Talk:Jeremy Griffith

Former FR list

Items removed May 2025. AukusRuckus (talk) 09:31, 6 May 2025 (UTC) [Edited to add, for clarity: The following news articles are in no way defamatory, in either a legal or colloquial sense, notwithstanding the outcome of proceedings decided in 2010, over media coverage from 1995. AukusRuckus (talk) 09:46, 6 May 2025 (UTC)]

One of the Sydney Morning Herald sources was actually the subject of court proceedings that found it to be defamatory, and the Sydney Morning Herald then published a public apology, so it is defamatory in the legal sense.

As I explained in the section above, the other sources could or would have the effect of "prolonging the victimization" (WP:VICTIMIZE) which would breach BLP, by bringing UNDUE weight to allegations that the courts had found defamatory, and it was on that basis that I removed them. Cabrils (talk) 07:48, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Balanced viewpoints

I note the recent additions by Spinifex&Sand, including some criticism of Griffith's thesis. As I foreshadowed above, I have undertaken a fresh search for reliable sources (including via ProQuest, JSTOR, EBSCO and NewsBank databases) and found a couple of book reviews that I felt were worth adding. I cannot find any viewpoints that have not been included so I do not feel the unbalanced tag is justified, and accordingly I have removed it. Cabrils (talk) 09:04, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Lack of Neutrality surrounding veracity of claims

I have added a neutrality disputed template to the article due to the lack of nuance with which Griffith's ideas are presented, with them being explained as if they were objective fact, which is troubling since there seems to be almost no actual scholarly discussion about them whatsoever. I am also of the opinion that the degree to which he is quoted and his statements documented inflate his apparent importance to a degree that distorts the truth of who he actually is as a person. I am not specifically invested in litigating anything about his life as a subject by itself but felt the need to add the template anyway due to how this article seemingly doesn't meet Wikipedia's standards. CordiBordi (talk) 00:32, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

@CordiBordi, You may not be aware that the article has a lengthy history of robust discussion of its neutrality. I undertook a thorough review most recently in November 2023 and periodically keep an eye on it. All the content on the page is cited from reliable sources and presented as Griffith’s work, I don’t see any instances of his theory being presented as objective fact or inflated importance. The quotes used serve to expressly identify what Griffith is saying and that it’s his opinion (not “objective fact”), and there are only two used, which seems reasonable to achieve those points and in the context of the volume of overall content. On my and others’ assessments, the article meets the relevant criteria including WP:NPOV, WP:BLP and WP:RS. If you can identify with specificity examples of where the article doesn’t meet a criteria, please feel free to post them here and I’m happy to have a look at them. To me your comment feels more like your personal opinion about Griffith’s work, which of course you are entitled to hold but which really is WP:OR and as such isn’t appropriate for affecting the content of the article. Accordingly I’ve removed the POV tag at this time. Cabrils (talk) 02:06, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

I have essentially no opinion on his work since I barely know who he is. I was just struck by the (in my opinion) excessively thorough and uncritical content in the article when compared to the articles of other relatively unknown intellectuals, specifically since, after some admittedly shallow googling, it seems to me that has little connection with the actual recent developments of the fields he comments on. Presenting what he says as the article does thus to me feels tantamount to tacitly supporting him, as his points are mostly presented in a linear manner that takes a lot of his claims (such as him being a genuine researcher on the human condition as someone with no formal training in philosophy or psychology) at face value. I have neither the time not much desire to look deeper into him but I think it's clear when comparing his article to that of similar figures that his doesn't receive the same amount of scrutiny. CordiBordi (talk) 03:25, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

I say this respectfully and constructively, that going forward I would encourage you to undertake at least some research on pages you wish to edit before making any changes. Making changes to pages in circumstances, by your own admission, “after some admittedly shallow googling” where you “have neither the time not much desire to look deeper” is unlikely to improve Wikipedia. Cabrils (talk) 06:54, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Problematic Article

Apart from the very obvious bias of this article, which fails to quote any of the many reliable sources who criticise Griffith's ideas, it ties itself into knots with formulations such as "perceived problems with the empirical veracity of his anthropological writings" when a simple "perceived dishonesty" would have been much clearer. Considering the frequent and lengthy advertising currently being run by his publisher on the likes of YouTube it would be good to see the quality of this article improve. I have to admit I had never heard of Griffith before, but having repeatedly been shown his advert I got curious, because it set off so many alarm bells. I was disappointed to find what appears to be an article managed by a PR company in the employ of Mr Griffith. Isn't this against Wikipedia's impartiality rules? Unuphrio Muralto (talk) 09:14, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I say this respectfully as I see you have limited editing experience so trust this should be helpful. For simplicity, I would encourage you to peruse the content of this Talk page as it includes lengthy discussion of neutrality, claims of bias, the inclusion in the article of criticisms of Griffith, reliable sources and Wikipedia’s policies, particularly around material used on biographies of living persons, and why the article currently meets those policies. For example, your suggestion to rephrase "perceived problems with the empirical veracity of his anthropological writings" as "perceived dishonesty" would be a misrepresentation of the source and breach WP:NPOV, WP:BLP and WP:RS. I would encourage you to gain a better understanding of those policies as they are foundational to editing on Wikipedia. Cabrils (talk) 00:49, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Biologist

Hi Femke. Firstly thank you for your many years of work here.

I was looking at your recent edits to the Jeremy Griffith page, I see you removed “biologist” saying “self description”, but possibly you didn’t see the independent sources that refer to him as a biologist | here and | here?

You wrote “Normally, we use biologist for someone with at least a PhD in the subject” but I would have thought this was one of those instances where it is appropriate to call him a biologist— given those reliable sources; Griffith’s investigation of the thylacine; and his lifelong research into human nature, publicly supported by notable biologists like Charles Birch, John Morton etc? Cabrils (talk) 06:55, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Copied over from my talk page, as this is the more appropriate place to have this discussion. If you look at the page biologist, you can see that the modern usage of the word is someone who practices science according to accepted scientific methods (open for debate), and has advanced degrees in biology (does not apply here). A search for an extinct species is something lay folks can do too, you don't need to be a scientist for it. It may be that those writers relied on Wikipedia (we've taken his word for decades), or wanted to give some courtesy in their more scathing reviews (I can only access the first at the moment). In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 07:32, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

I’m not sure biologist supports the conclusion you're drawing from it. It says that "most" biologists have an advanced degree, meaning that some do not.

And with the very greatest respect, I think it’s a bit harsh to speculate that the reviewer (a visiting fellow at the University of Adelaide) and the Sydney Morning Herald were just being courteous, or mistaken. The reviewer was obviously very familiar with Griffith’s works:

"In his latest book, Is It to Be Terminal Alienation or Transformation for the Human Race?, Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith bravely attempts to plumb the depths of human nature. Among the things he seeks to examine are those aspects of ourselves which, as T.S. Eliot noted, humans rarely contemplate. As in earlier works such as Free: The End of the Human Condition (1988) and A Species in Denial (2004), Griffith is claiming that the rehabilitation of our environments and our social and political systems requires a rehabilitation of our psychology, not merely as individuals, but as a species – that a spiritual change must be the basis for social reform and the restoration of the earth's ecosystems.

In this we are reminded of the spiritual radicalism of Shelley, with William Blake probably the most uncompromising of the British Romantics, seeking to alter the deep structures of the human psyche as a prelude to social reform. Griffith's argument is a powerful one, for any solution to the problems faced by humankind must, of necessity, deal with the deeper psychological causes of those problems."

Wouldn’t a fair summary of the Sydney Morning Herald article be that the reviewer was well informed about Griffith and his work, and held the view that Griffith was a biologist, even though he ultimately disagreed with various aspects of his works? Shouldn’t we take the review at face value?

Similarly Ronald Conway’s 2003 reviews of A Species in Denial were published well before Griffith’s Wikipedia page? Cabrils (talk) 09:26, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

An WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim requires extraordinary evidence. That a few sources use high own description of himself isn't surprising. There are cases where someone becomes a biologist without a PhD, publishing in peer-reviewed literature. I don't see any evidence he's been associated with a research institute, a university, or otherwise engaged in activities we would see from a true biologist. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 10:14, 9 July 2026 (UTC)