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Cardiology task force

Cardiology task force

Cardiology task force is looking for editors to help build and maintain comprehensive, informative, balanced articles related to Cardiology on Misplaced Pages. Start by adding your name to the list of participants at Cardiology task force Participants. ECG Unit (Welcome!)

-- ~~~~

Maen. K. A. (talk) 23:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• Those were the days! --JWSchmidt (talk) 04:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

PCDH19 mutations that cause epilepsy

Yeah, that article you linked to should probably be included on the GEFS+ page. I haven't read it particularly closely, did they surmise how mutations in PCDH19 might lead to epilepsy? I'm not particularly familiar with that family of proteins. --Dpryan (talk) 19:04, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Gene Theory

You wrote to me: "I think the reason we seldom hear "gene theory" these days is that everyone assumes it is just a fact that genes are the basis of inheritance in living organisms. There was a time in the past when there were debates about "gene theory", for example see this: The Embryological Origins of the Gene Theory."

JW, I have read this through this essay because it is basically the ONLY reputable reference to this idea on the web. Scott Gilbert is using the phrase informally and whatever it may have meant 100 years ago, it was never adopted as a formal theory in the way that the cell theory, evolution, and gravity have been. Gilbert does not mean for the word "theory" to be taken in that sense.

The problem with introducing a novel theory and calling it "gene theory" is two-fold. First of all, it is not a part of the lexicon of biology. Second, because it has no formal roots, anyone can define it anyway they like, which is what I am seeing here and elsewhere. But as far as I can tell, the root of the problem is here on this page. People are picking up the idea from this Misplaced Pages entry that there is a formal scientific theory called "gene theory" and as far as I can tell, there is not and has never been. This thing needs to be eradicated before ever more students and teachers are confused. Eperotao (talk) 05:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I have responded to your note on my talk page. Cheers. Eperotao (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful note. I will give Biology, some attention. "In this age of specialization there does not seem to be many people who are willing to take on the task of caring for pages that cover such a broad subject." I happen to be a specialist in general biology, if that makes any sense. I'll see what I can do.

Regarding Gene Theory, I have looked at several modern biology textbooks, including the two top selling textbooks for college biology majors in the United States--Campbell (1200 pages) and Purves (1200 pages)--plus Starr & Taggart, Tobin & Dusheck, Mader, Postelthwaite, and Hoagland--and no "gene theory" anywhere. Also just to be even more sure, I checked two college genetics textbooks and a four-volume encyclopedia of genetics. Nothing.

Cheers, Eperotao (talk) 19:14, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Nootheridavailable

this diff. At the time it was about where the conversation ended. Daniel Case (talk) 23:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

For more information on this editor, I'd suggest reviewing the deleted revisions at User talk:Ramaanand, particularly this one. I felt that the editor in question had been given too quick a block and offered to guide his contributions. He proceeded to repeatedly spam, promote homeopathy, lie about sockpuppeting whilst slinging bad-faith accusations...generally disrupting the slow progress at one of our more difficult articles. This person has been a general source of frustration for over a year now. — Scientizzle 23:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I've personally avoided the homeopathy article for a while (too easy to burn out there, and I've greater time concerns in RL), but have tried to keep tabs. While Dr. J's recent incarnation was closer to behaviorally acceptable, it was pretty much the same deal as before: obvious lies and general disruption fed by an us-vs.-them mentality (compounded by some clumsy general disruption). My experience and instinct is that this editor will likely never be able to extract himself enough from the topic to work within NPOV, UNDUE, etc. He's got a clear vested interest and doesn't buy into things like WP:MEDRS or WP:FRINGE. Comments here and elsewhere make it clear that his view is that nobody can criticize homeopathy without trying it, and I've never seen an acknowledgement on his part that there are legitimate scientific criticisms. (even similarly-frustrating D. Ullman will grant that concession!) It's a pity, really, because knowledgable homeopaths can and do provide useful information regarding homeopathic practices and views that can really strengthen the article, but he can't seem (or isn't willing) to grasp the collaborative side of things. I would be honestly surpised if this is the last sock of Dr. J that shows up 'round here. — Scientizzle 17:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Your idea could work...it's certainly more than generous. He might be willing to agree to it--I honestly don't know. If you've got the patience for it, give it a shot. — Scientizzle 17:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It certainly seems likely that he's at work with another IP sock today, for what it's worth... — Scientizzle 18:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

An apology

Dear JW, I think I owe you an apology and an explanation for my comments to you on various pages. If I at times seemed irritated, well....I was. For that I apologize. I really think your basic concern (if I understand you correctly), about providing warnings before blocking, is generally a good thing. Since I lived through the whole thing and it really irritated me at the time, I took an interest in the case and in general regarding fighting sockpuppetry and vandalism. (If I had no special interests here, I'd probably be a vandal fighter. As it is, I do it in a rather haphazard fashion. I wish it were possible to have certain tools without having to be an admin.) My irritation grew out of a combination of having experienced the whole situation, and then seeing you second guessing several editors and admins. I felt it was unfair and improper, and expected it to be more proper for you to AGF since you hadn't gone through all the IP's, username's, and situation's edit histories before asking such pointed questions. Your recent comment to Scientizzle seems to indicate that you are beginning to learn the history and understand what we've all been talking about. But regardless of that, I could probably have worded some of my comments better, and I hope this explanation will assure you that I hold no animosity toward you and still respect you as an editor and admin. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Avathaar (talk · contribs)

I agree with Hans' comment and will endeavor to avoid any further derailment of your work at User talk:Avathaar. It was not my intention to contribute to the problem, but I can see how my comments may not be helping the situation. Good luck, — Scientizzle 21:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Response

You had reposted an edit of NoOtherIDAvailable's containing an assertion that appears to be factually inaccurate. I assumed that you were unaware of this and thought that the most appropriate way to inform you was to post the evidence in context. Brunton (talk) 17:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

AN thread started on User:Dr.Jhingaadey

A thread has been started to discuss this whole matter:

• Appropriateness of allowing multiple banned sockmaster Dr.Jhingaadey to return

You are welcome to participate. The wider the community input, the better. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

"One or two specific studies that you think should be mentioned..."

The problem with this approach is that it allows (in fact encourages) cherry-picking of positive papers, even if we restrict ourselves to adequately controlled and blinded studies. The test for statistical significance is that there is a 5% or less chance that the result is the result of chance; this means that even for perfectly designed and conducted trials, one in 20 will produce a false positive. When we factor in the poor quality of many studies (see for example Linde et al. (1999) Impact of study quality on outcome in placebo-controlled trials of homeopathy), and issues such as publication bias and the "desk drawer effect", the occurrence of false positives in published trials is probably much higher than this. Including cherry-picked selections of favourable trials is likely to give a highly misleading impression. The article uses meta analyses and systematic reviews, which include all the available evidence, to avoid this. This has been repeatedly explained to Avathaar (in his previous incarnation as NoOtherIDAvailable).

The study discussed in the passage you linked to is meaningless as far as assessing the efficacy of homoeopathy is concerned because it was neither randomised nor blinded and relied on subjective assessment by the patients, so there is no way it can eliminate the placebo effect. Studies of this type are really not helpful. Regards, Brunton (talk) 10:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

If you want to include studies of this type in a discussion of the popularity of homoeopathy, fair enough (possibly in the Revival in the late 20th century section). But I suspect that Dr. J will want to cite studies as evidence that homoeopathy actually works. My comment about cherry-picking still stands - the article already considers the available evidence as a whole by reference to peer-reviewed analyses and reviews - inserting a few studies with positive results will mean that the article gives a less reliable and well supported impression. Brunton (talk) 14:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: I'm not categorically ruling out mentioning any studies that Dr. J suggests; I'm just pointing out that including individual studies will not add any reliable information to the article, since it already refers to reviews of the literature. Brunton (talk) 14:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Your suggestion of putting an individual study up which is claimed to show results for "a homeopathic therapy as performed by trained homeopaths" and comparing this to a study which is claimed not to be representative of homoeopathic practice could give the entirely misleading impression that any negative results are an artifact caused by not following "proper" homoeopathic practice (especially if the former study is anything like the unblinded outcome study you have suggested at Avathaar's talk page). There is no good evidence that this is the case. In particular, a systematic review of trials of individualised homoeopathy (i.e. homoeopathy as actually practised by classical homoeopaths) shows results that are entirely in line with the rest of the body of homoeopathic research, with a weak effect from all trials (described by the authors as "not convincing because of methodological shortcomings and inconsistencies") vanishing when only those of best methodological quality are considered . Incidentally, there's another relevant point made on my talk page. Brunton (talk) 10:54, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The 1998 Linde/Melchart review found a weak positive from all trials presenting sufficient data for meta analysis, but no significant effect when only the best studies were considered. This is clearly stated in the abstract, and even more clearly shown in the "blobbogram" of their results on p. 383 of the paper. The conditions studied in the trials showing sufficient data were: headache (4 trials); diarrhea (2); rheumatoid arthritis (2); recurrent upper respiratory tract infections; pain after oral surgery; warts on hands; fibrositis; post viral fatigue; pre-menstrual syndrome; acne; amebiasis and giardiasis; aphasia; and "dermatoses and the remedy picture of sulphur". The six trials categorised as "likely to have good methodological quality" were two of the headache trials, URT infection, diarrhea, pain after oral surgery, and warts. Of these six trials, 3 allowed completely free prescribing, and the other three involved prescribing from a selection of remedies that are commonly used in the homoeopathic treatment of the condition in question.

Trials were only selected in the review if either a) the prescribers were completely free in their choice of remedy; b) prescribers chose from a set of remedies frequently used for treating the condition in question; or c) the trial only included patients whose symptom picture matched the remedy used. Although it doesn't (as far as I can see) explicitly state that prescription was carried out by homoeopaths, it does note that an "uncommon feature" of one trial was that a team of homoeopaths had to agree on a remedy. I would suspect that "no homoeopath was involved in prescribing" would be another "uncommon feature"; I don't see who else they'd get to do it, and a trial of individualised homoeopathy not using a competent homoeopath to do the prescribing would be widely denounced by the homoeopathic community, at least if it failed to show positive results.

As for your point about "therapy that is only called "homeopathy" by doctors who do not actually practice homeopathy", it is kind of hard to guess what this might look like when you consider the types of therapy that are called "homeopathy" by doctors who actually do practise homoeopathy. See for example Phase III Randomized Trial of Calendula Officinalis Compared With Trolamine for the Prevention of Acute Dermatitis During Irradiation for Breast Cancer. You will look in vain for any mention of individualised prescribing, serial dilution, succussion, or any kind of homoeopathic approach. The treatment in question is an ointment prepared from a herbal extract. This study was included (on the grounds that the extract fulfilled the criteria for a mother tincture from which homoeopathic remedies could be made) in a recent Cochrane Collaboration review of homoeopathic medicines for adverse effects of cancer treatments, the authors of which included three members of staff at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, one of whom was Peter Fisher, who in addition to being "clinical director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, and homeopath to Her Majesty the Queen" is also editor of the journal Homeopathy. Seeing the sort of studies that are endorsed by the homoeopathic establishment, it is difficult to justify excluding studies because the individualisation/prescribing process involved may not have been quite ideal. Brunton (talk) 21:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't push that "what are the active ingredients" paper too hard with Avathaar - he's already said that he considers "placebo therapy" to be inflammatory. Brunton (talk) 05:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Homeopathic dilutions

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Homeopathic dilutions, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process because of the following concern:

Article appears to be original research/synthesis to advance a position

All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Misplaced Pages's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Misplaced Pages is not" and Misplaced Pages's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because, even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. —Whig (talk) 02:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

BLP

Stating that "Michael Jackson's doctor gave him so many allopathic drugs (all together) that he died!" is a WP:BLP violation of the first order. It isn't clear to me whether you are acting as User:Avathaar's advocate or as his mentor, but if the latter then you should warn him about such blatant violations of an important policy. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Data Processing Cave days

I had to laugh when I read your user page. I learned APL in college, and I still remember that ball whirling across the page printing out what looked like part equation, part greek alphabet. It was a lot of fun to work with. I was telling my son and his girlfriend about my early programming days and what I had to do to create a program - drawing flowcharts on paper with a flowchart template. Writing programs to be punched out. testing on little tubes with green letters (hey they still have those) and they were just shaking their head, like they couldn't believe it. LOL I told them about rooms of people just punching cards. I'm glad the cards were being phased out when I started working.. actually big companies had phased them out, but a lot of smaller companies clinged to those cards.. didn't trust just saving programs on disk. They wanted backup with a cardfile. Seems unbelievable now. I,too, have also wondered how the "Misplaced Pages" method of editing influences what editors end up participating long term in Misplaced Pages. It is not exactly the most user friendly language. I wonder how many people just don't want to bother with having to learn a new editing language to just make an edit - that is, if you can even find the part you wanted to edit when you look at the wikipedia code that created the page. If you have a large section, it can be quite intimidating to some people. --stmrlbs|talk 06:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

--stmrlbs|talk 00:33, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Avathaar's restrictions

Hi John. I tried to make this clear earlier, but it's really up to you whether or not Avathaar can edit outside his user page. Demanding that other people "let him" is really missing the mark, because you're the one who presented the conditions to him.

I realize that puts you in an uncomfortable position </understatement>, but if you're going to stick your neck out like this, you need to be willing to keep it stuck out until the crisis passes. As far as I can tell, you're not breaking any policies (well, borderline CIVIL, but I'm not going there with you), and I'll continue to defend your right to mentor (again, outside of the fuzzy CIVIL stuff).

FWIW, the discussions at the bottom of Avathaar's talk are (IMHO) a brilliant example of mentoring. OTOH, your approach to the other interested editors leaves much to be desired. You might want to bear in mind that Avathaar may end up being judged by your actions. Please be more careful. --SB_Johnny |  18:33, 6 July 2009 (UTC)