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Welcome!

Hello, Andrew Lancaster, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  --{{IncMan|talk}} 08:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Please explain to me why you think r1a is a domainant haplogroup in Southcentral Asia.

You said that I was trying to dismiss r1a in Southcentral Asia by calling it a pocket. If you look at the map that is clearly what it is. There is a corridor from Russia to Southcentral Asia that ends in a "pocket" or "bubble" or round shaped geographical area, of which the center, where r1a actually reaches more than 50% is an extremely small area compared to the European R1a.

R1a is not a Dominant Haplogroup in Southcentral Asia. There are Tribal groups that have high percentages of R1a because they do not mix with other groups in the area. There are no countries in Southcentral Asia in which R1a reaches a much higher level than 20% except Kyrgyzstan. This article is written in such a way that would imply that R1a is a dominant Haplogroup in Southcentral Asia, when in reality, R1a only accounts for a small fraction of Southcentral Asian men.Jamesdean3295

Maternal origins of European Hunter Gatherers

This may be of some value in these articles....Genetic Discontinuity Between Local Hunter-Gatherers and Central Europe’s First Farmers (Found in Science Express)

Nonetheless, it is intriguing to note that 82% of our 22 hunter-gatherer individuals carried clade U . ...... Europeans today have moderate frequencies of U5 types, ranging from about 1-5% along the Mediterranean coastline to 5-7% in most core European areas, and rising to 10-20% in northeastern European Uralic-speakers. . .

Kant, nous, intellect

Hi Andrew, I'm not a Kant expert, in spite of my limited knowledge of his thoughts on reason. And I don't really have time to get into an in-depth discussion of intellect vs. mind vs. nous vs. reason. However, as I understand it, for the Greeks, nous was the highest possible metaphysical ideal or form, because it was pure form, and true knowledge for the Greeks was the knowledge that revealed the form that was represented in things. John Dewey wrote a great dictionary entry about nous in 1901:

Nous : Ger. Nus (K.G.); Fr. intelligence; Ital. nous. Reason, thought, considered not as subjective, nor as a mere psychic entity, but as having an objective, especially a teleological, significance.

We owe the term, as a technical one, to Anaxagoras. He felt the need of a special principle to account for the order of the universe and so, besides the infinity of simple qualities, assumed a distinct principle, which, however, was still regarded as material, being only lighter and finer than the others. To it, however, greater activity was ascribed, and it acted according to ends, not merely according to mechanical impact, thus giving movement, unity, and system to what had previously been a disordered jumble of inert elements. Plato generalized the nous of Anaxagoras, proclaiming the necessity of a rational (teleological) explanation of all natural processes, and making nous also a thoroughly immaterial principle. As the principle which lays down ends, nous is also the Supreme Good, the source of all other ends and aims; as such it is the supreme principle of all the ideas. It thus gets an ethical and logical connotation as well as a cosmological.

On the other hand, nous gets a psychological significance as the highest form of mental insight, the immediate and absolutely assured knowledge of rational things. (Knowledge and the object of knowledge are thus essentially one.) … In man, however, the νοῦς assumes a dual form: the active (νοῦς ποιητικός), which is free and the source of all man's insight and virtue that links him to the divine (θεωρειν), and the passive (νοῦς παθητικός), which includes thoughts that are dependent upon perception, memory -- experience as mediated through any bodily organ. The distinction (of Kant, but particularly as used by Coleridge) of REASON from UNDERSTANDING (q.v.) may, however, be compared with it, but the modern distinction of the subjective from the objective inevitably gives reason a much more psychological sense than nous possessed with the ancients.

The distinction between knowledge, or understanding, and reason in Kant therefore mirrors the distinctions between is and ought, or nature and freedom. Nikolas Kompridis similarly connects the knowledge/reason distinction to the discovery in Kant of practical reason's connection to possibility vs. experience:

The great innovation of Kant’s critical philosophy was to reconceive reason as spontaneously self-determining, or self-legislating, such that reason

frames for itself with perfect spontaneity an order of its own according to ideas to which it adapts the empirical conditions and according to which it declares actions to be necessary even though they have not taken place and, maybe, never will take place.

As distinct from the rule-governed activity of the understanding (whose rule-governed spontaneity is internally consistent with its concept), reason is a possibility-disclosing activity, proposing ends (‘‘ideas’’) that go beyond what is already given empirically or normatively. This much Kant already understood, if not fully appreciated, which is why he distinguished the possibility- disclosing activity of reason from the rule-governed acquisition and exercise of knowledge: ‘‘as pure self-activity ’’ reason ‘‘is elevated even above the understanding . . . with respect to ideas, reason shows itself to be such a pure spontaneity and that it far transcends anything which sensibility can provide it.’

(Nikolas Kompridis, "The Idea of a New Beginning: A romantic source of normativity and freedom" in Philosophical Romanticism, p.34, 47)

Aristotle

hi andrew, i see you undid my contribution on Aristotle. i understand, since i did't provide sources, and don't know how to include them in wikipedia. anyway: Bradie and Miller : ‘The type of movement required on Aristotle’s account for a potential for form is the type of movement exemplified by the DNA molecule. The genetic “program” contained in the molecule’s structure directs and limits the organism’s growth in the manner set forth in Aristotle’s biological writings.’ see: http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1174/aristel.5.10.pdf Posted by User:Mirrormundo

Teleological argument

Misplaced Pages:NOENG#Non-English_sources "Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians".Tstrobaugh (talk)

No personal attacks

Andrew, in this edit summary and this comment you raised serious unfounded attacks against myself, which you reiterated in this comment while adding an attack on User:Myrvin. You're not a mind reader, and your attacks are false. Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks is policy which you must abide by, and I strongly recommend that you strike these attacks. Do not repeat your battlefield behaviour. . . dave souza, talk 08:18, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Descriptions of sequences of editing events are not personal attacks in the sense intended by the NPA policy. And the editing events described can not be covered up by posting these types of "concerned" messages. It only makes them look even worse. I have addressed it on the relevant article talk page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:28, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

It is not a description of edits to refer to an editor as "your human bot edit warrior", to say that another edit is "plain dumb" and that the editor is guilty of "poor editing". Nor to accuse an editor by saying that their "edits are all kneejerk edits", and their "posts never show any interest or knowledge" (twice), and that all they do on WP is"try to muscle people around". They are personal attacks, just like the ones against me last year. You really must stop this Andrew Lancaster. Myrvin (talk) 20:25, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Facts are facts, and some facts are unfortunate. You can run away from bullies or you can say the truth. When the bullies finally take over Misplaced Pages I am sure they'll make a ceremony of kicking me out, but until then... --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:59, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Could you possibly find time to

have a captain's, or chuck a shufti or take a dekko at the Ashkenazi Jews talk page. We seem to have the chance of an edit-conflict-free zone there for once, and your expertise would be deeply appreciated. Regards Nishidani (talk) 13:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Your help requested

Haplogroup E-V38, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Pseudoscience

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding pseudoscience and fringe science, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

Template:Z33 Johnuniq (talk) 11:03, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

The current comments at Talk:Intelligent design suggest that assistance may be required to restore normal conditions to that talk page. You posted that "WP:V and WP:NOR are core content policies on Misplaced Pages" (diff), with the implication that the article conflicted with those policies. I asked three times that text contravening those policies be identified. After my third request, you again declined, and directed attention to other places on the talk page which are not relevant to the request (diff). While there is no obligation to answer a request, your reply raised the issue of whether I was working in good faith—my request is reasonable given that WP:V and WP:NOR were mentioned in a manner suggesting that those core policies were being violated. Please make a statement on the article talk saying that you do not believe that there is a WP:V or WP:NOR problem, or justify the assertion that there is such a problem.

Your reply was that I should (1) read the opening lines and (2) read the most recent @Mister Dub response. The first issue in the opening lines is "What excuse do we have apart from WP:SNYTH, for needing footnotes in our leads which contain large numbers of sources?". The link (SYNTH) is to WP:NOR so (1) tells me that you believe there is a WP:NOR problem, but you have declined to identify an example, and you have provided no explanation of how the unidentified text is a WP:NOR problem.

Re (2): Your response was that you asked whether there is a reason for the highly special footnoting, and that apparently there is no reason. Yet this reply provided an explanation, with more information here. Please take make more care in framing a response—your text clearly asserts that no reason was provided when perhaps you meant that you rejected the two explanations; if so, some reasons for that rejection would be desirable.

If you follow the links in the alert box at the top of this section you will find it difficult to see any clear statement defining what is reasonable on an article talk page. Nevertheless, please be aware that the advice recently provided by Charles to the effect that editors have been topic banned for certain unhelpful approaches to talk pages is correct. Consider the situation—Misplaced Pages is the primary source of information for people on the Internet, and anyone can edit and comment. It is obvious that a wide range of unhelpful behavior will result from that situation, and there must be mechanisms that prevent talk pages from being used in a fashion that consensus finds unhelpful. The mechanism for topics such as WP:FRINGE is WP:AE. Misplaced Pages is not a forum where discussions continue indefinitely—editors should work collaboratively to reach consensus. Any editors who are found at WP:AE to be persisting in an unreasonable fashion may be sanctioned.

You have performed 995 edits since 20 August 2013 at Talk:Intelligent design, and 36 of those edits have been in the last 11 days. What progress has resulted from those posts and the subsequent discussions? There must be some resolution that does not involve arguing indefinitely—WP:DR provides suggestions. Johnuniq (talk) 11:54, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow, that's more than 3 edits per day. I have responded at length on your user page. But in short, there is no clear accusation, and the above has no clear correspondence to reality. I know that vague accusations, strange expressions of concern, and veiled threats about un-named people who got in trouble in the past, are normal for anyway who tries to work on Intelligent Design, going years back. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:15, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry to be a nuisance but I have had to post the officious alert again due to a technical problem (some background is here). I posted it a second time, then manually edited to replace the first notice with the second, and add this comment (it has to be done that way for reasons I don't fully understand). Also, I find split conversations hard so in my second edit I have added the section that you posted on my talk, and am responding below. Johnuniq (talk) 11:06, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Your threat on my talk page

• Comment copied from User talk:Johnuniq. Johnuniq (talk) 11:06, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

As a formality, please note my reply to your post:

• You are not an un-involved editor, such as described in your warning. You are passionately involved, going back before I came to look at this article.
• Your suggestion that my work on the article has led to no changes or useful discussions is contradicted (in my opinion) by the facts. In your favor, I understand that you are not really interested in the details.
• Honestly, your recitation of recent talk page discussions is distorted beyond recognition. For example:
• You say I refused to answer your demand for a specific example of a problem, but surely you know very well that:
• Your questions were in answer to questions from me, and simply an attempt by you to deflect from the topic I raised in that section.
• My questions were clearly intended to set ground for more detailed discussion if possible, by getting rationales on record as a starting point. This is a normal mode of moderating a difficult discussion.
• My concerns about apparent original research, and everything about my mode of discussion, had all been clearly stated and explained. I try to work transparently.
• While I have said the clusters of footnotes definitely look like OR, I also said that the style of the footnotes is hard to track and verify and discuss. I pointed out several times that difficultly in verification is itself a bad thing, and that in itself should be fixed even if there proves to be no OR. Even if the cluster footnotes are just sloppy accretions, not OR, it is odd that you are so aggressively opposed to this aim and notable that you are clearly angry about me asking you to explain why.
• Note: I was also transparent about wanting to use a working assumption that there MIGHT be a reason that the apparent OR is a misunderstanding. There is nothing bad about that?
• Despite what you say about me refusing to make concrete proposals (which I would be very much within my rights to do) I have in fact started a new section, starting with the sourcing of the first sentence, and trying to work as best as possible. So that accusation is objectively wrong.
• I am not sure what accusation you are trying to make by linking to the post of Dave souza. I presume you are trying to say that I was somehow being dishonest because my question about the footnotes was really a sneaky way to specifically question the new opening sentence? But I do not see how that accusation works. I have noted also in the past that the poor footnote style, which makes verification difficult, also makes any discussion of any version of the lead difficult, including this new opening sentence. Again, I try to make my thinking are as transparent as possible.
• Trying to discuss the format and style of the lead is an effort to fix one cause of repeated circular discussions. My reason for asking people for rationales is that I am trying to "work collaboratively to reach consensus" like you mention. This is absolutely normal, and others should do the same. Forcing all discussions towards straw polls does not achieve this, and you and the others who keep demanding this should stop, IMHO.

Johnuniq, do you think any neutral observer would look at your activity on this article and describe it as "working collaboratively to reach consensus"? To me that sounds more like what I am doing. You closed your threat post to me by summarizing my editing record on the article and asking "What progress has resulted?" May I ask the same of your editing record?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:24, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

My responses follow.

• The term "uninvolved" in the alert notice is nothing to do with the person placing the alert—it is standard practice for an involved party in a dispute to notify another party.
• I was not suggesting that your work has led to no changes or useful discussions—my suggestion is that the benefits are not commensurate with the time that other editors have to spend.
• My request "if there is some text in the article that contravenes those policies (V and NOR), please identify it" was not intended as a deflection. On the contrary, I hoped that discussing specifics would be far more profitable than generic discussions such as whether a detailed footnote might be a NOR violation.
• I am blunt but I'm not angry. I repeated my request for specific text to be identified due to the claim in the section's opening paragraph that the footnotes violated WP:SYNTH—any SYNTH in the article must be rectified, and that claim seems the most important point. Further, if there is an assertion of a SYNTH problem, it is not satisfactory for the goal posts to be shifted when specifics are requested.
• Re my linking the post of Dave souza: My comments should be taken at face value—above I mentioned your view that "apparently there is no reason" for certain footnoting, and I gave two links showing that reasons had been given. There is no suggestion of dishonesty—my concern is that discussions seldom make progress when there is little engagement with what has occurred. If two reasons for footnotes have been offered, those reasons can be disputed, but it is dismissive to say that there is no special reason.
• My editing record at Intelligent design is woeful, however I am interested in the topic and in supporting the good editors who maintain that and related pages. Discussions based on very generic objections tend to be endless, and that can be very disruptive for the editors who want to be engaged yet who cannot devote several hours each week for one talk page.

I have said about all that I think can be said here. The "veiled threats about un-named people" cannot really be explained because it is not appropriate to point to individual cases. However, rather than making a veiled threat, I am actually trying to avoid the tedium of engaging in a WP:AE request—they can be pretty ugly and a huge waste of time. Johnuniq (talk) 11:06, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and eds Paul Guyer and Allen Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) p. 541.