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stop being an idiot ] 07:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC) stop being an idiot ] 07:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
:Let's define "idiot"--1. an utterly foolish or senseless person. 2. Psychology. a person of the lowest order in a former classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25. Since a "foolish or senseless" person would be wholly subjective, it's probably a ] on me. On the other hand, unless I've fooled 4 different universities, my medical school, and several medical boards, my IQ probably ranks quite a bit above 25. Therefore, I would suggest a good reading of ] and the aforementioned rules on personal attacks. What so you? ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 16:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

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Barnstars and related

On the Hoyle-Boeing-thing-going

Hi Orange, I will try to get back when I have an identity on WP, planning to do so. Until now I've left comments here and there signing with IP. I saw you had a bad day checking for the original Hoyle quotation. This was from some archived discussion group, objections - evolution, or something. I don't have a firm reference at hand. Here's what I think, what I remember (I'm a physicist). Hoyle might have written it in a book, rather than an article. The book was coauthred, but I don't remember the name of the other author (Indian sounding). Whether or not the quote is there in that book, I think I know what he was referring to. Hoyle (almost certainly) firmly believed in evolution through natural selection, he understood that mechanism, he never questioned it, or he was just uninterested in it. What he was actually concerned about was the origin of life. He thought that life must have emerged somewhere in the universe, not on Earth specifically. Wherever it originated, it has travelled everywhere through comets and the likes. His motivation for coming up with this hypothesis was that life is very improbable, too improbable to arise in many planets independently at (more or less) the same time. But the Universe is very vast. So, by extending the "pool" for life to begin to the entire universe, such probability might become sensible. In summary, he argued, life has originated only once somewhere sometime in a vast universe (he probably still believed vaster than most do), and then was spread all around. This is also known as panspermia. Hoyle is using a kind of entropic principle he had used before for an outstanding discovery in Physics regarding how carbon atoms arose in stars. To paraphrase, he thought that a functional boeing can actually come around by chance if tornadoes are happening all over a vast universe at the same time. To conclude, his boeing argument was an argument in favor of panspermia, in relation to the origin of life, and had absolutely nothing to do with evolution, nor evolution by means of natural selection. It goes without saying that recent findings that suggest life exists in meteorites, compatibly with Hoyle, are dismissed as false by creationists, who cite Hoyle's objections out of conetxt, but then refuse to embrace his authority in regard to the origin of life (and the related findings possibly confirming one prediction of his). In other words, Hoyle passes from being a total genius in their view when he proposes the boeing argument, to a pure idiot just a few lines later when he advocates panspermia. --209.150.240.231 04:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

You mean Hoyle, the confusing guy? I swear everytime I read something of his, he's saying something different. Do I know you? Orangemarlin 05:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
It is not likely we know each other. Not from WP though, I still have to open a user account. I make just comments to talk pages, usually suggestions for articles, anonimously.
Re: Hoyle. I am certain he proposed panspermia. I'm almost certain (99.9%) that's were he used the Boeing 747 example, which was not meant to be literal, of course it wasn't. He couldn't see an easy mechanism for the origin of life, so he kind of went for an argument from ignorance (I cannot see it so it must be very very improbable). But in essence he was just trying to increase the probability for life, still from the point of view of a pure naturalist/scientist, by enlarging the stage for life's first step (from Earth alone to space). One could accuse him of not being expert in that field, but he was not totally crazy, just bizarre (none other than Crick is another proponent of panspermia). His version also had kind of constant injection of biological "stuff" from space. But predisposition to bizarre theories is what has made the day for many scientists. Holye not being awarded the Nobel prize in Physics with Fowler was an injustice, but the intuition he started from was kind of bizarre, but absolutely correct. He was opposed, maybe, for his character. But to my knowledge, he never took any stance on Darwin. --209.150.240.231 05:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Dunno if this helps, http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/chance/chance.html attributes the Boeing quote to Hoyle F Evolution from Space JM Dent 1981, http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wic.html#nonchris refers panspermia to Hoyle, Fred & Chandra Wickramsinghe, Evolution from Space: A Theory of Cosmic Creationism (Simon & Schuster, NY, 1981). At Kitzmiller, Behe testified that "n the year 1973, a man named Francis Crick, the eminent Nobel laureate who discovered the double helicle shape of DNA with James Watson, he published, with a co-author named Leslie Orgle, he published a paper entitled Directed Panspermia, which appeared in the science journal Icarus.", while Buell testified "Dr. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe published together an article in the journal, a technical journal called Icarus. The title of the article was Directed Panspermia. ... and then Dr. Hoyle... wrote a book entitled the Intelligent Universe." Make what you will of that lot. .. dave souza, talk 11:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Hoyle also presented a paper on panspermia at a Royal Astronomical Society meeting in 85/86 (can't quite remember but can look it up if necessary) which was not well received (got very heated to say the least). Chandra Wickramasinghe was also lecturing at the time as we invited him to talk to our Astrosoc and from what I remember he was analysing cyclical patterns in disease outbreaks - the biologists in the audience complained that all he had done was prove that people got colds in the winter! Neither mentioned boeings in relation to these as far as I recall - they were just trying to get a serious debate started on whether life could have "seeded" in the same way other elements that make up the earth have come from other parts of the universe. Hoyle was a really nice man and it's sad that his legacy is so warped by the fixations of the time. This "life in comets" could prove him right yet. Sophia 22:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, probably Hoyle had an issue with natural selection too. Anyway, the 747 mystery might have no solution. Maybe it's not even in print anywhere. One hypothesis is that he mentioned it during a radio program. Now, that'd be interesting, as he had also invented the term Big Bang during a radio program (to mock it, actually). Anyway, Dawkins mentions it in The Blind Watchmaker. He's quite reliable, therefore I assume the quote is correctly attributed, wherever he learned about it. --209.150.240.231 06:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC) That was me! Now I exist as a wikipedian. --Gibbzmann 16:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Scary articles

Below are articles articles, mostly medical but some in the sciences, that promote ideas or POV's that might endanger human life. Feel free to add your own, but I'm watching and cleaning up these articles. Please sign if you add something.

Re: another Mac question

Hi there! Sorry it took so long to get back to you, but I've been on a knitting bender, making socks for Christmas gifts, then the archiving bot took your post to my talk page archive before I saw it.

Anyway, if there's a program to help lose weight, I haven't found it, but I'm optimistic. When I had my first child, I lost 24 pounds in six days, so I've done it once and can do it again. That was expensive, though. And I had to take a baby boy home with me too. ;-) You could always turn to the myriad 'supplements,' like the ones that use chitin to bind cholesterol or some other such nonsense. (If that really worked, why not just eat lobster shells with a nice sauce and a lot of liquor and be done with it?)

Can't help you with the women, though. OTOH, it _is_ July, and you could always go over to a hospital near you and check out the brand new crop of wide-eyed interns. You know it's July when we have to dust off the "Ventilator Settings and IV Orders In The Real World" class and give it to them every damn morning until it sinks into their skulls. No software to teach them the difference between medical school and reality, and I'm _not_ optimistic about that. I guess I can't have everything.

Seriously, though, the apps/scripts I use most often, besides Butler, for Wiki-stuff (apologies if I've told you about these before):

  • My monobook.js file has Lupin's popups, Misza13's Status Switcher, and Twinkle.
  • TextExpander - a preference pane (accessed through System Preferences) allows me to type shortcuts - like "kk" for the four tildes, "citenews" to put in the {{cite news}} template, "oldafd" for {{Oldafdfull}}, and so on. It keeps track of how much time it saves you, and I'm at 2.86 hours of typing time saved. TextExpander was developed originally by the same guy who wrote Butler, Peter Maurer. He sold it to SmileOnMyMac last year sometime.
  • PTHPasteboard PRO - Butler allows custom pasteboards, which is good, but I've run into problems with instability if I ask it to save more than 50 pasteboards. PTHPasteboard is another preference pane that holds as many as I want and lets me do more things with them. I can name them, use hot keys for pasting each particular thing, and I can even publish and share pasteboards with other users (I haven't done that yet). There's a free version that I used for a long time, but I'm glad I paid the $20 for the pro version.
  • Sidenote - Sidenote is a tiny little memo app that hides on the side of your window and slides out when you need to jot something down. It's freeware, and you can create as many little notes as you like, format them with color, font, text size, and titles, name them, email them, export them, and more. It's very handy for numbers, phrases, instructions, quick reminders, grocery lists, and so on. For admin duties, I use it to hold blocks of text while editing, and for AFDs that I've relisted - each relisted AFD has to be manually removed from the old log and inserted into the new date, and I do that in batches of four or five, so I list their titles there so I can make sure I handle each one correctly.
  • browseback - another SmileOnMyMac app that runs in the background and saves my browser history. I used to use HistoryHound, but it didn't save the page as it's viewed, and browseback does. There have been some complaints about the app's CPU usage, but Camino uses more than browseback does, and I'm on a 15" PowerBook G4 with 1.5GB of RAM. If you use Application Enhancer, browseback has to be on its Master Exclude List because it crashes otherwise, but don't worry about it if you don't use anything that requires Application Enhancer to run.
  • Saft - I use Camino as my default browser, but when I do use Safari I use Saft. Saft is an input manager that lets me customize features of Safari. There's at least 50 different things it does, so go to VersionTracker if you want to check it out. The developer is a Chinese guy living in Sweden and his English isn't perfect, but he's really quick with support if you need it.

Okay, I'll shut up now. Email me if you have any questions, so I don't clutter up your talk page. It's time to eat some ice cream. See ya - KrakatoaKatie 22:52, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

A Barnstar

File:Resilient-silver.png The Resilient Barnstar
For unbelievable efforts to bring Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event to FA status. Filll 22:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Squeak!
Have a squeaky rubber Tiktaalik for services to mass extinctions! Thanks for your persistence and hard work, .. dave souza, talk 20:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Actually when I saw your contribution history and barnstars I figured there was some sensible explanation for your decision. In an ideal world I'd agree with you, but the Misplaced Pages where I edit has a chronic shortage of volunteers to address sneaky exploitation. After the WP:RFI board collapsed for lack of manpower I made a commitment to identify, coach, and nominate good people in this area. Have a look at this investigation for the type of report that catches my attention. Hu12 isn't a wordsmith - never was and probably never will be - but he's got the right stuff to be an outstanding wikisleuth. Virgil Griffith's WikiScanner has finally shown people how much we need sleuths. I do encourage my coaching students to spend time in mainspace and I prefer if they earn at least one GA before asking for a mop, partly because of sympathy with your perspective and partly because I've seen strange and unworkable ideas from editors who headed into Misplaced Pages namespace without enough field experience writing articles. We've all got our strengths and our weaknesses. Durova 14:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's the problem with some of the applicants lately--they lack experience. Look at some of the arguments going on with regards to image deletion and wiki-lawyering by a few individuals. Admins who step into that minefield are getting abused or are quitting. It's because some of those admins lack experience in establishing consensus and resolving conflict. Experienced editors who are involved in contentious articles learn what to do and what not to do. I don't mind editors like Jim62sch, even though they are this side of civility, because they have tremendous experience in dealing with arguments and bad faith discussions. Though Navou may work out in the end, what troubles me is that he/she has spent so much time being rather vanilla, it's hard to ascertain how they actually can help the project.
But yes, we do need janitors on this project. But we need skill full negotiators and leaders much more. I want to demand both. So, let me see an editor who got into a battle over an important issue, stood their ground, pulled together a consensus, and made the project better. That's a great admin. Who cares about violating WP:CIVIL or WP:AGF every once in a while? We are getting mediocre instead. And no, I do not know if Navou is mediocre or the best ever--but I'd be happier with a lot more experience over a wider range of contentious and difficult issues in both mainspace and in talkspace. Oh, and i demand at least one FA. I nearly quit this project over my first FA. I'm still recovering. OrangeMarlin 00:03, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

And...

Oh, and this is also incivil. Please show some caution William M. Connolley 11:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm an experienced editor with no blocks. Please show some caution. OrangeMarlin 12:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Just because you are experienced with no blocks doesn't mean that your comment wasn't incivil. Your response to William is also inappropriate. Majorly (talk) 16:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
This is the second time that you've attacked me. And please indicate in what way the above response was uncivil. OrangeMarlin 17:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Second? I don't see any attacks, just a reasonable warning. Mimicking in your response is what I meant. Majorly (talk) 17:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but this comment was rude and #1. Above was rude and #2. William requires a slap on the hand for his being an involved admin and blocking someone. In both cases, you attacked me without all the facts in hand. In #1, you made no effort to look at my consistent voting patterns on RfA's. On #2, you appeared to (and I'm going to make a minor good faith effort here) not make an effort to examine the facts behind my arguments with William. In both cases, your response was not balanced to my viewpoint. So that's why I feel I've been attacked twice by you in a week, and these attacks came out of the blue, since I have never seen you until #1 occurred (and that really doesn't matter, since we just don't cross paths I assume). OrangeMarlin 17:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Your nomination of Jim just goes to show how inconsistent you are. If you think I'm attacking you, please report me to an administrator who will deal with my behaviour immediately. Majorly (talk) 18:23, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
It wasn't, as I explained to Durova (publicly I might add). Jim admonishes vandals (the janitor side) and develops article (the leadership side). I expect both. Please read my comments here and here which I believe outline my feelings on RfA's. I am highly consistent. Furthermore, I don't complain to admins. It's not my style. I point out what I see to the editor directly, and if you choose to ignore it, dismiss it, or accept it, feel free to choose one or all. Oh, just in case you look through my thousands of edits, and choose to think I am inconsistent, I do file sockpuppetry charges against those who evade blocks or bans (I just find that offensive), and I participate in RfC's or ANI's with respect to editors and/or admins who are abusive. You are not. WMC is not (at this time, but he bears watching).OrangeMarlin 18:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Alright, sorry to have bothered you. Majorly (talk) 18:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
No bother. I appreciated this conversation. OrangeMarlin 19:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Abusive edit summaries

Hi there. The recent set of edit summaries in Homeopathy that contain profane and abusive langauge are unacceptable and constitute personal attacks on other editors. Acting in this way is disruptive and will lead to sanctions against you. If you feel yourself losing it, please step away from the keyboard! Tim Vickers 16:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Tim, personal attacks? On whom? Certainly not you, because I'd be quite upset with myself if I had ever attacked you on anything.OrangeMarlin 17:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Hi, sorry to butt in, but it looks like you're hearing from a couple of pretty reasonable folks who are concerned about some of your recent comments. Without judging those comments or throwing around policies, I do get the sense that you're getting a bit stressed. This is a very common occurrence, particularly among editors like ourselves who work on controversial topics and deal with difficult situations and editors. I've been there. Again, without judging your previous comments, let me add my voice to those that suggest that it's a good time to take a deep breath and recharge your tolerance for the inevitable by-products of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I think I'd be remiss if I didn't add my voice to those suggesting that cooling off would be a good idea. MastCell 17:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely not stressed. Just pretty upset with the level of censorship around here. I'm making a point that censoring is unacceptable. And I think civility is a judgement call. I'm a Californian, and I consider it uncivil for someone to not let me change lanes after turning on my signal--around here, we allow people to do that. In New York, turning on your signal is license to block you from changing lanes. In Utah, giving someone the finger for blocking your lane-change might get you arrested. It's unfair that one admin can block someone based on their perception of what is or is not profanity, is or is not civility and is or is not a personal attack. These are judgement calls that harm a person's reputation. BUT, I will cut the profanity, because my point isn't being made, and though I'm concerned that some admins are NOT reasonable, you and Tim Vickers certainly are. I will heed the warning. But please don't worry about my stress level--I'm pissed at the what goes on around here (try looking at the image deletion wars), but I guess violating WP:POINT is not worth the trouble. OrangeMarlin 17:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Whenever I feel that POV-pushers, religious nuts and plain off-the-wall weirdness are upsetting me, I just go off and edit articles that have absolutely no interest to such people, such as Ellman's reagent or Electron-transferring flavoprotein. Keep in mind that there's no point in getting worked up about stuff here - it's just an encyclopedia. Tim Vickers 23:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Believe it or not, back when Evolution was going through the FAC process (that you did a great job leading), and I had gotten tired of the 28th troll saying that Evolution was JUST a theory, I went off and started to edit Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event because I just thought that it wouldn't even be close to being contentious. It was in miserable shape. First, I had to move away from the various theories of what caused the extinction and just write about the extinction. Then, I got it to GA. Then the hard work (and contentious editing) to get it to FA. Now I'm going to work on Minoan eruption--except there is a battle out there in the academic world on how to date the eruption (C14 and everything else give it one date, Egyptologists think it was 100 years later--if the eruption is actually 100 years earlier than the archeologists believe, it sort of blows up a whole bunch of Egyptian timelines). So, I'm just to intellectually curious to edit say an article on the UEFA cup, because it has to be very dull and uninteresting to the English Misplaced Pages audience.  :) But seriously, thanks for your advice. I won't let the fools get under my collar. But I really was trying to make a point.  :) OrangeMarlin 23:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
If you're interested, given your medical background, we could definitely use your help at WP:CLINMED. Right now I've been meaning to work on pancreatic cancer (especially given increased traffic in the wake of Pavarotti's death) and chronic myelogenous leukemia, which is about 52% of the way to FA (I think). Anyway, neither is likely to be controversial, so if you need a break we could definitely use your help. MastCell 23:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd be interested. But as for noncontroversial, just keep away the editor who writes "if you eat 7 kg of peaches with 1 l of cheap red wine, pancreatic cancer will be cured. See, Journal of Alternative and Sub Eastern Pharmacology." I'll proceed to blow out my right coronary artery and die. OrangeMarlin 00:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Break to move on to another topic

Must agree that's wise, however infuriating the nonsense. Speaking of which, could I draw on your expertise to confirm that this answer is correct? Well it made me laugh ;) .... dave souza, talk 18:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It is infuriating, but when Tim and MastCell have to slap me around, then I have to stop. But can I just growl a bit now and again? Please?  :) OK, to answer your question, every time I read this kind of comment, it goes to those old Creationist canards. He's confusing Abiogenesis with evolution. Right now, we don't have a good handle on what started life, but there are some very healthy theories. In addition, through the use of a confusing logic, including the use of big words, he's trying to convince us that macro and micro evolution are different. Again. Your reply was good. OrangeMarlin 18:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Worrying about predicting individual outcomes in a statistical process! Does "a simple Wiener Process" mean that the writer is a sausage? Oops, excuse my growl... dave souza, talk 19:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

restless legs syndrome

stop being an idiot Bunty.Gill 07:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's define "idiot"--1. an utterly foolish or senseless person. 2. Psychology. a person of the lowest order in a former classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25. Since a "foolish or senseless" person would be wholly subjective, it's probably a personal attack on me. On the other hand, unless I've fooled 4 different universities, my medical school, and several medical boards, my IQ probably ranks quite a bit above 25. Therefore, I would suggest a good reading of WP:CIVIL and the aforementioned rules on personal attacks. What so you? OrangeMarlin 16:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)