Talk:David C. C. Watson

This article was nominated for deletion on 26 July 2008. The result of the discussion was No consensus.

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Reason for dismissal[edit]

Do we have any way of confirming that his dismissal was due to his creationist views? I know he made the claim in some of his books, but I haven't seen it mentioned by a non-creationist source. JoshuaZ 18:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(This reply may be a bit late but...) According to The Creationists, even his creationist supporters "whispered about his inability to control classroom behaviour and his failure to stick to the the prescribed syllabus." So it would seem that he was dismissed for incompetence rather than his views. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

more info on bio[edit]

What did he study in Oxford? Wouldn't his academic background be a better characterization in the article title? I propose David Watson (field of study) instead of David Watson (creationist).

some more details about his birthday and day he died? Northfox 02:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unreliable source[edit]

Kevinalewis has just re-inserted claims on the basis of a broken link (can be found at wayback here) to a wild rant (in a now-defunct and obscure website for "articles and essays") claiming fraud by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The piece only mentions Watson in passing: "David C.C. Watson suggested to the president of the Oxford Union Debating Society that the Huxley Memorial Debate should be on creation vs. evolution. ... The society, wanting to completely wash its hands of the debate, even sold the copyright of the tapes of the meeting to David Watson who circulated a number of copies." as part of "a quote from Malcolm Bowden's book 'True Science Agrees with the Bible', pp 257-258". Malcolm Bowden is a retired engineer, geocentrist and member of the Creation Science Movement (a British creationist group formerly known as the Evolution Protest Movement). This is all ludicrously unreliable. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 08:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does the first comment on the RichardDawkins.net page, from a fairly prolific contributor (630 posts) on that site who appears to be a confident atheist, provide a reliable source? - Fayenatic (talk) 08:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This merely verifies the existence of the debate, not Watson's (rather tenuous) connection to it, or the wild claims made about it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 09:18, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to comment # 1 by Magpie: "Interesting fact. David Watson who organised the debate, is the grandfather of my housemate. No, she's not a creationist." - Fayenatic (talk) 12:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blog comments are never reliable sources. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Leading" creationist & WP:SELFPUB[edit]

biblicalstudies.org.uk is self-published (by Robert I. Bradshaw) and so cannot be used as a source on a third party. I have removed reference to it in the article. I would also point out that we have no sources indicating that he was a prominent member of the Evolution Protest Movement (the main UK creationist group at the time, of which he was a member), or that he was otherwise notable for anything other than his 1976 dismissal. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but I changed the source to Biblical Creation Society's Journal Origins. This was then deleted with the edit summary "Rm questionable source for "leading" -- neither author nor publication is prominent". The British Centre for Science Education, which opposes the BCS, acknowledges that it "appears to be the second largest of the UK's dedicated creationist organisations" and "has some very highly educated members and associates".[1] This acknowledges prominence on the part of the BCS, and its journal is therefore sufficiently significant to cite as evidence. The inclusion of David CC Watson in the table in the article (alongside John Calvin etc) would be meaningless if he was not considered a leading creationist at the time. I therefore propose to use it to source a statement that in the 1970s-80s, he was considered a leading creationist in the UK. I recall clearly that he was frequently cited in the Christian press at that time, to the point where David Watson (evangelist) had to publish as David C K Watson, but it would take time to locate specific paper examples of this. - Fayenatic (talk) 12:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't notice the addition (not a change -- as the URL was still to Bradshaw's site) of the Origins connection when I deleted. Still, while a slightly less unreliable source than Bradshaw's website this is hardly a cast-iron source by any stretch of the imagination, and this is still simply one obscure creationist making the description (as well as being a collective description, not a specific one). It is WP:UNDUE weight to include it in the article at all (as both the author and the publication have little or no prominence), let alone in the lead, as well as unacceptably failing to attribute it to being only this one obscure creationist's opinion, and to correctly characterise it (as only including him in a table, not calling attention to him specifically). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 14:01, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As stated above, it was the opinion of more than just him, but out of the many published opinions from the 1980s along those lines, perhaps only a few can be found on line. No-one associates a contemporary with John Calvin lightly; I took it as evidence that he was recognised as a leading proponent of that view in that country at that time. - Fayenatic (talk) 18:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All we have is "just him", and he's nobody of any prominence. If you're going to have somebody stand in for the entire creationist movement, he needs to be somebody of substance. Per WP:PROVEIT, the burden of evidence lies with you. Given that Calvin lived centuries before Darwin published On the Origin of Species and thus the existence of modern 'creationism', the table's label is ambiguous at best -- particularly given that of the modern creationists, only Henry M. Morris is unambiguously a "leading" figure in any global sense. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"In any global sense"... So you accept that this author might have been notable in a particular country at a particular time? - Fayenatic (talk) 19:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not David C K Watson[edit]

Now what's WP:OR about the statement distinguishing him from David Watson (evangelist)? that DCKW was better known? that different initials are a way to distinguish people who otherwise have the same name?

Constructive tagging is fine by me. However, this [2] smacks of tag-bombing to strengthen the case for first-time deletion, rather than permitting a stub to remain pending expansion from reliable paper sources when time permits. - Fayenatic (talk) 17:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The statement that he wrote as "David C C Watson" to distinguish himself from "David C K Watson" is WP:OR -- as we have no source stating this causal relationship. Though (particularly given that David Watson (evangelist) is wholly unsourced) it is likewise OR to claim "that DCKW was better known". Given that this article has in the immediate past been 'spammed' with spurious citations (a second citation for his place of birth, a citation merely for the fact that he wrote a particularly book), it is odd that insistence upon a citation (for a point that smells highly of an OR construction placed upon his using his middle initial) is regarded as "tag-bombing". If Watson states that this is why he used his middle initial, then a source for it should be available, if he did not, then it is not for us to impute motives to him on this point. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Once again you did not notice the change. You tagged a statement that the initials distinguished him from David C K Watson. Original research? Perhaps I should apply for a grant! :-)

You have asserted in the AFD that his writings were not influential even within the creationist community. I believe the citations for the book were not merely for the fact that he wrote a book but to demonstrate that other writers quote him. However, if they were not from RS, then I won't reinstate them. - Fayenatic (talk) 19:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Watson was such a titanic figure that...[edit]

...four years after his death, the ICR still don't appear to have noticed the fact. His role as "Director of the Institute for Creation Research's Midwest Center in Illinois" was also apparently so crucial that they still haven't gotten around to finding a replacement for him. Did Watson ever live in the US (if he did, the article doesn't mention the fact), or was this appointment purely nominal? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On closer examination, this piece was in fact written in 1980 (I allowed myself to get confused by the 2008 copyright notice). Another source has Walt Brown taking up that role in September of that year -- which means that Watson must have held it for only a short time (as of 1977, his dismissal case was still in the news in the UK). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I should put you out of your misery on this one. You evidently went back to re-check your own work, and did not realised that they had updated it overnight, after you lampooned the out of date version. - Fayenatic (talk) 19:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Creationists[edit]

I note from the index on-line at Amazon UK shows that Ronald L. Numbers mentions David C C Watson on three separate pages in The Creationists. This is not available in my local library catalogue, so would an editor with access to this authoritative work please contribute relevant material here? User:Hrafn, perhaps? - Fayenatic (talk) 17:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Expanded Edition:) p300 is the firing and discipline problems mentioned in the article. p362, he is quoted as answering the question "Can any good come out of America" as "Yes". p371 is for the quote: "Tens of thousands of Christians have been convinced by Morris & Whitcombe's book because they made sense of the Bible." The first is mention is the only substantial one (1/4-1/3 of a page + footnoted material), and the only one that is about him, so is the only one currently in the article. For the others, Numbers is just using quotes from him to fill in the details on other issues. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. Sorry, I hadn't noticed that you had already used this source. Is there any clarity as to why Numbers was quoting him? It suggests some notability within UK creationism, other than for losing his teaching job. - Fayenatic (talk) 18:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both quotes were in discussion of American influence on UK creationism, and parochial resistance to such 'foreign influences'. Numbers treatment tends to be (very very) detailed and (from what I can tell from his footnoting) his archive of source material is extremely extensive. He thus often makes use of quotes that are chosen for relevance to the subject matter, rather than having to limit himself to what only the few, most famous, creationists have said. He sources the first quote to a book review Watson wrote in Biblical Creation and the second to a 'Letter to the Editor' Watson wrote to Christianity Today. This would seem to establish Watson as a contributor to the movement, but hardly establishes him as a notable leading light. I would suggest that neither quote, nor their source, is sufficiently noteworthy to be worth including in the article, particularly as we have no real context to place them in. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fine -- thanks again. - Fayenatic (talk) 19:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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