Talk:Michael A. Bellesiles
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This is a biography page but contains almost no biographical information. I fail to see how a photo of the author or a list of his other publications, or a statement in his own defense, can possibly be considered "controversial." Please restore those elements.
Those interested in this topic should avoid this article. A hard core right winger continually edits out anything supportive of Bellesiles. Visit his page - American Flag, Bush supporter, Iraq war supporter etc. etc. A dedicated partisan devoted to keeping this article one-sided and highly biased against any who would support responsible gun control. Most recently he edited out Bellesiles picture and a list of Bellesiles' other books in order to create the impression this is the only piece the man ever wrote. A quotation from Bellesiles defending himself, properly cited with the original text in a link, was also edited out. Like most internet garbage on this book, this article is another example of dedicated pro-gun fanaticism.
Can someone please discuss how it affected the gun control debate? How people have used it to argue their claims? That it 'ignited passions' tells me absolutely nothing. 1:41, Nov 10, 2005.
Anyone know whether Arming America was published in October 2003? Moriori 20:12, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)
I've reverted the same anonymous user's changes as they're still the same posting of a press release by Bellesiles's new publisher. In addition to violating copyright, those changes are the start of an edit war, with one anonymous user simply blowing away the combined efforts of various wikipedians on an article.
I've also tried to NPOV the original article. While I share the original article's viewpoint that Bellesiles's work is intentionally deceptive and thoroughly discredited on most of the important points, he certainly deserves a defense of his work in an article on him. I suspect that the short paragraph about his daughter changing her name still retains too much of the ripped-off press release, and hope that someone will fact-check and paraphrase it.
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[edit] it is NOT a press release and DOES NOT VIOLATE COPYRIGHT RULES
Furthermore Arming America has never had its thesis discredited. The best you can say is that 1 table and 3 paragraphs in the first chapter weren't sourced right. So take your "Moonie Times" gun nut propaganda somewhere else.
- Look, I don't want this article to turn into an Edit war. Your replacing the entire article, which has been honed through a dozen revisions is deeply disrespectful to everyone who's worked on it. The article absolutely needs NPOV help from someone who can articulate Bellesiles's defense, but that's not the same as gutting the criticisms made of Bellesiles.
- It's obvious that you disagree with those criticisms, but they must be part of the article. Even if you belive them to be wrong or trivial, they are the reason that Michael Bellesiles is a controversial figure, and probably the reason there's a Wikipedia article on him. They need to remain.
- In particular, whatever you keep posting omits the link to James Lindgren's detailed study of Arming America. I think you'd agree that Lindgren's criticisms are impartial and well removed from the "gun nut propaganda", as he's since gone on to be one of the biggest critics of John Lott's work on concealed-carry laws (see your article "Inequitable Penalties", though it doesn't mention Lindgren by name).
- Please, don't just go blowing away the original article. Add the quotes by Bellesiles. Add rebuttals of the criticism. Remove obviously non-NPOV language like "the discredited book" (I already started doing that before you blew it away). But don't censor the article!
- I'm going to wait a bit before reverting the article to the last version, trying to stay cool.
It's not up to Wikipedia to say that one side in a controversy has been "discredited". We can only say that:
- Mr. So and So of X organization says that Y's views have been discredited.
But on such a hot issue as gun control, gun rights, gun ownership, or other Second Amendment issues -- it's better to cast the controversy in terms of two opposing points of views (POV).
Let's just say that:
- Prof. Bellesilis claimed that firearms were rare in early America, based on statistics he compiled
- His university pressured him to resign, because it disagreed with the way he compiled or interpreted the statistics
I think everyone would agree that the professor DID make that claim: i.e., his book DOES SAY that few colonials had guns (a lot less than modern historions have assumed). Note that this does not mean he was RIGHT about this: we are only agreeing THAT HE MADE THIS CLAIM.
I think we can also agree that the university DID pressure him to resign (or face dismissal) over this issue. Note that this does not mean they were RIGHT to do so.
--Uncle Ed 15:16, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Indeed, the only substantive part of the book that was ever factually discredited was his citation of "San Francisco" for certain probate records that turned out to be for Contra Costa County, even though they were labelled at top "San Francisco." The data analysis differences cited by Lindgren and Heather constituted only a small portion of Bellesiles research. His work was not only replicated by others, who quibbled large and small with the results, but were actually preceded by an earlier author who drew much the same conclusion - gun ownership was relatively rare in ordinary households. The Lindgren article, and the Emory University critque, principally take Bellesiles to task for failing to accurately cite his sources, to mis-atrreibuting sources, at one point arguably plagiarizing Jones' research on probates and wills and generally sloppy scholarship. Other than a handful of "counting" differences, Lindren makes no substantive objection to Bellesiles data. Lindren and Heather used only 10% of the data set used by Bellesiles. The critique amounts to three or four paragraphs out of the entire book. The balance of the book has gone almost entirely unchallenged. For example, the ineffectiveness of the miltia is attested to by countless missives from commanding generals from Morgan to Washington himself. The "myth" of the frontier rifleman at the Battle of New Orleans is given up by Jackson's own reports which reported that the muskets and guns faied to inflict any serious damage and that it was the artillery that won the day. The contemporary reports on the lack of weapons among militiamen are there for anyone to see and are uncontested - if they had all these guns, where were they when they reported for duty? If they were such expert marksmen with such extensive experience, why do all the revolutionary commanders decry the complete innefectiveness of the recruits to fire a weapon let alone hit anything? Virtually none of his book was actually contradicted - but he was pilloried for failing to produce his notes and for arguably passing off someone elses data as his own. That's a far cry from being wrong on the central thesis - but it is more than enough grounds to dismiss a University professor.
The inability to purchase weapons or find anyone to make them is in the notes of the Continental Congress as well as numerous contemporary reports that cite as the reason the British policy of surpressing manufacturing in the colonies, depriving the colonies of any proper gunsmiths or manufacturers. Not one cannon foundry existed in the entire nation. Making gunpowder assumed a "Manhattan Project" secrecy and scale so desperate was the need.
Don't confuse losing his job with the book being wrong - they are largely unconnected. His atrocious handling of the pubicity fiasco was the main reason they wanted him gone. As for withdrawing the prize - the plagiarism charge was the most damning one - not the innacuracy of the book, which the Bancroft Committee said they had no view of. That Gary Wills would pile on when the right wing makes it clear they are after Bellesiles should shock no one.
[edit] Quotes
- "violated basic norms of acceptable scholarly conduct. ... the judgment to rescind the Bancroft Prize was based solely on the evaluation of the questionable scholarship of the work and had nothing to do with the book's content or the author's point of view" [1]
[edit] DFL
Dr. Michael A. Bellesiles, Ph.D., DFL - what is this? Dab page does not seem to be informative... Badgerpatrol 00:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What happened to him?
Does anyone know where Bellesiles is now and if he's writing any more books on this subject? He seems to have vanished off the face of the Earth.
- Good riddance. Lawyer2b 06:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bias Entry
I've read the book and the critics. This article is unbalanced. It does not give Belleiles side of the controversy. That said, I found most of his work to be quite convincing, especially his assessment of the militia. Untrained soldiers are no match for trained soldiers no matter how motivated. As for the heavy presents or absents of guns in early America, I find his argument convincing. Guns probably were present in greater quantities on the frontier and on farms, but, in the settled cities, villages and towns, where most of the people were, there probably was not much gun ownership. Even today, if anyone bothered to take a census and if those queried were honest, (something the book doesn't address, how many lied and said they didn't have a gun) I would expect gun owners to be only a minority of the population. Belleiles, book can be read as a condemnation of gun ownership, but it can also be read as simply a theoretical assessment of gun ownership in early America based on limited information. It does not surprise me that gun ownership went up as a matter of mass production, advertisement, and a lowering of the price, that's how we got cars.
I guess I don't understand all the fuss, we are all well aware that all countries have mythological pasts, why are we surprised to find them in our own culture. It doesn't make you a "bad guy."
I use Wikipedeia, even in the face of opposition from my colleagues who assert that the articles are unbalanced opinion and not necessarily fact. A conscious and informed reader should be able to sort out the real from the myth, this article is not balanced and gives fodder to those who slight this valuable site
joeman
- This fellow's notability derives from the fact that a fair and thorough process has discredited him as a scholar. That seems to have been buried in a flood of minutia about his work before he was discredited. Lou Sander 14:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Untrained soldiers are no match for trained soldiers no matter how motivated.
Someone has never heard of Iraq. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 22:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
