Talk:Robin Baker (biologist)

Untitled

This article appeared about me on Wikipedia, posted by CompetaSteve (I can tell that most of it was taken from the biographies on Amazon, my agent's site, and my own web-site). But it contained two or three minor errors that only I would know, so I corrected them. Please look closely at the changes I made March-May: my PhD was on Insect Migration, not Migration, so I corrected that; my old school, Marlborough Grammar School, no longer exists so I corrected the link to the Wikipedia page; and the number of languages my books have been published in changed, so I updated that. While I was editing, I did I confess put the book titles in italics and because two of the statements about me were unverified I added references. Those are the only changes I have made. Do they count as extensive? If they do, I shall happily undo them all. By all means check the tone of the article. It seems pretty neutral and factual to me. Robin Baker. Rrobinbaker (talk) 10:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Sources

A primary concern is the lack of objective reliable sources--neither Amazon nor the subject's or agent's web site are considered acceptable, and the balance of citations here are to the subject's publications. In essence, it's almost entirely self-referenced. What's needed are sources that have written extensively about Mr. Baker and his books. Any substantive rewriting ought not be done by the article's subject, although he's welcome to offer suggestions for improvements here. 99.0.82.226 (talk) 12:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Sources - a suggestion

Article's subject here. As long as I don't change the text, is it OK for me to add references to third party sources (newspaper articles, TV documentaries etc.) that have been written or made about me? Would that help ease the concern over verifiability? Rrobinbaker (talk) 10:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Given that someone has already questioned the article's neutrality, perhaps you could list them here, with their online links where applicable, and someone else can add them into the article. Such references would be most helpful, and if any of them support the current content, could supersede citations which refer directly to your books. 99.0.82.226 (talk) 14:23, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I am the original author of this article. I run a free magazine on the Costa del Sol The Grapevine Magazine which is for ex-pats and about ex-pats – basically telling everybody about any interesting people that are living in the area. When I heard that Dr Baker lived here and checked him out on Wikipedia I found several entries about him in other articles but no biographical entry. So using information from Amazon and his agent’s and his own web-site I put together this article about him. But I’m afraid I don’t immediately have access to any other material so I will have to leave any further development of this article to others. Competasteve (talk) 11:56, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggested changes and third-party references

Having checked other author and academic biographies (e.g. Geoff Parker and William Golding) it seems to me that most of the references in the original article were unnecessary in any case. Links to the appropriate Wikipedia page would in most cases be sufficient. The text below is the exact text of the article as it was but with most of the references to my publications removed and with third-party references added where these seemed necessary. If there are any statements remaining that would seem still to need a citation, if somebody would point them out then I shall make further suggestions. I have deleted the link to my own web-site from the main text and added it as an external link. It still provides the only accurate list of my books and translations (Google, Bookfinder, and Amazon all exaggerate how many books I have written because they include other Robins and Bakers and do not list all the translations).

Robin Baker (born 13 March 1944) is a British novelist, popular science writer, lecturer and broadcaster. A best-selling author in the field of sexual biology his books have been translated into 27 different languages. These include the international bestseller Sperm Wars which was based on his own lab’s original research on human sexuality. His work and ideas on the evolution of human behaviour have been featured in many radio and television programmes around the world.

Biography

Born in Wiltshire, England in 1944, Robin Baker grew up in the small village of Manningford Bruce in the Vale of Pewsey. Educated at Marlborough Grammar School where 30 years earlier, the author William Golding had also been educated, he gained his BSc (First Class, Zoology) from the University of Bristol in 1965 where he also gained a doctorate in 1969 under H.E. Hinton, FRS (1912–1977). His Ph.D. was on The evolution of the migratory habit in butterflies and applied for the first time the principles of the new and growing disciplines of behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology to the field of insect migration. This work was subsequently published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. He moved to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1970 and from there to the University of Manchester in 1974 where he was first a lecturer, and in 1981 a Reader in Zoology in the School of Biological Sciences. In 1996 he left academic life to concentrate on his career in writing and broadcasting. He currently lives in the foothills of the Sierras in Southern Spain with his family. He has four sons and two daughters.

Academic Work
Although his early work was on evolutionary aspects of insect migration and territoriality, his interests broadened. With G.A. Parker and V.G.F. Smith in 1972, he proposed a leading theory for the evolution of anisogamy and two sexes and in 1979, with G.A. Parker he proposed the Unprofitable Prey Theory of the evolution of bird coloration. In 1978 in his book The Evolutionary Ecology of Animal Migration he wrote for the first time on the theme that permeated his work for the rest of his academic life: the application of the principles of evolutionary biology to the behaviour of humans. This led in the 1980s to controversial work on the role of magnetoreception in the navigation of humans, and in the 1990s (with Mark Bellis) to a study of sperm competition in humans and rats, including proposal of the kamikaze sperm hypothesis. Baker and Bellis’ research into the evolutionary biology of infidelity, masturbation, sperm polymorphism, and sperm number in humans, as well as into the design and function of the human penis and cervix led to a number of scientific papers and an academic book: Human Sperm Competition: copulation, masturbation and infidelity.

Writing

As well as being the author of around one hundred scientific papers and six academic books, Robin Baker is the author of four popular science books: Sperm Wars; Baby Wars; Sex in the Future; and Fragile Science. His first novel, Primal, was published in 2009 and continues the theme of the evolution of human sexual behaviour. Likened to both the TV series Lost and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, it describes a group of university students and staff stranded on a remote desert island occupied by feral chimpanzees. Bit by bit the people find themselves stripped of all the trappings of civilization until like the apes around them they have only their instincts to guide them.

External links

• www.robin-baker.com
• www.thesusijnagency.com/RobinBaker.htm

Rrobinbaker (talk) 13:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC) Rrobinbaker (talk) 13:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Revised version

I think that's great, Dr. Baker. I've revised the article using your suggested text and footnotes, and removed the maintenance templates. For the moment I'm leaving the duplicate version here, so as not to be accused of refactoring a talk page--anyone is welcome to remove it. Thank you, 99.0.82.226 (talk) 18:49, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for your help. I appreciate it. I'm glad that's resolved. Is it possibly to remove the warning from the top of this talk page as well, or should that stay?Rrobinbaker (talk) 09:28, 21 July 2011 (UTC)