Talk:Life Before Life

Merge from Jim Tucker

The only thing notable about Jim in his article is this book.

That is, even if this book is notable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:58, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Oppose merger: Have expanded the Tucker article and notability is clearly established in several ways not related to the book. Happy to expand this article too if you would like. Simply no need for a merger as each article stands on its own. Johnfos 23:38, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Adequately expanded, withraw merge request. I still question whether this one is the most notable Jim Tucker, but that's a RM, rather than a merge request. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:43, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Article should be about Wambach's book first

It should be noted two other individuals have published books on this topic with the same title: Life Before Life by Helen Wambach and Life Before Life: Origins of the Soul...Knowing Where You Came From and Who You Really Are by Richard Eyre, both available on amazon.com. CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Just added factoid above. But actually while there are only two ref's to Tucker's book in Books google there are more than a dozen for Wambach's book. There were three to Eyre's book. So notability wise, perhaps this article should be about all three books, starting with Wambachs. I'll put it only list of things to do. INcluding writing an article about Wambach herself. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Chet B. Snow worked closely with Wambach and when she died just before the release of their sequel he finished the book "Mass dreams of the future" himself. --83.248.239.86 (talk) 18:28, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Notability

Can someone please show, with WP:RS, how this book meets our notability requirements? Thanks, Verbal chat 14:46, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

There is plenty of published material here to support notability, per the Wikipedia:Notability (books) criterion which says: "The book has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are independent of the book itself..." Johnfos (talk) 21:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Please show this significant discussion of this work in other, independent and mainstream works. Verbal chat 09:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Please stop edit warring on these articles and discuss the issues first to reach a consensus. --EPadmirateur (talk) 11:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Still not seeing any solid support for notability. I added the fringe theories tag. I will probably speedy or AfD this article unless notability is supported. - - MrBill3 (talk) 18:19, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't Capture Spirit of Book

This is a very poor representation of the book. The book argues for reincarnation as the most plausible explanation for the evidence put forward (which includes over 2,500 cases). It discusses several alternative explanations and, in turn, why each one is unsatisfactory. "Faulty memory of informants" is dismissed in many cases, because the memories were written down, or independently recorded, before the previous personality was identified. And of course, faulty memory of informants doesn't explain the birthmarks and birth defects that are the hallmark of the evidence at hand. This is an example of guerrilla skepticism. A skeptical point of view isn't a neutral point of view. Suggest rewriting the article to support NPOV. 70.174.135.194 (talk) 03:30, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

If you have reliable secondary sources that present a different point of view than the sources cited please provide them with a proposal for a change in content. The current content is sourced. As it stands the book doesn't really meet notability criteria. NPOV means representing what reliable secondary sources say with due balance. The book itself is primary. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Got it, and thank you for the quick reply. It's important not to confuse the issue of notability, on which I'm not offering a position, with what the book is actually claiming, which isn't well-represented by the article. I would rather the article be deleted altogether (for lack of notability) than have it give an inaccurate representation of the book. The particular passage to which I'm objecting--citing "faulty memories" as the most logical "normal" explanation, does not come from a secondary source. Would you accept the below as a reliable secondary source? It's from the Journal of Scientific Exploration, and the review is written by Michael Levin, of the Forsyth Institute, Harvard School of Dental Medicine. http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/reviews/reviews_19_4_levin.pdf

70.174.135.194 (talk) 22:39, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

The Journal of Scientific Exploration is not a reliable source. It is a fringe journal. A dentist does not have expert standing in reincarnation. Anything from JSE would need to be balanced as due per parity.

I believe the passage to which you are objecting is entirely accurate. The book itself states, "To review the possible explanations for this phenomenon, the best normal explanation in the cases with birth marks and birth defects involves coincidence for the birthmarks and faulty memory by informants for the statements that the children make." This is cited in the article to the correct page range. It is the opening sentence of chapter 10, "Conclusions and Speculations". It is attributed to Tucker in the book in the text of the article. - - MrBill3 (talk) 00:01, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Creating Wikipedia articles on fringe-related paranormal books is always difficult. Would be nice if this article could be expanded but it's extremely difficult to find any other reliable sources. Until other book reviews are written for this book that are notable or reliable, I do not think this article can be currently be expanded. Goblin Face (talk) 03:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

This isn't NPOV, by the criteria you listed above: "NPOV means representing what reliable secondary sources say with due balance. The book itself is primary." The source for the sentence in question is primary. Why are secondary sources required for some claims, but not others? Also, this line obviously doesn't capture the spirit of the book. In other words, the quote has been taken out of context in a way so as to (intentionally or unintentionally) distort its intent. This is akin to summarizing a book attempting to determine the best baseball players of all time with a sentence that characterizes who the best minor league baseball players of all time were (and not having a secondary source with which to do so), while choosing to omit any discussion of the major leagues. However, if we must go with it, could you at least make it true to the quote you cite above? It gives two normal explanations: coincidence for the birthmark cases, and faulty memory for the others. The article mentions faulty memory by informants only. I'm not asking for the article to be expanded; only for it to accurately capture or summarize the book's contents.

70.174.135.194 (talk) 20:59, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I see that nothing has changed; this continues to be a very poor representation of the book, with an out of context quote to "summarize" it. I just watched a 90-minute podcast where Tucker himself summarized the book as presenting evidence in favor of survival, not evidence in favor "faulty memory by informants." This would be like if a movie reviewer wrote "The only thing hilariously funny about this movie is that it dares to call itself a comedy" and then one summarized the review by saying that called the movie "hilariously funny." Tucker offers faulty memory as the best "normal" explanation so that when he later argues against it, he can argue against ALL of the "normal" explanations. And in the book's hallmark case ("The Third James"), faulty memory is virtually impossible, because the evidence consists mainly of time-stamped webpage printouts and emails created contemporaneously. One is supposed to rely on secondary, not primary sources, and there's not a single reliable secondary source that suggests that Tucker advances "faulty memory by informants" as a favored explanation. It should be rewritten to be true to the spirit to the book.