User:Jim62sch/archive6

Golden Earring
That's well done, excellent work! I'll get around to fix this article some more (non-POV related) issues.  Soothing R  13:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I love guitar music as well, but don't worry too much about the removal of those paragraphs. They sound very unlikely and they were also unsourced. Even if it turns out to be true, then somebody else will probably put the info back in. I think it's fair to remove the, so I just did that. [[Image:Weather rain.png]] Soothing  R  13:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

An apology
Hi there. I owe you an apology for tagging your votes at Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Vote as not having suffrage; the tool I was using checked only the date of your first edit, instead of the time you actually registered. Normally these two dates are very close to each other, and I'd only been doublechecking those whose first edit was in the first few days of October. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 02:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Latinitas
Iustinus iacobo s.p.d.

Si verum est te volubiliter, quasi esset lingua patria tua, Latine loqui posse, quin Vicipaediae Latinae contribues? ;)

Valeto, Iustinus 23:47, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

My RfA
I don't have a fancy layout like other new admins, but I just want to thank you for your support at my RfA. It passed 47/3/1, so I have officially been promoted. I hope I won't let you down. If I'm not doing something properly, please tell me. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 21:29, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Adiu!
Ai vist que parlas occitan! Avem besonh d'ajuda e de contribucions per far avançar lo projècte en lenga d'òc... Ès benvengut se vòls participar! :)

A lèu! [|Oiquipedià]

Cedric31 21:11, 21/02/06 (UTC)

My RfA
With apologies for the impersonal AWB-ness of the message... Thanks for your support on my recent request for adminship. It passed at 91/1/0, and I hope I can continue to deserve the community's trust. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you, and if I make a mistake be sure to tell me. My talk page is always open. (ESkog)(Talk) 02:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks
Here's a userbox for you. --Cyde Weys 04:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Clear Light
Hey, nice job on improving the Clear Light page! I had found a Yahoo Group devoted to them, where I announced the article I started but got only thanks, no feedback. BillFlis 00:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Noah's Ark
Today's article - well done! Pansy Brandybuck AKA Sophia Talk  TCF  12:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Nice work
on 33. KillerChihuahua?!? 10:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your support
Until this week I had never spent any time to speak of at RfA and I hadn't realized what a esoteric trip it is into Wikiculture. While I haven't abandoned the idea of my RfA passing, I'm beginning to realize that what is more important for the good of this project is that RfA is in desperate need for some clarification and consensus overhaul. "RfA" should be just a request for a few tools that experienced Wikipedians use to help out, but apparently more and more people view administrators as overlords or uberusers able to leap encyclopedias with a single bound. Yikes! We'll see where this all gets me. You can join the fun if you'd like at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship. --ScienceApologist 20:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Your note
Welcome. Hope it sticks. :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 15:47, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Half Truth
Hi Jim, I will try to take the half-truths article under my wing and improve it for a while. I can see why it was nominated for deletion though. Caesar seems to be trying to get the article canned with all the OR and POV material he wants to include. I almost wish I hadn't added the Examples section now - I can see its going to cause edit wars. Feel free to jump in and edit the page if you revoke the AfD. It needs all the help it can get! --Dave 13:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Passive voice
Jim, this is passive voice:"According to TheocracyWatch and the Anti-Defamation League both Weyrich and his Free Congress Foundation are both closely associated with Dominionism.

Passive voice occurs when verbs of being are used in a sentence: An active voice rewrite would be: "TheocracyWatch and the [[Anti-Defamation League closely associate Weyrich and his Free Congress Foundation with Dominionist.

The same idea gets presented, but in active voice. I have edited for a newspaper before, so I think I know a thing or two about grammar. Also, refrain from using which without a comma. Instead, use that in place of which.

Read Strunk and White's "Elements of Style," which WP:WEASEL establishes as the stylebook of preference on the subject. --Pravknight 20:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No, the paragraph is not passive voice. If English still had a middle voice, it would be similar to a middle voice, but for the purpose functionality it is active.  This is in contrast to Sanskrit and Greek in which the passive voice assumed the form of the middle while keeping the meaning of the passive.  See, I too edit professionally -- quite a lot, in fact -- and  I'm also a linguist.  Now that we've bored each other with our CV's, see the example of "passive" voice I left on the talk page.


 * As for "that and which and the comma" (book title?), what you nooted is indeed the conventional usage, but such usage is now falling into disuse -- along with so many other good rules. BTW, I have a copy of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style," thanks.  In fact, the most recent addition now allows "they" as a pronoun to reference a single person -- much to my chagrin, I must admit.  &#0149;Jim 62 sch&#0149;  20:32, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

In regard to the Pope Benedict controversy page and catholic editors
While there are WP:AUTO concerns when closely affiliated people attempt to edit an article I don't think there are any of those concerns here per se. Simply being a member of the same denomination is not by itself enough to trigger those concerns. JoshuaZ 14:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think anyone said there was, do you? I questioned neutrality, not a right to edit.  Reread what I wrote.  &#0149;Jim 62 sch&#0149;  21:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry. Having re-read what you said your comments in these specific cases seem to be within acceptable guidelines and of course my comment about WP:AUTO should be ignored. JoshuaZ 23:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Dutch language
Thanks for your kind message. I surely did not imply you "lost your marbles", I was aware of the general meaning of 'to inscribe' but generally one thinks of carvings or etchings and the article does not state either the material or the technique used to produce the text – so I preferred the more common verb.

Whether unbidat ghe or unbidan we was written, could not for sure be determined and I followed the referenced source, though to my layman's opinion expectamus would suggest 1st person plural unless the Latin would have deviated from the Dutch-and/or-OE phrase underneath. I merely introduced the source and an alternative reading of the sentence, because it is so often quoted (I think I learned it when I was 13 or so) as if the text is entirely readable and undisputed. — SomeHuman 18 Sep2006 23:48 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Giano
Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Requests for arbitration/Giano. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Giano/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Giano/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, MacGyverMagic - Mgm|(talk) 22:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Stephen Barrett, Quackwatch, and NCAHF article
I have started three separate proposals to merge these three articles. The discussion for each amalgamiton of the merge begins here. I would appreciate you taking the time to give your thoughts for each proposal. Thanks. Levine2112 00:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Vitalism
Hi, Jim. I don't have the time to research the issues on Talk:Vitalism in any depth, I'm afraid. I do see incivility on the page, though, and I can't say it comes from Krishna Vindaloo, the way it looks to me. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, the rudest post I see is yours. I was also a little surprised to see you first take the tone to me that you did on ANI, and then have nothing to say to my reply on my page. That doesn't correspond to the impression I had of you before. But perhaps you simply missed my post. About the sockpuppet? Bishonen | talk 00:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC).

Re sock, see, Gleng 17:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Second law of thermodynamics
On a first assessment I consider your recent edit at 2nd law to be well intentioned but ill informed. Please comment on the article's talk page. --Pjacobi 20:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Requests for citations
Hi Jim, you added to several items in the Roswell UFO incident article, because you wanted to indicate a request for a citation. However, what that did in fact was to make several sentences italicized, which I don't think was your intention. I've replaced them with, which produces a small "citation needed" flag in the text; you should use this notation going forward, or be careful that you're using { instead of <. Thanks! &mdash; ripley\talk 19:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Ha! Sorry, I had no idea that you were such a grey-haired WP editor; I just saw the <> and clicked edit.  :)  Cheers! &mdash; ripley\talk 19:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Nomenclature
OK I resisted for a while, but you hooked me... From talk Iraq War:
 * The US Administration refers to it as the War on Terror, for reasons I don't want to go into other than to say that it's the same basic reason that covers why the RS-71 was renamed the SR-71, and why the EIC became the EITC.
 * The RS -> SR was one guy, presumably due to aesthetic reasons (or emphasis of strike), you tell me.
 * EIC -> EITC . I don't know, they are called Tax Credits in UK
 * WOT ?

Widefox 04:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Yoghurt
? semper fi — Moe  01:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Philly meetup
Hi! There will be a Wikipedia Meetup in Philadelphia on 4 November. If you're interested in coming, RSVP by editing Meetup/Philadelphia 2 to reflect the likelihood of your being able to attend. If you have any questions, feel free to ask CComMack's talk page. Hopefully, we'll all see you (and each other) on the 4th! --evrik 16:45, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Entropy = ennui?
Dunno if you're still watching the page, but Talk:Entropy suggests that User:PAR doesn't share Frank Lambert's view of entropy or my view of NPOV: your comments would be appreciated, if your energy's not all drained away at the thought... . dave souza, talk 09:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jim, sorry to raise the point at the crack of dawn. Gets the ball rolling nicely. ..dave souza, talk 11:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * So we have some citations. May have put my foot in it as Lambert seems to refer to the mixing gases situation as involving an increase in entropy which he relates to the motional energy of each gas spreading out more widely into the larger volume of two bulbs. However in his Disorder paper he not very helpfully adds that "Entropy change in a number of other basic processes can be seen to be related to that in the expansion of a gas.  The mixing of different ideal gases and of liquids fundamentally involves an expansion of each component in the phase involved.  (This is sometimes called a configurational entropy change.)  Of course the minor constituent is most markedly changed as its entropy increases because its energy is now more spread out or dispersed in the microstates of the considerably greater volume than its original state.  (The "Gibbs Paradox" of zero entropy change when samples of the same ideal gas are mixed is no paradox at all in quantum mechanics where the numbers of microstates in a macrostate are enumerated, but will not be treated here.)" Make what you can of that. However we clearly have two viewpoints, both of which should be shown for NPOV. In my opinion. ....dave souza, talk 20:03, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ta Jim, the problem in the Mixing paradox is that each is spreading out into the other in a way which is the same as joining two volumes of the same gas, which would not show an increase in entropy. While raising the point on Frank's page I noticed that the answer may be Gibbs' own answer, that if the gases have no thermodynamically effective difference, treat them as the same. What's more puzzling is the Entropy of mixing idea that mixing two different gases creates a jump in entropy. Will rest head and cook tea now, thanks for putting the pressure on. ..dave souza, talk 21:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, perhaps the crucial point is that PAR concedes there's spreading out of energy while adding "but I don't think it is productive to think of" it in that way, while Lambert says it is important in that context. Anyway, some arguments are tending towards OR, and PARco will have to produce sourced criticism of Lambert's ideas assuming we have both viewpoints getting their place in the article.. ...dave souza, talk 22:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Glad you seem to be enjoying yourself. For info, I made a curry for my tea (tea of course being the Scottish / some parts of England equivalent of supper or dinner as an evening meal). Bedtime in this time zone now, ..dave souza, talk 00:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Just Indian stuff out of a bottle to make a lamb curry with my usual balancing act between sloth, impatience and limited cooking ability. TalkEntropy's getting more interesting, and with more relevance elsewhere I came across this Into the Cool book excerpt: the 2LoT supporting rather than hindering evolution. All fun. ...dave souza, talk 10:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ta for posting while I was thinking about it, you seem to have forgotten to sign: can you pop your sig on? ..dave souza, talk 22:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, the link to a fable about amateurs claiming the moon's green cheese needed some tact and diplomacy. Anyway, it's yellow cheese as anyone who's watched A Grand Day Out will know. Quite like Jheald's suggestion of a small section on the approach which of course would have a brief mention as WP:LEAD, having a look at it. ..dave souza, talk 19:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Oops. Perhaps. At the moment the onus is still on our pals to bring up their evidence, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to draw on better foundations to improve the whole article..dave souza, talk 16:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Your Personal Attacks
I've seen your history of personal attacks elsewhere. If you do not cease making them on Talk:Intelligent design, you will be reported to administrator. Simões ( talk/contribs ) 05:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

left on Simoes page:

==PA== The page is crawling with admins. Besides, you need to ref what you feel is a personal attack. Are you referring to "Oh stop"? Sorry, but you raised a specious argument -- I have no tolerence for those -- and given all of the specious arguments raised on that page of late, it is simply easier to post short, to the point comments. Also, you need to realise that there is a difference between sarcasm or irony and personal attacks. You see, it's like for example, this post by you, was it sarcasm, or a personal attack? (certainly could be a personal attack given the ascribing of motives and bias). You know what they say about glass houses, eh? Jim 62 sch 11:43, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but I didn't have FeloniousMonk in mind when speaking of reporting you to administrators. He has his own personal attack problems, especially when repeatedly and automatically accusing everyone who disagrees with him of being a pro-ID type. When referring to your history, I have things like in mind. More recent efforts on your part are your constant posting of "Thank you for your enlightened input. We value your opinion. Please feel free to share at any time" in reply to Bagginator's posts . This would be sarcasm, sure, which means you're actually repeatedly calling him an idiot. Please check your behavior. And look up "specious" while you're at it. If someone is arguing against your position, and their arguments are unsound but not obviously so, they're making a specious argument. That requires a bit of tolerance. Simões ( talk/contribs ) 15:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * FM's not the only admin on the page (there are several others), but please do feel free to deal with him on his own page. And I really do value Bagginator's opinion.  BTW, I know full-well what specious means -- thank you very much for your concern.  <font face="Times New Roman" color="FF2400">Jim <font face="Times New Roman" color="F4C430">62 <font face="Times New Roman" color="000000">sch  23:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Assuming Good Faith
Since you pointed out on Mr. Christophers talk page that he does not need to assume good faith where I am concerned anymore, I found the guidelines on just that policy informative.
 * This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry, and lying. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, but instead that criticism should not be attributed to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice. Accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith, without showing reasonable supporting evidence, is another form of failing to assume good faith.

You said specifically on Mr. Christophers page that you are aware of specific evidence. The policy calls for specific evidence. Please cite that evidence.Bagginator 01:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd say your attempt to add "Dr Poppycock" is sufficient. Then there's the nonsense over a whole load of non-notables that you refuse to back down on, especially John Ugama.  Your behaviour, as already pointed out, is like unto a troll.  <font face="Times New Roman" color="FF2400">Jim <font face="Times New Roman" color="F4C430">62 <font face="Times New Roman" color="000000">sch  18:27, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Brackets
The brackets you removed shouldn't have been there. Someone must have used ellipsis points without knowing exactly how. Cognita 00:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Follow-up: Recent changes include a seesaw pattern about those brackets. Here's the dialogue from Simoes's and my talk pages so far:


 * I'd just like to point out The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (ISBN 0-87352-986-3) recommends enclosing ellipses in square brackets when omitting text from a quotation. It seems a bit of an overstatement to simply say "they don't belong" when one of the top three academic style guides recommends it. Simões (talk/contribs) 03:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Brackets: rationale


 * Simoes, my explanation was brief because I didn't want to say much in an edit summary. I was unaware of the MLA rule for research papers. Style manuals such as Chicago and the APA publication manual give guidance on the use of ellipses when shortening a quotation, and their convention is that ellipses stand alone, without brackets. The difference is that these latter manuals contain instructions for writing material for publication. Because encyclopedias are published – and appearing on the Web is a form of publication – I believe the procedure for published material applies here. Of course, if you have a project that's explicitly governed by the MLA rules, those are the ones to follow there.


 * The logic goes like this: brackets around ellipses are redundant because the three dots tell the reader that the writer has done something to the original text he or she is quoting. Cognita 04:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the "research papers" to which the title of the handbook refers are ones that are suitable for publication (usually in academic journals). This style guide must therefore be considered in the same context as the two you mention. I think the MLA rationale is that an original text to be quoted will sometimes already have an ellipsis. Thus, bracketing off ellipses used to denote omission can eliminate syntactic ambiguity. Simões (talk/contribs) 04:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I planned to paste all that into the ID Discussion page, but this time the page wouldn't work for me. (It's too long; it needs archiving.) So you get it instead, with no very good reason, only that the issue hasn't been resolved and you participated at an earlier stage. N.B.: The paragraph in ID has another ellipsis, which hasn't yet been affected by this debate. Cognita 06:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Your note
You're welcome, and thank you. :-) SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 10:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

NOR talk
Thank you. :-) SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 16:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Vitalis page
Following your fairly arbitrary revert on my talk page for alleged NPA infringements, I couldn't help but be fascinated by your contribution to the Vitalis talk page, and I quote:

''"That will do for now"? ROFL. What are you, the Mahatma of all things Scientific? Nah, you can't be, the title of Mahatma is not bestowed upon those displaying pernicious arrogance. You see, KV, you again fail to comprehend how Wiki works -- Gleng is under no obligation to do as you demand, and most certainly not when your demans is made in such an obnoxious manner. Odd, but on your user page you proclaim yourself to be an admirer of Mohandas Ghandi, and yet you share none of his attributes. •Jim62sch• 22:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC) ''

Would you not regard describing the previous editor as having "pernicious arrogance" and as being "obnoxious" as pretty clear-cut NPA violations? What do others think? I believe this merits an NPA warning on user Jim63sch. MarkThomas 21:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Good if you find user Jim63sch, leave it on his page. BTW, Sparky, you're wikistalking.  BTW, it's vitalism.  Vitalis is a hair ointment.  ROFL.  <font face="Times New Roman" color="FF2400">Jim <font face="Times New Roman" color="F4C430">62 <font face="Times New Roman" color="000000">sch  22:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey, thanks ...but!
I'm so damn embarrassed. As I told dave souza, I gave up on Wikipedia entropy totally about July 22. never thought it would be anything but the info "entropy" of Jheald and nonsuch. Then when I looked at it,yesterday, saw your good statements in Aug. and Sept, I thought I ought to straighten out PAR and then quit permanently. BUT after sweating out a succinct summary and coming back to Talk:Entropy today, my jaw dropped at the PAGES of back and forth in a day -- and much MY fault :-( (I woulda shot myself IF I coulda been guaranteed a fast recovery!) My use of "---often to a larger space" was the best I could come up with in 2002 -- only recently have I realized that ALWAYS there's space dispersal, but in THERMAL transfer, it's always trivial compared to the dq/T so it never wags the dog (and IS the dog in mixing, etc.).. Shoulda/coulda straightened you all out so you didn't have all that rhubarb....but blame it all on me. I beg your pardon and tell PAR I screwed you guys up and for him to fight me.  (Sigh,,,:-) Frank

Wizard (fantasy)
Because you have made comments on the Wizard (fantasy) talk page, I thought you might be interested to know of a Request for Comments: Talk:Wizard (fantasy)  Goldfritha 02:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

"Fine-tuned universe" in ID article
Dear Mr. 62sch,

It's about your reversion of my edit. You explained that there are reasons for the wording to be the way it is. However, there are also reasons for it not to be that way. Maybe we can work something out.

This is the passage in question, with asterisks marking what needs discussion. I find the article's Discussion page hard to use because it takes so long to load. Sometimes it doesn't load at all. Besides, I'm not sure it's the right place for editorial discussions of small individual changes. It doesn't seem to have them. If there's a page where contributors hash things out that aren't big political questions, I haven't found it.

"attributed to chance. These include the values of fundamental physical constants, the strength of nuclear forces, electromagnetism, electron-neutron mass ratios, gravity, etc,* as well as a misrepresentation or misunderstanding of the thermodynamic concept of entropy.[39] Intelligent design proponent and Center for Science and Culture fellow Guillermo Gonzalez argues that if any of these values were even slightly different, the universe would be dramatically different, with many chemical elements and features of the universe like galaxies being impossible to form.**[40]Thus, they argue,*** an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve that particular outcome. Scientists almost unanimously have responded that this"

[No WYSIWYG, huh? Imagine one asterisk here] I noticed three problems with "etc," in this order: (1) Its period is missing. (2) Conventionally, in academic writing, "etc." is considered too casual to be reputable. Its uses are severely limited (see Chicago Manual of Style). Instead, one might use "and the like" or "and so forth," for example. (3) "Include" introduces a partial list, not a complete one. Having "etc." at the end tells the reader that you mean to include all members of the class--those not named as well as those named. It's therefore inconsistent with "include."

[Imagine two asterisks here] "With...being impossible to form" is awkward writing, and the "with...[participle]" construction is bad grammar. There are better ways to say this. I picked a simple one and used it. (Trying to keep the reading level down. In Web debates, I've noticed that ID defenders tend toward poor reading comprehension, at least on this topic. Everything in this article must be clear.) How about "...dramatically different, so that formation of many chemical elements and features of the universe, such as galaxies, would have been impossible"?

[Imagine three asterisks] Who argues? Is it just Gonzalez? ID spokespersons generally? What group, exactly? Any plural that "they" could refer to is too far above it to serve as its antecedent. Identifying the arguers (I don't mean by name) is important in order to avoid putting words in the wrong mouths. Maybe other IDers have cited Gonzalez's work as a support, blah blah--so choosing a phrase may not be simple.

Cognita 02:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

ID note still needs work
The note we talked about now reads:

^ Intelligent design professes to offer an answer that does not need to be defined or explained, the intelligent agent, designer. By asserting a conclusion that cannot be accounted for scientifically, the designer, intelligent design cannot be sustained by any further explanation, and objections raised to those who accept intelligent design make little headway. Thus intelligent design is not a provisional assessment of data which can change when new information is discovered. Once it is claimed that a conclusion that need not be accounted for has been established, there is simply no possibility of future correction. The idea of the progressive growth of scientific ideas is required to explain previous data and any previously unexplainable data.

There's still a problem. I asked the senior editors (or whatever the group monitoring the article calls itself) to look at the second sentence – I said "meaning is tricky" – because it's too easy to write something inflammatory here. Two revisions back, the point seemed to be that in making the designer a dead end of explanations, a principle that need not be explained, ID violates the canon that goes "Don't plunk something down as an explanatory principle and call it unquestionable." That is, in asking us not to look behind the curtain, IDers say there is no such canon. I thought of saying ID "evades the need" for any further explanation, but that wording takes sides: it implies that a need for further explanation exists, whereas ID says there is no such need. See what I mean about being inflammatory? Hence "denies any need," which sits on the fence. It leaves open whether this need is real.

Your revision changes the emphasis from "need not be sustained" to "cannot be sustained." The point of the sentence is now that positing an unexplained designer removes the possibility of further explanation in the sense of refinements to ID. Before, I thought, its point was that positing an unexplained designer is illicit because a theory needs to be able to explain its premises, and, as a kind of corollary, in doing so, ID is trying to change the rules about what kinds of things need to be explained, or at least explainable.

So which point is the one to make?

That's the problem with the meaning. The problem with the sentence structure is that "By [doing something]" should be followed by an active verb. "By saving a dollar a day, John accumulated $365 in a year." Cognita 19:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Re "re-"
Jim, I left a message on Kenosis's talk page last night to explain the "re-" business. You can find the whole story there. The Amer. Heritage Dict's note about this prefix amounts to (among other things) instructions for forming new compounds with re-.

Thanks for not sending me to the ID discussion page on this one. It has taken as long as seven minutes to load. Cognita 18:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "Cognita, you really need to work on your computer issues. Have you defragged? ;)"


 * No. When I was younger, the technology was simpler. We wrote with charcoal. When the cave walls got too messy, we just rubbed them down with wolf fat and started over.


 * "I agree with hyphenating the re, and although I'd prefer another word, I've yet to think of one."


 * It could say D. revised his formula and got a different exponent. But I still think the description presents the trees without the forest. I also wonder about "all time" in the statement of what the formula represents. If one of the terms in his calculations was infinity, how could he get any result at all? Cognita 01:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Most Web pages don't give me so much trouble as "ID: Discussion" and the ones involved in editing ID. Editing other articles goes faster. Did you use PC terms in your advice? This is a Mac G3 with OS 9.2. It has built-in help, including a search function, and searching the help finds nothing about defragging. Apparently (from other sources) the corresponding Mac program is Disk First Aid. I ran that one three times yesterday, and it doesn't seem to have sped things up.

Not just Dembski misses the forest. This is my complaint (personal opinion, citation needed, etc.): The section doesn't make clear enough what he was trying to do with those calculations. That he revised the formula is less important than what it was for. Giving the later version, the one with 10 to the 120th, would be enough for a general audience. On second thought, maybe giving both versions is good because his arrival at such neat round numbers as 150 and 120 shows the quality of the work. Let me try again. The really serious flaw in what D. did isn't the details of his math. It's the premise he started from, that what exists is so unlikely that it must have been designed. He constructed a formula to show how unlikely it is. Conclusion: it was designed. But probability doesn't apply to single events. The criticism later in the section, using the example of bridge hands, quite properly attacks D's approach, his premise, not his calculations.

There's a point of logic here that would be hard to express in a way that revealed the mistake. Again, it comes down to psychology and belief systems. The idea of contingency doesn't sit well with human minds. We aren't good with randomness.

This week's Time pitted Dawkins against Collins. The same question came up, and I don't think Dawkins handled it as well as he could have, though he certainly knows what's wrong with the question; he's addressed it better in print. Cognita 19:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "Humans cannot truly deal with randomness, we (as a species) prefer order. This also explains why so few people understand probability (a fact Dembski feeds on)" That seems to imply that he knows his analysis is wrong and he publishes it anyway, as propaganda. Do you think so? I think he believes what he says. I think he accepts the idea that because so many alternative cosmological states of affairs are possible, the one we have is very unlikely and therefore can't have come into being without an otherworldly nudge: it had too many competitors.


 * I heard Dawkins speak at Berkeley a few years ago. He's an excellent speaker when he's the only one on stage. I suspect that he strays from his path when debating because he's too kind to dismiss an opponent's point even when it deserves it.


 * Thanks for looking up that defragging site. Unfortunately, it's all about OS X. The procedures are different for OS 9. About memory, if I'm looking in the right place, it says "Largest unused block: 287 MB." Cognita 04:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

canis lupus
The trinomial classification of cat and dog is supported by this link : []

I confess I hadn't seen it before it was added to Wikipedia, but that seems convincing enough to me that it needs some discussion before removing it - it isn't a quick fix. -- Ian Dalziel 17:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Demski
I left you a reply on my talk page. Crockspot 00:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Ancient Greek Wikisource
Hello Jim62sch. I am sending you this notice because you were one of the users who participated in the discussion on Meta for the creation of, and are willing to work on the Ancient Greek Wikisource: meta:Request_for_new_languages/grc. I am glad to announce you that the wiki has been approved!

The testing has already commenced on the Wikimedia Incubator. The Main Page of the testing is located here: incubator:Ws/grc. Currently the discussion about it takes place in the Greek Wikisource's Γραμματεία. You are more than welcome to participate!

This message will be or has already been sent to the other participators who expressed their will to work on the Ancient Greek Wikisource. You are encouraged to tell about the wiki to others who might be interested.

Greetings, --Dead3y3 Talk page 01:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Help Prevent Article Deletion: Religious Perspectives on Dinosaurs
Hello, I'm leaving you this message because I notice you've made at least one significant edit to the Wikipedia article Religious perspectives on dinosaurs. The article has recently been nominated for deletion from Wikipedia, and there is considerable support for that position.

I'm hoping you'll help me support the continued existence of the Religious perspectives on dinosaurs article by registering a keep vote on the article's request for deletion page. The article contains some good information, and represents an unobtrusive way to present notable minority viewpoints about dinosaurs that cannot reasonably be elaborated on in the parent article. It shouldn't be deleted simply because the viewpoints it presents aren't "scientific."

Thanks! Killdevil 03:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks
Many thanks for your comments Jim. If RealDefender is a sock, he's still a very sharp cookie. S(h)e's nothing to do with me, and I guess a checkuser hunt will either kill the smear or validate it; the sooner the better, because if he's kosher he's good. Think Bish is missing the point somewhat about incivility, see my User page statement on what is wrong with WP. Bye, and good luck!Gleng 10:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Re evolution...
Howdy. I agree with you, my edit was a bit of a mess up. I was a bit late on rv-ing this edit by User:24.41.61.18, and since User:FeloniousMonk beat me to it, I ended up rv-ing him (her?) by mistake instead of the ip... Then User:Silence came along and fixed my foul up before I could! :)... The perils of a modem connection! :) Mi kk er (...) 19:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks for the message & for checking up on me! :-) Mi kk er (...) 21:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Its working
If you don't stop updating the death toll on your userpage, I may have to take you off my watch list, or take up drinking. If your aim is to ensure others are reminded of it, it is working. :( KillerChihuahua?!? 21:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think we need to be reminded of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that have also perished by this fiasco in the last few years; sadly, they have been wiped off so effectively, that we don't even know how many, at least not to within 100000.--CSTAR 21:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Too true. There is an official source for US military deaths; but no reliable sources for any Iraqi deaths that I have any knowledge of. It is all horrific, and tragic. KillerChihuahua?!? 21:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * And on the "Iraq War" talk page there is an ongoing war over how many Iraqis have been killed, some fools insisting it's in the low tens of thousands.
 * BTW, yes, that was my aim, KC. <font face="Times New Roman" color="FF2400">Jim <font face="Times New Roman" color="F4C430">62 <font face="Times New Roman" color="000000">sch 22:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you've seen this estimate of Iraqi deaths published recently in the medical journal The Lancet... it was immediately attacked by the usual suspects, but I haven't seen anything more robust, so until a more accurate study comes along it seems to be best estimate. MastCell 23:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've seen it, and while it does, out of necessity, make some assumptions that are probably "best guesses", I agree that it's the best estimate available. Bottom line is that a lot of Iraqis have been killed since March 2003 due to what can best be described as an aggressive action taken to resolve an Oedipal complex. <font face="Times New Roman" color="FF2400">Jim <font face="Times New Roman" color="F4C430">62 <font face="Times New Roman" color="000000">sch  23:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Bicolumnar references
what's wrong with Bicolumnar references? they just look neater to me. --Tsinoyboi 07:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * For lists (like external links, see also, etc.) I agree wholeheartedly. For references/footnotes they'd end up being confusing, plus it's pretty non-standard (not that I have anything against things that are non-standard if they appear to be an improvement). Cheers. <font face="Times New Roman" color="FF2400">Jim <font face="Times New Roman" color="F4C430">62 <font face="Times New Roman" color="000000">sch 11:02, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jim
Have put it on my watch list but I'm stupidly busy at the moment so won't be much use. There are books on my shelf I am dying to read  but other work must take precedence. I'm interested to see what Phyesalis has to add as she seems very knowledgeable. We always said we'd get the historicity article to FA before the Jesus one - maybe we will! Sophia 22:26, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Faith
Knowing your deep interest, thought this might interest you. ...dave souza, talk 15:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * And on another interest, Talk:State religion might amuse....dave souza, talk 22:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

List in ID Controversy section
This belongs on the ID Discussion page, but I have trouble posting there.

Guettarda's contribution today made me look at the Controversy section, which says:


 * The intelligent design controversy centers on three issues:


 * 1.	Whether intelligent design can be defined as science
 * 2.	Whether the evidence supports such theories
 * 3.	Whether the teaching of such theories is appropriate and legal in public education

The problem: in items 2 and 3, whachoo callin' "theories"? Cognita 18:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Uh-oh! What's on the page still calls ID a theory, twice, and it now has a grammatical fault that Simoes inserted (is/are in #3). The current version reads:


 * The intelligent design controversy centers on three issues:


 * 1.	Can intelligent design be defined as science?
 * 2.	If so, does the evidence support such theories?
 * 3.	If the answer to either question is negative, are the teaching of such theories appropriate, and should they be legal in public education?


 * I can't make a change myself: the editing page tries to show not just the Controversy section in the typing window but everything down through the probability section, but it stops short of the end of that section. I suspect that editing anything would erase some text, as before.


 * Would the following do?


 * The intelligent design controversy centers on three issues:


 * 1.	Can intelligent design be defined as science?
 * 2.	If so, does the evidence support it and related explanations of the history of life on Earth?
 * 3.	Is the teaching of such explanations appropriate and legal in public education? Cognita 02:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thought for the day..
Save the dinoraurs! Ok, 65 million years too late if we don't count budgies. but never mind, have some some shortbread. Even if it's getting a bit late for Hogmanay. Flies cemetery available to special order. Here's to a happy new year for yourself and your family, all the best from dave souza, talk 16:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Jim . . . Hi, Dave
A real encyclopedia, by which I mean a print one, from bygone days when words were made of ink rather than pixels, wouldn't have an article called "Religious perspectives on dinosaurs" any more than it would have an article on every little garage band in the country. Sometimes Wikipedia makes me feel like a dinosaur myself.

Oh, never mind. Just pass the shortbread. Thank you. Cognita 07:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)