Talk:Albert Lasker

Latest comment: 5 years ago by Rjensen in topic Problems

Biography assessment rating comment edit

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article.-- Jreferee 00:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

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Problems edit

There are a couple of problems I see in reading this. First is the claim that a book "posits" Lasker was mentally ill. Books are not sentient, AUTHORS make claims in books. Jeffrey L. Cruikshank, the author of the apparent claim has ZERO authority in psychiatry, he therefore should NOT be used as the basis of such a controversial and speculative claim. The claim is stated as if it is fact, and the overwhelming medical opinion about mental illness is...wait for it...you actually have to TALK to the patient, not base a diagnoses on second or third hand hearsay. Second is the claim that Lasker was instrumental in increasing the NIH budget from $2.5 million to $5 billion by 1985. It makes no sense to credit him with acts done after his death in 1952!! IN 1945 appropriations were ~$3 million and in 1952 ~$47 million - a factor of ~16X. Third, his "legacy" must include not only his critical support of cancer research (government funding as well as reorganization of the American Cancer Society) but his contributions to Major League Baseball and the use of advertising in the election of President Harding as well as the general use of "modern" advertising which literally changed the world (and certainly popular American culture) (Notably, imho, sex education (for girls) in public schools and the targeting of women by cigarette adds.)98.21.72.69 (talk) 11:19, 12 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Attributing an opinion to a book rather than to the book's author is a fairly standard bit of metonymy, there's nothing wrong with that. Your statements regarding the book's validity or lack thereof, I'm not going to address because I have insufficient information. "Legacy" is, in this context, being used for those things that are named for him. DS (talk) 15:18, 12 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
to assert a claim in a major published book is " controversial and speculative" requires a reliable source. The book was vetted by a major academic publisher (Harvard Business Review Press) and has good reviews. Rjensen (talk) 17:17, 12 September 2018 (UTC)Reply