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Barnstars and related

• Please do not feed the trolls
• The Original Barnstar For being bold and because I can't believe you haven't got one yet! Sophia 16:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• The E=mc² Barnstar You might not know me, but I know you. I've seen you editing articles about evolution, and I just wanted to say thank you so much for contributing so much to Evolution articles and reverting vandalism and original research, among other things. I love you! Keep up the good fight! Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 17:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• The Undeniable Mechanism Award For arguing the undeniable mechanism, upholding intellectual rigour, and expanding evolution topics, it is my pleasure to pin this badge upon your most evolved chest. Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
• The Original Barnstar For your dedicated work on scientific articles, keeping the pseudo out of science, I hereby award you, Orangemarlin, this Barnstar. Your work on Good and Featured articles like Evolution and Minoan eruption has greatly improved Misplaced Pages. Thank you. Firsfron of Ronchester 07:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
• To Orangemarlin for exceptional work on herpes zoster. JFW | T@lk 10:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)]]

evo-devo

Now that things seem to be stabilizing at the Evolution article, would you consider looking at and working on the evo-devo article? As you mentioned, at one point, this is an important growing area. I did some work on it a while ago an exhausted my relevant knowledge, but it still seems like the length and quality of the article do not match its importance. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Gulp. What am I going to get myself into? LOL. I'll check it out! Orangemarlin 18:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't want you to over-commit!! I just know this article deserves to be better than it is. You can start by looking at one editor;s suggestions here and also I have a comment in the section of talk that follows (on, concerning the tendency to microevolution). Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

A brief history of literalism

Well, folks, Creationism as a theological schism rather than religion vs. science seems to be an aspect worth examining, and my prayers for a source have now been answered at Ivy Cottage : E-Books Reason Science and Faith, Roger Forster and Dr Paul Marston. Chapter 7 - Genesis Through History. (javasript link to pdf). A worthy read, and astonishingly the authors seem convinced that YECs misrepresent Christianity pre 1961 as being literal when it wasn't. Whooda thunk those creationists would change history, and get it misrepresented in Misplaced Pages? Will aim to clarify the Creationism article in the fullness of time, or fairly soon with any luck. ... dave souza, talk 23:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes I believe that this biblical literalism business is pretty recent. Even Young Earth Creationism is a fairly recent invention, and was quite unpopular before about 1960; even William Jennings Bryan of prominent Scopes Monkey Trial fame was not a biblical literalist or YEC. Many other famous early creationists were not either. It was definitely a minority position of only a few crazed extremists that most other creationists avoided because of their clear irrationality. Somehow, though, this extreme viewpoint has become increasingly popular recently , which is quite interesting.--Filll 23:26, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I was reading a book last night about Creationism (can't remember the name), and they said the same thing. In the 1800's, the "fundamentalists" believed that the earth was millions of years old (I believe the author said that at the time billions of years wasn't comprehensible), and they did not dispute the science, other than they believe that G-d's hand was in there. I'd take those fundamentalists any day of the year. Anyways, I'm now more convinced than ever that Creationism should be positioned as a religious debate, and not a science one. Of course, I believe that science and religion can be compatible, so this may help that argument. Orangemarlin 23:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I am wondering if it is not due to the advance of science and technology, and as science has become more advanced, and technology as well, that the average person is more and more disconnected from the current scientific understanding and current technology. In this situation, where the average person does not understand the science or the world around him, magical thinking and being dismissive of science might become easier and easier. The average person today is alienated from science. One hundred years ago, most people lived on farms and had to repair farm equipment and understand technology and by extension, the science behind it. Now, everyone has magical devices to talk on and to compute with and to get information, and no one can understand the guts of their car or anything else. So if someone comes and talks about magic, how hard is it to subscribe to it? After all, how different is that than the average person's understanding of his surroundings?--Filll 23:43, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Oddly enough, it may be that most people today lack the theological background and sophistication that anyone literate in Darwin's day was fully familiar with. In the chapter I've read, pp. 43 to 53 credits the prophetess Ellen Gould White with coining the literalism that inspired George McCready Price to create his 1923 magnum opus The New Geology which all but 7th day adventists ignored until the 1961 revelations of Morris that "Having shown that virtually all those he accepts as spiritual Christian leaders between 1859 and 1940 were gaptheory, age-day or evolutionary creationists, he elsewhere proclaims all such ideas to be equivalent to evolution which he says is inherently atheistic and ‘pictures God as a sadistic ogre’." Which doesn't stop him blatantly claiming that they all shared his "literalism". .. an interesting read. ... dave souza, talk 23:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I've concluded that most Biblical literalists are in fact not Christians, but bibliolaters. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been speaking to someone off-wiki about the Creationism debate. And what I said was that I could probably write a better article defending Creationism than most of the religious types could. What I've observed is that this anti-science, anti-intellectual attitude of the current crop of religious writing serves no one well. Although Morris' description of evolution is very descriptive, it serves nothing for the debate. Creationism can be written as a wonderful religious dogma--not in conflict with current science, because that's a battle that will be lost. We can do better. Orangemarlin 00:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

<unindent> The conclusion of the e=book chapter, pp 53 - 54, covers it neatly, ending with "Finally, the word ‘creationist’ is itself confusing. The creatorship of God is central to Christianity, and it is in our view impossible to be any sort of a Christian without being a ‘creationist’. So to a Christian theist who believes that God can work through ‘natural’ processes, when does a so-called ‘progressive creationist’ become an ‘evolutionary creationist’? Exactly how much micro-evolution is acceptable? R L Numbers, having called his book The Creationists, seems to want to limit it (for some reason) to non-evolutionary creationists – though at times is hard put to delineate them. Morris and other youngearthers seem to use the confusion of language to disguise their own origins. To them the word ‘creationist’ is a flexible word. Sometimes it means just those who believe in a literal six days and recent earth – at other times it includes the many figures in the last two centuries who have accepted mainstream geology but not macro evolution. By juggling the terms, the radical break marked by young-earth creationism with mainstream Evangelicalism is masked. Let us be clear on this one thing. Young-earthism is a clear and radical break differing in its whole approach to the issues – and its modern roots are in Seventh Day Adventism not in later nineteenth century Evangelicalism nor in early Fundamentalism." And for non-Christians, p 7 discusses such scholars as Ibn Ezra who is currently cited as a creationist... So endeth the lesson, at least in my time zone. Will get in touch later today (UTC) ..dave souza, talk 00:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

This is true. The definitions of creationism and Christianity and science and evolution are all distorted, so that they can be defined at will to whatever needs they have at any given time.--Filll 01:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Apologies, Mea Culpa, etc

You are right. I get on a roll and just slam away at tiny bits of editing and I get sloppy and don't add a summary. I should do more I know. But I do think that I did wear away at a lot of the nonsense and make the references and links clearer; I expect that a lot of these will eventually have to get dumped but it will be easier when we can actually see where the links and references go. Some go to blogs. Some go to commercial sites. Some go to real peer-reviewed papers. Some go to government sites. And so on. It definitely needs more massaging and I am a bit nervous about what sort of response we will get from the hard core naturopathic types.--Filll 00:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Falsifiability and evolution rough draft

Please take a look at Talk:Evolution/falsifiabilitydraft2.--Filll 01:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

There are no changes to the policy proposed at all. What I have proposed is the clarification of the section that summarises the policy. The new version of this summary is Here if you wanted to comment. However, I don't want to stir things up by proposing ANY changes in meaning. All I would like to do is make what is here a bit easier to understand. Tim Vickers 01:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey You

Since you're a real doctor and I'm just an ignorant vandal, maybe you could take a look at Melville Y. Stewart. It doesn't seem to contain any real assertions of notability, and I suspect the subject doesn't warrant inclusion, but maybe I'm missing something? Possibly something which your elite academic background would pick up on? It's true he's delivered 28 papers, but I've delivered hundreds myself...I used to have a paper route. Doc Tropics 04:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I no longer believe you exist. You're a figment of my imagination. Orangemarlin 04:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

But if I'm a figment of your imagination, then you'll have to get yourself blocked for vandalism. And if I write an article about you, then you could be banned for WP:COI. This looks like a win-win situation : ) Doc Tropics 05:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I haven't forgotten about the K-T extinction event article, I swear! Firsfron of Ronchester 19:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It's that or Living dinosaurs. ROFLMAO. Orangemarlin 19:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey, the lead and the first section aren't bad at all! Firsfron of Ronchester 19:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Return of Raspor?

I strongly suspect that User:Octoplus is a sockpuppet of User:Raspor. Should we check? Here is why I have my suspicions:

• endless trolling
• badly formed sentences and grammar and lack of punctuation, similar to Raspor, although he is capable of writing clearly
• wildly exaggerated indenting on occasion (started when Raspor was chastised for not ever indenting)
• Raspor's suggestions that evolution is not a hard science or inadequate because of its lack of mathematical rigor, and Octoplus' allusions to a mathematical proof of the inability of evolution to produce life that uses differential equations
• long and frequent posts to talk pages but never any constructive suggestions to change the article
• familiarly of Octoplus with the page and the WP rules even though the account is quite new
• when frequently invited to produce something, Raspor and Octoplus both decline, and blame their lack of output on some sort of discrimination by other WP editors
• both have a similar attitude and seem aggrieved about something
• both tried to direct the attention to themselves and remain in the spotlight (when I moved material to Octoplus' talkpage, he deleted it and then claimed he had never seen it). When this was pointed out, he moved on to another complaint, much as Raspor would.

Suggestions?--Filll 12:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Paleocene dinosaurs

I've been reworking Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event--yes the lead is improved. I've been digging up references for these dinosaurs, and short of a lot of Cryptozoology articles (talk about junk science), there's one hadrosaur femur in New Mexico, some supposed research in China (can't find references), and some information that dinosaurs existed above the K-T boundary in the Hell Creek formation. But really, there are precious few references supporting it, but a lot in opposition. Thinking about undue weight, I'm beginning to wonder if this needs to be a POV fork (and away from Living dinosaurs). Just a thought that maybe you can consider as we move forward. Orangemarlin 23:30, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a good look tonight, OM. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Waffen-SS

Regarding your edit summary "...by the way Orangemarlin, this is obviously not OR, the article itself cites 20 different sources including books and websites." Websites don't count as original sources, so do not have much credibility. Specific statements lack any references, and may or may not be a digestion of primary sources, but it is impossible to tell since statements or sections are not attributed to specific sources. If you review WP:CITE, you will note that a verifiable reference is required for anything that is challenged or likely to be challenged. Full citations should be used, and inline citations are preferred. Primary sources far outweigh secondary ones (and websites are unverified secondary sources). Therefore, in lieu of references that support statements in the article, it is, by definition original research. Orangemarlin 00:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Your statement about the credibility of websites is more a personal opinion than a fact, and while it might be useful I'm afraid it does not represent the thoughts of the whole Misplaced Pages community. As you might probably noticed we have to analyse and use every source available while adding information, even if that includes other websites; hit the random article button, and look for yourself how many pages do not include websites as sources. Likely to be challenged? I believe half of our history-related articles are likely to be challenged, but as I said before that does not mean they are all original research. While in-line citations are doubtlessly an useful addition to our encyclopedic quality, their lack is not a proof of an instant OR article, and WP:CITE states it clearly. You are adressing this problem from the wrong way; I suggest you to think twice about it next time, please. —Coat of Arms (talk) 22:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

What????? There are no references, so it's all challenged. It is original research. I don't give a crap about inline citations, it just makes it easier to confirm the source. I'm not sure I appreciate your tone. Orangemarlin 22:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I left a comment on the Waffen-SS talk page. If people really want it fact-tagged, I'll do it, but the fact-tags will overwhelm the article. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 23:17, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

OR relates to making novel conclusions not already published by reliable sources. Something can have the hell sourced out of it, and it can still be OR because it draws novel conclusions from those sources. NOR and CITE are totally distinct ideas. Guettarda 01:12, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Merci beaucoup, Messr. Guettarda. Orangemarlin 02:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

not sure why we were arguing, but thanks for jumping into the bio page

hope i can be of some more help.Wikiskimmer 08:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Because I'm going to teach you how to write in the English language. If you want to play with the big boys, then you better know how to handle the bat and glove. First, your spelling is atrocious. It is what I find typical of those of you who text message all the time. Second, your punctuation is non-existent. Third, your grammar is confusing. And lastly, you need to read a manual of style. I'm certainly not arguing with you. But I'm offended that you condescend to me, someone with what 4 years college, about 8 years of graduate level education, and who knows how many years of experience in these fields. Orangemarlin 09:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Fatalis

I noticed you warned User:Fatalis. Please note that his edits were not vandalism, and that he was merely archiving the page (which was becoming quite significant in size). Perhaps he should have checked if there were any ongoing discussions, but please remember to assume good faith in future. Angus Lepper 23:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

How about you assume good faith with me. There are very critical reasons why I think it was bad idea, the first of which, two days from now, a bunch of trolls/POV warriors/anonymous twits will come it and make all kinds of changes. And we won't be able to point them to discussion, because it's gone. So, if you spent two seconds to provide some good faith to an editor who's been creating articles, fighting these POV types for months, and looked over my extensive edits on a wide variety of articles, you'd think, "wait a minute, this guy has a point." It was vandalism. And as I said below, thanks for the lecture. Orangemarlin 23:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

When you were writing this, it was already fixed, and the page is 3 times smaller as a result. It was almost a third of a megabyte before. By the way, I'm very much from the same camp as you, so I don't understand why do you need to be so hostile. –Fatalis 00:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Good spinning there Mr. panty and penis obsessed. You deleted the whole damn thing. Several editors caught on to your behavior and fixed your vandalism. So don't dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back. Orangemarlin 00:21, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Nothing was deleted. Can't you wrap your head around the concept of "moving"? –Fatalis 08:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism warning

Please don't accuse others of edits that are obviously not vandalism. According to Misplaced Pages's official policy "vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Misplaced Pages.". Also "any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." Evil Monkey - Hello 23:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It was vandalism, plain and simple. A POV warrior removed tons of discussion, some of which needs to be referred to keep the POV crap away. How about your providing me with good faith that I think the deletion was a very bad idea. Thanks for the lecture buddy. Orangemarlin 23:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:VANDAL ("any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism."), I'm afraid you're wrong. The user asked on the IRC channel #wikipedia about how to archive a talk page as this was now sitting at 280 kB. When he found out, he went ahead and did. Whether or not you agree with the edit, that one caveat means that you were incorrect. Angus Lepper 23:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I apologize. I didn't know that the IRC channel was an appropriate way to discuss Misplaced Pages. Let me revert all my edits over the past few months, because I don't engage in discussions there. Now I know that the Talk pages are completely useless, and shouldn't be used for much. Thanks for the update.Orangemarlin 23:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Mate he didn't just cut and paste some some old expired threads into a new archive page, but moved the whole damn thing (ongoing discussions included), wiping out the history in the process. ornis 23:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Moving a page does not mean anything gets "wiped", it's just changing the location. –Fatalis 00:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually the history does get wiped (or rather moved over to the new location). It's generally not a good idea to archive pages this way, since it obscures the entire history. Who's going to know that they have to go to Archive 12 to find the history? Silly rabbit 00:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll keep that in mind next time, but it still doesn't make it vandalism. –Fatalis 00:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It was. I stand by the accusation. If you were attempting what you claim you were, you would have left a message for on the discussion, and you would have selectively archived. Doesn't matter now, you are on everyone's list now. And your rude comments to me on your Talk page, that will make you a hero I'm sure. Orangemarlin 00:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it, since there are probably at least some people who understand the policies. You're also under a faulty impression that I'm a "POV warrior". And I think I've said quite little to you, considering the circumstances. Someone else might have said much stronger words, having had an unstable dolt lashing out on them. –Fatalis 08:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)