Talk:Access Research Network

Irrelevant comment
hehehe "evolved from an earlier creationist organisation".

Sweet Irony. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.193.117 (talk) 20:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Changes not supported by text
I would ask that Drrll cease and desist making changes that are not supported by the cited text: HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:32, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * ARN states that its board of directors are Wagner, Hartwig, Meyer and Nelson. Therefore these four are its directors. Wagner is the chairman, not the sole director.
 * Forrest & Gross explicitly cite that it "evolved from" SOR.
 * They also explicitly state that it acts as a de facto auxiliary website to the CSC (I don't know where the citation-needed tag came from, but it was erroneous).

When I saw on my watchlist the edit summary for your revert on the "evolved" quote ("This is the cited source's language & not in the least bit 'humorous'"), I made an educated guess that the quote was from Forrest's writings. I was so shocked to find that it was.


 * "ARN states that its board of directors are Wagner, Hartwig, Meyer and Nelson. Therefore these four are its directors. Wagner is the chairman, not the sole director": actually, ARN states that it has a single "Executive Director", Wagner, heading the organization. Wagner as chairman, is the single head of the board. While perhaps technically correct to call Hartwig, Meyer, and Nelson "directors", it is inaccurate and misleading to portray all 4 as equals at ARN.


 * "Forrest & Gross explicitly cite that it "evolved from" SOR": yes, they do make that claim in that language, apparently thinking that the wording is clever. And that is not sourced at all in the WP article, and either unsourced or falsely sourced in the Forrest book itself (see the source she uses here to support that claim and then note that it not only does not talk about the history of ARN, it doesn't even mention ARN once), then quoted directly in the WP article without quotation marks. Forrest uses the same source to source that Dennis Wagner is ARN's board chairman, which the source does not do.


 * "They also explicitly state that it acts as a de facto auxiliary website to the CSC": yes, they do make that claim. And that is either unsourced or ambiguously sourced in the WP article to the Forrest book, is unsourced in the Forrest book itself, and quoted directly in the WP article without quotation marks.

In addition, the statement "Its 'Friends of ARN' is also dominated by CSC Fellows" is claimed in the Forrest book. And that is completely unsourced in the book itself, as well as partially quoted directly in the WP article without quotation marks.

Yeah, Forrest makes several claims in her book that are represented in this WP article. Some of those claims by her are falsely sourced and some are unsourced. In stark contrast to the academic credentials of Numbers on the subject of creationism and ID, and in stark contrast to the reputation for evenhandedness and civility that Numbers (and Giberson) have earned from a wide variety of people, stands one Barbara Forrest.

Not only does this WP article have several sourcing problems, but so does Forrest's book upon much of this article is based. You have edited this article far more than anyone else. Excluding my recent edits and bot edits, you have made over 1/3 of the total edits here. Therefore, guess who should take some of the blame for the current sourcing problems and use of direct quotations without using quotation marks (and similarly for the long list of problems at the Stephen C. Meyer BLP). I would ask that Hrafn cease and desist making changes that are not supported by the cited text.

Similarities between Forrest book and current WP article text:
 * Forrest book: "ARN evolved from an earlier creationist organization, Students for Origins Research (SOR). One of SOR's founders, Dennis Wagner, is ARN's board chairman."70
 * Forrest footnote: "70.See Dennis Wagner,"Put Another Candle on the Birthday Cake," Origins Research 10:1 (spring/summer 1987). Accessed September 16, 2002, at http://www.arn. org/docs/orpages/or101/101wagnr.htm. Origins Research, SOR's publication, has become the Wedge's journal, Origins and Design."
 * WP article text: "evolved from an earlier creationist organisation, Students for Origins Research (SOR)"


 * Forrest book: "The ARN, CRSC's de facto auxiliary website
 * WP article text: "de facto auxiliary website"


 * Forrest book: "dominated by CRSC fellows"
 * WP article text: "dominated by CSC Fellows"

Drrll (talk) 20:41, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

What a load of WP:Complete bollocks: HrafnTalkStalk(P) 05:04, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Forrest & Gross is a WP:RS. If you are silly enough to want to dispute this, then you are welcome to take it to WP:RSN and be laughed at there. Short of that, I have no interested in your biased creationist manufacture of doubt.
 * 2) As F&G is pretty near our sole RS that gives ARN any depth of coverage, yes, our coverage is based heavily on this source -- live with it! The alternative is for this article to be AfDed due to lack of "significant coverage".
 * 3) Creationism is notorious for the fact that it is continually 'evolving' -- that this is occasionally a source of amusement for promoters of science (such as our IP friend above) is hardly surprising. This does not render such assessments inaccurate. Live with it. I would further point out that, as the current ARN has very little in common with the original SOR, "evolved" is a far more accurate description than "began".

An alternative to lifting a somewhat lengthy POV quotation without the text being sourced at all and without using quotation marks, is to paraphrase another far less POV-pushing source that already is used in this article--the one by Giberson (simply says "SOR became Access Research Network").

Calling Meyer a "CSC Fellow" as the WP article does, or a "CRSC fellow" as the Forrest book does, is demonstrably false, as his sole role at CSC is that of Director. He is a Senior Fellow, but that is at the Discovery Institute itself, not at CSC.

Another major problem in the article is the case of WP:UNDUE when 40-45% of the entire article is devoted to a completely different organization (SOR). Exacerbating the problem even more is the fact that the material takes up almost 90% of the lead paragraph. Drrll (talk) 10:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Other than Wagner & history, what does SOR & the current ARN actually have in common? Pretty much nothing. Therefore it is more accurate to state that it "evolved" into ARN than it "became" it. And I really don't give a rat's arse about your opinion about Forrest. She's a WP:RS, and it really does not matter if she gives creationists conniptions. I likewise really don't give a rat's arse about your further nit-pickings over exact titles. Give it a rest! Find a WP:RS of any prominence that talks for any length about ARN that doesn't give SOR considerable mention and I might care about your WP:DUE concerns. It's not as though we're having to trim material out to make room for it. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:10, 25 August 2011 (UTC)