User talk:Antandcharmi

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Welcome!

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

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 Wikipedia: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! — Dunc|☺ 20:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] About your challenge to me

Your resurrecting the issue was not in the best interest of the project. By doing so you're flouting consensus. Not only had a majority of productive and established long-term editors already agreed that the passage was accurate and adequately supported, they also found that Wade had conducted himself in a disruptive manner. Raising the issue again showed poor judgment, as your disclaimer indicated you were aware. In the interest of returning some sense of normal functioning to the article's discussion page, I've archived all discussions on the matter as consensus was that they were fruitless, tendentious and clearly disruptive.

Furthermore by directing your questions to me only, trying to make it my issue and my content that I'm defending, indicates how little you've come to understand the project and it's spirit in your very short time here.

Among the productive, responsible editors there, those respectful of the project's aims, there is a broad consensus that the passage is accurate and properly supported. To avoid being viewed as a bad faith malcontent, Wade will need to accept that and move on. By encouraging him to carry on as he has by resurrecting the issue, you are not helping him adapt himself to the community's functioning in any way.

I'm certain you have much to offer the project and the community. A good first step to proving that is to demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to its guiding principles, including WP:CON, and not be disruptive or encourage others to be. A great way to contribute to the project and to prove to the community that your not here to engage in partisan advocacy on a particular topic is to contribute positively to more than one talk page of one article on one topic for a while. Use that time to learn the way things are done here and the goals, conventions, and policies of the community. FeloniousMonk 05:34, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

For the record:
  • My disclaimer actually justified my re-raising the issue in that the question at hand was repetitively not being properly addressed.
  • My disclaimer also justified why I addressed you personally - for two sincere and practical reasons which I believe are in the spirit of the Wikipedia community:
1. A short 2-party aside would eliminate distraction from the logical thread, which was suffering from over-input and preventing Wade's point from being heard clearly, thus triggering further rounds.
2. You were the most active defender and the least relevant and most evasive in your responses; you even ignored my counter-arguments in dialogue between you and me on more than one occasion. While I'm sure you did not intend evasion of the point, a focussed 2-party discussion would have prevented evasion and thus forced either you or me to find and correct whatever misunderstanding existed. The resolution would have cleared Wade's issue for good.
  • My invitation is still open. I would be grateful if you would take the time to email a reply to the logical-flow questions I proposed. If I am wrong I would appreciate seeing where I have missed it. I will also come and log my error here and on the ID:Talk page so that Wade and others can constructively learn from it. If you could make the same commitment that'd be excellent.
  • Finally, consensus is never a reasonable resolution of a passionate NPOV citation request. I suggest that you should in such circumstances advocate dispute resolution instead.
  • Note that in this instance no editors have yet come up with a citation that matches the argument. (Is there really a credible ID opponent that makes the argument? It is so weak and fallacious in my opinion.) I leave you with one final invitation, produce the most apt citation or two and defend it here on my Talk page. I guarantee that I will not repeat myself, evade or distract and that if you do the same we can almost certainly resolve it shortly.
  • I would certainly take such a response in a very good light and as evidence of good faith. ant 17:37, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] About arbitration

Earlier you suggested I request for arbitration. Given FeloniousMonk's almost disruptive influence, this seems prudent. How does one go about that? Wade A. Tisthammer 20:09, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Warning against making personal attacks

I've removed your personal attack from Talk:Intelligent design. Please read and abide by WP:NPA. Further personal attacks will be removed. FeloniousMonk 04:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

For the record:
I described you as using certain techniques which de-rail the discussion. You yourself have described for example Wade's talk contributions negatively. I did not impugn your motives directly; however, I did not explicitly give you the benefit of the doubt and did not state the possibility that unintentional editorial bias may be the cause. For the latter, I do sincerely apologise for leaving implied a negative meaning of purposeful disruption that was not intended to be assumed as more likely. But for my not impugning you directly, I feel the least you could have done was to give me the opportunity to clarify whether I was attacking you or not; and/or to refute my description of your editorial behaviour as disruptive, as Wade does to your accusations of deliberate disruption.
I could definitely have done it better though, and on your Talk page. I got distracted into it as a newbie falls into extremes. I sincerely apologise for the approach and am happy for it to have been removed.
Nevertheless, with regret I can list many examples of your de-railing discussions. Now I do not at all state that you are doing it on purpose. However, I do constructively suggest that you can improve. This is said not to attack you but to raise a perceived issue of which you do not appear to be aware.
I may be wrong, but if you disagree with my assessment, I can go through multiple examples for you of each of my stated observations of your editorial practice. I would appreciate seeing where I am wrong, and if I am, I will most definitely apologise for creating an issue for you which does not exist. On the other hand I am obligated because of the scale of it, and because I may be right, to raise these issues.
I also recommend that you try to be less sensitive, and to understand the other point of view. This may allow the people on the other 'side' to exlain themselves better, and assist you to edit the article in a more balanced way.
Please forgive me for being blunt. I don't see any other way.
Finally, since I am leaving Wikipedia for now, if I don't hear from you again, please know that I appreciate your excellent knowledge of Wiki rules and patient education of us newbies. ant 18:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for posting on Talk:ID - Guettarda 14:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I've learnt a lot since coming here. But I'm likely to still be a pain in the butt I'm afraid! ant 14:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ID Straw Poll you might be interested in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Intelligent_design/Marshills_NPOV_objections#Strawpoll I don't know if you still follow the article, but you may want to vote. Trilemma 02:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Trilemma - very kind of you. I look in every day but would have missed it due to lack of time. Much appreciated. ant 14:13, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thank you for your post to Marshill - he cannot seem to believe that anyone who rejects ID is not also rejecting God, and hopefully he will be able to hear you a little easier than he hears those of us whom he sees as the "other side", if you follow - I for one much appreciate your clarity in "not ID" does not mean "not God". KillerChihuahua?!? 14:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merry Christmas

I would like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year. Guettarda 17:42, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you and the same to you. I enjoyed your discussions! ant 16:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bye

I've decided to leave for now. It just takes too long working in a fully democratic environment where all such as I are allowed to have their say! Each niggly little point is amplified by all contributors and before it can be resolved, another 3 niggly points become the topic of the day. Sometimes it seems like every possible misunderstanding that can be made, is made!

I learnt a lot here, however, and must say that of all democratic environments I've seen, so far Wikipedia seems to be working the best. My congratulations to all of you. Feel free to email me anytime if you want me to pop in for a contribution decision, poll or whatever.

Finally, I must say a few things about Intelligent Design if anyone's interested. Not that it'll do any good to balance(IMHO) the article, since not many share my view... but hope springs eternal.

1. Many qualified working-in-the-field scientists do find ID credible. In one poll 10% of those polled found it credible. It is thus a very different kettle of fish to those fallacies which all scientists agree are pseudosciences.

As per Kuhn it is far more likely that ID is being rejected by the establishment because it opposes the established views, research and finances. Personally I also suspect from the strength of the opposition and the amount of fraudulent evidence manufactured in favour of evolution that some rejections of ID are motivated by a desire to deny God's existence and answerability to him.

2. ID is not against evolution per se, although it attacks the concept that irreducibly and specifically complex objects can arise naturally. See next point.

3. ID, if you take the time to dig below the hype, is not religious in itself (see 5.) The concept simply states, based on reasoned argument and scientific evidence, that certain forms of nature are statistically impossible¹ to have occured naturally. Neo-darwinistic evolution has no scientific answer to explain punctuated equilibrium. The neo-darinist answer is simply to insist that it must have happened naturally. ID more reasonably proposes that a non-natural intervention is more likely, so the non-scientific shoe of faith is actually on the other foot.

  • ¹ The term 'Statistically impossible' as used above refers to statistician's and scientist's categorisation of odds of 1 in 100 as sufficiently significant to be taken as not to have occurred by chance², odds of 1 in 1000 as impossible to have occurred by chance².
  • ² Chance as used here does not refer simply to random motion, but random motion guided only by natural laws of physics. So that, for example, the odds of a snowflake occurring with a particular specific regular symmetrical pattern are very high since there are so many snowflakes and they are all naturally 'guided' by the physics of ice crystal formation. But the odds of a snowflake forming in the shape of the solar system, for example, are very low, because the natural law guided chance processes are not influencing crystallisation in that direction.

4. What really makes or breaks ID is simply whether the odds calculations are correct or not. Is there a fair critique out there?

5. ID's proponents are usually religious, but this is only to be expected (see last point in 1. above) as they are the ones who will naturally welcome the concept and it's implications. Furthermore it is common sense that they will personally interpret these implications by the concepts of their own religion. It is also not surprising that some religious people will attempt to use ID to force the idea of divine intervention in science into education. None of this damages the validity of the reasoning and evidence used in ID itself, nor does it make the concept of ID itself religious.

6. The ID concept is not a circular argument nor does it need to involve an infinite regression. This argument is so weak and fallacious I doubt very much that there is a credible ID opponent making it. It may also be responded to without necessarily validating it by the fact a response was made.

6.1 Aristotle deduced the existence of God on the premise that every moving object needs a mover, and that since an infinite number of movers is not possible, there must be a First Mover. The First Mover obviously cannot be subject to the same physical law of needing a mover. Personally I think that this is the only logical conclusion one can arrive at, since any other, including a god-less Big Bang, does result in an infinite regression of causal existence. Sooner or later one must end with Infinity, an Infinity which is a First Mover.

6.2 An infinite regression is not a circular argument.

6.3 An intelligent designer need not have been designed. This is a neo-darwinist's firm belief, since in that view man is undesigned and yet designs.

6.4 Crick of DNA fame and a confirmed secularist published an intelligent design theory entitled 'Directed Panspermia'. It is his opinion and many other's that the structure of DNA could not possibly have formed naturally. His theory is that an evolved alien culture must have seeded the planet around 10,000 years ago.

7. The Bible Code is an intelligent design argument. The article submitted in the Statistical Science journal had 3 top-statistician peer reviews confirming the validity of the experiment. The refutation by McKay is deliberately flawed to an unethical degree, abusing a technique which as expained by Rips to McKay would preclude a positive result, makes a provably false accusation of data selection, and contains a bald lie about Gans, the NSA member who confirmed the original experiment (all of the above is fairly easily verifiable). The journal refuses to let counter-arguments be printed.

Before I end off, if anyone does read this, I must say one more thing. But before I do, I must declare that as well as I am able and as far as I am aware, I am being objective above. Please do not write off what I say above purely on grounds of the following.

I am a Christian who has personally experienced the workings of the gifts of the spirit, such as instantaneous healings, a word of knowledge (telling someone something they know or discover is true that you didn't know yourself) and speaking and interpreting unknown languages. I have additionally seen and heard of many, many astoundingly miraculous events from many, many people I trust. I personally know God and believe the Bible and according to biblical prophecy, as far as I can make out, the rapture is due in the next decade and most likely in 2006 or 2007. The rapture will take half the Christians (those who are ready) away before the 7 years of trouble begin. The reason I mention this is because if I am a raving lunatic, I've done no harm. If, on the other hand, the rapture does occur, the reader may be able to be saved by asking God to forgive them for their guilt too, based on the sacrifice of Jesus for guilt. There is likely to be a second rapture at 3.5 years, as far as I can make out. The last 3.5 years will be a time of exceedingly great trouble. After the 7 years are up we will come back. The reason God's existence and all of this prophetic information is not made forcefully clear is because it would force us all to capitulate to God and be saved, thus violating our free choice for life or death. And I also believe that the prime cause of people rejecting God is sexual sin. The three categories of sin are the lust of the flesh (eg immoral sex), the lust of the eyes (eg competing with the Joneses), and the pride of life (eg rebellion to authority). Before anyone calls me a fool my IQ is at the other end of the scale. Not that IQ matters. What matters most is doing things God's way. Always being loving. Apologising when you miss it. And most of all, forgiving everyone who hurt you - ever.

Bye! ant 15:27, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Best wishes

Best wishes for the future, of course, and a hope that you will be back at some point in the future. It has been a pleasure working with you. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

You too. For a while there I was afraid we would all wind up antagonistic but I congratulate you on your ability to handle conflict kindly. Nice talking to you, and thank you for your well-made points that made me think. ant 16:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Intelligent Design

Were you complimenting the reorganisation? If so: thanks! I started that off and others supported the changes :-) Ta bu shi da yu 04:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I was tremendously impressed by the re-organisation, yes, but not only that - at the same time either coincidentally or as a by-product the most niggly bits of illogic or bias have been cleared up as well. It is just such a relief to read it now!
Thank you!
PS I'm not sure how one dialogues across personal discussion pages, but anyway I am not really in much now - just happened to pop in in an idle moment.
So (and to all reading) please email me if you want to say more unless you are prepared to wait a year! ant 22:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
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