Talk:Tony Buzan

Benefit of Buzan?

Tony Buzan may be an author on learning and the brain, but he tends to promote a very limited method for improving learning. He is certainly not a world authority. As learning to learn's main objective is to improve the range of learning strategies, his teaching method needs a lot more substance. The range of study methods available at school and college are already broader, and do not demote education in the way he does. His CV which is printed on each of his books is designed to sound good, but his consultancy has not done much apart from improve the promotion of his own business.

His techniques do have some kind of cult following and dedicated devotees, and he seems willing promote his guru status for the sake of his business. As an author, he has adopted so many fads and flavours of the month for the sake of sales (from Mozart induced brainpower to promoting genius through masturbation), that any science that could have been associated with his methods have been relegated to pseudoscience and gurubabble.

His main job is to exaggerate the efficacy of, and promote the use of mind maps at the expense of other more communicative and useful methods of learning that are available for free.

Some people will benefit from reading his books. Only a few people will benefit from such wild claims and misled expectations concerning the use of his methods (those will be the author and company).

-- contributed by 144.214.54.82, who also decided that concept maps were more to its liking by introducing postive POV in Concept map and negative POV in Mind map, besides the negative POV in Tony Buzan. — Saxifrage (☎) [[]] 10:47, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This ↑ de-anonymisation label was removed by 144.214.54.82. Please don't remove comments left by other users—respond to them. If you're going to have a discussion about this, lay all your cards on the table for everyone to see. I looked at your trail of edits, saw what looked to me like blantant boosterism at Concept map and low-blow editing here and at Mind map, and noted that for discussion. If you have a valid point, it will stand on its own by consensus, not by underhanded entry editing.

You can automatically sign your comments by typing "~~~~" after your comments for a time-stamped signature, or just "~~~" for your username/ip address. It helps to know who is saying what. — Saxifrage (☎) [[]] 08:42, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I like buzan's concept, but i find the same ideas are repeated in his multitude of books i.e old wine in new bottles

i think he is gouging the readers

jf (who was 210.212.161.100 (talk · contribs))

>>>>>>>>>>.

This comment does strike a certain chord

However, I have seen his books sold in various countries, and believe the said author does provide a clear method for those wishing to learn about this particular webbing technique. More specific details concerning any particular mis-information surrounding the method would be appropriate in this discussion section. As would any scientific evidence of the benefits. More info would be appreciated, especially concerning correct terminology about learning in this context and the application of pseudoscience.

Arnold

>>>>>>>>>

To be specific, Tony Buzan is a promoter of mind mapping. Whether he was the originator or not is POV. He promotes the use of mnemonics, but the only mnemonic system he can claim is SEM3. Whether he is a world authority or not is POV. He is an inspirational/self help author! -- left by 144.214.54.82

Wonderful. It's always good to get updated information on a topic. However, if you edit without leaving any comment or edit summary and your information seems biased, then it has a good chance of getting reverted. Now you have a chance to provide your rationale for making the changes you did, and I'm interested where you're getting your information. You've asserted that he's just a self-help guru and a promoter of mind maps. What are you basing this on? — Saxifrage (☎) [[]] 08:42, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi Saxifrage. Just browsing through the literature should tell you enough. There are blatant exaggerations throughout, which constantly lead the reader to buy more of the redundant same misinformation. 99% mental potential enhancement, IQ increases, genius potential, etc none of which are scientifically supported with evidence. There is also evidence of mind control techniques being used in the books and seminars. eg, questionnaire asking a list of questions with prewritten answers such as "were you taught anything about memory at school--NO! and the list goes on. There is not even a need to cite a particular book. They all contain the same kind of thing. Overhyping learner's expectations and putting words into their mouths. A caring educator will steer clear of all of these mind narrowing elements. Regards Juniper

Hello Saxifrage. I deleted the IP address etc out of a sense of duty. The general world belief is that posting other people's IP addresses for all and sundry to browse is extremely unethical. Statements and ideas can easily be rated and assessed without this odd form of personal attribution. Arnold

Wikipedia

There are certain very simple requirements of etiquette and good practice you may wish to familiarise yourself with. Sign your contributions, not from some anonymous terminal and 'on behalf of xyz organisation', whoever they may be. Provide references in the article so that the promotional material you have posted here may be independently checked, by those who wish to do so. You have evidently been a busy little bee monitoring this page, but if you continue to refuse to stick to these very simple and altogether not unreasonable courtesies, you make yourself look like a snake-oil salesman because you give the impression that you have something to hide, and surely that is the last thing you want.

Another courtesy is not to blank the comments left by others, nor to post anonymously and then delete your own IP address. If you wish to post anonymously, sign in to Wikipedia.

Neither the Tony Buzan organization nor 'Arnold' is making themselves look very good with this, so readers will draw their own conclusions.Sartoresartus (talk) 12:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I am tagging the article again, this is preposterous.Sartoresartus (talk) 12:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

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Tony Buzan is an inspirational speaker, rather than an expert on how the brain learns. The science that he cites in his books is largely out of date (dating from the early 70's, when his BBC series was first shown). Most of the theories he uses have been disproved by subsequent research (e.g. the idea that we only use 1% of our brains, the notion that the brain is split into creative right and logical left sides - for details see the chapter 'Dispelling Neuromyths' in Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science, OECD 2007). The tone of his books tends to the triumphalist and he shows little interest in engaging with the latest research into neuroscience. While it is unfair to claim that he promotes mind-control techniques, his books use rhetorically closed questions with obvious right answers to imply that his conclusions are obviously true to anyone reading them. For example, his book Master your Memory (2000) makes exaggerated, unscientific claims for mnemonic systems, claiming in one instance that Alexander the Great remembered the name of every soldier in his army. No empirical evidence is given for this kind of claim (which is impossible to verify), it is just factually stated as a great memory feat. Other books demonstrate retrospective reasoning by analogy. In The Mind Map Book (1996) Leonardo DaVinci's notebooks are given as examples of early 'Mind Maps', simply on the basis that he combined images and text on the page.

Mind mapping is a useful way of taking notes, and as such has been developed and incorporated into learning strategies by other institutions and companies, (for example Mapwise: Accelerated Learning Through Visible Thinking, Oliver Caviglioli and Ian Harris, Redwood Books, Essex 2000 is published as part of the Accelerated Learning Program much used in British Primary Education). Interestingly, Buzan's copyright of the term 'Mind Map' has prevented others using the name, though what they are describing are patently mind maps of one form or another. Buzan's failure to engage with the development of mind mapping in education or research seems to be the result of his business model. In the 80s and 90s Buzan's business was split into the Buzan Centre, run by his partner Vanda North, which sold his books and offered training to people who wished to freelance as mind map trainers, and Buzan himself who continued to be hired out as a speaker. The Buzan Centre struggled through lack of financial support and seeming disinterest from Buzan, while he continued to tour the world earning substantial fees from his lectures. The Centre briefly published a magazine (called Meme) devoted to enhanced learning strategies, though in reality it consisted of little more than articles on chess, the Memory Olympics and anecdotal tales of child prodigies. In 2006 Vanda North left Buzan Centres and co-founded The Learning Partnership.

In recent years the focus of Buzan's activities have firmly switched to Tony Buzan as a celebrity speaker, sometimes at the expense of the methods he promotes, which are increasingly being sidelined by more rigorous and research-based approaches to enhanced learning. The fact that the home page of his website Buzanworld[1], mentions his name 23 times and 'Education' or 'Creativity' only twice is indicative of this.

Mind mapping is a powerful note-taking tool. The classical memory systems Buzan promotes do have value in some situations (Michael Gruneberg's Linkword Language Courses use similar methods) and he is a good (if repetitive) motivational speaker, but true, rigorous scientific investigation of neuroscience and its impact on learning strategies is being done elsewhere. (For a summary of current research see Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science, OECD 2007.) - Dr John Collick, UK

Bold

This page reads like an advertisement, with buzzwords in bold. It does not give the impression of an unbiased assessment at all. 88.96.79.118 (talk) 21:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Have removed the bold. SunCreator (talk) 23:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Pruning the wild growth

I removed the lengthy list of roles etc as it is far too detailed for an article about a fairly minor business man. Efficacious (talk) 23:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I've also removed the whole section on mind mapping as it looks like it was pasted from somewhere else, makes no direct connection with buzan, and restates information already contained in the linked mind maps article. Efficacious (talk) 23:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Much more appropriate now.Sartoresartus (talk) 10:21, 7 February 2010 (UTC)