Talk:George Saliba

Green eyes

Why is there no mention of his denial of the right of self-determination to people with green eyes, which played a rather prominent role in the whole Columbia Univ. mid-east studies department controversy? AnonMoos (talk) 11:26, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Green eyes redux

From what I've seen, Saliba claimed that the student misunderstood the point he was trying to make, but never denied that he did say something roughly to the effect that authentic middle-easterners / "true Semites" (or however he phrased it) don't have green eyes. What is the citation for Saliba claiming to have never said anything at all about green eyes? AnonMoos (talk) 03:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Whatever happened, I had to remove the piece until clarification, because the reference to Saliba's words were even not second-hand; not even third-hand, it is just a broken telephone. While the episode did take place and was quite central to the film in question, it must be described in proper way: what student said, what Saliba said, not how some random journalist heard it. Saliba's claim is here. Buit what exactly did the student say in the film? I see some external references in wikipedia text about "Columbia Unbecoming", but I don't have time to track them right now. Since it is a biography of a living person, any potentially defaming issues must be referenced very carefully; please see WP:BLP policy. `'Míkka>t 08:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not clear whether George Saliba is very notable outside of the green-eyes affair, so if you remove the all green-eyes material, you're unfortunately removing his main claim to be deserving of a Wikipedia article. Furthermore, the film was widely viewed by a number of journalists (including some from major news outlets), many of whom wrote their own independent accounts of, and reactions to, Lindsay Shrier's personal testimony in the film, so I don't know what your claims of "third-hand" are supposed to mean -- it actually sounds like the acme of widespread verifiable mainstream media coverage of Lindsay Shrier's claims to me. And BLP concerns cannot be used to suppress all mention of a legitimate controversy which has received wide media coverage. Of course, on this article we can't take sides between Saliba's and Schrier's conflicting claims, but we can set out both, and link to useful media accounts of both. If you feel there's some specific factual inaccuracy in how Lindsay Shrier's claims are summarized here vs. how they were reported by various news outlets, then by all means be bold and fix such inaccuracies post-haste, taking into account the various material that's out there. However, please don't delete all mention of the main thing which makes Saliba notable on the basis of rather vague abstract philosophical concerns not backed up by specifics... AnonMoos (talk) 12:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

---

Restoring the green-eyes thing, since it's actually what he's most widely notable and famous for outside of very narrow scholarly circles. AnonMoos (talk) 17:16, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

P.S. The report produced by the official Columbia University inquiry (which was biased in many ways in favor of Saliba, Khalidi, and Massad), admitted that Saliba almost certainly made a reference to green eyes on the occasion in question[1] -- I don't know how you can get too much more reliable than that... AnonMoos (talk) 16:07, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Green eyes yet again

It's rather pointless to try to whitewash the main allegation which has received the widest media coverage. See above. AnonMoos (talk) 15:42, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Bbc Science And Islam

George Saliba appeared as comentator on Bbc Science And Islam 2009 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gnqck --Nevit (talk) 21:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

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How is this even a wiki article?

Is the only reason for this article to exist is to attack a professor because he (allegedly) hurt someone's feelings? .... like, really? Well in that case, it should be nominated for deletion, if no actually useful information is present here on the author or his academic works. Code16 (talk) 20:26, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Dear friend Code16, I agree with you that this article currently has a biased section, but that is not grounds for deleting the entire page. Saliba is notable by Wikipedia standards because of his academic rank and publications. Let’s try to find other sources about him that might solve the problem caused by that unbalanced section. Beat regards, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 05:01, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree, I don't actually want this page deleted. It's just this page has no valuable information right now and exists as a shell solely for attacking him based on some alleged antisemitic charge by a student. And if there are no secondary sources about this author then what is the point of having a page? I can add a primary source from the book I am currently reading by this professor (a very well researched work) but that would just be a primary source in this case and wouldn't justify the page's existence. I'm just saying, if there are no secondary sources mentioning the subject of this page (besides the one where he allegedly insulted a student) then I don't see a reason for it to exist. Code16 (talk) 05:59, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Dear Code16, thanks for your reply. I have added some properly cited biographical information on this scholar that shows his accomplishments, standing and reputation as a scholar. I hope you agree that this already helps to bring a bit of balance. I'll try to find more as time permits. Thanks again and best wishes, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 06:04, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks GorgeCustersSabre, much appreciated. Code16 (talk) 04:04, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

French Wikipedia

French Wikipedia has a whole long section about his work on the history of Arab astronomy... AnonMoos (talk) 20:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I have added in the Career section a Google Translate version of the French Wikipedia section of Saliba's academic works. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E0A:149:BEB0:4AEA:7A37:D4E:3BA6 (talk) 16:52, 1 April 2024 (UTC)