User:Lou Sander/Sandbox1 - Minimum Wage & Coulter

Ann Coulter notes
There IS a good title. Something like "Getting Back to Ted Baxter: Canadian Troops in Vietnam"

The interviewer is Dan Rather without the phony documents, or Michael Palin in the Dead Parrot sketch: he constantly repeats his assertions, but no other source supports them. Like Dan, but unlike Michael, some people continue to believe him. Like Michael, but unlike Dan, there is irrefutable proof that he is wrong.

"Vietnam" vs. "Indochina" "Troops" vs. "fighting troops" etc. Canadians going to Vietnam as American troops Why would Coulter lie? Why would McKeown and the CBC lie? Did Coulter know what she was talking about? Getting back to us Did McKeown know what he was talking about? Quote some of the stupid comments of Wikipedians, esp. that computer guy What is the "outspoken opinion" to which the narrator refers?  What is the "misconception?"

Talk Page Archives: Talk:Ann_Coulter/Archive_14

HERE is the first crude mention of fisting, by 132.241.246.111. (Follow the link.)

HERE is where Livesayd expands on fisting and moves it to the new category "Liberals and sexuality." Somewhere along the line, somebody had expanded it beyond fisting.

HERE is Derek.cashman's move of fisting to Columns

HERE is Lou Sander's replacement of fisting with something actually from a column

Coulter's weekly syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate is printed in more than 100 newspapers nationwide, and linked to by many conservative websites, including Frontpagemag.com and Townhall.com. Her syndicator says "Ann's client newspapers stick with her because she has a loyal fan base of conservative readers who look forward to reading her columns in their local newspapers."

This year's Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security.

To wit, they're claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they're all for the war against terror — absolutely in favor of that war — they are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as "Iraqi civilians," even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war.

Canadian troops
On January 26, 2005, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program the fifth estate [sic] aired a report called Sticks & Stones. A widely-circulated video clip shows part of its interview with Ann Coulter. (A transcript appears below; you can see the three-minute clip HERE and the entire 42-minute program HERE.)

The clip begins with the narrator asserting that “Rachel Marsden isn’t the only one on Fox to base outspoken opinion on misconception.” It goes on to present an edited excerpt from a Hannity & Colmes interview in which Coulter talks about the need for Canada to be more supportive of the United States. Then it switches to an edited excerpt of the Sticks & Stones interview, where Coulter and host Bob McKeown discussed Canada’s role in the Vietnam War.

Transcript of the interview
This is a full transcript of the discussion between Coulter and McKeown:


 * Host: Explain...why you said that.


 * Coulter: We were on Hannity and Colmes discussing the...the antiwar protestors. Canada...used to be one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable, and more of a threat than Saddam?...


 * Host: (interrupting Coulter) No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam.


 * Coulter: I don’t think that’s right.


 * Host: Canada did not send troops to Vietnam.


 * Coulter: (looking puzzled) Indochina?


 * Host: No. Canada...Second World War, of course, Korea, yes...


 * Coulter: (talking over him) I think you’re wrong.


 * Host: Vietnam, no, took a pass on Vietnam


 * Coulter: I think you’re wrong.


 * Host: No. Australia was there, not Canada


 * Coulter: I think Canada sent troops.


 * Host: (shaking his head no)


 * Coulter: I’ll get back to you on that.


 * Host: OK.


 * Voice: (haughtily) Coulter never got back to us. But for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam.

Analysis of the interview
The interview is presented as an "outspoken opinion based on misconception," and the implication is that those words apply to Ann Coulter. But the outspoken opinion was actually expressed by the host: "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam; Canada did not send troops to Vietnam; No. Canada...Second World War, of course, Korea, yes...; Vietnam, no, took a pass on Vietnam; No. Australia was there, not Canada; but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam." Was the host's direct and insistent (=outspoken) opinion based on a misconception? Yes it was. For the record, Canada DID send troops to Vietnam (see specifics below).

Other than a few words about international threats and friendship, and her illustrative point that "Canada sent troops to Vietnam," Coulter's opinion was limited to polite responses to the host's outspoken challenge: "I don’t think that’s right; Indochina?; I think you’re wrong; I think Canada sent troops; I’ll get back to you on that." Do these words express an "outspoken opinion?" Absolutely not. Were they based on a misconception? Not if Canada sent troops to Vietnam, they weren't. And for the record, Canada DID send troops to Vietnam.

Canadian troops in Vietnam
Despite the repeated denials by CBC's interviewer, Canada did send troops to Vietnam. The facts are well-documented and beyond dispute. The interviewer constantly repeats his assertions, but no other source supports them. These facts contradict him:


 * The Canadian government sent troops to Vietnam in August 1954 during the partition of Vietnam. They stayed through January 1973. They incurred casualties and several deaths. Confirmation and further details appear in the articles on International Control Commission and International Commission of Control and Supervision, both of which contain extensive links and references.


 * The government of Canada awarded medals to 1,550 of these troops for their service between August 7, 1954 and January 28, 1973. You can see the details HERE. A second medal was also awarded to the 240 Canadian troops who participated in Operation Gallant in Vietnam from January 28, 1973 to July 31, 1973. Details HERE.


 * Many official Canadian government documents about the International Control Commission for Vietnam (a mixture of Canadian troops and Canadian civilians) are available on the Internet and elsewhere. Some of them can be found HERE.

Canadian military personnel who died while in Vietnam or other parts of Indochina include:


 * Sergeant James S. BYRNE, CD, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. Died 18 Oct 1965. His body was not recovered.
 * Corporal Vernon J. PERKINS, Royal Highland Regiment of Canada (Black Watch). Died 18 Oct 1965. His body was not recovered.
 * Leading Seaman Ned W. MEMNOOK, HMCS TERRA NOVA. Died 15 Mar 1973. He was posthumously awarded the Special Service Medal & "PEACE" Clasp
 * Captain Charles E. LAVIOLETTE, CD, 12e Regiment Blinde du Canada. Died 7 Apr 1973.

Canada in Vietnam: America's friend in arms
Coulter told the interviewer that "Canada...used to be one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa," then she mentioned Vietnam and the troops that Canada had sent there. Though the troops are not in doubt, some people question whether they were "fighting" troops, or supportive of the United States to the detriment of their "peacekeeping" role. Many sources confirm that they were both.

Canada's loyal friendship was confirmed by one of Canada's greatest leaders. On August 24th, 1954, Prime Minister Lester Pearson gave secret instructions to the head of his country's Vietnam "peacekeepers":
 * ''"26. Though the Americans are not as intimately concerned with Indochina as are the French, you will wish to bear in mind, in your contacts with them not merely our very close and friendly relations with the United States, but also the demands of judicial objectivity and discretion, and the practice and attitude of the Chairman of your Commission."

Canada's "peacekeepers" bore in mind exactly what their Prime Minister ordered them to. The authoritative Canadian Encyclopedia says this:


 * ''"...Cabinet papers, confidential stenographic minutes of the truce commissions as well as top-secret American government cables revealed Canada to be a willing ally of US counterinsurgency efforts.


 * "...Canadian delegates engaged in espionage for the US Central Intelligence Agency and aided the covert introduction of American arms and personnel into South Vietnam while they spotted for US bombers over North Vietnam. Canadian commissioners shielded the US chemical defoliant program from public inquiry, parlayed American threats of expanded war to Hanoi, and penned the reports legitimating both the rupture of the Geneva Agreements and the US air war over North Vietnam.

Throughout the war, the Canadian government persisted in claiming neutrality. But an active antiwar movement thoroughly documented what they saw as its shameful complicity in wrongful American aggression.

Long after Canada's troops had ended their eighteen-year stay in Vietnam, Canada's government continues to claim their neutrality. And Canadian scholars continue to confirm what Canadian activists had so long and loudly proclaimed: that Canada's troops in Vietnam, along with their diplomatic counterparts, had actively participated in U.S. efforts in fighting the war.

Reaction to the interview
Except on the fifth estate website, the interview was not widely discussed in the mainstream media. It was widely discussed on the Internet, where uninformed viewers attempted to use it as evidence that Coulter "didn't know what she was talking about," or "lied again," et cetera. Time magazine commented on this phenomenon:


 * Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words "Ann Coulter lies," you will drown in results. But I didn't find many outright Coulter errors. One of the most popular alleged mistakes pinging around the Web is from her appearance on Canadian TV news in January, when Coulter asserted that "Canada sent troops to Vietnam." Interviewer Bob McKeown said she was wrong. "Indochina?" Coulter tried. McKeown said no. Finally, Coulter said haltingly, "I'll get back to you." "Coulter never got back to us," McKeown triumphantly noted, "but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam." What he didn't mention was that Canada did send noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972.

Time was correct in labeling this as an "alleged mistake," but they skimped on the facts about Canadian troops in Vietnam.

The following web pages are very long, and contain much extraneous material. You can find the pertinent parts by using your browser to search for the word "Memnook". In Internet Explorer, use CTRL+F.


 * Canadian troops killed in action (Also search for "Byrne")
 * Memnook 2004 memorial service
 * Memnook's daughter
 * More Memnook

My Journey through the Looking Glass: Suppression of Science in Wikipedia
On January 20th, 2014, "Blippy" edited the Wikipedia entry on BlackLight Power and its founder Randell Mills, who claims to have developed a process of generating electricity at odds with standard physics. The entry quotes experts calling the proposed generator "extremely unlikely" and a "loser" technology. Citing an | article in the Village Voice, Blippy added that "other scientists have expressed interest in exploring [Mills'] work further."

Nine minutes later "Noformation" | reverted Blippy's edit, claiming that "other scientists" is vague. So Blippy restored the material with the phrase "several reputable scientists." Two minutes later "Alexbrn" reverted the edit on the grounds that it gave undue weight to a marginal viewpoint. After addressing this charge on the "talk page" | discussion, Blippy once again restored the sentence. Six minutes later "AndyTheGrump" reverted the edit with the justification that no consensus for it had been established on the talk page.

"When editors do not reach agreement by editing," says Wikipedia, "discussion on the associated talk pages continues the process toward consensus." In this case, however, editors were actively blocking consensus with irrelevant commentary. Noformation, for instance, wrote that he was "uncomfortable with using the Village Voice as a source," attesting to its unreliability regarding science. According to Wikipedia policy on | appropriate sources, "in the case of a scientific theory, there is a clear expectation that the sources for the theory itself are reputable textbooks or peer-reviewed journals." But the Voice article, far from trying to explain the theory behind the BlackLight technology, only presents the views, pro and con, of various physicists. AndyTheGrump declared that the opinions of scientists sympathetic to Mills' work shouldn't be included in the Wikipedia article because a "viewpoint isn't 'significant' if it is held by a tiny minority, by definition."

Science, in other words, isn't about reason and observation and experimentation but the majority opinion of scientists. We can safely dismiss dissenting views while taking established belief on faith.

Aside from misconstruing the nature of science, the editors opposing Blippy were in clear violation of Wikipedia policy on | achieving consensus. "After someone makes a change or addition to a page, others who read it can choose either to leave the page as it is or to change it." Instead of coming up with lame excuses to shoot down Blippy's contribution, the other editors should have been trying to improve it by, for instance, quoting the Voice article directly. "An edit which is not clearly an improvement may often be improved by rewording. If rewording does not salvage the edit, then it should be reverted." Simply reverting the edit right off the bat is not an option. First you've got to collaborate to improve it. Rather than a battle between two competing worldviews, editing Wikipedia means working out the best way to organize and express available, reliable information. If material is properly sourced and clearly relevant, the task at hand is to make it work on the page, not gang up on the editor and make accusations about not only the content of the edit but the conduct of the editor.

After giving up on establishing consensus, Blippy placed a tag on the article warning that its neutrality was in dispute. Alexbrn removed the tag, setting off another cycle of editing and reverting. On the basis of Blippy's actions -- first the attempt to add a sentence and then to attach a warning tag -- "TenOfAllTrades" filed a | complaint of "edit warring" with Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, an administrative panel empowered to ban editors from articles, topics or even the entire encyclopedia. Several editors uninvolved in the dispute testified to Blippy's allegedly bad practices on other articles. A coordinated attack was underway.

Despite the fact that Blippy had introduced accurately sourced material serving to balance an otherwise slanted article -- even patiently justifying the edit on the talk page -- three administrators agreed that Blippy was guilty as charged. Conspicuously absent from their ruling was any attempt to explain how the edit warring charge could be pinned on him and him alone. Yet he was banned from all "pseudoscience-related" articles for six months and warned that if he engaged in edit warring again, the ban would become permanent. In this context "pseudoscience" seems to be code for any controversial science-related article.

This attack, and many others like it, was motivated by a loose-knit group of editors known as "guerrilla skeptics." Skepticism is indeed an admirable trait but only when applied universally. Limited to marginal beliefs, it ceases to be true skepticism and becomes an appeal to authority, the antithesis of the spirit of science. After all, if something unexplained is occurring in the BlackLight generator, as some observers claim, this could provide an opportunity to find out something new about nature, something beyond the standard model of quantum mechanics. This is in fact how science progresses.

While I doubt the generator will produce any current, I'm not a physicist, so I'm only guessing. By contrast the so-called skeptics act as if they know it won't work, as if they're more knowledgeable than the sympathetic scientists quoted by the Voice. They don't seem to realize that they too are making a claim subject to skeptical scrutiny.

I know the pseudo-skeptics all too well. The day after Christmas I was banned from discussing the work of biologist Rupert Sheldrake, who questions the widely held belief that evolution and embryonic development are machine-like processes. My crime? To insist that the Cambridge-trained theorist and researcher be referred to as a biologist.

After a coven of closed minded editors captured the Sheldrake biography and began slanting scientific and media coverage against his work -- minimizing explanation of his ideas while maximizing negative coverage -- other editors began working to restore a neutral point of view. Our efforts turned into a test of whether Wikipedia, in the face of intense ideological pressure, can remain true to its core principle of faithfully reflecting reliable source material. Needless to say, the "people's encyclopedia" failed the test.

At the heart of the scientific project is the willingness to set aside pre-existing beliefs in favor of open-minded investigation. Without the ability to recognize when the old answers are insufficient, we cannot advance in our understanding of nature. In the world of Wikipedia, however, science is confused with materialism, the unverifiable belief that matter is the entirety of existence and that all causal events result from something akin to contact mechanics.

The ironically religious-like quality of materialist faith was revealed by John Maddox during an interview with the BBC in which the former editor of Nature tried to justify his claim that Sheldrake's first book, A New Science of Life, was "the best candidate for burning there has been for many years.". As Maddox said, "Sheldrake is putting forward magic instead of science, and that can be condemned in exactly the language that the Pope used to condemn Galileo and for the same reasons: it is heresy."

How did Sheldrake become a lightning rod for the hostility of the high priests of materialism? At one time a traditional biochemist researching plant development and publishing his findings in peer reviewed journals -- Nature among them -- Sheldrake eventually concluded that organic development, whether from seed or egg, is inexplicable from a strictly materialist standpoint.

Sheldrake's argument boils down to a proposal over the nature of memory. For materialists, memory is stored information. Just as personal memories are believed to be inscribed in neural networks, the collective memory of how to develop from the egg is assumed to be encoded in every embryo's DNA. Though recognizing an important role for genes, Sheldrake disputed the untested idea that a kind of recipe for development is tucked away in our chromosomes.

Seeking guidance outside the echo chamber of orthodox biology, Sheldrake turned to the work of philosopher Henri Bergson, who denied a definite boundary between past and present. We have memory, he wrote, because "the past presses against the present." Sheldrake named his second book The Presence of the Past in honor of Bergson's insight.

The notion of natural memory independent of stored information is clearly at odds with materialist doctrine. But does it conflict with science? Does the continuing influence of the remote past defy any laws of nature? Not according to cosmologist Lee Smolin, who argues in his recent book, Time Reborn, that the "principle of precedence" accounts for stability of natural elements from leptons and quarks on up.

If a given organic process has always played out a particular way, it's likely to continue doing so now. This is the essence of Sheldrake's hypothesis of "morphic resonance." On the basis of its form, an organic system resonates with similar previous systems. An embryo, for instance, develops not on the basis of information encoded in its genes but by mimicking the actions of its ancestors at each developmental stage.

The reality of morphic resonance was never at issue in the Wikipedia dispute. Not a single editor sought to claim that organic memory, much less Sheldrake's proposed mechanism of it, was in any way proven. Nor did anyone attempt to remove sourced claims that Sheldrake's work amounts to pseudoscience. The sole issue of contention was how well the Sheldrake biography reflected the way his work was reported in the press and scientific journals. The overwhelming consensus from reliable secondary sources is that Sheldrake, right or wrong, is a scientist doing genuine research.

Yet whenever anyone sought to balance negative claims with sourced material favorable to Sheldrake, the edit was reverted, usually within minutes and often with no explanation. Pressed to explain their actions, the anti-Sheldrake editors eventually coalesced around the idea that his work had to be portrayed as pseudoscience due to a Wikipedia Arbitration Committee | ruling that established three levels of pseudoscience: "obvious pseudoscience," "generally considered pseudoscience" and "questionable science" in addition to "alternative theoretical formulations." Though morphic resonance is nowhere mentioned in the ruling -- much less placed into a specific category -- in September of 2013 administrators began referencing the ruling in disputes over the Sheldrake biography. The first to do so, "EdJohnston," offered no rationale for his | action.

The chief strategy of guerilla skeptics is to block consensus on controversial scientific topics and then, when an exasperated editor repeatedly restores reverted material, to launch an accusation of edit warring. I fell into this trap on October 15th while trying to create a new section of the Sheldrake article called "Testing morphic resonance." I moved a discussion of a test already in the article to the new section and added a description of another test by restoring a passage that had been deleted by one of the anti-Sheldrake editors. Because a testable hypothesis is by definition scientific, the last thing they wanted was a section devoted to tests that have been carried out on morphic resonance.

The passage concerned a 1990 experiment conducted by neuroscientist Steven Rose on whether day-old chicks would be influenced by the experience of previous day-old chicks that became mildly ill after pecking at a yellow diode. While any chicks that got sick after pecking the diode would naturally refrain from pecking it again, to Rose's surprise the conditioned association extended to successive batches of day-old chicks. Just as Sheldrake predicted, the chicks seemed to be resonating with the experience of their predecessors.

Two minutes after I added the section, "Barney the barney barney" | deleted it without the summary that usually accompanies edits. Three minutes after I restored the material, another editor, "The Red Pen of Doom" deleted it again, claiming I had not established consensus for the change on the talk page. So I initiated a | discussion in which I justified the edit and pointed out that Wikipedia does not require editors to establish consensus before introducing new material. Two minutes later it was reverted again, this time by "Roxy the Dog," who echoed Doom's spurious demand that I achieve consensus on the talk page before editing the article. I restored the material only to watch Barney delete it six minutes later. So I restored it again, noting that it was being reverted without any justification on the talk page. By this point several people had commented there, but none of them offered any explanation as to why the added material didn't belong in the article or how it violated Wikipedia policy.

The hostile editors rationalized their action according to a principle known as "bold, revert, discuss," meaning that after an editor boldly makes a change to an article, another editor can revert the edit, after which discussion takes place. Not only is this not official Wikipedia policy but it contradicts the policy on achieving consensus, according to which editors should try to improve material and, if this is impossible, at least discuss it before reverting.

Instead of following procedure, Barney lodged a | complaint against me for edit warring. In response EdJohnston blocked me from editing the article for 31 hours. Though the pseudo-skeptics were promoting their point of view by trying to diminish the scientific credibility of Sheldrake's hypothesis, instead of reasoning through the dispute or even applying Wikipedia policy on the consensus-forming process, Johnston simply noted that I had made more than three edits to the article and had therefore violated the "three-revert" rule. The others weren't in violation because they'd taken turns making reverts. His ruling was strictly mechanical, devoid of sense or understanding.

Emboldened by Johnston's decision, two weeks later Barney again accused me of edit warring after I corrected a | section of the article concerning an experiment conducted by Sheldrake and repeated by psychologist Richard Wiseman and two other researchers. The section was (and remains) problematic because anyone reading it would think Wiseman refuted Sheldrake's finding when in fact Wiseman's results, by his own admission, matched Sheldrake's.

Implicit in the action of morphic resonance is the coordination of disparate organic systems in resonance with the same previous systems. Comparing this effect to iron filings in a magnetic field, Sheldrake argues that the alleged power of telepathy follows from a "morphic field," which can emerge between any individuals with a shared history, even across species boundaries. Thus a dog might develop, over time, a sense of when its owner intends to return home from a distant location.

Sheldrake tested this ability on a dog, Jaytee, whose owner claimed it went to the window whenever she was on her way home. Sheldrake's video logs of both the window and the owner demonstrate that Jaytee did indeed wait at the window far more often when its owner was returning home than otherwise. This finding, as Wiseman discovered in his attempted refutation, held true regardless of how long the owner had been away.

The edit, which originated with another participant who'd given up on getting it to remain in the article, in no way implied that telepathy had actually been demonstrated or that the apparent bond depended on a kind of memory field built up from the shared history of owner and pet. As I explained on the talk page, the edit served only to correct the mistaken view that Wiseman had refuted Sheldrake's finding. In the course of trying to reach consensus, I modified the new sentence to read as follows:

In a subsequent interview, Wiseman stated that his experiment generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's and that more experiments were needed to definitively overturn Sheldrake's conclusion that Jaytee had a psychic link with its owner.

In the talk page | discussion, Roxy claimed I was distorting Wiseman's views. When I asked how so, Barney jumped in with a classic display of psychological projection. "Looks like a pretty clear case of competence issues leading to POV pushing. This is fairly typical of Sheldrake's fans who want to whitewash the article as much as possible."

On the basis of my edit, Barney initiated a | complaint on an administrative "noticeboard," accusing me of "deliberately misrepresenting the opinions of a living person, in this case a distinguished professor Richard Wiseman, that make Wiseman look like he is endorsing pseudoscience." So, by pointing out that Wiseman reproduced Sheldrake's experimental results, I was somehow accusing Wiseman of supporting Sheldrake's interpretation of those results. Never mind that I made abundantly clear that Wiseman denies any psychic link between Jaytee and its owner. Despite Barney's bizarre misreading of my edit, an administrator with the suitably robotic title of Bbb23 issued a warning that I could be banned from the Sheldrake article for even a single edit.

Bbb23 said I could avoid the charge of edit warring by achieving a consensus on the talk page prior to making an edit, overlooking the fact that consensus cannot be achieved with people convinced that any statement supporting Sheldrake by definition promotes pseudoscience.

Another editor, "Liz," who'd been observing the Sheldrake page, summed up the impossibility of restoring a neutral biography under these conditions. "There are probably less than half a dozen Editors who are allowed to edit the main article. Anyone else who tries to edit the article, like Alfonzo, will find themselves in an edit war or be resigned to being reverted."

With consensus beyond reach, I posted a | request on the "neutral point of view" noticeboard for a ruling on whether the characterization of the Sheldrake-Wiseman experiment promoted anti-Sheldrake bias. I waited for my request to arrive at the top of the list, at which point the list stopped moving. Later my request was archived despite the fact that no administrator ever took up the case, not surprising since the anti-Sheldrake brigade showed up in full force to turn a short and easily resolvable complaint into a multi-page debate, virtually none of which had any bearing on my request.

Before long another | complaint was lodged against me, this time by "Mangoe." Accusing me of "belaboring discussion of Rupert Sheldrake in order to push undue claims for Sheldrake's eccentric ideas," Mangoe requested my banishment not only from the article but the talk page. In his statement of support, Barney wrote that unlike "fans" of Sheldrake's work, "those more knowledgeable can tell it's nonsense," adding that "it is impossible to reach consensus with those who cannot think logically and with any understanding. I think that Alfonzo Green is the tip of the iceberg and that others will have to follow." Fortunately "Sandstein" rejected the complaint for "lack of actionable evidence," the only time I witnessed an administrator rule according to reason.

Since Wikipedia can't verify the credentials of contributors, its content depends exclusively on reliable source material. So the situation seemed to be improving in November when one of the neutral editors, "Iantresman," began compiling sources supportive of Sheldrake, demonstrating that they vastly outweigh sources questioning his credibility. Ian dug up | material from numerous universities, media outlets, textbooks and peer reviewed journals, all of which referred to Sheldrake as a scientist or biologist or biochemist. Ignoring the Wikipedia injunction against promoting personal belief over reliable source material, Barney claimed Sheldrake couldn't possibly be a real scientist because "it is clear that he isn't doing science."

After "Barleybannocks" introduced a | list of scientists and other academics who've publically attested to the scientific legitimacy of Sheldrake's work, Barney cited Wikipedia | "fringe" policy as to why we couldn't use these sources. "To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea." To reference Sheldrake's work in an article about embryonic development would therefore violate the fringe policy. But the Sheldrake biography is about Sheldrake and his hypothesis, clearly not a mainstream idea. Since the scientific status of his work is broadly supported -- with only a few sources referring to it as pseudoscience -- Barney was the one promoting a fringe view.

At this point a pair of biased administrators entered the fray. "Guy" | repeated the already refuted claims that secondary sources generally portray Sheldrake's work as pseudoscience and that the attempt to include material supportive of Sheldrake violated Wikipedia policy on fringe beliefs. "Callanecc" then arbitrarily imposed a new rule that any editor reverting more than a single edit in one day was subject to sanctions.

Soon thereafter I corrected the claim that Sheldrake disputes the "fact" of energy conservation, which seems to have been inserted so as to make Sheldrake seem crazy. After all, how could any rational person dispute a fact? Since the source of the claim was Sheldrake's latest book, Science Set Free, I replaced "fact" with "law." Sheldrake doesn't dispute the fact of any given observation of energy conservation but merely that a law of nature decrees that energy must be conserved in every possible circumstance from now till kingdom come. I also inserted the statement that Sheldrake "enjoys some academic support" and included references, dug up by Barleybannocks, to a book and a pair of articles attesting to such support. By reverting my edit, Doom restored inaccurate, unsourced material and eliminated accurate, sourced material.

According to a Wikipedia policy called | Ignore all rules, if defending the integrity of the encyclopedia requires breaking a rule -- in this case the ban on more than one revert in a day -- the rule should be set aside. On this basis I | re-inserted my edit. After Doom pointed out on my personal talk page that I'd made two reverts that day, Callanecc blocked me from editing for three days. In a private email to him, I explained how my edit had restored accuracy to the Sheldrake entry. Though he said he could see where I was coming from, he refused to budge.

Perhaps realizing administration was wholly complicit with the anti-Sheldrake editors, Doom filed a blatantly frivolous | request with Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement to expel Barleybannocks from the Sheldrake page due to his denial that Sheldrake's work is generally considered pseudoscience. In his complaint, Doom quoted Barley stating, "It's not my position, it's what the sources say." The fact that Barley's assessment was clearly correct, backed up by dozens of sources cited on the talk page, didn't seem to bother Doom. Nor did it catch the attention of the administrators hearing the request, who banned Barley from not only editing the biography but participating in the discussion on the talk page. Barley was censored for speaking truth to people who preferred to remain comfortably ignorant. Not exactly what you'd expect from administrators of an encyclopedia.

Though a huge amount of work on the article remained, I decided to limit myself to a single edit so simple and so obviously correct that no one in their right mind would dispute it. During his defense, Barley had brought up four sources from the New York Times that referred to Sheldrake as a biologist. Given Wikipedia's strict reliance on secondary sources, if the "paper of record" refers to you as a biologist, that's what you are. Case closed.

So I inserted the forbidden | word and the four accompanying sources, along with a plea not to remove sourced material, into the lead sentence of the biography. A few hours later Roxy the Dog reverted it on the grounds that it was a "POV edit." Since the edit was based on a reliable source, not a personal opinion, another editor restored it. Eventually Roxy, claiming to fix a POV edit, inserted the word "former" in front of "biologist," despite the fact that the sources didn't refer to Sheldrake as a former biologist, not surprising since he's never stopped publically explaining and occasionally testing his hypothesis. Like many scientifically illiterate people, Roxy seemed to think you're not a scientist unless you're in a lab looking through a microscope.

Along with my edit, I opened a new topic on the talk page called | Reality and Wikipediality. I explained that our job was not to express our view of reality but to present the subject matter according to reliable sources. Whatever the sources say, that's "Wikipediality." Yet Roxy, tossing aside the sources, "reasoned" that Sheldrake couldn't possibly be a real scientist because his theory was generally rejected by his peers and, moreover, he didn't have a long list of recent articles in mainstream peer-reviewed journals, wasn't besieged by fellow scientists begging to collaborate with him and hadn't won any awards. What kind of scientist hasn't won any awards?

Clearly Roxy had dismissed Wikipediality in favor of POV, the same one proffered by Barney. "Articles in peer reviewed journals demonstrating morphic resonance," he sagely observed, "would establish his status as a biologist." In other words, you're not a real scientist until your theory has been proven correct. Until then you're a pseudoscientist. Barney might as well have said, "Science is a religion, and if you defy the reigning dogma, you're not a scientist but a heretic."

At this point Guy attempted to prevent any further discussion by removing my topic from the talk page and replacing it with a tag: "Nothing to see here, move along please." Turns out anyone, not just administrators, can close and reopen topics, so I restored it, after which Guy closed it again and tried to intimidate me. "One of us is an admin. It's not you." After I opened the discussion again, he accused me of trying to treat Sheldrake as an actual scientist, to which I responded, "Instead of repeatedly attempting to block discussion, why don't you explain why we can't refer to Sheldrake as a biologist when that's how virtually all sources refer to him?" He replied, "we have had the discussion, dozens of times, Your POV lost [sic]."

It's POV, in other words, to refrain from editorializing and simply present what the sources say. This is from someone who's been selected by Wikipedia to enforce its policies. Referring to Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales, Guy even bragged that "Jimbo bought me a beer" on the strength of his previous work. Yet here he was turning Wikipedia on its head.

Guy left a | warning on my personal talk page that if I continued advocating for "anti-science views," I would be forbidden from writing anything related to Sheldrake's work anywhere in the encyclopedia. He claimed I was promoting "unverified conjectures," overlooking the fact that my final edit consisted solely of labeling Sheldrake a biologist in accord with secondary sources. He let me know that if he launched a complaint, I was certain to be banned. "This is a judgment from long experience," he wrote, "not a threat." On Christmas Eve he filed his | complaint, noting on my talk page, "I thik the time has come to stop playing games [sic]."

Oddly enough Guy ignored my actual edit and based his request entirely on the discussion in which I pointed out that Wikipedia is supposed to be based on reliable sources instead of the opinions of editors. He falsely claimed that consensus had already been established against me and that I was "rehashing a debate that is so very unlikely to result in a consensus to change the article." In fact the debate was evenly split and clearly far from over. Yet he presented his premature closure of my discussion and my reopening of it as evidence of my malfeasance.

Before I'd even had a chance to respond, five administrators weighed in to support the proposed topic ban. As "Georgewilliamherbert" wrote, "If we are to see a succession of editors behaving this way on this article, I am prepared to article-ban until we run out of problem editors." He didn't specify what my problematic behavior was. In classic blame-the-victim fashion, he added, "Picking a fight going into Christmas when many people are away or busy seems poorly timed for a sympathetic hearing." As "NuclearWarfare" wrote, "He has had plenty of chances already." Not sure what he meant by that, but clearly I was the bad guy. Ignoring Guy's actual complaint, Tznkai wrote, "What is demonstrated is edit warring." He offered no explanation as to how the charge of edit warring applied to me but not the ones striking the relevant, sourced material I was attempting to add. "MastCell" justified a ban on the grounds of "multiple blocks for edit warring in service of his agenda." And what agenda was that? Insisting that the article abide by Wikipedia standards?

Dismissing an objection by a sympathetic editor who'd stood up in my defense, Sandstein wrote, "we don't need to make a content decision about whether something is pseudoscience… We only need to determine whether it is related to pseudoscience." Because someone somewhere at some time called Sheldrake's work pseudoscience, anyone referring to him as an actual scientist could be barred from editing the article. Though this is how he's labeled by virtually all reliable sources, Sandstein claimed I was "dedicated to promoting a point of view" and, worse, that I was doing so "with respect to a single article," which he considered reason enough to ban me despite the fact that focusing on one article in no way violates Wikipedia policy. Once you're the bad guy, the facts simply don't matter.

Sandstein rationalized his decision by pointing out that I'd been | notified, along with all the other active editors, that the article was under "discretionary sanctions" related to pseudoscience. "Discretionary sanctions can be used against an editor who repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia" and its fundamental policies such as neutrality, verifiability, etc., precisely the policies I was trying to implement in the article. Missing was a warning that I could be banned over talk page contributions or restoring, after 48 hours, a single sourced edit.

Once I'd made my statement of defense, only Tznkai bothered to respond. "This is not a project," he wrote, "where being right excuses you from having to do it right," meaning that my edit was accurately sourced, but I was wrong to fight for it. "Wikipedia is not a place to exercise your moral principles." So it's okay to have principles; just don't act on them.

Tznkai later expanded on his charge of edit warring, which he | defined as "any short circuiting or depreciation of discussion by using article edits to override the contributions of others," precisely what the other editors and especially Guy were doing to me. Since it's impossible to pin edit warring on only one side of a conflict, the only resolution is to look more deeply into the matter and see who's really pursuing Wikipedia policy. Which side is trying to portray the subject neutrally, that is, according to reliable source material? Yet no one was willing to do that.

Finally another administrator, "Zad68," stepped in to close the proceedings. "In Alfonzo's statement here, I don't see any indication that the tendentious edit-warring behavior will stop; in fact all I see is a justification for it." In other words, when the Wikipedia Inquisition shows up, simply repent. Don't even think about trying to refute the charge. But the real kicker for Zad was that I'd previously invoked the policy to ignore all rules "as a justification for breaking the rules against edit warring." On the contrary, I set aside the one-revert rule to protect the integrity of the encyclopedia, just as the policy states.

Still under the impression that morphic resonance was identified somewhere in the Arbitration Committee's report on pseudoscience, I wanted to see if this decision was based on reliable sources or just someone's random opinion. Unable to find anything relevant in the committee's report, I | asked Sandstein if he knew where the decision was located. Instead of admitting that no such decision ever took place, sourced or otherwise, he blocked me from the encyclopedia for two days on the grounds that I'd violated my ban by uttering the term "morphic resonance" in my request for assistance.

Even if the committee's report had in fact classified morphic resonance as pseudoscience, sanctions weren't supposed to kick in without specific policy violations, though edit warring was never demonstrated or even mentioned in Guy's complaint, to say nothing of the systematic violations by the anti-Sheldrake editors. Like amino acid chains twisted into three levels of protein structure, the ironies were built one atop the other.

Given how clear-cut my case was, Zad's response to my | appeal was odd. "I fully expect this appeal to be declined without any need for comment from me." Later he explained why I couldn't possibly get the decision overturned. It turns out Wikipedia doesn't have a legitimate appeal process. Instead of simply demonstrating that the original ruling was invalid, first you have to spend six months proving you can responsibly edit Wikipedia in areas where you haven't been banned. As I wrote, "a true appeal implies the possibility that no actual wrongdoing took place. If the 'appeal' can't even be heard until penitence has been amply demonstrated by the disgraced sinner, clearly there's no assumption of innocence." Worse, the same administrators who misruled in the original case were weighing in on this one. By definition an appeal is heard by parties not involved in the original decision.

When I pointed out that it wasn't a real appeal, Zad twisted my words around to give the impression that I wasn't there to appeal his ruling so much as to use the arbitration venue to criticize Wikipedia. For Zad it all came down to a question of loyalty. Was I there to help build a better encyclopedia, or was I pursuing my own nefarious ends? Regardless of whatever policy violations he or the others accused me of, the only real crime in their eyes was insubordination. I was insufficiently subservient to the great and mighty Wiki.

An uninvolved administrator then stepped in to say that "the matter is being handled appropriately." I responded by highlighting the absurdity of being banned from the biography of a famous biologist for inserting the word "biologist" into the opening sentence, to which Zad retorted, "if that's truly Alfonzo's honest-to-goodness understanding of what happened… [he] is far, far away from having this topic ban lifted."

So I asked Zad why I was banned if it wasn't over my final edit and the associated talk page discussion. He wrote, "I am unwilling to engage in the general re-hashing" of the original case. Another administrator, Ymblanter, stepped in to reject my appeal. "It is clear from the edit history of the article and its talk page that Alfonzo Green was edit-warring despite the fact that the consensus has been achieved [sic]." On top of that I'd revealed the thought crime of "battleground mentality."

I assume these people are capable of rational thought in their day to day lives. But when they put on their Wiki-caps, they're fully in the grip of groupthink. In such a mindset any hint of disloyalty to the group is intolerable. Already in 2005 the cultish aura of Wikipedia was | noted by British journalist Andrew Orlowski. Pointing to blatant favoritism in its biography pages, he wrote, "Where faith triumphs rationality, it isn't unusual to see cult-like characteristics emerge." The problem here is faith in the unerring wisdom of the world's most commonly accessed source of information. Wikipedia has indeed done great things. So long as no controversy is involved, its articles are generally accurate. But its achievement has generated a sense of itself so pathologically narcissistic that evidence of abuse on the part of favored editors is dismissed without a second thought.

Wikipedia is toxic with taboo, conformity, demonization, arrogance, projection and the anal-retentive need to provide an image of order and cleanliness even if the result is inaccuracy and alienation. Given the fear-driven hostility permeating the project, it's no surprise that not a single administrator has stepped forward to denounce the | ongoing witch hunt against defenders of reason and neutrality in the Sheldrake dispute.

At its worst Wikipedia is an elaborate, self-operated torture device. Knowledgeable people who invest significant time clarifying controversial issues are liable to see their work deleted by ignorant ideologues who then attack them both on talk pages and noticeboards. Unsatisfied with helping to get me censored from the topic of Rupert Sheldrake, Barney has now gone so far as to | nominate my user page for deletion, an act which could only prevent other Wikipedians from benefiting from the lessons of my experience.

Alfonzo Green (talk) 19:01, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Ancient Aliens Names
Of about 158 people appearing through Season 4, about 55 have articles. • A. J. Shaka

•  Abdul Nasir Mohammadi

•  Adrian Gilbert

•  Adrienne Mayor

•  Aidan Dodson

•  Akram Elias

•  Albert A. Harrison

•  Albert W. Metz

•  Alex Chionetti

•  Algund Eenboom

•  Allen Greenfield - OK

•  Andrew Collins - DAB

•  Andrew Jackson - DAB

•  Andrew Wyatt - Musician

•  Anthony Murphy - DAB

•  Arlan Andrews

•  Arthur D. Horn

•  Arthur Demarest - OK

•  Arthur Goldwag

•  B. Virupakshi

•  Barry H. Downing

•  Ben Firmston

•  Bethe  Hagens

•  Betty Ann Brown

•  Bill Birnes - OK

•  Bill Homann

•  Bob Curran

•  Boguslaw Lipinski

•  Brad Bebout

•  Brad Lepper

•  Brett Peterson

•  Brien Foerster

•  Bruce Gernon

•  Buzz Aldrin - OK

•  C. Scott Littleton - OK

•  Chandra Wickramasinghe - OK

•  Charles Love

•  Chris O'Brien - Surgeon

•  Chris Pittman

•  Chris Stevenson - Probably not. Nurse

•  Christopher Busby - Maybe. Low dose ionizing radiation expert.

•  Christopher Dunn - OK

•  Christopher H. Corbally

•  Christopher Key Chapple

•  Christopher Knight - DAB

•  Cliff Mickelson

•  Clifford Mahooty

•  Craig Stanford - Maybe. Primates

•  Cristina Sovrosa

•  Dan DiDio - Possibly. Comic books

•  Dan Simplicio

•  David Cheetham

•  David Childress - OK

•  David Effurd

•  David Icke - OK

•  David M. Jacobs - OK

•  David Morrison (astrophysicist) - OK

•  David R. Smith - Maybe. Duke physicist.

•  David Sereda - Musician

•  David Skal - Maybe. Horror writer.

•  David Southwell - Probably

•  David Standish

•  David Sucec

•  David Wilcock - OK

•  Dean Hamer - Maybe. Geneticist

•  Debbie Challis

•  Deepak Shimkhada

•  Derrick Pitts - OK

•  Doc Barham

•  Donald A. Grinde, Jr. - OK

•  Donald Sanders - Maybe. FBI agent

•  Dorothy Matich

•  Ed Pawlowski - No. Mayor.

•  Edgar Mitchell - OK

•  Edwin Barnhart

•  Eileen Hall - No. Poet

•  Erich von Daniken - OK

•  Fiorella Terenzi - OK

•  Francisco Ayala - Maybe. DAB

•  Frank Billingsley

•  Franklin Ruehl - OK

•  George Luis Delgado Mamani

•  George Noory - OK

•  Geraldine Julian

•  Gerardo Aldana

•  Gian J. Quasar

•  Giorgio A. Tsoukalos - OK

•  Gisela Ermel

•  Giuseppe Orefici

•  Godfrey Harris

•  Graham Hancock - OK

•  Gregory Deyermenjian - OK

•  Guillermo de Anda

•  Hanan Charaf

•  Harold F. Young

•  Henry Stevens - No. DAB

•  Hugh Newman

•  Ian Tattersall - OK

•  Igor Witkowski - OK

•  Ilia Delio

•  Inga Calvin

•  Ivan Mackerle - OK

•  James Penniston

•  Jason Martell - OK

•  Javier Grillo-Marxuach - OK

•  Jay Vigil

•  Jeff Danelek

•  Jeff Long - Maybe. DAB

•  Jeff Meldrum - OK

•  Jeff Peckman - OK

•  Jeffrey Galpin

•  Jennifer Heldmann

•  Jerry Gandolfo

•  Jessica Haynes

•  Jesus Gamarra

•  Jim Marrs - OK

•  Joel Palka

•  Joerg Schauberger

•  John A. Ball

•  John Brandenburg

•  John Burroughs - No. DAB

•  John Fritz

•  John Hafnor

•  John Ritchie - No. DAB

•  John Robert Tindall

•  John Rodgers - No. DAB

•  John van Auken

•  John Whalen

•  Jon C. Lohse

•  Jonathan Young (psychologist)

•  Jorge Luis Delgado Mamani

•  Joseph Dobler

•  Joseph Nagy

•  Juris Zarins - OK

•  Kathleen McGowan - OK

•  Kathy Doore

•  Kazuo Tanaka

•  Ken Storch

•  Kim Carlsberg

•  L. A.  Marzulli

•  Laichen Sun

•  Lars Krutack

•  Linda Eneix

•  Linda MacDonald Glenn - Maybe. Bioethicist.

•  Linda Moulton Howe - OK

•  Logan Hawkes

•  Lois H. Gresh - OK

•  Loren Coleman - OK

•  Luis M. Chiappe - OK

•  Luis Navia

•  Lyle Armstrong

•  Marilyn Wallace

•  Mark A. Wilson

•  Mark Koltko-Rivera

•  Mark Mirabello

•  Mark van Stone

•  Marshall Klarfeld

•  Marshall Trimble - OK

•  Martin Kemp - Probably. TV personality

•  Marvin Meyer - OK

•  Masaaki Kimura - OK

•  Matthew F. Dowd

•  Max Brooks - Probably. SF writer

•  Max McCoy

•  Maximilien de Lafayette

•  Michael B. A. Oldstone

•  Michael Bara

•  Michael Borden

•  Michael Coogan - OK

•  Michael Cremo - OK

•  Michael Dennin

•  Michael Dunn - DAB

•  Michael Gervers

•  Michael J. Crowe

•  Michael J. S. Carter

•  Michael J. White

•  Michael Shermer - OK

•  Mike Bara

•  Mikhail Gershtein

•  Milton Wainwright - OK

•  Nancy Red Star

•  Nicholas Howarth

•  Nick Ciske

•  Nick Pope (journalist) - OK

•  Nick Redfern - OK

•  Patrick Flanagan - OK

•  Paul Davies - OK

•  Paul Francis - No. Politician & businessman

•  Paul Goldstein - No. Law professor.

•  Paul Levinson - OK

•  Paul S. Moller

•  Paul Stonehill

•  Paulina A. Zelitsky

•  Payson Sheets

•  Peter Fiebag

•  Peter Palutikof

•  Philip Coppens (author) - OK

•  Philip Imbrogno

•  Rachel Friday

•  Rafael Kosche

•  Randy Wymore

•  Ratnakar Shevale

•  Richard Berggreen

•  Richard Dolan - OK

•  Richard Rader

•  Rick Ross - No. Rapper.

•  Robert Bauval - OK

•  Robert H. Frisbee

•  Robert M. Schoch - OK

•  Robert Mullins

•  Robert R. Cargill

•  Robert S. Dickman

•  Rodney Cluff

•  Rodney Dale - OK

•  Roger Hopkins

•  Ronald L. Mallett

•  Rosaly Lopes

•  Ross Hamilton - Possibly. Son of Irish priest

•  Ruben Uriarte

•  Russell H. Tuttle

•  Rusty McClure

•  Sabina Magliocco - OK

•  Sallie Ann Glassman

•  Santiago Stelley

•  Sara Seager - OK

•  Sean Roberts - No. Soccer

•  Sean-David Morton

•  Seth Shostak - OK

•  Sherry Whitfield

•  Simon P. Worden

•  Standing Elk

•  Stanley Hall - No. DAB

•  Stephen Vander Hart

•  Steven C. Bullock

•  Steven M. Greer - OK

•  Story Musgrave - OK

•  Suzanne Taylor

•  Taylor Wang - OK

•  Ted Peters - Possibly. DAB theologian

•  Terrence Masson

•  Thomas E. Bullard

•  Thomas Johnson - Possibly. DAB

•  Thomas O. Mills

•  Thomas Valone

•  Todd Disotell

•  Tok Thompson

•  Tom Horsfall

•  Tudor Parfitt - OK

•  Uwe Apel

•  W. Ian Lipkin - Probably. Microbiologist

•  William Bramley

•  William Henry - Probably not. DAB

•  William J. Fulco - Possibly. Jesuit, archaeologist

•  William Wallace - DAB

•  Willie E. Dye

•  Willliam Bramley

Particularly Legitimate Names
• # Arthur Demarest

• # Bill Birnes

• # Buzz Aldrin

• # C. Scott Littleton

• # Chandra Wickramasinghe

• # David Morrison

• # Derrick Pitts

• # Edgar Mitchell

• # Gregory Deyermenjian

• # Ian Tattersall

• # Jeff Meldrum

• # Juris Zarins

• # Marshall Trimble

• # Marvin Meyer

• # Rosaly Lopes

• # Sara Seager

• # Seth Shostak

• # Story Musgrave

• # Taylor Wang

• # Tudor Parfitt

• # W. Ian Lipkin