Talk:Weizmann Institute of Science

Accusations of animal abuse

This paragraph is heavily biased and misplaced, for the following reasons:

1. It only cites the allegations made by the "Let Animals Live" group, as provided in the newspaper which cooperates with them in their new campaign.
2. The responses of the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities to these allegations are not mentioned.
3. The purpose of the experiments, their methodology, their extent (8 monkeys) and the strict supervision they undergo are not mentioned.
4. The paragraph fails to clarify that the campaign protests against animal experiments in all Israeli research institutes, not only in the Weizmann Institute of Science.
5. Pasted on top of a start-Class article, this paragraph highlights one of many important scientific activities done at the Weizmann Institute of Science, that are not mentioned in the article at present. As these allegations are certainly non-specific to this institute, the paragraph should be moved to Animal testing on non-human primates#Allegations.

Regards, Lior (talk) 14:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

All good points. Please add the references you suggest. However, I believe that it is important that the information already there stay, since it does show another side of the work done at the institute, but that it could be more balanced. Bob98133 (talk) 15:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Bob. I think you could benefit from the following exercise: Try to balance the paragraph you added yourself, representing both sides of the dispute with proper references. As a first step, here's the website of the laboratory against which the campaign is held. Out of hundreds of labs in the WIS, it's the only lab at present that works with non-human primates. You can take your time, this article has been a poor stub for more than 4 years now. Good luck, Lior (talk) 18:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I imagine we could all benefit from exercise, but I will try to do what you attempt. I don't doubt that WIS does lots of good science, and it's good to hear that there is only one lab that uses primates, but that alone makes one wonder how useful and/or humane it is to use them as a model. In any event, the article should be NPOV, so I'll do the research and post it to this talk page for review prior to changing to article.Bob98133 (talk) 19:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the paragraph per WP:NPOV#Undue weight. I plan on expanding the article a bit in the coming days, at which point this incident will probably deserve a small mention, however, I think a whole paragraph would be too much even then. I am joining the army on February 4, however, so if I have not expanded it by then, I'm probably not gonna be able to do so for a while. Yonatan ^talk 21:05, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Erm, excuse me? The paragraph was removed as per WP:NPOV#Undue weight, my going away has nothing to do with it. I was going to expand this article so the paragraph (or a bit of it) *can* be mentioned, but as the article stands right now, there is no room for it at all as this minor incident is given undue weight. I only mentioned the fact that I'm going away so you're aware that I may very well not expand the article in the end. In addition, you reverted numerous improvements I made to the article instead of just the one where I removed the paragraph. Please read the WP:NPOV#Undue weight policy and continue the discussion here before reverting me. Yonatan ^talk 00:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - I didn't disagree with you, just that I'd already said a similar thing about looking over the article to make it have less undue weight. I just tink it would be a good idea to discuss this on talk prior to reverting. I will review the article and try to make sure that it is agreeable to all prior to changing your most recent version - which is what I planned to do before your changes.Bob98133 (talk) 17:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear Weapons Research

The accusations in this paragraph are quite questionable (not mentioning the issue of undue weight):

1. References are missing.

2. Early espionage suspicion against the Weizmann Institute were soon dismissed by the FBI itself, as stated in declassified documents. ("This attack was very rudimentary. [...] the proposed scenario that subject in New York was downloading files in connection with an attack from Israel does not make sense since on the Internet it is just as easy and fast to move files to Israel as it is to New York"). Source: http://www.irmep.org/ILA/weizmann/1176820-000%20---%2065w-BF-28197%20---%20Section%202%20%281043223%29.PDF

3. Also the information on Weizmann Insitute's involvement into Israels nuclear weapons program is qualified by the FBI ("INFORMATION CONTAINED FROM OPEN SOURCES IS SUBMITTED FOR GENERAL CONSIDERATION ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR INVESTIGATIVE JUSTIFICATIQN WITHOUT CONFIRMATION BY MORE RELIABLE SOURCES"). Source: http://www.irmep.org/ILA/weizmann/1176820-000%20---%2065W-BF-28197%20---%20Section%201%20%281037802%29.PDF

4. The mentioned study "Critical Technology Issues in Israel", allegedly issued by the Department of Defense, is not availabe, has 7 hits on Google, mostly antisemitic hate sites (davidduke.com, etc.)

Altogether, accusations of espionage seem to be completely baseless, whereas relyable information about the involvement into Israel's nucleart weapons program are missing. I suggest removing the paragraph. --Elikrieg (talk) 05:45, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

They aren't really accusations, but rather documented facts. Espionage was not dismissed, it was just another case of prosecutorial forbearance. The FBI CounterIntelligence Division finding is that ""CI-3B believes that the Weizmann Institute is an academic organization which conducts research in high-technology issue areas, including theoretical aspects of nuclear and conventional weapons development."

The Authors of the book "Nuclear Express" refer to Weizmann as a nuclear weapons development incubator. http://www.amazon.com/The-Nuclear-Express-Political-Proliferation/dp/076033904X/

Those facts are well established enough to present in this entry. Mega Authority (talk) 20:51, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

One should carefully read the FBI documents: The sentence that you cite appears at an early stage of the investigation and is based on open sources only. Therefore, the authors themselves warn to use this information "without confirmation by more relyable sources". Subsequently, the investigation does not find any further proof for their statement and all suspicions are dismissed.

Of course it is still possible that the institute was somehow involved in the development of nuclear capabilities, but then there should be some proof and understanding to which extent this was the case. Elikrieg (talk) 14:55, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the sentence: "In 1957, research instrumental to the study of polonium was conducted at the institute laboratory. This has been of concern to the investigation into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the cause of which has been attributed to polonium." This sentence appears with no reference, and is probably wrong. Moreover in the small section regarding the history of Weizmann, only major events are mentioned, so there is no justification to add unsabstantiated rumors. טוקיוני (talk) 07:14, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Melanoma interventions/cures

What are the interventions/recommendations currently used for melanoma for all stages? MNottorf (talk) 05:33, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

A campaign of Weizmann of self promotion

According to a colleague of mine, some workers of the institute has decided to censor some of the article, which shows based on well known sources, that the institute rank declines. I truly hope that the scientist of what should be an honorable place such as university, prestigious or less prestigious will gain its reputation, based on academic results rather censoring articles. Till then, I call for the article to be monitored or locked. --Wizmann (talk) 12:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Right, please start discussing your ideas of improving the article here. Meantime, I'll revert your text with claims that contradict the very references you provided. Evgeny (talk) 17:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

All of the claims I made are correct and backed by sources. It seems very odd that an employee of the institute claim to be neutral, and make an edit war. If you please explain why you've vandalized the article?--Wizmann (talk) 18:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Are you able to read replies to your own questions?? I gave enough examples of your "correct claims". User_talk:Evgeny#Please_state_incorrect_statement Evgeny (talk) 18:53, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

After discussing with Evgeny in its talk page it seems that the insitute has never been in the 9th place in the ranking presented here:

"In 2018 the institute was ranked 9th, globally, (1st in Israel) by the CWTS Leiden Ranking". it seems that the institute workers keep make up titles that they never were awarded. One might ask what other titles are fictional?--Wizmann (talk) 20:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

The article contains an exaggerated claim about its Nature ranking: "The Weizmann Institute of Science was ranked number 2, globally, for research quality by the Nature Index in 2019." Weizmann did come second in a 2019 Nature table ("Leading academic institutions (normalized)", rather than "research quality") but this appears to be an artefact of the normalization process (i.e. low number of published articles, but individually high citation scores in a one-year period). Nature only ran this category that one year and then abandoned it, perhaps because it gave these unreliable results. This appears to be another example of primary research by article authors likely belonging to the Weizmann institute. 174.250.8.2 (talk) 23:54, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

The disputed paragraph

this is the disputed paragraph that the Wizmanners, wish you not see

Decline

In recent years, the institution rankings have been decreasing constantly.

During 2014 to 2019 the institution rank in Shanghai Ranking fell outside top 100 universities. In some cases, for example in Computer science the institution has lost its national leadership, ranking only the 4th in Israel, and 300th-350th globally. According to Shanghai ranking, during 2009-2019, the department of Computer science and Mathematics was declining from the 13rd place to merely 101st-150th place. In 2020, the insitute plunged to the 507th place in Leiden Ranking. Placing it out of the top 500 universities for the first time.

Please don't write that the institute is in decline based on primary sources, doing so constitutes original research and is prohibited in Wikipedia. If you find secondary sources on this alleged decline, you can add it in the relevant section. You can familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's policies on the matter here: Wikipedia:No original research. Have a nice day. --RaphaelQS (talk) 21:53, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Can you please explain why quoting primary sources, which says the institute reputation degraded, is original research?--Wizmann (talk) 22:11, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

You can state that the institute's ranking in x academic ranking has gone from this high to that low, but you can't say that the institute's reputation has gone down, is in decline, or derive any kind of opinion from primary sources, otherwise this constitutes original research. If you find a news article for example that does make this claim then I would see no issue with adding it to the section of the article on academic rankings while respecting a neutral point of view of course. --RaphaelQS (talk) 22:43, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

References

it seems that all the changes that made were reverted

It seems that all the changes, made by me and different users, which show much more neutral point of view of the institute have been reverted due to ad humanism. I believe that at least some should re-introduced. Especially those which have been made by different users.--Wizmann (talk) 19:11, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

• You didn't understand the Leiden rankings. As the article states, it is "based on the proportion of a university's scientific papers published between 2012 and 2015 that made the 10% most cited in their field". This used to be the way it was sorted automatically but not anymore - to sort it that way press the PP(top 10%) column on https://www.leidenranking.com/ranking/2020. WIS is 8th on this contrary to your edits. It makes no sense to cite the P(top 10%)-ranking as it is inherently based on the size of the institute.
• Also you cited the Shangai change in a highly misleading way, writing that WIS "fell out of the top 100 between 2014-2019". Around 2014 it was 92, its peak, before it went down to 101-150 (unspecified) then returned to 93 last year. So, your edits are not neutral but clearly have an agenda to make it seem that the rankings are generally in decline, though it is not the case. A decline in the ranking of the CS dept. alone (a small fraction of an institute which is mostly focused on biological sciences) is hardly noteworthy, and I didn't see such a decline in the other departments. - 2A02:ED3:50A:C900:C30:F074:3CC3:70F5 (talk) 22:23, 26 April 2021 (UTC)