Talk:Jordan Peterson

New controversy

You should add misrepresentation of negative reviews in book blurb to the list of controversies surrounding Jordan Peterson. One may say that this is his publisher's wrongdoing, but somehow the scandal is very tale-telling about how interest in basicly irrelevant pseudo intellectuals posing as conservative gurus is generated. See https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/01/society-of-authors-calls-use-of-bad-reviews-for-book-blurbs-morally-questionable --2003:E5:170A:6ED0:281D:1533:2DD:1048 (talk) 08:38, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Haha. The Guardian is a trashy magazine. They have zero authority behind their words. :) Trakking (talk) 10:14, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

The Guardian is agreed to be generally reliable per WP:RS/P. Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED, so criticism can be included. We generally attribute it to the source, e.g. "Ella Creamer said X". Zenomonoz (talk) 22:43, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

In most cases it would be the publishers who choose the quotes, not the authors. Maybe Peterson is an exception but we have no proof of that. If anything, a guideline to stop this sort of thing happening would protect authors from overenthusiastic publishers putting things on their dust jackets that make them look stupid. (Those so inclined may mentally insert their own joke about Peterson's multi-coloured jacket here.) Anyway, this is not really about Peterson, who has quite enough controversies of his own. I think it should be mentioned in the article about the book but it doesn't need to be included here. --DanielRigal (talk) 12:45, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Remove the anti-Peterson bias and propaganda

Legal experts don't "debunk" things. Furthermore, engaging in the appeal to authority fallacy like this, without even so much as a citation I might add, is beneath us, or it should be. It certainly used to be.

"Furthermore, the idea that the bill criminalized speech that does not use a person's preferred pronouns has been debunked by legal experts and no Canadian has been jailed or fined for misgendering after C-16 became law in June 2017." ErikEdits (talk) 08:30, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

There are six citations for this content in the body. ––FormalDude (talk) 09:26, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

The claim has been unambiguously debunked. The only question here is whether we should use the word "debunked" in the lede. I guess we could replace it with something like "widely rejected" or "dismissed as baseless" but is that any better? They mean the pretty much the same thing as "debunked" after all. It is not Wikipedia's doing that Peterson made himself look foolish when he invented Imaginary Canadian Pronoun Jail. We can only tell it as it is. We are not doing anything to gloat over it. There is no bias here. DanielRigal (talk) 11:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

While his opposition to the bill is due for the lead, legal scrutiny of claims like being jailed should be left to the article body. Ideally such an analysis should provide some opinion as to the actual range of penalties etc. Springee (talk) 17:55, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, the opinions of other people about C-16 are undue for the lead, but fine for the body. Pecopteris (talk) 19:21, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

We cannot include his rubbish claim in the lede without mentioning that it is widely rejected. Doing so would make it appear more accepted than it actually is. Statements about the truth of a theory must be based upon independent reliable sources, and in this case the reliable sources dismiss his claim as baseless. ––FormalDude (talk) 04:49, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

If it was "X person became famous for arguing that climate change is a hoax" without mentioning the scientific consensus on climate change except in the body which most readers don't get to would also be misleading. (t · c) buidhe 14:24, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

FD, I agree, if the lead says he claimed c-16 could result in jail time, yes we should debunk it. However, we don't have to say "Peterson said C-16 may result in jail time". Instead we can say "he opposes C-16". He isn't notable for overstating the legal consequences of the law. He is notable for opposing it based on what he views to be compelled speech. That he over stated the possible legal consequences is a detail for the body. It's anyone opposed to removing the claim about jail time from the lead?Springee (talk) 14:53, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

@Springee: The lede says Peterson claimed that the bill could make it a crime to fail to use certain genderless pronouns. As long as this is in there, I think we must include the idea that the bill criminalized speech that does not use a person's preferred pronouns has been debunked by legal experts (or something similar, I'm open to better wording). ––FormalDude (talk) 20:01, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

That's fair. When searching for when the disputed debunk was added I didn't catch that there was a slightly earlier lead change here on 9 Sept [1]. That change moved from "compelled speech" to crime. I'll change my roll back proposal to the lead prior to that change (or earlier if there it's a preference) Springee (talk) 21:32, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

This discussion relates to a recent change to the lead (16 Sept [2]) where the claim about jail etc was added to the lead. Absent a consensus to keep this change I think rolling back to the 11 Sept version (the edit prior to the change and seems to be a stable version) addresses this issue. Springee (talk) 16:43, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Noting that on 9 Sept the lead was changed to say "crime" vs "compelled speech" [3] thus I would suggest rolling the lead back at least this far. It appears that text was stable between at least January and 4 Sept.Springee (talk) 21:34, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I would still oppose rolling this back entirely. In the body, his claim that the bill falls under compelled speech is only mentioned in one sentence and only supported by one source. His claim that it criminalizes misgendering has a full paragraph and is supported by at least eight sources. So it seems to me that the latter is more worthy of inclusion in the lede. ––FormalDude (talk) 21:56, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Putting the debunk in the lead puts undue weight on that particular aspect. The compelled part is sufficient without going into the details. I will note that the CBC notes that critics are concerned about the criminal penalties here [4] even if it isn't as simple as "use wrong pronoun = crime". Also, we are talking about rolling back to the long term stable version of the lead so we need consensus for the change. Springee (talk) 23:06, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I was the September 9th editor.

My initial aim was to remedy the strange flow breakage caused by the comma in

… would make the use of certain pronouns, "compelled speech", …

I thought the best way to fix that was to recast the sentence, but I did not do that without actually reviewing Peterson's video first. I discovered that Peterson didn't use the phrase "compelled speech" at all. So why the quotation marks? I made a good-faith effort to describe what he did say, while keeping it clear that this was about what Peterson claimed, not about a generally accepted fact. Somebody else might be able to do better, but it hurts to see the awkward comma and the misleading quotation marks come back. JerryOBrien (talk) 10:27, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I note that the comma I wanted out is gone in the current revision. That's a relief. JerryOBrien (talk) 10:29, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Above I posted a link to a CBC article on C-16. [5] The article provides Brenda Cossman, law professor at the University of Toronto, as a subject matter expert. Her view, quoted below, does support the claim that jail could result from refusing to use a preferred pronoun even though it makes it clear the path isn't straightforward and inadvertent or mistaken use would not violate the law. However, this would dispute the statement that the possibility for jail has been debunked.

If someone refused to use a preferred pronoun — and it was determined to constitute discrimination or harassment — could that potentially result in jail time?

It is possible, Brown says, through a process that would start with a complaint and progress to a proceeding before a human rights tribunal. If the tribunal rules that harassment or discrimination took place, there would typically be an order for monetary and non-monetary remedies. A non-monetary remedy may include sensitivity training, issuing an apology, or even a publication ban, he says.

If the person refused to comply with the tribunal's order, this would result in a contempt proceeding being sent to the Divisional or Federal Court, Brown says. The court could then potentially send a person to jail “until they purge the contempt,” he says.

“It could happen,” Brown says. “Is it likely to happen? I don’t think so. But, my opinion on whether or not that's likely has a lot to do with the particular case that you're looking at.”

“The path to prison is not straightforward. It’s not easy. But, it’s there. It’s been used before in breach of tribunal orders.”

Springee (talk) 01:36, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Civil law is separate from criminal law in Canada. As this source says, it is possible to be jailed for contempt of court, but that is a separate offense. (t · c) buidhe 05:14, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Regardless, RS provides an expert opinion that jail is possible even if unlikely. As Precopteris said, Peterson is over playing the risk but those who say the risk is zero also appear to be under playing it. This simply further justifies trolling back to the long term stable version of the lead. Springee (talk) 10:44, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Absent a clear consensus for the September changes to the lead I will roll it back to the long term stable version (I think that was the version on 4 Sept). Springee (talk) 14:13, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Just by a quick nose count I read a consensus to mention the issues with his position in some form; I definitely don't think you can justify a total rollback based on the current discussion. --Aquillion (talk) 18:39, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we have reached a consensus for the change and we have a RS that contradicts the debunk claim. Springee (talk) 18:45, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

• That is clearly WP:SYNTH; the source doesn't even mention Peterson. If we have sources saying that his position is debunked, and every source covering him says that it has been debunked, then we need to say the same thing or words to that effect. --Aquillion (talk) 18:39, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  You are correct that it would be SYNTH to put the CBC article in the blp to say Peterson was correct. However, using RS in the talk page to show that an article claim is questionable and this should be removed from the article is not a SYNTH issue. In fact it is specifically allowed by WP:OR. Springee (talk) 18:49, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  I looked at the sources for the C-16 section. The CBC article is already included. Furthermore that means the claim of debunked in the lead is not supported by the article body. Beyond that the compelled speech description is better aligned with the article body. Several of the sources fail to mention Peterson, not just the CBC article.Springee (talk) 19:05, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

« Debunked » ?

It’s said that the affirmation that Bill C16 might criminalized the misgendering had been « debunked » by legal experts and no one had been jailed nor fined on that basis. First, these « legal experts » are not named. Second, there is no source Third, debunked means that the initial information was fake. Dubious or controversial would be better since no proof is given nor can be about a risk. Last, a rapid googling gives st least one case of conviction against a company based in the arguments that correct gendering was a human right. Not only was the company ordered to put in place an « inclusion policy » but it was ordered to compensate CAD 30 000 to the plaintiff. Article from 2021. It seems that the four arguments are enough to at least rewrite the paragraph, or possibly suppress it. Diderot1 (talk) 09:20, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

This is being discussed in the section directly above, but I'll entertain anyway.

1. The lede is just a summary, the experts are mentioned in the body.
2. See WP:LEDECITE. It is extensively sourced in the body.
3. His claim is patently false, so "debunked" is perfectly accurate.
4. That conviction was not merely because the complainant was misgendered, it was because they were fired for asking to not be misgendered. I.e. the employer's response is what amounted to discrimination.

––FormalDude (talk) 05:04, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Per this CBC article I quoted in the section above, jail time is at least possible (thus not patently false) however, the expert clearly felt it would take extraordinary circumstances to get there. Springee (talk) 01:38, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Dr. Peterson, I think, overstated the degree of danger posed to free expression by C16, but his detractors, in turn, understated it. I do think that "debunked" is a strange word to use in a legal context, especially when, as Springee's source notes, it is not quite as black and white as that term denotes. What's a better way to phrase this to adequately capture the nuance? I think a good path forward would be to merely mention Peterson's position on C16 in the lede, and offer various opinions about his position in the body. Pecopteris (talk) 02:05, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

i am not convinced by the subtlety of "fired because they asked to being not misgendered". The fact is that not being misgendered is clearly stated as a human right by the judge, and that's the proof that private speech is being compelled. Second the company is forced to design a a specific policy that goes way beyond not firing people because they ask to not being misgendered. These facts contradict the opinion of so called experts. Their opinion if still pertinent must at least be listed as opinion and not as "debunking" the statements of Peterson. Unless disregarding the facts. Diderot1 (talk) 21:57, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Apparently a father in BC had to face a jail sentence for referring publicly to his transgender son as a girl using the birth name she was given. The legal path to send him to jail is rather tortuous: he is charged if breaking a ban, so one could argue it’s not directly because he misgendered, and second the charge is « family violence » meaning referring by birth name is considered as family violence, so here again one can argue it’s not misgendering by itself. Anyway that’s largely enough to relativise the so called debunk by legal experts.

the article Diderot1 (talk) 17:11, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how a contempt of court charge is directly related here EvergreenFir (talk) 17:48, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH. ––FormalDude (talk) 22:07, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• That article doesn't mention Peterson or the bill in question, so using it here in relation to those things would be WP:SYNTH. And the reason it doesn't mention the bill is because it had nothing to do with it - the father got in trouble for violating a court order, which is specific to his situation and wouldn't affect anyone else not under that specific court order. --Aquillion (talk) 15:07, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Add External Link

Add an external link for liondiet.com for users to get additional context on the diet. The website is run by Mikhaila Peterson with more information on Jordan and Mikhaila's use of the diet. Lion diet is distinct from the carnivore diet, which it currently redirects to on Wikipedia. Eaglebearer9 (talk) 19:42, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: After reviewing WP:EL, I'm not sure this is an appropriate external link. It might be more appropriate to cite this website in the article in order to give a brief overview of what the lion diet is. Please either ping active editors on this page to establish consensus in favor of the change, or suggest a different edit to include a brief synopsis of the lion diet in the text of the article. —Of the universe (say hello) 13:01, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 March 2024

Please add (he/him) pronouns before his name. Sebastiancook1974 (talk) 00:22, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: Before his name? And also we don't list people's pronouns in the lead sentence. We just use the pronouns throughout. EvergreenFir (talk) 00:23, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Is Peterson not an academic

What is the wiki standard for labelling somebody as "an academic" or not? 2604:3D09:D78:1000:F6F4:8026:BB0B:458D (talk) 06:45, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

In the article we refer to him by more specific terms than "academic" because that is so broad as not to tell the readers much. We say "psychologist" and "professor", which are specific terms for academics. He was a professor at a recognised University. He published many papers in recognised academic publications. This makes him an academic. What he does now is nothing to do with academia (and that's the politest way to put it) but his status as an academic remains with him and we describe him accordingly. This is not a value judgement. We have described both better and worse people in similar language. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:56, 10 March 2024 (UTC)