3/20/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
> >> That article isn't based on primary sources that I can see.
> >>
> >
> > Scientific papers are primary sources.
> >
> According to [[primary source]], the term is specific to historical
> scholarship, which doesn't include science. I don't know of any
> Wikipedian who seriously challenges the validity of published
> peer-reviewed scientific papers as sources for articles.
>
> Stan


Stan, we go through this all the time in botany, that review articles are
preferable to original research in journals, and we can't include the MOBOT
APG classifications because he updates them through original research, that
we can't use APG II directly, or rather alone in an article, that we must
note it when we use it, that if it's seconded by Reveal or someone it's
fine, the whole brya fiasco and removing her APG II direct classifications,
blah blah blah, and that we can't wholesale use Cavalier-Smith, without
including other interpretations, and making clear his attributions.  I think
you're one of the ones agreeing with these viewpoints.

Yes, we use published peer-reviewed journal articles, that are original
research, but what we're often getting from them is their non-original
research, the introductory sections and any broad background used to support
the conclusions, but not the conclusions themselves.

This is a major problem in botany, which is one of the most dynamic fields
in the sciences right now, especially basal taxonomies--it's the equivalent
of the early 20th century genetics revolution.  It's literally killing our
ability to update the botany articles, to some good end, but sometimes it
leaves us crippled, because it's so difficult to tread over the careful way
we have to write the botany articles to comply with NOR, and it's hard for
retention of new editors.  We get these gung-ho algae guys in and I have to
thump the Cavalier-Smith (my hero, by the way, along with Woese), completely
out of them.

We do honor NOR, no primary sources in the botanical sciences, and we do it
rather well most of the time, Stan as well as the rest of us.

KP