User talk:Filll/Archive 11

List of participants in the creation-evolution controversy

This article became totally polluted and still needs to be worked on and watched.--Filll 15:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Civility

Hi,

Though I totally understand your frustration regarding the creationist viewpoint and intellectual cheating, edits like this one aren't really in keeping with the civility policy or the 'no using talk pages for a forum' either. We'll have to keep destroying the creationist arguments with reliable sources rather than wit.

WLU 15:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

EMSP

Filll, I'd suggest not bothering with him anymore -- trying to reason with him is like trying to perform dentistry on a chicken. •Jim62sch• 22:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have come to the same conclusion. He does not make any sense. Oh well.--Filll 22:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Evolutionism

I'm surprised I didn't see your name in these edits. This article is a travesty of POV. Orangemarlin 16:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a piece of slop. I started editing, but it needs almost a complete rewrite. •Jim62sch• 22:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I have chopped away at it some, but every time I look at it, it looks worse than before. I do not know how this piece of trash grew right under our noses. Now it is a huge mess and has to be cleaned up. Ugh.--Filll 20:37, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how we all missed it either, but we did. I'm not so sure we wouldn't be better off reverting back to this version [1] •Jim62sch• 20:42, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

So, how do we catch this crap in the future? I found it completely by chance, but that's not going to help. It was an old article too. Orangemarlin 01:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Teach Both Theories

• Teach Both Theories--Filll 21:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Love it!!!! Orangemarlin 23:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

References

You've started a lot of articles, some of which deserve to be GA's. Maybe one or two an FA. One thing frustrates me about your articles is that you don't use standard wiki referencing. Go to WP:CITET, and give it a read. It's kind of difficult at first, but now I have all the coding memorized. It standardizes everything, makes it easy to click on links, and gets rid of odd numbering, where a reference will have a reference within it. I want to tackle some of your articles, but that's a lot of work, so i would like you to start out clean. Just a suggestion. At least I'm not asking you to say only 2% of mainstream scientists believe in the tooth fairy. Orangemarlin 23:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I keep meaning to learn about Harvard referencing or some other method of referencing. I will get around to it, I promise. For the moment, I am just making articles, or moving some very crude stubs towards real articles. I do mean to go back and push a few of these towards GA or FA status at some point, however. --Filll 23:55, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Need assistance

User Yqbd might need a block for violating the 3RR rule. He has been uncivil, and has just deleted any warning on his page and copied them back on my page, as can be seen above. He has been warned a total of 7 times on his talk page, several times in the edit summaries of various pages, as well as on talk pages of the articles in question. I do not think he is understanding the consequences of such aggressive behavior. Thank you.--Filll 15:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanx! trcole123 15:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yqbd was blocked for 12 hours at 17:23 for a 3RR violation at another article. In the future, you should consider reporting 3RR violations yourself, at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. Remember that the fourth revert must occur after a clear 3RR warning. (It doesn't matter how much earlier, or even if for another article. And if the user has a 3RR block on his/her record, as Yqbd now has, then you can simply assume the user was warned prior to that block.)

Regarding removal of warnings from user talk pages - this is acceptable, per Wikipedia:User page#Removal of warnings; please do not repost warnings should a user delete them. Keep in mind that removal is considered to be acknowledgment that the warning has been read. The warning is still visible via the history of the user talk page, which is where administrators always look, so deletion does not actual hide anything. (And I suggest that you delete the bogus warnings that Yqbd posted on your user talk page, with an edit summary to that effect; they're confusing to others who don't take the time to research the matter fully, which you don't want to make casual readers do when they arrive here for other reasons.)

I'm going to leave the "help me" up because an administrator might want to add to the block of Yqbd based on incivility. In general, you can report egregious acts of incivility at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

So what do ya need help with, Filll? --A legend 23:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I know what to do next time for someone like Yqbd. He has been temporarily blocked and I think that if he does not learn his lesson, he will get increasingly longer blocks. Thank you very much.--Filll 23:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Filll, I've removed the {{helpme}} template from your talk page since you seem to have been helped already. Please let me know on my talk page if you still need assistance with something.--Chaser - T 00:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Odd

Well this was strange don't you think? Good job on BeyondID. I'll need to look at it more. Orangemarlin 19:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that her edit which accidently "coppied" many pages of unauthorized and uncredited material from another author seems a bit peculiar, however computers can do very strange things sometimes and have to be watched carefully so they do not dump all kinds of nonsense where they are not supposed to. Thanks for the assistance on Beyond intelligent design. I have heard about 10 of this guy's radio shows and a couple of interviews with him, and I decided that his unique viewpoint had to get a bit more airing here. I think Mulder is a perfect example of someone who objects to intelligent design because it is not radical enough, and really is not understanding the fairly transparent strategy the Discovery Institute is pursuing. His beliefs hardly even need any rebuttal since they are so baldly outrageous. Of course, I still have not got the references down, but eventually I will figure that out.--Filll 20:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd best respond here since its a pretty big rant off-topic

On the topic of stale Creationist arguments, I have noticed that distinct deficiency in many Creationist websites, but when you're outnumbered in the academic field by like, what, a bazillion to one, I think its to be expected that its a bit hard for many people to keep up. I mean, with other typical Christian apologetics, the thing we're arguing against doesn't change very rapidly, other religions generally maintain their same doctrines for the most part or change them only every now and again, and many criticisms of Christianity are almost as old as Christianity itself, and have been answered over and over like thousands of times, only for the questions to come up again and again, as if nobody has ever even tried giving an answer. Not so with Evolution, it's not like all Creationists get all those hip, popular science magazine subscriptions that y'all seem to like so we can keep up on the latest who-knows-how-many alterations to evolutionary theory, I don't even know how many times on MSNBC i've seen headlines in the science section about "New Discovery/Hypothesis/Theory Radically Changes Scientists Views on Human/Insert Other Animal Here Evolution" or something like that, it would probably still be a tought time for Creation Scientists to keep up even if we had equal numbers with academia.

Of course, that doesn't excuse the many woefully out-of-date websites out there that are sometimes several decades behind, but i've heard plenty of evolutionists (RED FLAG FILLL, YOU'RE TALKING TO A FUNDIE! :D ) who try to defend evolution and themselves are many years out of date or are using innacuratly oversimplified versions of the theory that were given to them in high school or something, so I think for many Creation Scientists, (I'm actually not big on Creationism apologetics myself, it really seems like a terribly roundabout way to convince someone to become a Christian.) its not easy to figure out exactly what they are supposed to be criticizing at any one time. Not everyone out there are as well informed as editors of Evolution articles here, by and large, just about every single evolutionist (OH NOES, THAT WORD AGAIN!!111!1) here really seem to be increadibly in tune with the latest on developments in evolutionary theory and the entire modern theory as a whole, much more so than the general population methinks.

I still remember the first time I made my own sort-of protest on the Evolution article, as I imagine many Creationists before me have done, I was asking somewhere around the beginning of 2006 why Evolution didn't violate the First Law of Thermodynamics, since many other Creationists seemed to be trying their hand at protesting at the time as well. It turns out that my science books lied to me, can you believe it? My Chemistry teacher confirmed that what User:Slrubenstein said was true, indeed, the law can only really be applied absolutly in a closed system, which the earth certainly doesn't appear to be. However, I look on Answers in Genesis around a year later, and they finally got an article responding to this, the first one i've ever seen or heard of from anyone actually trying to counter this, if I understand it correctly, rather old reply by evolutionists (THERE I GO AGAIN, WHEN WILL THE FUNDYNESS STOP?!?!?) to this objection by creationists, so the disconnect between most creationist apologetics sites and the actual modern theory of evolution doesn't seem to be primarily a problem of Creationists insisting on trying to attack straw-mans even when they know they aren't really attacking evolution, but rather, a problem of lack of manpower to keep up with a field tended to by thousands upon thousands of supposed scientists, (THERE I GO AGAIN WITH THOSE PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC OPINIONS OF MINE, WHEN WILL I LEARN????) constantly changing the theory in countless ways probably every day. I know all about how there's supposed to be rapid change in scientific fields when there's reaserch going on, because obviously there's no self-correction of malformed old theories if science can't be flexible and rapidly adaptable, but come on Filll, uneven teams much? You've only got like every major field of academia there is on your side with people ready to fight, and what do we have, maybe a token few Ken Ham's who have some degree of academic familiarity with biology, and then a bunch of volunteers basically, I think we deserve a bit of a handicap in our favor here, sheesh. Homestarmy 20:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Rant is a bit long. I won't get into the numbers game, but there are reasons why the numbers are what they are, nor is giving a bit of a handicap an issue either. Evolution really hasn't changed that much, the basic premisses are still the same, just some of the hypotheses have been tweaked -- which is why it's science, and why creationism isn't.

BTW, I think you mean the 2nd Law of Thermo, not the 1st. •Jim62sch• 21:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The reason for the imbalance is fairly clear: anyone who is intellectually honest and who studies the controversy for any length of time finds themselves inexorably convinced by the evidence for evolution. It really is a slam dunk. I am not even a biologist, and the more I look into it, the more convinced I am that evolution is one of the great scientific insights of all time. The long long list of laboratory and field observations alone, from new species of Mosquitos in the London Subway, to new nylon eating bacteria species, to new species of bugs evolved to eat bananas in Hawaii, to different species of plants on either side of the Great Wall of China, to hip bones and vestigal rear legs on whales, to teleomeres at the splice site in one human chromosome, to all the laboratory experiments to flesh eating bacteria to bacteria resistance and on and on and on just is overwhelming. The other genetic evidence and literally hundreds of millions of fossils pretty much nails it for me. Even the tilapia, the fish the ichthus is apparently modeled after, shows strong evidence of evolutionary processes. The imbalance between creationists and scientists that support evolution is not because there is some secret society of atheists or satanists in academia, or that there is some plot to drastically change science so fast that creationists cannot keep up. It is not much different than people who want to maintain that the earth is the center of the universe, or that the earth is flat. The evidence just becomes so overwhelming that eventually only a few extremists are unwilling to give up their old traditional beliefs that they believe are based on the bible. (I will note that biologist Joan Roughgarden is a devout Christian but also a strong evolution proponent, and she has written a book that provides large amounts of evidence for evolution using bible passages, because even the observations about farming and herding and the natural world that the bible writers used contain "proof" of evolution in them). The entire "entropy" argument is basically nonsense, because the people making it really do not understand what entropy is, or evolution, or in fact, even what science is or the scientific method. They just know that it is all somehow vaguely satanic and evil because their preachers have told them so, ranting and raving against some phantom foe that they do not even understand. It is all pretty sad, really, and would be comical if it were not so dangerous to future of the US or technology.--Filll 21:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

It is also funny that there are areas of real scientific controversy in evolution and these are places where there is a lot of scientific excitement. However, most creationists are not interested in that since these areas do not match their preconceived notions of what the problems with evolution are. Creationists have some completely unscientific and unrealistic visions of what scientists should be doing and what the dominant scientific theories should be, that basically ignore most of the evidence that has been gathered over the last few hundred years. They will stand on their heads to explain away any piece of evidence that does not allow a particular literal reading of the bible, ignoring all other interpretations of the bible by other sects or historical interpretations or contradictory passages in other parts of the bible. It is like a massive cult of aggressive ignorance.--Filll 21:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Filll, i'll take your word for it that you've debated plenty of creationists before, and many of them probably have given better defenses for Creationism using just sciency stuff than whatever I could muster, but didn't any of them point out that basically every one of the examples you gave fit in just fine with current Creationist thinking concerning microevolution? I know that its probably more modern than whatever the Creationist movement thought about all those things at first, but does trying to adapt our theories based on the observations of evolutionists really have to count as deceptively trying to support our own beliefs? Homestarmy 22:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course I have heard creationists claim that they do not object to the type of evolution that they realize is impossible to deny (microevolution) and they only disagree with the other type (macroevolution, or whatever arbitrary division they decide to impose). Sometimes creationists claim that the boundary is between species, but then when it is shown that new species have been observed emerging, creationists change their definition of macroevolution. There is no mechanism that anyone knows of that would prevent evolution from stopping at some arbitrary place. Evolution creates variation within species, and then creates new species, and does not appear to terminate anywhere. Fossil records make this incredibly clear, and every time someone claims they have a gap in the fossil record, further investigation produces one or more fossils to fill the gap and complete the record. By the way, the appearance of teleomeres in the middle of one of our human chromosomes is unequivocal evidence for the emergence of the human species from a primate precursor. Is this what you had in mind by "microevolution"- that humans and monkeys had common ancestors? I suspect not. But the evidence is in the DNA. Undeniable. I could give you plenty of evidence of creationist dishonesty, but let's just start with quote mining, shall we? If bearing false witness was an important Commandment, almost every single prominent creationist would be burning in hell for ever and ever. But there are many many other examples...--Filll 22:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Read this.

As for "microevoution" fitting in with creationist beliefs, that depends on the brand of creationism, doesn't it? Hell, creationists can't even agree on what "creationism" means. •Jim62sch• 22:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Impressive article. You are quite right. Creationists like to pretend that they agree with each other, but a little bit of investigation quickly demonstrates that this is far from the truth. Since there is no objective way to establish some sort of standard account (as there is in science), creationists just declare their own personal fantasies to be the truth, and try to shout down the "evolutionists" and their fellow creationists, determining the "winner" by whoever can be loudest and most outrageous and obnoxious.--Filll 23:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

An absolutely amazing webpage

"Creationism is not the alternative to Evolution, ignorance is", John Stear, No Answers in Genesis

--Filll 21:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

You're going to drive yourself crazy reading this garbage. But of course I read it. Orangemarlin 22:39, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I just about died laughing reading it. But it is like crack or crystal meth. It will rot your brain.--Filll 22:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the whole website is very well done. I just don't get Creationists. Orangemarlin 23:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries

I'm slapping you about side the head. USE EDIT SUMMARIES. Grrrrrrrrrrr. It's hard to tell what you did. You can even write, "deleted the biggest bunch of hogwash since Bush won Florida in 2000." Orangemarlin 00:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, just cause I don't use the damned thing half of the time doesn't mean you can get away with it.  ;)

Rant?

I believe if anyone was 'ranting' it was you. You are not objective. You want to force people to believe as you do. This is what you said in your 'rant' Octoplus 23:58, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Nope. You have a lot to learn, clearly.--Filll 00:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Zeitgeist, the movie

Possibly because of the easy available of computerized production tools, and the availability of the internet as a distribution channel has created more and more conspiracy theories. One recent example is Zeitgeist, the movie. I just finished watching it. I have to admit, it is pretty amazing. Some elements of truth are in it, but there are some bits of pure nonsense. Presenting in a compelling way, for sure. Contains some material relevant to Jesus myth hypothesis. --Filll 15:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Which bits were pure nonsense? I only got through the first part before my browser choked and died. I thought he was drawing a bit of a long bow with some of the astrological comparisons, but the literary comparisons were interesting. ornis 16:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Here are just a few of the claims from the movie. It is a very elaborate theory that makes some incredible claims:

• World War I and II were arranged and financed by the Federal Reserve bank.
• Vietnam was also a set up
• Since World Wars I, II, the installation of Hitler in power and Vietnam were all the result "false flag" operations, it is reasonable to expect that 9/11 was also a false flag operation to justify the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq
• The 1993 world trade center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing were financed and planned and directed by the FBI
• Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11
• Many if not all of the 19 9/11 hijackers are still alive
• The bankers plan to put RFID chips in the entire world population
• The assassination of President Kennedy was ordered because Kennedy was uncovering evidence of some grand conspiracy of "men behind the curtain" that were connected with the 9/11 conspiracy
• There is strong evidence that NORAD was directed to allow the attacks on 9/11
• Christianity is a complete myth, constructed to keep people docile so that bankers and other leaders can do what they want
• The 1929 crash and depression was arranged by the bankers and government on purpose
• The Pakistanis financed the 9/11 attacks
• All these schemes and more are linked to the 9/11 conspiracy, arranged by the US government to attack its own people--Filll 16:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh... I didn't get that far... wow. They probably should have left it at "...christianity is a myth derived from earlier myths..." and called it a day. ornis 16:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of movies that weave all kinds of strange links together including the 9/11 event. Take a look at 9/11 conspiracy theories and the links at the bottom.

If Christianity is a conspiracy religion designed to keep people like me "docile", they've sure done a terrible job at it, I kind of like this Ron Paul dude, and if he was elected president, that's pretty much the end of the Federal Reserve system. Mike Huckabee also supports FairTax, which would probably also at least hurt the Federal Reserve, since there'd presumably be no more IRS if he was prez either. Homestarmy 21:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Their'd be an IRS no matter who was president -- someone has to collect the taxes and make sure that all revenue due is paid. The elimination of the IRS is a wet-dream at best. •Jim62sch• 21:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Then who collected taxes before there was an IRS? Homestarmy 22:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Return of Raspor?

I strongly suspect that User:Octoplus is a sockpuppet of User:Raspor. Should we check? Here is why I have my suspicions:

• endless trolling
• badly formed sentences and grammar and lack of punctuation, similar to Raspor, although he is capable of writing clearly
• wildly exaggerated indenting on occasion (started when Raspor was chastised for not ever indenting)
• Raspor's suggestions that evolution is not a hard science or inadequate because of its lack of mathematical rigor, and Octoplus' allusions to a mathematical proof of the inability of evolution to produce life that uses differential equations
• long and frequent posts to talk pages but never any constructive suggestions to change the article
• familiarly of Octoplus with the page and the WP rules even though the account is quite new
• when frequently invited to produce something, Raspor and Octoplus both decline, and blame their lack of output on some sort of discrimination by other WP editors
• both have a similar attitude and seem aggrieved about something
• both tried to direct the attention to themselves and remain in the spotlight (when I moved material to Octoplus' talkpage, he deleted it and then claimed he had never seen it). When this was pointed out, he moved on to another complaint, much as Raspor would.

Suggestions?--Filll 12:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty busy today, and I would like to add another sockpuppet charge to my long list of accurate and successful Raspor and kdbuffalo sockpuppet charges. However, I don't have time today, so my suggestion is you start here: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets and follow up with a WP:RFCU. Be accurate for the RFCU, or it will be declined for fishing, and the possible Raspor sockpuppet will think he got away with it. Unless he got smart, the checkuser will probably lead back to some small town in Ohio, but we'll never know. By the way, I agree, although Octoplus is being slightly more careful about grammar and punctuation. Orangemarlin 13:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to move on this tomorrow. I'll leave you a note about it. It's suspicious. Orangemarlin 05:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I did leave a message with this evidence at User:SlimVirgin's page as suggested by User:FeloniousMonk since she has blocked and monitored User:Raspor and his sockpuppets. So far, she has not done anything, apparently. I guess a better case has to be built and it done more formally. --Filll 12:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Raspor/Octoplus

I agree that User:Octoplus is walking in the footsteps User:Raspor and Everwill. You should raise your concern with the admin who issued the original block, User:SlimVirgin, and if she agrees that User:Octoplus is a sockpuppet of User:Raspor/Everwill, she'll block him as a sock puppet. In the meantime, any long-winded, repetitive objections and rants from Octoplus should be moved to his user page (userfied) or a subpage of Talk:Intelligent design in order to minimize disruption of that page. Also, learn and follow the steps outlined at WP:DE if he continues to disrupt the talk page after the discussions have been moved. FeloniousMonk 14:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Intelligent design

Thank you for weighing in with a sensible summary of how the issue of falsifiability/testability relates to the topic, and for reminding everyone there of the basics, particularly ID working from pre-ordained conclusions backwards. ... Kenosis 14:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk page

Not sure if you are talking about the general problem or some specific edit. I'm sure you understand that archiving is a normal part of Wiki procedure. Banno 20:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I was talking about a specific edit of yours which deleted a plea of mine for sanity. However, you reverted your edit. There are some crazy things going on in association with that talk page which I do not understand. I am just honestly puzzled that a fairly minor screwup by an outside editor turned into a miniwar.--Filll 21:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Crossed wires, I think. My aim is to resolve the archiving problem and get the discussion back on topic. I'm sure yours is much the same. I did revert an edit in error, and fixed it - I hope! I have temporarily blocked one editor, and will block any others who re-insert large pieces of archived material. It's an article that arouses great passion, to its detriment. Best wishes, Banno 21:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

So you go ahead and block others instead who did the same exact thing as Filll for precisely the same reasons. Wow, I'm impressed. Orangemarlin 23:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think he'll block anyone else. •Jim62sch• 23:21, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

What a day. I'm still shocked that Fatalis has created a bunch of crap for the three of us, he doesn't get taken down a peg or two for his outrageous behavior, yet Filll and I get warned for being uncivil, and ornis has a block. WTF is going on around here. Oh, and check out what this sockpuppet (I'm convinced) has written. I'm dealing with him tomorrow, because I think I've compiled sufficient evidence. Orangemarlin 05:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I am still completely puzzled. I am wondering if this recent mess at Creation Science was caused because we did not aggressively enough block these trolls and move soon enough and this is attracting more trouble or more trolls or more POV warriors or something. I am not sure what the agendas of all these different players are but there seem to be a lot more players involved at these articles. All I have never encountered before. Many are new accounts with users that already seem to know the rules. Several seem reminiscent of past banned trolls. And they seem to want to impede progress and consensus on these articles.--Filll 12:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

For a mathematician

LOL Orangemarlin 17:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Very good :) --Filll 17:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Please comment

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Raspor Orangemarlin 20:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Sweet Orangemarlin 22:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article Review: Intelligent design

Intelligent design has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --FOo 09:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Your comments on R's RfA

I read with interest your comments on the RfA of User:R, and appreciated some of the points you made, even though you wound up opposing a candidate whom I nominated and still believe would be a satisfactory administrator. I did want to say, though, that this is the first time I've had one of my nominations analogized to an explosion that killed seven people.... I don't suppose I could call it a personal attack or anything, but it was certainly an arresting comparison. Regards, Newyorkbrad 15:36, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I admit it might seem a bit peculiar at first glance, but I have enough experience in large commercial and government enterprises to start to understand how and why bad decisions are made, and to see some patterns. I think your nominee might very well be a good administrator, but I am advocating that he be seasoned with a few months of solid article-writing first.--Filll 15:45, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Alleged edit war on Creation Science

Too much bias exists in the phrase "creationist's attempt to find scientific evidence that would justify..." to leave the page summary as it currently stands. Removing misinformation and blatent opinions is no grounds for me to be blocked or banned. The only reason for me to violate the three revision rule is your persitence on restoring a clearly biased section of the article that greatly misleads readers.--—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.82.117.129 (talk • contribs) 19:12, 7 July 2007

Introduction to Evolution

Hello,

I made my point about removing the book because it was misleading regarding drift, you just need to look in Evolution (talk). I also asked Tim Vickers if he thought I could remove the book on the article (Evolution), and he said yes. "Introduction to Evolution" is only a nontechnical version of evolution, I don't think it would be appropriate to do 2 discussions each time we want to make modifications affecting both articles. In my edit, I made a reference to the discussion in the article evolution. I don't want to engage in an edit war, so I'm not reverting back to my version, but I don't understand the logic of your action.

Regards, PhDP 03:28, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That is fine. Of course, you have to realize that there are a LOT of editors here, and not all of us follow all discussions on this subject on all talk pages.--Filll 12:38, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand, it's why I said to look at Talk:Evolution. The section is named Further reading. - PhDP 15:48, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

About the removal, I made the change because nobody was against it. I'm not sure to understand why it's so complicated, given the change was supported in the other article (and I know this is not a good argument in most case, but we're talking about a nontechnical introduction, it's not really a different article in term of scope). But I'm relatively new to this kind of disagreement and I don't want to cause problems, however I would like to understand how it's supposed to work. -PhDP ^(talk) 19:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

User:TheBestIsYet

Please vote of whom he reminds you:

1. User:Raspor
2. User:Everwill
3. User:VacuousPoet
4. Other

Orangemarlin 19:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. He sure seems reminiscent of past trolls. I was thinking the same thing myself. He hasn't done anything too bad yet, but the wording, the arrogance, the lack of interest in working on the article, the constant requests for permission to comment or answer our misunderstood viewpoints, just reeks of one or all of the above.--Filll 19:37, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Raspor (2nd) Orangemarlin 20:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Another one bites the dust! Tiresome Orangemarlin 22:50, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

False claims of Trolling

Discussion directly related to the merits of an article’s neutrality can by no means be considered trolling simply because the poster (myself in this case) does not adhere to your understanding of the subject, and removal of such discussion under the false charge of WP:SOAP is itself vandalism. If you wish to offer an actual retort based on the article’s neutrality, free of ad hominid attacks and ad ignorantiam fallacies, by I welcome your response. Matthew J. Theriault 01:19, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

This discussion should take place on your talk page. And you can start by answering the 12 points I raised, one at a time, on your talk page. To help you I will repost them there.--Filll 01:25, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Please stop. If you continue to blank out (or delete portions of) page content, templates or other materials from Wikipedia, as you did to Creation Science:Talk, you will be blocked from editing. It is your removal of relevant discussion, that constitutes vandalism. Your personal disagreement with a point of discussion does not mean that it violates wikipedia's guidelines. Matthew J. Theriault 10:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid that it is our policy to remove soapbox rants from talk pages. It is the consensus that your posts have degenerated into soapbox rants. You have also engaged in what appears to be blatant edit warring, possible sockpuppetry and recieved EIGHT formal and informal warnings about this, resulting in the page being locked because of your attacks. So do not make up fake warnings of your own. Just go to another venue where your contributions will be welcome, or else suffer the consequences of your actions here if you continue down this path.--Filll 11:32, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Accusation

Please stop accusing me of promoting Intelligent Design like you did at [2]. That is a defaming personal attack. And please stop making claims about how the article would look like if it'd be written by me. That's bad faith. --rtc 20:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

That is a personal assessment of your tendentious editing. It is not a defaming personal attack. Orangemarlin 20:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It is my opinion that your posts have been excessively pedantic and singularly unhelpful. This is not a debate club. The intelligent design article is not about philosophy. It is my evaluation, which I might add is shared by most of the regular editors, that your edits are slanted towards the Discovery Institute position, which is the minority position and subject to the wikipedia rules WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Do you deny that your position is not closer to the Discovery Institute position than that of the mainstream scientific community? Well if you feel that this is not true, you should possibly reevaluate the image you seem to be projecting, if this is not your intent. I stand by what I said. If we gave you (and others of your ilk) free reign, the article would soon look like a recruiting brochure for the intelligent design movement. If this is not your goal, I apologize and suggest you think long and hard about your agenda. If this is your goal, it is unsuitable for this website and I would respectfully suggest that you consider the following wikis:

• Evolution Wiki
• CreationWiki
• Research ID Wiki
• Conservapedia
• Iron Chariots

Otherwise, all you are doing is wasting your considerable talents and garnering ill will here, I am afraid.--Filll 22:44, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

My position is farther away from both the Discovery Institute (or Intelligent Design in general) and the mainstream scientific community than the distance between these two (which is in fact very small). Apart from that, I am not defending any position with respect to the article; I am merely trying to correct it. NPOV doesn't mean majority POV. Stop associating me with the Intelligent design "ilk", that's a serious personal attack and bad faith. Just because someone doesn't push your POV doesn't mean he pushes the POV you oppose. --rtc 07:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

<undent>Your personal position should not be apparent in your suggested edits, ideally. And our job here is to produce an article that reveals the current status, not to push one POV or another. The current status is:

• intelligent design is a legal ploy to get around supreme court decisions
• intelligent design appears to have no scientific support from mainstream science
• intelligent design is an attempt from one small well-funded group to change the definition of science for religious purposes, by their own admission
• intelligent design has so far lost in the legal arena and in the scientific arena

The article must describe this current status if it is to be useful. If the article describes something else, it is unfair to the readers and we have not done our job. If we produce an article the way the Discovery Institute wants, for example, we have not done our job. If we produce an article the way the Answers in Genesis group would describe intelligent design, we have not done our job. If we produce an article the way Mel Mulder (Beyond intelligent design) would, we have not done our job. If we produce an article written with tiny philosophical nuances, we have not done our job. It does not matter if the average scientist is a philosopher who is too stupid to know any philosophy. It does not matter if the average scientist is engaged in empiricism instead of empirical science as he thinks he is. If it is so complicated to describe what intelligent design is, or should be, that the average scientist, let alone the average reader, cannot understand it, then I put it to you that it is not helpful. Wikipedia is not some postgraduate textbook in philosophy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, ideally aimed at around the 10th grade level I would say. If you cannot gain any consensus support for your ideas, I would suggest you drop them. I have repeatedly made suggestions on many articles which were not accepted. I did not throw a tantrum and get into pitched battles over my ignored ideas. I let my ideas drop, since I did not have consensus. Sometimes, my ideas are adopted later. Sometimes not. No one person here can dictate the path that WP will take. If you want to be productive, then try to go with the consensus, even if you think that the consensus is wrong, or has been made by lesser beings than yourself, too stupid to understand reality. Because believe me, the average reader will have a far harder time understanding your arguments than we will, in general, and if you cannot convince us of what you want, or even make us understand its value, then you have a problem in writing an encyclopedia for a general audience.--Filll 11:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

You in fact seem not to have understood me. I never claimed that anything of what you call "current status" is not the case. Neither did I claim such things as scientists being engaged in empiricism instead of empirical science. Please carefully read what I write and don't read such nonsense into it. While you may have understood properly to distinguish science from creationist pseudoscience, you are not able to distinguish their pseudophilosophical teachnings from philosophy. As I see it, anything philosophical you see now seems dubious to you, as if you only ever saw pseudoscience and now suddenly see science. You'd be skeptical, too. Real science somehow looks like pseudoscience, of course, but it isn't pseudoscience. And in the exact same way, real philosophy looks somehow like pseudophilosophy, yet is not the same. --rtc 14:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

If this is important to you, I would humbly suggest you write your own article on Intelligent design philosophy or something similar in a WP:Sandbox, and then let people examine it and review it. If they like it, then it can be turned into an article and linked in. Otherwise, you will just be swimming upstream.--Filll 14:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

User:rtc

Sockpuppet of Raspor? I think because of [this edit]. Raspor was also obsessed with Popper. Same writing style. Orangemarlin 16:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. The pattern seems to be there:

• Obsessed with Popper
• Excited about mathematics but doesnt know much about it
• Can write well if he has to (but still slips atrociously)
• Thin skin
• Aggrieved attitude
• Knowledge of WP procedures immediately
• Editing only a few articles in a certain subject area
• Edit warring
• Amateur philosopher
• Desperate not to be cast as an ID or DI or creationism supporter, all evidence to the contrary.

This one has not engaged in the ridiculous indenting that the others have. But still...the pattern is there I think.--Filll 16:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Raspor (3rd) Orangemarlin 22:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Blind watchmaker

Not a great book and probably not a fine-grained or completely accurate presentation of current evolutionary theory, however it is quite well-written and approachable. Reasonable as a general introduction, but not something I would recommend as a source for specific statements. Tim Vickers 20:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Would it be valuable as a text for someone without any training in biology; that is, a complete newcomer like we would expect at Introduction to evolution?--Filll 20:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

I think you should spend some time at RfA. There are a bunch of admins lately who have applied but have little editing know-how. I keep hammering on the point that there are too many policemen and not enough editors who know how to gain consensus, how to step in with contentious articles, etc.Orangemarlin 22:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That's cause everybody wants to be a cop. Except me. Can't be bothered...but I try (ocassionally) to pay attention to the RfA's; but much of the time I'm busy reading Filll's reallly looonnnnggggg paragraphs.  ;) &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 22:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

They are very loooooooong. But I always enjoy the little gems of wisdom (and attacks on the bad guys) hidden within!!!!!!! Orangemarlin 22:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

If you will notice, I did step in on that pretty outrageous RfA for R, a junior high school student. I think I might have been a bit too heavy-handed, but my goodness...And yes, I sometimes write too much. Oh well...--Filll 22:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't think you were heavy-handed, you were just stating the obvious (with a lot of words). OK, you can cyber-smack me now. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 22:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Homeopathy

I need to get some sleep, and I don't want to violate WP:3RR. Can you clean up the POV crap that was edited back into the article this morning? Thanks. Orangemarlin 08:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh man, you've got to read this Orangemarlin 08:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm this is going to be difficult I see. He thinks a rant against medicine is NPOV? I can see some discussion of the shortfall of allopathic medicine, particularly 150 years ago. But this article is pretty biased. And I notice it does not even mention hormesis, which is at least one process which might validate some of the homeopathic techniques, although obviously not at such low doses (such as diluting substances down so far that no molecules of the active ingredient exist in a dose). Just an advertisement for the homeopathic industry I guess. I don't mind discussing their reasoning, but science has to have a say in this as well: this is an encyclopedia, after all. --Filll 10:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

In this regard, one of the editors (User talk:Peter morrell) is using his own blog as a reference, and has also edited articles like anti-science and Scientific imperialism. Hmm..--Filll 13:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify I have not edited into this article my own articles or blog as you call it. If there are any references to my work then it was placed there by others. Your friend, both in his actions and in the absurd comments he makes, is clearly unsuited to edit an article upon which he has such prejudicial and strong views. Nothing placed back into the article this morning is crap or POV it is neutral and factual and well referenced narrative...I have not edited this article for about 12 months and in that time it has been steadily left more or less intact. All of the paragraphs I replaced today have been there a long time and it is not good editorial judgement for someone to come along and remove whole swathes of stuff purely because they disagree with the subject. The article has suffered from repeated vandalism and so it is no wonder it reads bad as you stated...I have reported this morning's vandalism and edit warring to a respected editor and administrator who will check it over. please therefore be patient, thank you Peter morrell 14:02, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I stand by my edits. I don't have to have neutral feelings toward junk science. There are NO, not a single one, peer-reviewed scientific article that supports homeopathy. My edits will stand. Orangemarlin 14:08, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I am quite disappointed when I read the article. Even if one is a proponent of homeopathy, it is poorly edited and poorly linked and the grammar sucks. The references are poor. It is missing big blocks of relevant information. It is not very encyclopedic.--Filll 14:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Just a not to say that, although Peter and I share almost mirror-image views on many medical subjects (although I suspect we have very similar views on the Bush administration!) he is a good editor to co-operate with when he does not feel that he or subjects he is deeply involved in are being attacked. Indeed, his academic background usually makes him quite open to careful argument and calm discussion. As somebody who has worked productively with both sets of editors here, if you find any difficulties that you can't solve yourself, don't hesitate to get in touch. All the best, Tim Vickers 16:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Tim. I am just a bit disconcerted to find a major subject article in such a mess. Even if it is pseudoscience, we have to write it so someone can read it and understand it. I would have thought that the supporters of homeopathy would have put some effort into producing a readable article.--Filll 16:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Passion is required here. Junk science in Evolution, just means some Creationist will be happy and win points at the Church of Anti-Science. Junk science in any medically-oriented article means people are harmed or even killed. Developing consensus in a Creationist article may mean the Creationist will save his soul. Coming to consensus in junk science means someone will probably die. Someone with an academic background implies to me someone who should figure these things out. Fill, this is where I need your passionate vilification of the anti-science crowd. Orangemarlin 16:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The first thing to do is to fix the references and link it properly so people can tell what is being claimed, without a bunch of obfuscation and mumbo-jumbo. For example, that some people think ground up bits of the Berlin Wall will cure you of disease is worth exposing. And so on. Then after that, weasel words can be introduced in the right places, and outrageous claims countered. And hopefully the article trimmed down or detailed information farmed out to another article or two so that it can be read easily by the average person.--Filll 17:02, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey thanks for what you've done. I'm not in the mood to deal with the POV fighting. Usually, I'm the one trying to calm you down!!!! LOL. Orangemarlin 20:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I am more objective about this subject so I don't get so worked up. I think if I just lift the curtain and let them see the little man behind the curtain, that will go a long way to exposing these charlatans. The problem was, the article originally was written with all kinds of undefined terms and mumbo jumbo so you couldnt tell what was real and what was nonsense.--Filll 20:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

slight problem

If you are going to use wholly pejorative terms like 'expose these charlatans' and 'mumbo-jumbo' then you are little better suited to complete this task any more objectively and neutrally than the previous hack-job person, so I have serious doubts about where your edits are actually heading, other than more future edit warring. However, what you have done so far is interesting, innovative and inoffensive. Maybe you can say if you have a clear idea at this stage how you are going to 'expose these charlatans' and deal with their 'mumbo-jumbo?' Do you have a clear idea of how you see this article at the end of your edits or are you just making it up as you go along? Peter morrell 13:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Although I would be lying to pretend that I am not pro-science, having 2 undergraduate degrees and 4 graduate degrees in science and mathematics, I believe that the final result will be helpful and useful to all concerned, or at least that is my goal. I obviously do not agree with the entire premise of homeopathy. It violates everything that I know about physics, chemistry and biology. It does not satisfy standard rules of evidence used in empirical science. I have no problem in making this clear to you. In this, I agree completely with Tim Vickers and even, yes, dare I say it, Orangemarlin. However, I believe that the field of homeopathy should be carefully explained, the reasoning behind the treatments described carefully and in a fashion that is readily understandable, the references reasonably well formatted (although I will not claim to be a world expert on this, I can at least make improvements on the format I see now), and even links to relevant related topics like nocebo, Arndt-Schulz rule, hormesis, Hueppe's Rule, Burgi's principle, and so on be introduced. It might even be useful to link up with more of the new age articles such as What the Bleep Do We Know!?. I want the reader to be able to explore related concepts in science and in new age thinking. I also want the reader to have access to the contrary opinions and evidence found in standard allopathic medicine. The history is atrocious, to be honest, and I think that moving it to a separate article will enable it to be fleshed out much better. The main article was getting very cramped at 89K or so, and so trimming it down by farming out material to subsiduary daughter articles is clearly called for. This will make the main article easier to edit and maintain, and to make it more readable for the average reader, so they do not feel they have to wade through interminable rows of text. I want to move out the international discussion to another article as well so that the main article is not overwhelmed with legal minutae and details. Then, readers can more easily understand what homeopathy is and its history and claims. Readers can also easily see the statements of the medical community as well. There will be room to discuss the fascinating history of homeopathy in more detail. There will even be more room to talk about the specialized techniques in homeopathy. To avoid the impression that we are promoting or advertising or shilling for homeopathy, I will place a boilerplate paragraph in each introduction, as has been decided by consensus on the main article. Hopefully this will avoid the complaint that arose before that these daughter articles are just a means for homeopaths to avoid scrutiny and opposing views, and to advertise their businesses. Clearer?--Filll 13:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you yes it is clearer, to me at least, but as you saw I was alarmed at your 'foul language' in places above which often reveals more about a person's deeper motives than polite exchanges. I have no problem with you editing and farming out stuff to daughter articles, fine no worries, nor did I see that there was any advertising going on previously, but all articles can be policed. The article is mainly a mess, as I said before, because it has suffered from repeated bad edits and folks hacking stuff out they did not like, and it was as you say too big. I have no problem with what you are doing and am happy to lend a hand or make suggestions. I don't envisage doing much editing myself and am happy to leave it to you. thanks Peter morrell 14:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You can discuss empirical science until you are blue in the face but right now I think your editing is good and should take top priority. I would like to suggest you focus on that at the expense of getting side-tracked by other topics/folks. I resisted the temptation earlier to intervene on some similar thread but right now I think your editing of the main article is good to excellent and so the thing to stay focused on. If you see what I mean. This is merely a polite suggestion, of course, up to you how you get on with other topics and other folks. I agree with that guy and by implication, as you have admitted, homeopathy was originally a largely theory-free empirical science. Sadly that cannot be said today about ANY science. Much modern science is indeed theory-driven. Sorry, I digress... thanks Peter morrell 16:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)