Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 11:24, 2 March 2009

I have a simple two to three step process for refactoring comments that seem to anyone to be uncivil:

Once you provide at least information relating to the first two steps, I will usually immediately refactor. The third step is optional.

ScienceApologist (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Until 28 February 2009 due to being tired of one-sided enforcement and wikistalkers, this user is taking a short wikibreak and will be back on Misplaced Pages soon.

ANI Notice

You were mentioned in an ANI posting at WP:ANI#ScienceApologist continuing misconduct. I wouldn't take it with a grain of salt, IMO. seicer | talk | contribs 01:44, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Alien Interbreeding

When you return we can get started on this article based on the information provided here . ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to your return. In the meantime some major article expansion is underway... . ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry, I added a citation needed tag here . ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Since you've been gone I've had to revert the above massive addition to Ashtar and voted to delete some author/abductee. These are tough times, you know how much I love that kind of thing. When are you going to be back in action? ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe not for a while if the arbcom has its way. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:50, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that. Although I guess that means the exopolitics article I created will be safe for a while? Do you have a link to your tribunal? It's too bad there isn't a way to disappear for a while and come back quietly in a new form... Or did you try that and get busted??? I get the impression you tend to leave large footprints. Have you tried slippers? Anyway, I hope you're enjoying your break. Be good. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:03, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

David Talbott

Re: David Talbott -- sempre vigilance. See the latest version of his page and the RfD discussion. Editor Davesmith_au is a most tenacious defender of his "hero", but not as NPOV as he expects others to be. Phaedrus7 (talk) 20:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• I have posted a response to these baseless assertions here Davesmith au (talk) 04:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Davesmith_au is clearly in a COI situation. Yet one can see why he jumps in and defends the article against the attacks of ScienceApologist, who feels he has a license to add unsourced bad stuff to bios of people with pseudoscientific ideas. If SA would back off and respect NPOV, then Davesmith might back off, too. We had the bio in decent shape for a while, I thought, then SA came in and started trashing it (see a dozen or so edits starting here). Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

To Davesmith_au's objection to the comment that Talbott is his "hero", I offer the sage poetic couplet from Robert "Bobby" Burns: "O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!" And in a more colloquial vein: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If Davesmith_au had so much as a scintilla of scientific literacy and interdisciplinary acumen, he would realize in an instant that Talbott's ideas are "crackpot" in the first order and not worth all the effort beyond accuracy he is expending in their defense. Talbott is wrong about the "polar configuration" because, as students of the origin of religion know full well, the first gods were not planets as he insists. In Mesopotamia, the early head of the pantheon, Enlil (whose name means "Lord Plow" or "Lord Earth"), was never associated with a planet, but with part of the constellation we call Draco and the Pole of the Ecliptic, a position in the sky that has no meaning in Talbott's "Saturn Thesis", whose fixation is the Pole of the Equator; and when Talbott was confronted with this fact in a footnote in his book The Saturn Myth (p. 342, n. 60), concerning a reference to Peter Jensen's book, he merely stated "I certainly cannot accept" this, as was cited in the version prior to Dicklyon's drastic revision. If Davesmith_au were as objective an editor as his frequent invocation of NPOV would indicate, then he would have at least cited the criticisms of Ashton, Rose and James in his edits to Talbott's entry, references he cannot plead ignorance of considering they were cited in the long version shortened by Dicklyon. 128.252.173.64 (talk) 21:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC) Phaedrus7 (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Correction: I hasten to correct an error in stating the meaning of the name Enlil earlier. The name Enlil actually means "Lord Wind", not "Lord Plow" or "Lord Earth". These latter translations apply to Enlil's son Ninurta, wh early on was assimilated to planet Saturn and in later times in Assyria to planet Mars, when the planetary association was traded with Nergal. Such theological associations were arbitrary in the service of astrology, since the Mesopotamians also had technical, or astronomical, names for the planets besides the names of major deities. Thus Saturn, besides being associated with Ninurta, had the astronomical name "Lu-Bat Sag-Us", i.e., the steady planet. It is the origin of these technical names that Morris Jastrow, Jr., was discussing when he noted that Saturn was named some unspecified time after Jupiter and Venus had been given special names, during which time Saturn was lumped together with Mars and Mercury as mere "Lu Bats" whose identity was inferred from context. Such an anonymous identity for Saturn is totally incompatible with Talbott's insistence on the primordial importance of planet Saturn. And while I am at it making corrections, let me point out that Jensen in 1890 identified god Anu with the "Pole of the Ecliptic" and god Enlil with the "Pole of the Equator", but soon thereafter Assyriologists decided that the identifications should be switched so that Enlil became identified with the "Pole of the Ecliptic". This change does not negate the essential fact that our ancestors in the 3rd millennium B.C.E. had identified both the "Pole of the Equator" and the "Pole of the Ecliptic", a realization that totally eviscerates Talbott's "Saturn Myth" fantasy in which the "Pole of the Equator" reigned supreme in its solitude. Phaedrus7 (talk) 22:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• A response to this is here. And why continue to snot up ScienceApologist's talk page when he's not here to wipe the snot? The appropriate place would be your talk page or mine, not that of a third party who is not even here. Whilst SA and I have our differences, this strange behavior of yours is highly inappropriate. Davesmith au (talk) 07:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Exopolitics

I was thinking about this not so long back, after the article was kept at AFD... the no consensus close is a bit iffy, and it probably should be looked over at DRV, but I'm failing to think of a reason why. Could you try and think of one? You're a bit more articulate (if a bit rude at times) with dealing with fringe concepts. Sceptre 04:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Quote mining

Since you've contributed to it in the past, I thought you might want to look in once more on the article's present state and current RfC. arimareiji (talk) 14:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

NYC Meetup: You're invited!

New York City Meetup—Museum Extravanganza Next: February 6-7, at the Met Museum and the Brooklyn Museum Last: 01//2008 This box: view • talk • edit

Join us the evenings of Friday February 6 and Saturday February 7 around Misplaced Pages Loves Art! museum photography events at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum.

There will also be a special business meeting on Saturday dedicated to discussing meta:Wikimedia New York City issues with guests from the Wikimedia Foundation.

You can add or remove your name from the New York City Meetups invite list at Misplaced Pages:Meetup/NYC/Invite list.

To keep up-to-date on local events, you can also join our mailing list.
This has been automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Help with dealing a cultic subject?

Hi,

I recently developed Hannes Vanaküla, based mostly on recent months' media coverage of the man. Unfortunately, as so often happens with cult circles, a follower of his has shown up, and is making disturbing assertions on the topic of WP:BLP. Unfortunately, I'm not really familiar with BLP issues on Misplaced Pages.

Could you take a look, and make suggestions on making sure that any legitimate concerns that might arise are covered? I know there is no point in dealing with the irrational concerns, but this kind of people are sometimes rather active in getting admins involved.

Thanks in advance. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 15:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Article on Andy Tomlinson

I've been contacted by Michael Strobel about an article he wrote about me the copy of which I have now read. It all seems factual and accurate. I know he is trying to improve the quality of the current article which has been flagged for improvements. What amazed me when I looked at the discussion page is why constructive critism on his submitted article was not given and it was simply dismissed. To simply say the Scientific and Medical Newtork (SMN) in which some of my articles have been published is "a journal article looks to me like an unindexed, low-impact field journal designed to make pseudoscientists feel better" is way off the mark. I wonder what image Misplaced Pages would create if this came to the attention of the SMN chairman Prof John Clarke, or the board of directors including Prof Bernard Carr, Dr. Oliver Robinson, or Professor Marilyn Monk let alone the thousands of professionals and scientist that belong to it. Is this the image Misplaced Pages wants at a time its seeking funds? I think you need to back down or let your colleague editors be the judge of the acceptance of his article. Andy Tomlinson (talk) 20:56, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

You possibly should have a read of Misplaced Pages's conflict of interest policies (see WP:COI for more information). Ta Shot info (talk) 22:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Guidelines and Policies

Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy

Misplaced Pages is not a moot court, and rules are not the purpose of the community. Instruction creep should be avoided. Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive. They represent an evolving community consensus for how to improve the encyclopedia and are not a code of law. A procedural error made in posting anything, such as an idea or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that post. Similarly, do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy to violate the principles of the policy (see Misplaced Pages's guideline on gaming the system). If the rules prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures

I found this in WP:NOT, make of it what you will. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GundamMerc (talk • contribs) 13:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Another sock? They've already made edits that have had to be oversighted. Verbal chat 14:36, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Reversed burden of proof problem - help needed

I wonder if you are able to comment on the following principle, relevant to the Ayn Rand dispute - see the talk page, and see WP:Requests_for_arbitration/Ayn_Rand. The problem is as follows: William Vallicella, who is a recognised Kant scholar, has published something in a blog post about Rand having completely misunderstood Kant. Someone has objected that while Vallicella is a recognised Kant scholar, he has not published on Rand in reliable sources (a blog post not being considered RS), and so the citation cannot be allowed.

This is the reverse burden of proof problem - it is hard to find scientific sources that discuss pseudoscience. In such cases I believe it is legitimate to source from non-promotional descriptions of pseudoscience that can only be obtained from second- and third-party sources and not peer-reviewed.

The dispute also has affinities with the special pleading problem - that pseudoscientists (or in this case, pseudoacademics) can object that the academics are not expert in the pseudoacademic subject. This is of course an absurd argument, and if allowed unchallenged, would open the floodgate - any advocate of any fringe view could object that the advocates of scientific method simply didn't understand the pseudoscientific 'theory' being advanced.

I appreciate you are not an expert on philosophy (at least I assume not). But this has little to do with philosophy, and everything to do with the need to establish a precedent in Misplaced Pages policy. Because science is generally silent about pseudoscience, it is difficult to reliably source scientific views on pseudoscience. In such a case, we should be allowed to source views of established scientists or academics or scholars, from any available sources (giving precedence to reliable independent sources where possible).

Principle: if an established scientist, scholar or academic has made statements about a pseudoscientific or pseudo-academic subject, then whatever the source of that statement, it should be allowed as a reliable source, if no other sources are available. Peter Damian (talk) 12:40, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a good principle. I think I'm going to add it to my user page. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Peter, I'm not planning on joining the ArbCom, but I'm willing to make a statement supporting your common-sense and necessary proposal. (Don't we already have a guideline like this?) kwami (talk) 02:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Tyrannosaur meat

What was that link you sent me refuting the Discover magazine story about fresh tyrannosaur meat that my Fundamentalist friend adores? --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 16:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Reacting to Galileo

It's hard to say how any of us would have reacted to Galileo, had we been alive at the time. However, I don't think you can quite put Galileo into the same class as pseudoscientists of today, because Galileo typically worked from readily reproducible evidence. Galileo's views were pretty convincing to anyone else who pointed a telescope at the sky. Mountains on the Moon, the moons of Jupiter, sunspots, etc. - there would have been no real debate over whether these things existed if everyone at the time agreed on some rules of evidence, and looked through the telescope rather than to the Bible. Modern pseudoscience differs from Galileo's proto-science in that pseudoscientific claims are in general irreproducible, or in some cases readily shown to be fraudulent or delusional with a satisfying scientific explanation of the mechanism of delusion (e.g., dowsing and the Ideo motor response). In any case, if we agree that there is in fact one objective reality, and science is a process of finding successively more accurate approximations of it, then scientific revolutions should keep getting harder to come by. For example, will the Periodic Table of the Elements ever be replaced by something completely different? That gets harder to imagine each year, as more and more evidence accumulates to support the existing mainstream theory. Galileo worked at a time when humans were collectively so much more ignorant than we are today that it's hard to compare the two eras fairly. There is also some selection bias when singling out Galileo - no doubt he was far outnumbered at the time by crackpots nobody remembers today, because their ideas didn't work. --Teratornis (talk) 01:24, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Time tests all ideas. Galileo was an excellent scientist, if he was a rather rude guy. Still, WP:CBALL is worth considering. I use Galileo as a shocker-example: one meant to make a point to the people who complain. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:35, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Interdimensional hypothesis (2nd nomination)

You might consider rewriting the first sentence of your deletion rationale to omit the parenthetical and the word bizarre. - Eldereft (cont.) 06:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Would really like your opinion

I'm at a loss here. It's a long thread, so I've just linked the latest section. Some pearls include:

I am frankly tired of watching anti-fringe editors take articles like homeopathy, alternative medicine, and parapsychology and pack them solid with terms like 'purported', ' unverified', 'pseudoscientific', 'disputed', 'unaccepted' and etc., in a painstaking effort to make the topics look as defunct as possible.

and

Then there is the whole false presumption that "science" and all other knowledge is like some kind of universal monolith where almost everyone is in universal agreement, and the few who dare disagree with "mainstream" hypotheses, deserve to be run out, tarred and feathered. Remember science is paid for by governments, and a lot of it has been spent on very silly things. It was a lot harder to maintain this useful illusion of a monolith in the 1930s, when you had Nazi scientists, Soviet scientists, Western scientists and Chinese scientists, and each of these had their own "mainstream" and "fringe", but many of the things they were researching were almost as silly as some of the things being researched today.

Thanks for your time. Ben (talk) 09:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science

The above-linked Arbitration case has been closed and the final decision published.

ScienceApologist is banned from editing any article relating to fringe science topics, broadly construed, for a period of six months. ScienceApologist is free to edit the talk pages of such articles. Pcarbonn is admonished for needlessly stoking the fires of disputes in the area of fringe science, and is encouraged to direct his efforts elsewhere.

All editors in the disputed area are warned that further disruptive editing in the disputed area will be viewed dimly by the Committee, and may lead to further sanctions being imposed. Editors in the disputed area are encouraged to seek to engage in formal mediation to help establish consensus when coverage of fringe science in an article or group of articles is under dispute. While mediation is not binding, editors are further encouraged to abide by the results of mediation (and other dispute resolution).

For the Arbitration Committee, Gazimoff 00:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Pathetic. My condolences for the time you've been lead to waste on the useless eight. Perhaps you should have gamed Misplaced Pages and gone on Wikibreak like the ArbCom's favourite kookery cheerleader? Nevard (talk) 00:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

A real shame. I'm disappointed by this decision, which will lead to an increase in the presence of pseudo-scientific crap. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 00:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

A real pity :( --Enric Naval (talk) 01:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

But, with every cloud there's a silver lining, or something. Someone like me who has observed from the sidelines for a bit, wondering exactly what fringe science is, appreciates the nice definition given by Arbcom, namely --"In this ruling, the term "fringe science" refers to matters which purport to be science, or use its trappings and terminology but are not usually regarded as such by the general scientific community; and to matters which do not claim to be scientific but nevertheless make claims that are normally considered within the purview of science". That's made it pretty clear that '"....not usually regarded as (science) by the general scientific community...." is a particularly good guideline for future edits to fringe science articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.152.176.181 (talk) 01:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess that's something- on the other hand, the most effective action taking against those promoting killer pseudoscience on sensitive articles has been taken by individual principled admins. If my experience with the pedophilia promotion articles is anything to go on, ArbCom usurping judgement just means drawn out mock court drama where the nuts get to continue promoting their lies in an article with 'Misplaced Pages:Requests for Arbitration/' at the front, and decent users are only wasting their time by 'contributing'. If the pseudoscience pushers are to be policed properly, the only proceedings should be "I have blocked MartinPhi. See ". Nevard (talk) 02:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I wonder which fringe science articles might have contributions from editors who feel that with Science Apologist muzzled for 6 months it is open season to use Misplaced Pages to promote fringe science? Is there a notice board where such articles are tracked? Edison (talk) 02:30, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

It's difficult to have a website be primarily an encyclopedia and also primarily a Swiss finishing school for young ladies—you have to choose one. IMO the ArbCom has made the wrong choice here. Bishonen | talk 12:39, 27 February 2009 (UTC).

Yes a rather poorly thought out decision. What else should we have expected from ArbCom? Verbal chat 15:23, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

@ Edison: yes, the Fringe theories/Noticeboard.

I am most curious how this ruling will be interpreted next time some fringe promoter shows up on, for instance, Redshift; it is a Featured high-importance physics article. I do not know what role if any ScienceApologist played in getting it there, but they have certainly been instrumental in keeping the crap material ignored by the astrophysics community from overrunning it. - Eldereft (cont.) 19:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

(de-indent) Just adding another voice of friendship and support, SA. Misplaced Pages's norms are evolving, and it appears that more people than not want to (a) improve scientific coverage, and (b) improve collegiality. I realize that some believe these two are to some degree mutually incompatible, but I disagree. I think there are good reasons to believe we can have both, and certainly good reasons to try to make it real; it's nice to see some of the commenters above who habitually act from this "good quadrant" of +science, +collegiality, which imo is the sort of thing for which one awards barnstars and so on. Just offering some thoughts and a virtual beverage; that's about it. Happy editing, and best wishes to you. --Middle 8 (talk) 17:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Nil illegitimi carborandum. Keep up the good fight! Rhinoracer (talk) 11:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)