User talk:Lingo pen

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome!
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Tutorial
 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style

Hunter-gatherer
Hey, I just noticed your addition to Hunter-gatherer, and was wondering if you could provide citations for the material you added. Cheers! Murderbike (talk) 20:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Science
Note that on Science, there's no real need to make evolutionary psychology stand out (or at least, you haven't really demonstrated that there is a need), and the lead shouldn't really have information that specific. EP is covered if not by social science, then by cross-disciplinary work between social and natural sciences. WLU (talk) 18:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This is a direct copy and paste from User talk:75.119.15.62. Note that wikipedia has a policy on sockpuppeting.  You may not be the same person (in which case, please not the comment above) but if so, I am assuming good faith that this is an error, and not an attempt to get around a warning.  Thanks, if you think the link deserves to be in the lead of Science, please discuss it on the talk page as two editors have now removed it.  WLU (talk) 19:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This is the first time I've figured out how to respond. (Someone more adept at Wikipedia editing showed me how.)  I had thought, simplistically, that if I sought to respond to a comment, I would find some tab saying "reply" "response" etc.  I never dreamt that the correct term was "edit".  I now understand that replying to a comment is, in effect, editing the discussion page.  I still feel this is unnecessarily obtuse, but I guess every procedure has its arcane terminology.  I see it's all editing in some form.

OK. So I'm naive about how to do things. I had wanted merely to include a link to the effect "but see the Overview link of Evolutionary Psychology". Why? Because I had wanted to make the point on the Science page that the division of science into "hard" natural science and "soft" human science was never meant to be a final categorization of science itself for all time. The idea that EP is "covered by social science" or that EP is explained as merely a "cross-disciplinary work between social and natural sciences" misses the point. EP represents the beginning of the end of the dichotomy between 2 separate categories of science. EP shows that, ultimately, there must be one science, a broad continuous spectrum of knowledge, separated only by artificial divisions (i.e. physics flowing into chemistry flowing into biochemistry flowing into chemistry flowing into biology flowing into zoology flowing into mammalogy flowing into primatology flowing into Evolutionary Psychology)

Poppers seminal book defining science is "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" (if there is ever a "bible" for science ---this is it!). It's the book that brought into the lexicon the idea of "falsifiability" as the defining feature of good science (due to confusion surrounding the word "falsify" ---i.e. "that a good theory is a falsifiable one" seems paradoxical---many now use the more neutral word "testable".) Now it is understood by almost all scientists that the human mind is the most complex structure in the KNOWN universe. It is also understood that people needing healing cannot wait until a pristine testible psychology arrives while mental hospitals continue to fill with residents. As such, the euphemism "soft" science became a watchword of the human sciences ---a less precise "stop-gap" science was absolutely necessary. But the faith in good testible science has always understood that, one day, psychology and the human sciences would "fall into place" and there would eventually be one monolith of pure science as a spectrum of knowledge (as described above).

My point is, the Science page should somewhere acknowledge that the dichotomay of human sciences apart from natural science (implying humans are separate from nature??) is, ultimately, an artificial one. Although this might have always been only of semantic interest in the past, the birth of Evolutionary Psychology brings the issue to the forefront. It's always been understood that human being are animals; it's always been understood that this fact should, eventually, play significantly in understanding human psychology; and it's always been understood that, for a long time, such connection yielded little of value to human psychological understanding (due to the lack of good primatological research linking human behavior to it). But that time is passing. It must be understood as inevitable (and unarguable) that psychology must take its place within the rest of testible science and find its proper branching within the scientific tree in a way that acknowledges human being's connection to the rest of nature. Anything less than this simple and clear acknowledgement should be understood as unscientifically insisting that we keep our heads firmly planted in the sand!! (Am I wrong? Is there a better way to express this?  Is there any lack of clarity in the claim I'm making?)

As such, under the division of science into "natural" and "human/social" science, there should be at least some reference to the Overview statement of Evolutionary Psychology that clarifies why the division is a temporary and artificial one. The Overview notes that Evolutionary Psychology at last understands that psychology is the study of the mind of the human primate ---and is, necessarily, a branch of primatology. In one fell swoop, humans are forever understood as being part of the system of the broader natural environment (we all should know how dangerous is the idea that we are NOT, and how this obstinancy has destructively played into the cynical political systems ignoring global warming, species degradation, and the rest.)

So that very slight reference I sought to make under the "division of science" carries with it a lot more import that one might imagine. To demand the issue is completely settled is, perhaps, overstepping. But to ignore the challenge to the dichotomy of science is all but criminal! We must, at least, begin to move forward and begin to question many of the assumptions that we have long insisted are above challenge.

Dale

PS when I unsuccessfully attempted the edit, it merely told me that there was no such link ---yet I could see with my own eyes that the Overview link under Evolutionary Psychology did exist. It made me think that I should keep trying to get the link to at least show up. I had understood that, only after posting, would an addition be challenged. It seemed that the link was challenged even before it was posted. Again, if this were the way it's supposed to work, that would be one thing. But the error notice didn't suggest that as one of the possible reasons the link didn't take. That fact that the person making the comment was not an administrator also made me believe that I could keep trying to get the link to at least show up once.

My frustration was also compounded by my lack of understanding that "Edit" meant "Reply" ---I felt there was no way to reply to the criticism at that time (and I was too pressed for time to do a detailed analysis of what had happened). I tried a few more times to get a clearly known site to "take" as a reference ---and then, upon continuously failing, gave up. I hope this gives some insight as to how a novice becomes confused and frustrated attempting to make a simple offering. I'm sorry if this appeared as "sockpuppeting". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.119.15.62 (talk) 07:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)