User talk:BRileyPTA

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You have new messages (last change).

I am a new contributor to Wikipedia, but I think it is a great opportunity to bring science and research to the Internet on a real time basis and have it ranked highly on the web cralwers. Great concept.


Welcome!

Hello, BRileyPTA, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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:Questions, 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!  Capitalistroadster 06:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinks

BRileyPTA, I hope you got the message I left before at User talk:BRiley. I wasn't sure which account I should send the message to.

I have one suggestion if you're interested. It helps provide context if you make links in the text you add to articles. In case you don't know already, you can make a link to any article by putting it in brackets. For example, if you write:

[[Basal metabolic rate]]

it shows up in the article as:

Basal metabolic rate

Thanks again for your contributions, Wmahan. 22:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear Wmahan: I was just speaking to one of my coworkers at the facility where I do Physical Therapy and we were speculating how I could add some links.

I have a very extensive collection of articles and ideas for the basal site. I believe there are over 80 different pathologies that could be addressed by Basal Metabolic identification and management. Take Alzheimer's disease. Its a vascular syndrome that affects 100% of the Trisomy 21 pathology that live to age 30. I believe that this is proof that lack of muscle tone, build up of excess triglycerides, formation of plaques and tangles could be diagnosed and alleviated, possibly relieved with accurate BMR assessment. I am trying to make sure I understand how Wikipedia wants things to look to be in conformance with the other articles. Thank you very much for your feedback!

Sincerely,

Bill

[edit] Reliable sources

You idea of conducting a scientific experiment for the sake of a Wikipedia article is laudable in intself. However, this is not a good way to go.

As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia should only contain information that is verifiable. Regulation of body mass of mammals (such as humans) is the subject of scientific research, in this instance, physiology. Therefore, you will have to understand how scientific knowledge is achieved.

The individual researcher cannot investigate a complex phenomenon such as body mass regulation without taking into account the experimental results and the ideas of other researchers. If you type "body mass" into the search engine of Pubmed, you will get about 65,000 entries. This means, there have been 65,000 studies in this area, but, alas, the topic is still controversial. If you publish your proposed study, there will be 65,001 studies. This will not change anything in the whole picture, unless your contribution is really revolutionary (and you will be eligible for the Nobel prize). Moreover, no other scientist will take your contribution for serious if you publish it in the Washington Post or syndicate it. If your findings revolutionize the field, your fellow researchers will be very suspicious if you did not publish them in a reputable scientific journal.

You might say that there are plenty of scientific theories that were rejected by the scientific community for a long time before they became finally accepted. See continental drift (discovered by Alfred Wegener) or transposons (discovered by Barbara McClintock). These theories took decades to be generally accepted, nevertheless, they were first published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, and not in the Washington Post.

So, instead of trying to abuse a daily paper, try to go through the 65,000 studies summarized in PubMed, and find those who corroborate your ideas.

With kind regards,  Andreas  (T) 21:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BMR

Hi Bill. I wasn't critiquing the content at all, I was just remarking on the lack of citations and refs for that section. Context for the questions and outside sources who have discussed them, specifically. For example, the question "Why does metabolism go up when we drink coffee which has no appreciable effect on muscle gain?" - who is asking this? The "who" should be sourced if possible along with the other open ended interrogatories.

You seem to be very well versed in the subject matter, and I wasn't impinging your work in the slightest. I just think the section should probably have a more encyclopaedic tone and less of a dialectic or instructional tone. The more inline references for statements the better, as per WP:MOS. The proper citation templates are here, and I think that using them and footnotes would go a long way to strengthening the entry. Thanks for doing such good work! I was pleasantly surprised to come across such a well put together article on the subject. - WeniWidiWiki 20:45, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


Dear Weniwidiwiki:

Since this is my first effort I obviously have a lot to learn about the encyclopedic side of the equation! There are so many references to the topic that I have been troubled by which direction to turn so that the referecnes don't become problematic. For example there are some articles which are old that support the notion that women have a lower BMR because they are women! In fact women are closing the gap on men in every sport so I think in time that will be considered anachronistic. The woman who I work for in my day job used to be the Deputy Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy and she is quite extraordinary for her intellectual acumen but also for her considerable ability to knock out sit ups (50 a day at least!) During her rise as a Navy Nurse to the rank of Rear Admrial she was in charge of the facilities that house NIH at Bethesda Naval Medical Center. She agrees with me that we need to improve the understanding of the scientific process on the Internet since so many people turn here for information. I think the controversy section, although in need of clean up, is a good effort toward that ideal. I was at the Jefferson Memorial on Friday looking at some of his ideas and the quote that our country is founded on the principles of energy, light and liberty seems to hold application for this situation. Yes there is darkness associated with a misconception such as slavery. Yes it took many individuals to become educated on basic principles and an adherence to a body of knowledge that was secured through trial and error. And yes finally in due time with much discourse in an academically acceptable way, the changes did occur which could have ripped our country in two, but actually made us a better more ethical country. So the energy of discourse eventually led to the light that a grievous misconception had brought incredible misfortune and misery to millions, and then the knowledge and action that brought a greater fulfillment of the very freedom we profess to offer to all. That is what I hope will happen with the controversy section. Knowledge should never be so dry and apathetic that it leaves us with eye lids that are heavy with fatigue. Rather knowledge should be filled with energy, light, and finally liberty from misconceptions! But I'll look into a spirited foundation for the points that are contended so that the main thrust of the information is not overshadowed! Thanks for your help! References will be forthcoming!

Sincerely,

Bill

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