User:Anteosaurus magnificus

Hello. My user account is named after Anteosaurus magnificus, a predatory dinocephalian therapsid that roamed what is now South Africa during the Middle Permian and was the largest terrestrial carnivore of the Palaeozoic era.

My primary focus consists of articles about geology, geobiology, evolutionary biology, palaeontology, (palaeo)ecology, (palaeo)climatology, (palaeo)geography, (palaeo)biogeography and history, and I have created numerous articles on these subjects and extensively edited many more existing ones. I’ve also occasionally edited articles on psychometrics, cosmology, astronomy, immunology, and contemporary US and Canadian politics.

I am most interested in biodiversity over geologic time, and the effects of geologic, astronomical, and climatic events on life as a whole as well as on particular clades and ecosystems, which include evolutionary radiations, mass extinctions, and biotic interchanges, and vice versa, the ability of life to affect the Earth’s atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, and lithosphere. This also extends to the effects of these processes on humanity specifically, and of humanity's alteration of the environment, resulting in the ongoing Holocene mass extinction.

As someone who grew up using Wikipaedia as a learning tool not just for its summary, introductory articles on any given subject but also for the wealth of quality sources in the reference section for deeper dives into the topic, I despise unsourced statements with a passion. Much of my edits deal with ensuring claims have proper sources, supplementing articles already adequately sourced with more high quality references, and purging outdated, subpar, and disreputable citations. I consider maximising a general reader’s familiarity with and exposure to peer-reviewed academic literature to be of paramount importance to Wikipaedia’s spirit of facilitating the expansion of knowledge to all who seek it. I’ve also made efforts to reorganise many convoluted and disorganised articles so as to make them easier to understand for laypeople that are new to a subject and wish to learn.

I am also particularly zealous when it comes to expunging misinformation because of its stifling of the pursuit of knowledge. This includes both malicious forms, such as historical negationism, anti-vaccination, or climate change denial, and more unintentional forms, such as out-of-context, sensationalist claims by individuals who lack media literacy or inaccurate popular historical tropes.

Lastly, as a lifelong learner, I make an effort to often add content from peer-reviewed materials I’ve recently read in order to share newly acquired knowledge with everyone else who seeks to broaden their understanding of reality.