Talk:Paul Stamets/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Large edit

I've just finished making a large edit, which I hope everyone is OK with. I noticed a couple things that I thought were a problem with the article. First, I thought the setion about his website was too detailed about what it sold and offered as services, and I felt it bordered on advertizing. So I removed the section and cut the material about the website down to one general sentence. Second, I saw no need for an awards section with two awards in it in a bulleted list, so I removed that section too and merged the list into the header in sentence form. Mr Stamets, if you're working on Wikipedia, that's great; we're always excited to get more experts on the project. But please be aware of our conflict of interest guideline and the very serious need for all articles to be written with a neutral point of view. All in all I think it's a good article with no serious problems. Let me know if there's any problem with my edit. Thanks, delldot | talk 02:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Should dead links be removed?

IamthatIam 19:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, a dead link that is given as a reference in an article should never be removed, as someone looking it up can, armed with the original URL, look it up with the Internet Wayback machine or something similar. Crypticfirefly 01:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Martial Arts Awards?

To me it seems that Paul Stamets' martial arts awards are superfluous and unrelated to the article. Maybe if the article mentioned his martial arts achievements it would be appropriate to include these awards; but as it is, I believe they should be removed. Any objections? Wowbobwow12 23:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the above edits. Wowbobwow12 20:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
This article is a biography. Verifiable information about the subject which provides information about the life of the subject should not be removed just because one editor views it as unrelated to the subject's profession. - Michael J Swassing (talk) 05:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Biased Writing

It seems to me that the style of the writing is very promotional and biased. What do others think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pompay (talk • contribs) 00:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Sasata (talk) 01:14, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Mycoremediation of Sarin

In 1999 Whole Earth published an article on the mycoremediaiton of Sarin written by Paul Stamets; I've been told this is not an acceptable source to many on wikipedia due to it's age. Much of the research is classified; however can anyone else find any articles that even mention that the research is classified? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CensoredScribe (talk • contribs) 14:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

See also

I took out the "See also" section - there was no explanation as to why any of those people were topically related to Stamets, and frankly most of them didn't seem worthy of inclusion (IMHO). Brianyoumans (talk) 01:58, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Early Life

This section, as written, is inconsistent with other bios of living persons. This section is only an explanation of how the subject became involved with mushrooms. If no other changes are made, the section heading itself should be changed to match the content of the section.

Also, what does this mean?: ...tree succumbed to the stress of a skyline...

Arbalest Mike (talk) 15:54, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Since no one has stepped up with copy for a proper Early Life section I am removing it from the article. Arbalest Mike (talk) 21:06, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Education

There is a passive-voice issue with the phrase decided to study botany. The sentence does not say that he studied botany, or started to study botany and it does not say that he completed a degree, etc. It would be okay to say that he is (or mostly) self-taught (if that is the case), etc. but, as written, looks a little like obfuscation. Arbalest Mike (talk) 15:48, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Added education information citing his LinkedIn page. I don't know if this is appropriate as a citation but the details of his education is (was) a glaring omission from the article. Arbalest Mike (talk) 21:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

author abbreviation

Where is a better place/section for this "author abbreviation" tag? It currently hangs out in its own section without a title. Does it belong under "Books"? Can this tag be shown without the horizontal rules above and below it? Arbalest Mike (talk) 14:32, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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trivia? what does that mean!

@Zefr: Please explain trivia ... thanks. 65.60.163.223 (talk) 01:50, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Maybe you meant "trivial" ... but that Stamets has studied with the help of folks who are top in the field seems rather significant background information, and helps put things in perspective, right? 65.60.163.223 (talk) 02:02, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
No, trivia, WP:TRIVIA. He was an undergraduate student with an interest in mushrooms and no notability in his early 20s. His instructor and the type of microscope he used would be no different than for other students. Trying to make a point of this trivia is also soapboxing, WP:SOAP. --Zefr (talk) 02:07, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
WP:TRIVIA deals specifically with Trivia sections, or lists of isolated information, which does not apply here. The content was part of a larger discussion on how Stamets' interest and technical knowledge developed. Did you mean the essay Wikipedia:Handling trivia? The Discover article states that Stamets 'was soon photographing the cell structures of mushrooms, mycelia and spores for scientists nationwide.' so he was not simply using the microscope in the way other students were.Dialectric (talk) 02:25, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Also, just a bit about Evergreen State College -- it is a rather alternative university, where it is rather common for students to "create their own degrees" and seek out mentors to facilitate self-directed studies (please see the wikilink for more details). So mentioning that he was assisted in his studies by top-notch mycologists and experts may be helpful to note, based on the info from that cited source. 65.60.163.223 (talk) 02:38, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
My point being, that who he studied under was a very unique situation. 65.60.163.223 (talk) 02:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
I call trivia like that "padding". Happens all the time with draft and new biographies. It's the type of content that {{likeresume}} identifies. --Ronz (talk) 04:14, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
What you call trivia, others may call well-referenced content that contributes to understanding of a subject. One sentence about an individual’s undergraduate work is not a resume or in any way like a resume. The featured articles on geneticist Barbara McClintock, chemist James B. Conant and physicist Richard Feynman all contain several sentences of detail about the subject’s undergraduate work.
Ronz, the widely accepted definition of 'resume padding' is inclusion of false or exaggerated information. In using the edit summary "resume 'padding'”, are you suggesting that the content I added is some how false? Do you believe that Stamets didn’t receive tutoring from "some of America’s leading academic mycologists"? Dialectric (talk) 13:29, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Is anyone asking the simple obvious question, who is the source of this specific detail in Stamets' undergraduate activities from 4 decades ago? It's Stamets himself, of course, exaggerating to interviewers - whether partially true or not - about how his mushroom interest evolved in his early 20s while talking to professors and learning to use a microscope. He is the only one there in the thread of history some editors want to extrapolate to embellish his connections to science. No one else from the 1970s college experience can create the "secondary" confirmation. It's an unverified primary event being perpetuated by media interviewers who hear him elaborate a story, then publish it. What's true or not isn't investigated or verified by those media contributors because all the articles about him are story-telling, not rigorous investigation and confirmation of events. That's not WP:SECONDARY sourcing, but rather just publishing fairytale-like interview notes from Stamets, a conspicuous self-aggrandizer and charlatan. We know Stamets likes to exaggerate: he says dark matter in space is connected to subterranean mycelium (TED Talk); mushroom powders cured his mother's cancer; the mushroom hat he wears has medicinal properties; 40+ of his mushroom extract products improve health and prevent disease. None of this, of course, has any basis in science or experimental evidence. And for the comments above about equating Stamets' undergrad experiences to those of such Nobel Prize-winning scientists as McClintock or Feynman is a ludicrous comparison. As a basis for Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales said: "What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't." --Zefr (talk) 16:28, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

The Discover piece quotes Michael Beug, Stamets' advisor, so the statement that ' No one else from the 1970s college experience can create the "secondary" confirmation' is false. Michael Pollan also spoke with Beug about Stamets for his Atlantic piece. Claiming that numerous WP:RS sources failed to fact check and just went with Stamets' word is baseless WP:OR.Dialectric (talk) 16:40, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
or exaggerated information Exactly my point. Stamets is first and foremost a salesman, who claims he will "save the world". He certainly wants to be compared to McClintock, Conant, or Feynman; but he's nothing like any of them. He's a farmer, who's learned a great deal about his product, but also a great deal about what he can get away with claiming about himself and his product. He's deep in the woo to make a buck. --Ronz (talk) 16:49, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
@Zefr and Ronz: Page 2 of the Discover article states: "Evergreen didn’t have a mycology department, but it encouraged independent study. An environmental chemist named Michael Beug offered a course on mushrooms, and Stamets badgered him into becoming his adviser. 'I’ve never had a student who was more driven,' says Beug, who intensified his mycology research to keep up with Stamets. (Beug also secured a license from the Drug Enforcement Administration allowing him and his students to work with psilocybin mushrooms.) Stamets learned to run the school’s scanning electron microscope — a rarity in the 1970s — and was soon photographing the cell structures of mushrooms, mycelia and spores for scientists nationwide. By the time he graduated in 1979, Stamets had been tutored by some of America’s leading academic mycologists. He was an accomplished field scientist, laboratory researcher and taxonomist. He had discovered several new Psilocybe species and published a book on the genus. He was an expert cultivator, too."
So just to point out, we don't know where the author gets this information ... it could be from Beug for all we know. It could also be from Stamets, or a combination of the two. But that is why we have to trust reliable sources. 65.60.163.223 (talk) 01:11, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
Good grief, Dialectric. The level of starry-eyed, swallow-it-all gullibility from a simple quote is off the map. Beug said Stamets was an enthusiastic student. So what? If asked, Beug might have said there were scores of enthusiastic students in the 1970s. This disputed content is deep in trivia and convincingly unencyclopedic. --Zefr (talk) 16:59, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
@Zefr: Calling someone a charlatan without any reliable sources to backup your claim is also "unencyclopedic" ... this is, afterall, a biography of a living person so please watch your tone. Yes, even on the talk pages. : ) Thanks. 65.60.163.223 (talk) 23:54, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
"Charlatan" may be overstepping. https://fungi.com/products/topricin is quackery. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4890100/ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mushrooms-cancer_b_1560691 FRINGE quackery.
The Discover ref is poor. I'm not sure if we should be using it for anything related to his expertise at all. --Ronz (talk) 03:03, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
Again, please provide evidence that the Discover piece is in any way inaccurate. You can't just arbitrarily dismiss RS sources without either a counter-citation or evidence that the content is wrong. The author interviewed multiple people about Stamets.Dialectric (talk) 03:15, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
Read it. The author attends one of Stamets seminars and takes it all in without question. I don't see the author checking with any actual experts in any of the fields mentioned.
We're not arguing about the FRINGE quackery at least. --Ronz (talk) 03:24, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
We are not. The article should be built up with RS sources and that includes content about the supplements and dubious cancer treatments. It also includes information about his past work. He appears to me to be a something of a former mycology prodigy who did interesting work with mycoremediation, and has moved over time more in the direction of quack medicine.Dialectric (talk) 03:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
Correct. There can of course be sourced criticisms of his work as a part of the article, as well as sourced information about his more scientific peer-reviewed stuff. 65.60.163.223 (talk) 03:50, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
@Ronz: And how do you know the author of the Discover article didn't critically think about this stuff? Is that just an assumption based on ... ? 65.60.163.223 (talk) 03:50, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Given the age of electron microscopy and the status of Evergreen as an academic institution, the claims about the importance of his using such a microscope are dubious. Exactly what we should expect from such a poor source. --Ronz (talk) 16:03, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Ronz: Umm, Evergreen is a state school in fine academic standing as far as I know. What are you referring to? 65.60.163.223 (talk) 18:18, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

New article - Paul Stamets (Star Trek)

I suppose that one will never be discussed without the other again. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:26, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

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