Talk:Katherine Johnson

Untitled

This entry was created based on the content of my 23 December 2009 Katysblog entry, http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog/entry/katherine_johnson_computer1 which is the Public Domain

Kvgd (talk) 02:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:07, 5 April 2016 (UTC).

Ethnicity:

Should any mention be made of the fact that she is obviously very heavily mixed heritage? The article and most stories treat her as a standard "african-American", yet she has very light skin. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 21:54, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

There might be a difference in terms of cultural views between the 60's and today. They might have considered anyone with any African ancestry as "black", while today we would call that person mixed race. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 22:05, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Harizotoh9 -- I'm not sure what to make of the appearance of you answering your own question, but I agree with your initial question and point: her relative significance seems to be due to her being "African-American", and yet she's clearly no more than half-black (and probably more like 1/4). Yes, I understand the "one-drop rule" that used to apply, but given the importance of her ethnicity to her notability, not mentioning anything about its actual make-up is a glaring omission. Bricology (talk) 03:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

What are you all basing this on? Unless this is covered in a source somewhere it's not going into the article. — Strongjam (talk) 14:36, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Harizotoh9 and Bricology, African Americans are very mixed. This is made clear in the African Americans article. In fact, scientists are clear that everyone is mixed these days. Furthermore, the one-drop rule often still applies, which is why Barack Obama is simply called "the first African American President." In any case, Johnson's "relative significance" is about far more than her ethnic/"racial" background; this is abundantly clear. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

How people identify in terms of ethnicity is also personal; not everyone has adopted the term or concept of mixed race that is more openly discussed today. It is also a very political issue. It is not up to editors here to classify them. Johnson grew up at a time when racial segregation governed many aspects of the lives of African Americans. Most of the South's segregation laws following the slavery years and Reconstruction, such as Virginia's, had no nuances for mixed race. In the early 20th century, the Southern congressional bloc, then solidly white and Democratic (after disenfranchising African Americans), got the mixed race (mulatto) category removed from the national census in 1930, suppressing part of US history and adding to the binary division of society.Parkwells (talk) 19:34, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

In cases like these, we should adhere to what WP:Reliable sources state. WP:Reliable sources identify Johnson as African American and I don't see any WP:Reliable sources showing that she has rejected that categorization. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Parkwells (talk) 01:15, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn wrote "African Americans are very mixed...In fact, scientists are clear that everyone is mixed these days." I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. I challenge you to provide scientific support for your claim that all "African Americans are very mixed", or "that everyone is mixed these days". You can't because it's a fundamentally unscientific claim. My neighbors are a second-generation African-American family from Uganda and the father, with whom I've had many opportunities to discuss two of his favorite subjects -- his family's genealogy and the history of Uganda -- is completely Ugandan African, unalloyed with any other ethnicity. What are Australian aboriginals "mixed with"? What are people from New Guinea mixed with? -or the Inuit, or the Amerindians of Peru, or the Sentinelese? Unless you're trying to regress tens of thousands of years (and hundreds of generations), you're not going to find any support for your claim. Some people are of mixed ethnicity, but not all people are, by any stretch of the imagination. But more to the point: if everyone is mixed, then what difference would it make if Katherine Johnson identified as black? In what way would it be relevant? She would just be another mixed-race person. By your "logic", the notion of her being listed here as black or white could be dismissed with a handwave and a "so what? -everyone is part black!" Bricology (talk) 22:24, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Bricology, if you want scientific support for my statement that African Americans are very mixed, all you need do is look at text in the African Americans article about it and the sources that support the text. Or you could look on Google Books or Google Scholar. As for "everyone is mixed," you can look that up too (scientists reasons for stating so). I didn't state that all scientists state so. Many (actually most) scientists also state that race does not exist. This, however, does not stop racial/ethnicity categories from existing, such as in the case of Katherine Johnson. And as noted in the #Nationality in the lead: Use of "African American" section below, being African American is part of her notability. And I'm sure you know that "mixed" does not automatically equate to "part black."

On a side note: There is no need to ping me to this talk page since this article/talk page is on my watchlist. I will also refrain from pinging you if replying to you again here in this section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:36, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but NO. Just one example: African-American with 100% African DNA .
In the African Americans article, under "Genetics", it states "According to a genome-wide study by Bryc et al. (2009)...the 365 African Americans in their sample have a genome-wide average of 78.1% West African ancestry and 18.5% European ancestry, with large variation among individuals (ranging from 99% to 1% West African ancestry)." The study cited actually says "over 99%", and clearly speaks of examples within their 365-individual sample pool that have only trivial amounts of non-African DNA. So declaring that "everyone is mixed" is simply not the case. Your Appeal to Google fallacy (Many scientists also state that race does not exist) doesn't cut it, since it's based upon a leading question. Many scientists also say that it does. This 2016 study, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, reflecting the opinions of 3,286 professional Anthropologists throughout the US, makes clear the diversity of opinion about "race": 41% of all of the anthropologists who responded believe that "race" exists as a meaningful distinction between groups, 35% that "race" has a genetic basis, and 51% that "race" has a biological influence on health. So I'm afraid I'm not going to accept your handwaving claim that "race" doesn't exist when clearly, thousands of professionals working in that field, say the opposite. And obviously, geneticists who work in the field of mapping haplogroups believe that racial differences exist at the DNA level. Here's an explanation for laymen, from the science editor of the New York Times. Here's a study that shows the ability of DNA testing to predict a subject's self-identified racial group. Finally, I would suggest you read "Race: The Reality of Human Differences" (Oxford, 2005) by UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Vincent Sarich, and Frank Miele (PhD, psychology, and senior editor at Skeptic Magazine). Bricology (talk) 00:21, 10 February 2017‎ (UTC)

In addition to what you cited from the Genetics section of the African Americans article, there is more from that subsection; it states, "According to a genome-wide study by Bryc et al. (2009), the overall ancestry of African Americans was formed through historic admixture between West/Central Africans (more frequently females) and Europeans (more frequently males). Consequently, the 365 African Americans in their sample have a genome-wide average of 78.1% West African ancestry and 18.5% European ancestry, with large variation among individuals (ranging from 99% to 1% West African ancestry)." It also states, "Altogether, genetic studies suggest that African Americans are a multiracial people. According to DNA analysis led in 2006 by Penn State geneticist Mark D. Shriver, around 58 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5% European ancestry (equivalent to one European great-grandparent and his/her forebears), 19.6 percent of African Americans have at least 25% European ancestry (equivalent to one European grandparent and his/her forebears), and 1 percent of African Americans have at least 50% European ancestry (equivalent to one European parent and his/her forebears). According to Shriver, around 5 percent of African Americans also have at least 12.5% Native American ancestry (equivalent to one Native American great-grandparent and his/her forebears).

In the Admixture section, it states, "Harvard University historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote in 2009 that 'African Americans [...] are a racially mixed or mulatto people—deeply and overwhelmingly so.'"

And, of course, there are the many other sources that state that African Americans are a very mixed group. I don't even see why you are challenging that, given the years and years of so-called racial mixing, and that African Americans being a variety of shades (with regard to color) and having so-called "European features" in a number of cases is widely attributed to racial mixing.

So your "only trivial amounts of non-African DNA" argument is faulty. And that YouTube video proves nothing; I see no DNA test done in that video.

As for race existing, there is source after source explaining why race does not exist on the biological level that people generally believe it exists on. I am well aware of how some anthropologists classify the differences, but it does not stop the fact that the mainstream view among scientists today is that race is mainly a social construct. As recently as 2016, Scientific American stated, "Today, the mainstream belief among scientists is that race is a social construct without biological meaning. And yet, you might still open a study on genetics in a major scientific journal and find categories like 'white' and 'black' being used as biological variables." It goes on to explain. For example, the article notes that "[Michael Yudell, a professor of public health at Drexel University in Philadelphia] said that modern genetics research is operating in a paradox, which is that race is understood to be a useful tool to elucidate human genetic diversity, but on the other hand, race is also understood to be a poorly defined marker of that diversity and an imprecise proxy for the relationship between ancestry and genetics." And Svante Pääbo, "a biologist and director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, who worked on the Neanderthal genome [...] stated, 'What the study of complete genomes from different parts of the world has shown is that even between Africa and Europe, for example, there is not a single absolute genetic difference, meaning no single variant where all Africans have one variant and all Europeans another one, even when recent migration is disregarded. It is all a question of differences in how frequent different variants are on different continents and in different regions.'" And I see that a source you cited states, "The continued use of race concepts in genetic research was described recently as 'problematic at best and harmful at worst' (Yudell, Roberts, DeSalle, & Tishkoff, 2016, p. 564)."

Either way, per WP:Not a forum, this talk page is not the place to debate Johnson's race/ethnicity or whether or not race exists at the biological level. I understand that you have your beliefs. But I have mine too, and this discussion will not change that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:07, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

____

References

Editing in a way that attempts to lessen Johnson's impact

I've objected to edits by an IP and have stated so on the IP's talk page. Like I stated there, looking here, here and here, one can easily conclude that the IP's Katherine Johnson edits are POV-motivated. Per WP:LEAD, the impact of Johnson's contributions should be made clear in the lead. Her work was crucial to NASA, and we should state so in the lead, which is commonly the only part of the article that readers read. Having the NASA quote in the lead is hardly any different than having the NBA quote in the lead of the Michael Jordan article. But even if we remove the quote from the lead, the IP's edits are problematic because they are actively trying to lessen Johnson's impact. She did not simply "participate in calculating"; she calculated. The WP:Reliable sources state that it's her calculations that made those projects a success. Again, her calculations were crucial. And it's not simply "according to Johnson" that John Glenn requested her to confirm the calculations for his trip. The general literature on her states that John Glenn requested her to confirm the calculations for his trip. So using that one source the IP used, a source that is not as strong as the NASA source, to add "According to Johnson" goes against the WP:In-text attribution guideline because it makes it seem as though it's simply Johnson's claim.

Although I've warned the IP against this type of POV editing, I felt that it's best that I bring the matter to the talk page as well. If I need to take this matter to an appropriate noticeboard and/or have the article WP:Semi-protected, I will do so. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The IP replied to me on my talk page; as seen there, I replied back. Regarding the NASA quote, I am open to rewording the lead for that part, but the "crucial calculations" aspect should remain in some way. The infobox aspect was already changed, perhaps by the same person using a different IP, but it's a change that I'm satisfied with. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I went ahead and shortened the lead piece regarding the quote, and moved the quote down. The cited "critical" sentence should not be a problem since it is supported by NASA and the general literature on this woman. It notes the impact level of her contributions and is very much in line with WP:Due. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:02, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Followup edits here and here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:28, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

WP:SURNAME

Parkwells, regarding this and this, it is not taking away from Johnson's legacy by using the last name "Johnson." The fact that she didn't originally have the last name Johnson does not mean that we are supposed to avoid use of that name for those and similar parts of the article. "Katherine Johnson" is her WP:Common name and we should be using "Johnson" throughout the article except for cases that can cause confusion; for example, this edit you made was fine. See Angelina Jolie and other articles where the person grew up with a name that is different than their common name. We use the common surname throughout the article.

I'll ask editors at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies and Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons to weigh in on this matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:44, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate your taking the time - I should have gone to the other editors, too. While I understand the principle behind using the common name, it bothers me to see a woman's past identity totally overtaken by the use of married names. Her parents' names are not given in the article, so we never know where she came from - her own past and family's history. She had achieved much before marrying.Parkwells (talk) 16:52, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I understand your issue. I have alerted the aforementioned talk pages, as seen here and here. The WP:Common name policy is not about article text, though; it's about article titles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:54, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you - I made an error above - her parents' names are given in this article. I have noticed that parents' names are increasingly left out of recent Wikipedia biographies, as if individuals sprang up out of the air. It seems that readers should be able to follow name changes in the text of an article as readily as they follow other life changes. Parkwells (talk) 17:03, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Since others have yet to weigh in, I also went ahead alerted Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style to this issue. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Parkwells, since we have been ignored on this matter, do you want to start a WP:RfC on it? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Note: Parkwells stated more in the matter here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:10, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should we use her maiden name for some parts of the article and her married name for other parts of the article?

One view is that the article should use Johnson's maiden name for her contributions before marrying and that we should use her married name for her contributions after marrying; this is so that we are paying respect to Johnson's legacy as separate from her husband. The other view is that "Johnson" is her common name and current surname and that we should consistently use that throughout the article (unless using her maiden name is clearer for a certain part); doing so is not taking away from Johnson's legacy since she is commonly known as Katherine Johnson whether her contributions prior to marrying are being discussed/noted or not.

Note: If you are seeing this on the RfC page or from your talk page via an RfC alert, you can look at more detail on the matter at Talk:Katherine Johnson#WP:SURNAME. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:10, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• Use common name throughout Any necessary clarification, such as her being known by earlier name(s) in earlier life, or producing earlier work under another name, should be within the text. Pincrete (talk) 22:34, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
• Use common name Per WP:Use commonly recognizable names. See discussion below for comments not regarding Wikipedia policy.  {MordeKyle}  ☢ 03:04, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • WP:UCRN only applies to the title of the article; it has nothing to do with the running prose, nor does any other element of WP:AT policy. That's why it's the WP:Article titles policy not the "WP:Article content" policy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:43, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
• Use which ever makes the most sense in the context, per WP:Common sense. If sentences about her early life would not make sense with her later married name being used anachronistically, then of course don't use it in such sentences. This is hardly a new issue, and we have no trouble using maiden and married names at different places in many other articles on women (as well as other changed names in other bio articles, and company/organization articles, etc., etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:43, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
• No, use her married name Johnson, as commonly seen in reliable sources. The proposal to do otherwise seems motivated not by evidence in the sources, but by an editor's desire for wp:righting great wrongs, which is contrary to policy described in the essay on Tendentious Editing. An exception has been made, as noted earlier, in this edit, which was a reasonable way of avoiding confusion when describing her marriage to Johnson. Even in that one case, it would be acceptable, in my opinion, to use her first name, justified if necessary under wp:IAR. DonFB (talk) 05:34, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Johnson through and though. Only call her Coleman in the first sentence when she is being born to 'rents. Then Johnson for the rest of the article. L3X1 My Complaint Desk 14:30, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
• comment - Why not hyphenate, Coleman-Johnson? The maiden name and married name are established in the lede. ^{Atsme📞📧} 13:17, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Atsme, because it seems that she doesn't use the hyphen and her name is not spelled that way in the literature? If it is, it's rare. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:16, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, just thought perhaps we could use it to avoid confusion. I can't remember if Sharon Magness-Blake (see the article Thunder (mascot)) used the hyphen in real life after she married, but to avoid confusion, we used it because of her common name notability before her marriage. ^{Atsme📞📧} 22:34, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment - In a nutshell, I believe the article should use the title for which she is most famous. Few public figures are famous for having two or more names, even if they switch their names several times throughout their lives. On a side note, it seems the argument on one side is that using her father's last name is somehow more demeaning than the use of her husband's last name falls flat with me. This is a very subjective take on last names. Would it have been less demeaning if she had been born to an unmarried mother, and therefore had used her grandfather's last name? All of this is, not to be rude, is a silly mental puzzle. We live in a generally patriarchal society, so excepting the relatively unusual cases where both spouses keep their birth names, or merge their last names into a new last name, everyone has a patriarchal last name at every point in their lives. Hardly something to dwell on, unless perhaps on the last names topic itself. Yvarta (talk) 21:32, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Yvarta. I wasn't arguing that using her father's last name is somehow more demeaning than the use of her husband's last name. So I'm not sure how you drew that conclusion. I've simply argued that we should consistently use her married name because it's the title of this article and it's her common name. Switching between names can be confusing unless needed at certain points. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:42, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I'm really perplexed by what the problem is here. There seems to be some sort of interjection of ideology here. This woman accomplished great things, at a time where that was nearly impossible for her to do so. What her last name was/is in a period of time, has nothing to do with who she is as a person or the achievements she was responsible for. Use the name she is known for, and stop this veiled attempt at interjecting ideological points of view. This article would be a nightmare of confusion to use a different name for different times in her life.  {MordeKyle}  ☢ 03:12, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• SMcCandlish, are there any mismatch examples you can point to at this point in time? As for common sense, that's what I'm keeping in mind for this case. I acknowledged that not using "Johnson" can be fine for a part like this one. But I don't see how it's beneficial or common sense to use her maiden name for the parts that the editor chose to use them for. In this case, mainly using "Johnson" is the ideal option. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:11, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Nationality in the lead: Use of "African American"

Jkaharper, regarding this edit you made, like I noted with a dummy edit, the difference here is that "African American" is part of Katherine Johnson's WP:Notability, as the article makes abundantly clear. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Context. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:25, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Re-added to the lead, with a WP:Hidden note. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:33, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that her ethnicity is part of Johnson's notablity. Isn't it appropriate to use African American in the Lead text section, and "American" in the Infobox for nationality?Parkwells (talk) 19:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think so. I just reverted an IP on the infobox part, but I don't feel strongly about that.

I probably should have stated "ethnicity" instead of "nationality" above. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Ethnicity African-American, nationality American, seems consensus and uncontroversial. Is anyone disagreeing? I just saw the movie, by the way; not bad. Dicklyon (talk) 04:26, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Dicklyon. We occasionally get editors, mainly IPs, who remove "African American" from the lead. I've added a hidden note about maintaining "African American" in the lead, and I added a hidden note about simply using "American" in the infobox. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:31, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Dicklyon (talk) 04:33, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Dicklyon, you can see a recent example of the disruption here, here, here and here. With that last edit, you can see that the IP changed "African American" to "of African descent." This stems from the view that Johnson is multiracial, which is a view noted in the #Ethnicity: section above. Because of this, we get people who remove "African American" from the lead. As noted in the #Editing in a way that attempts to lessen Johnson's impact section, there have also been attempts to minimalize Johnson's impact, which I think is due to the fact that she is African American. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:35, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Removal of "African American" also happened at the Dorothy Vaughan article, but I reverted. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:50, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for getting that one reverted and blocked. Dicklyon (talk) 00:34, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 February 2017

the sentence that says nasa mathematician to receive presidential meadel of freedom November 16 2015 needs 2 things on in between freedom and november and Johnson in between mathematician and to 65.35.241.21 (talk) 22:17, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

•  Not done If we are looking at the same thing, that's actually the title of a reference, not an actual sentence in the WP article. For reference titles, we use the exact wording of the title. If I am missing something, could you specify exactly which section of the article, and specify exactly what the sentence says and exactly what you want the sentence to say? Thanks. EricEnfermero (Talk) 22:27, 12 February 2017 (UTC)