User talk:Wobble/archive7

Sock puppet case
Whether or not I or anyone blocks someone is not subject to majority vote, never has been. I do agree that, despite the negative checkuser result, the possibility is still there. But possibility is not certainty, I can't find a "smoking gun", so to speak, and interest and viewpoint patterns aren't enough in this case-as I said, it's conceivable that more than one person could hold or agree with a contentious viewpoint on race. I will be keeping an eye. Puppetmasters always slip up and leave their "calling card" sooner or later, so if it is, he'll get caught. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Do enjoy your break. And of course, do keep in mind that editing disruptively is actionable whether or not the account in question is a sock of anyone at all. I've warned the editor that they're not heading in a very good direction, hopefully that will be sufficient. If not, stronger measures may become necessary, sock or no. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

ALUN, LISTEN AND ENJOY!
http://www.cheltladiescollege.org/news/

Martin

84.65.37.161 16:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

wikibreak
Thanks for the barnstar. Enjoy your break but hope you will be back soonMuntuwandi 04:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

About your changes to the Race article
Please be advised that the article is currently under mediation, and it is bad form to make major changes to it outside of the mediation efforts. If you wish to do so, please do feel free to join the mediation. However, for the record, I didn't originally write those passages you just cut out twice, nor am I a racialist of any stripe, and actually, neither is Slrubenstein. I believe the clinal view of human genetic diversity is in most likelihood the correct one. However, where I differ with you is over the issue that you can't silence the view of those who "do" think that the notion of race is biologically significant, and that genetic clusters might be a way to support it. While I personnally think this viewpoint is incorrect, as per WP rules, we cannot censor this viewpoint. It must be presented, along with all others, commensurately to its importance. So, please stop reverting and bring your issues to the table like everyone else, so we can discuss them.--Ramdrake 11:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Wobble. I noticed that you've returned. Be patient. The article is under mediation. Wait and see what the mediation committee has to say. Meanwhile, just make sure that they don't edit the article substantially to cover their tracks. FilipeS 11:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * About your latest comment on the talk page, this article is about race not lineages, so presenting supporting evidence that clustering may be an indication of the eistence of biological races is indeed appropriate.--Ramdrake 11:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Race
You ask, "With this in mind I'd like to know why you keep making edits to the Race article that claim that multi locus allele clusters represents evidence that supports discrete lineages for so called "races"?"

Wikipedia articles should never make any kinds of factual or truth-claims about topics. We make claims only about views of topics. The issue is not whether multi locus allele clusters represents evidence that supports discrete lineages for so called "races," but whether there are people (e.g. Tang et. al. 2005) who believe this. I have gone over this with you endlessly on the tlak pages and you seem to be too think to understand this very simple point. I am not making any claims about race, period; I am making claims about what different people believe about race. I have explained this over and over yet you still ask stupid questions like the above, that utterly disregard my point. That you continue to ask me these questions, now on my own talk page, even when I have answered and answered them, borders on harassment. I am tired of explaining basic Wikipedia policies to you.

I did not write the section in question, but it was written by anothe knowledgable editor and one of the principles at Wikipedia is to take the work of other editors at good faith. The editor in question provided citations. Other editors supported the inclusion of this view. You have yet to provide any reason for removing it, other than the fact that you personally disagree with it. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 12:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

As I said, i did not write that section. If you think the use of Tang et. al. 2005 is incorrect, then correct it. Do not be concerned that I would revert. My opposition has been to wholesale deletion of sections without any discussion. Here we have fixed on a specific claim. You think the article misrepresents a source. I trust you on your word and welcome your changing the paragraph to clairify..

I would still ask you to have good faith towards other editors. I as I said did not write that section. I would recommend that you address your concerns to the person who did. i think you have every right to ask that person what sources he has to support the claim that there are some biologists who now use allele clusters and the concept of lineage as a new way to talk about "race." If you think that person is misrepresenting the sources, you have every right to raise that point. I am simply asking that instead of making swee[ping broadside attacks on the article or even sections as wholes, you take these points one at a time. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 13:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

What about Levin 2002? Also, Ernst Mayr The Biology of Race and the Concept of Equality. Daedalus, Winter 2002. Vol. 131, pg. 89? In a 1985 survey, 84% of biologists claimed they believe that humans can be divided into biological races - how do they define race? One way or another, the article needs to answer that question. By the way I hope it is now crystal clear to you that my point is not that I think these people are right or wrong, and certainly not that the article should claim they are right or wrong, but simply that the article must represent their views. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 13:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Any way around?
Hi,

I sympathize with your attempts to fix the "race" article. I think that there is no easy way to do it given that so many people are deeply intoxicated by this idea. One of the persistent claims of those who act to fortify this concept is that we are not allowed to think about "race." All we are permitted to do, according to these people, is to tote up positions that support [race] and people who attack [race]. The position becomes ridiculous if we take it at full face value because there are plenty of published sources that support all kinds of nutty ideas.

One possible approach would be to create a canopy article that examines the meta-question, what are the most basic methodological issues involved in addressing issues such as "what is [race] (if anything)", "what are flying saucers," "what is cold fusion," etc.

The basic problem with an article on "race", as I see it, is that there is no definition for the word "race" that can be used consistently throughout the article. The situation is perhaps analogous to an article on "Joe Smith" in which everyone who knows a man named Joe Smith can add assertions regarding him.

One of the basic lessons learned in the late 19th and early 20th century was that lucid [operational definitions] are very helpful in clearing up arguments that are not going anywhere. It is a simple idea, but it has received no support around the "Race" article. So maybe if it, and complementary concepts, were to be promoted to a higher-level article then what should be the correct parameters for any even quasi-scientific article might find a place where it could be protected from those who love their misconceptions. P0M 20:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I answered your latest comments on my own talk page. Then I looked at the article you cited. Very near the top it says, "'Race' is not being defined or used consistently; its referents are varied and shift depending on context." That's exactly what I have been saying since I joined Wikipedia and had my first edit reverted with a curt edit message to leave the already-perfect article alone: people need to have, and to keep in mind, clear definitions. Otherwise the tailor wonders how one can eat frogs and the gourmet wonders how a team of frogs can keep a lady's jacket closed. P0M 13:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Remember to track down the 84% of all biologists who answered that survey, and then collect and collate their definitions of "race." Get cracking, because even if there were only 100 people surveyed, that's still 84 guys that you will have to coerce an answer out of. ;-) P0M 15:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * "people need to have, and to keep in mind, clear definitions." This is your view.  It happens to be my view as well.  Which is precisely why it cannot influence our editing of articles.  At least, not as long as "'Race' is not being defined or used consistently; its referents are varied and shift depending on context" is true.  As long as this quote POM provides is true, the article on race has to reflect the situation accurately i.e. show that there is no one consistent definition of race. For any Wikipedia article to argue that it is up to us to forward a consistent definition of race in the article would be to violate NOR.  It is not up to us to say what people "need to have." Slrubenstein   |  Talk 16:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * SLR,I do not think we should be debating on Alun's discussion page. You appear to totally misunderstand the thrust of what I said above, and you are putting words (now underlined) into my mouth.P0M 01:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Alun, I didn't start to edit your discussion page just now to argue with other people. I believe your point about "lineages" was that we have to be clear about whose definition of lineage we are talking about and not confuse the term as used by one individual or group of individuals or field, with the term as used by others. I think Ramdrake got what you were saying and has come up with the way out of this situation. I hope I was carrying forward your train of thought about the "one drop rule." Let me know if I am stepping on your toes. Anyway, the interesting and instructive things is that you were using the word "lineage" according to one definition and Ramdrake was using it according to another definition. The fight was basically over nothing because discourse was skewed. That's a little sample of why "race" is hard to discuss. RIK apparently believes that there is an ideal level of granularity in the data that corresponds to traditional ideas of [race], which is where I part company with him. I see the favored level of granularity as depending on the needs of researchers, so one splits the human species into as many infraspecific groups as one wants and according to whatever scheme of categorization one wants, and then one makes comparisons, contrasts, looks for medical leads, etc. Except as such a preference may motivate RIK's ideological stance, the "ideal level of granularity" is beside the point. What is important is that a view that the granularity is there and people have to choose some level of granularity (three races or 300?) -- unless someone still believes in non-fuzzy, separate, lineages. But the average guy on the street has hypostatized (reified) [race], so he is going to act as though [races] are discrete entities and make exceptions for "inter-racial" offspring. Anyway, maybe if we get Ramdrake to follow his own suggestion we can help and all of us can pin down other places where Ms. X is calling something a "mountain sheep" and therefore a subset of sheep, and Mr. Y is calling it a "goat" and sees goats and sheep as non-intersecting subsets of a larger set. P0M 01:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Silent
Aun, hi,

Are you intentionally not responding to my question in my previous message? Sometimes I do not entirely understand your way of expressing yourself, and I want to make sure that we are basically operating on the same frequency. There is no point of my trying to support what you are saying if I am entirely off base. There are plenty of obviously incoherent things for me to keep busy with.

The main thing that I see impeding the article is the difficulty of talking about [race] without implying that it exists in the sense that, e.g., cetaceans exist. (That's why I continually use the annoying square brackets around the word. Otherwise I may decide that I know what the damned thing means.) The article on UFOs manages to keep it fairly clear to everybody that nobody knows that there is actually a referent for a word like "flying saucer."

I've tryed to express the idea that we should explain to the reader that there is a certain set of empirical data (measurements of skin colors, measurements of angle of hair twist, etc., etc.) that is "real" in the sense that there are intersubjective objects that we can all see and argue about. I might measure your skin color and come out with a slightly different result than you did, but we would be able to refine the measurements. Those kinds of observations are "facts." But different people impose order on those facts in different ways, and different ways may turn out to be preferable only in the sense that one way of ordering data is more convenient for one set of problems, and another way of ordering data may turn out to be better for a different set of problems. So "race" does not have a single definition. It's more like the definition of "Mark Harrison," one word but many referents that may share some commonalities. Unfortunately I definitely speak a different language from some of the "owners" of that article, and I got no support (quite the contrary) the last time I tried to get something said about the reason that "Race" is such a contentious topic.P0M 06:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

June 2007
Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. However, we remind you not to attack other editors, as you did in several edit summaries in Race. Please try to remain calm in even these highly heated discussions. You do your side of the argument no good if you lose your temper. Thank you. TimVickers 19:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * diff 1, diff 2, diff 3. These edit summaries also contravene our policy on WP:Assume good faith and WP:Civility. This behaviour is not in your interest, as if you act like this, your arguments will not be listened to. TimVickers 02:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for being so reasonable. In the interests of balance, I have also warned Slrubenstein for personal attacks on his talkpage. TimVickers 04:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)