User:Tisthammerw

Background
Tisthammerw is a computer nickname for Wade A. Tisthammer (me). It originally started in high school when as a homework assignment we had to create an e-mail account at hotmail. The teacher suggested we use our last name + the first letter of our first name. Hence, since my name is Wade Tisthammer the username would be tisthammerw. I have a webpage at angelfire and am the author of the Maverick Christian Blog.

Unfriendly Remarks
Alas, controversial issues like intelligent design sometimes stir up heated emotions. I have tried to do some corrections on the intelligent design article regarding the need to provide adequate citations and not allowing original research; so far without much success. Sometimes I have encountered unfriendly remarks. For instance:


 * 1) "Obviously you are trolling - you can't actually be as dumb as you are pretending to be." made by Guettarda from  Talk:Intelligent Design.
 * 2) "Wade, I have no choice but to accept that you are being dense." made by KillerChihuahua from Talk:Irreducible complexity on 20:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC).
 * Yes, I am perfectly aware of which one of my posts FeloniousMonk has deleted KillerChihuahua. My question, where in that post is the personal attack?  --Wade A. Tisthammer 23:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
 * dense. Jim62sch 00:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * From the Talk:Irreducible complexity section.

Test Section
The preliminary addition to a Wikipedia entry as follows (see here for more info):


 * In the statement regarding the publication of the Meyer paper, the journal later repudiated it saying that “paper does not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings.” The statement also says Sternberg handled the entire review process and that the paper was published without review by any associate editor, something it says is not typical editorial practice. The statement however does not accuse Sternberg of violating proper editorial procedure.


 * After Sternberg filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC)—an independent federal agency—the OSC investigated and had this to say,


 * They also assumed that you [Sternberg] violated editorial regulations of the Proceedings because you were the primary editor of the article. These comments were made to and by SI and NMNH managers and were published to several outside organizations. It was later revealed that you complied with all editorial requirements of the Proceedings and that the Meyer article was properly peer reviewed by renowned scientists. As an aside, the information received by OSC does not indicate that any effort was made to recall or correct these comments once the truth was made known.




 * Sternberg filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (USC), which subsequently launched an investigation. It concluded that Sternberg was essentially run out of the Smithsonian, and also that top scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History of retaliated against Sternberg by investigating his religion and smearing him as a "creationist."  However, since Sternberg is not a Smithsonian employee -- the National Institutes of Health pays his salary -- the special counsel lacked the power to impose a legal remedy.

I made this little test section because the current wording of the the entry seems to distort certain facts, including the citation of a source that did not actually contain the claim associated to it (see here for more info). At first I thought that Sternberg did indeed violate proper editorial policy. After some further digging though (see the OSC opinion above), it's my conclusion that perhaps the Wikipedia entry did not present the issue as accurately and fairly as it could have.

While intelligent design may not be an adequate scientific theory, I was dismayed to see omissions, distortions of fact, and citations that did not support various dubious assertions in Wikipedia articles. By and large though, I have given up trying to reform sections of certain Wikipedia pages on intelligent design such as this. Too much bitter emotion clouding judgment for too many people.