Talk:Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

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Maskin

Maskin is a pretty shady character. Not sure if his gushing guff needs to be here or anywhere else for that matter. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:D4E0:D8E8:2332:D003 (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comment - and opinion (unsupported?) - seems Eric Maskin is a Noble-prize winner without any such character concerns in his Wikipedia biography - WP:BLP may apply? - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:03, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As an economist, he is not competent to comment on an astronomical question though. That does not mean he should not talk about it, it just means Wikipedia has no business quoting him when he does. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:11, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Hob Gadling: (and others): To be clear - seems the concern regarding "Eric Maskin" is a quote in the "book review section" of a "popular science book" => "Kevin Shaley of Business Insider quotes Eric Maskin, a Nobel laureate in Economics, and a Fellow Harvard professor of Loeb: "Is the hypothesis right? Who knows. But let's try to find out!""^[1] - this does not regard a peer-reviewed astronomy research study in the responsible scientific literature - the Maskin quote regards a book in the popular literature instead - as such - seems a quote by Maskin may apply afaik - however - I'm flexible with this - comments by other editors welcome of course - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:40, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Shalvey, Kevin (3 January 2021). "A Harvard professor has claimed in his new book that alien debris passed near Earth in 2017. It has attracted both skepticism and intrigue". Business Insider. Retrieved 3 January 2021.

The way the article puts it suggests that the reader should listen to Maskin (wow! a Nobelist! a scientific Pope! Kneel before him! Kiss his ring! Ipse dixit!) and that let's try to find out! is the right scientific attitude. Actually, that is an amateurish idea if applied in that general way. The article would be better if "a Nobel laureate in Economics, and a Fellow Harvard professor of Loeb" were left out. It is just a transparent attempt at bolstering Maskin's irrelevant opinion by argumentum ad verecundiam. Dropping the whole thing from "Kevin" to "out!" would be even better. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done @Hob Gadling: Thank for your comments - rm text quote/ref - no problem whatsoever - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 19:28, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of IGN reference

The author of the IGN ref that we have currently, Wesley LeBlanc, also talks in that article about the web article 'Galactic Federation' of Aliens Are in Contact With US and Israeli Governments, Claims Former Official, also by him, and also in IGN. Quote: These agreements include a shared, secret underground base on Mars, where US and alien representatives meet. LeBlanc finishes the Martian secret underground base article with For more science, ...

So maybe this is meant as dry humour, but whether it's meant as humour, testing cybernauts' gullibility or the author really thinks that he's presenting "science", the current IGN reference is not a reliable source. I'll remove it in a moment. Boud (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Paraphrase incorrectly cited as quotation

The block quote that dominates the Contents section is misattributed to Avi Loeb, when in fact only the last sentence is a direct quotation; the rest is a paraphrase. Here is the paragraph from the New Yorker verbatim as it reads today:

In “Extraterrestrial,” Loeb lays out his reasoning as follows. The only way to make sense of ‘Oumuamua’s strange acceleration, without resorting to some sort of undetectable outgassing, is to assume that the object was propelled by solar radiation—essentially, photons bouncing off its surface. And the only way the object could be propelled by solar radiation is if it were extremely thin—no thicker than a millimetre—with a very low density and a comparatively large surface area. Such an object would function as a sail—one powered by light, rather than by wind. The natural world doesn’t produce sails; people do. Thus, Loeb writes, “ ‘Oumuamua must have been designed, built, and launched by an extraterrestrial intelligence.”

Additionally, while the currently published article has it, the archived version of the New Yorker article does not contain the quote. The archived version also doesn't contain much else – no reference to the aliens in the headline. Seems like the archive didn't pull the page correctly. Not a meaningful archival link to use, in any case.

I'm not sure what the best way is to remediate any of that, but I thought I would at least point out the mistakes. —73.13.242.253 (talk) 03:31, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Done - Thanks for your comments re the block quote in the article - added relevant adds/adjs including an introduction to the block quote => "Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker magazine summarized the reasoning used by Avi Loeb about ʻOumuamua as follows:" - should now be better - Thanks again for the comments and all - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 12:39, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[BUS-20210103-1] Shalvey, Kevin (3 January 2021). "A Harvard professor has claimed in his new book that alien debris passed near Earth in 2017. It has attracted both skepticism and intrigue". Business Insider. Retrieved 3 January 2021.

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