User talk:Vorpal blade

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Welcome!

Hello, Vorpal blade, 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! Marskell 18:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

1 Astrology
2 I wish I had an answer
3 Re: Airtel ad
4 Re: Extreme Minority View ???
5 Re: Extreme Minority Point of View
6 Putting back deleted section
7 So this is your talk page

[edit] Astrology

First, find a welcome package above! Also a note on the astrology page: the science section looks very favourable to astrology because User:Aquirata is on a crusade to make it look that way. It's been very problematic. See here here for our policies and guidelines; don't trust everything you hear on the Talk pages but read for yourself! Happy editing, Marskell 18:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I wish I had an answer

All we can do for now is revert his BS. He's had a request for comment. I may revive it. It's literally becoming impossible to work with him. Please don't give up on the page though; we need more editors who read policy properly. Marskell 16:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Airtel ad

The text is not copyrighted, and I've made modifications to the actual text, so... --May the Force be with you! Shr e shth91 ($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) 15:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Extreme Minority View ???

Your edit on 13 July 2006 at 16:30 to remove the entire paragraph of information from M. Urban-Luraine, G. Perry, and myself is very strange. How do you see this as an extreme minority view? M U-L has been research director for ISAR for decades, his book on alcholism research is a classic, G. Perry has written extensively on research and advises both ISAR and NCGR on qualitative reserach, I participated and hosted discussions on research and astrology at major conferences and the issues being raised in this paragraph are fundamental to current astrological thinking. The diversity of opinions from astrology as a non-science, limited science, to science is the broad spectrum of opinions at this time, and this paragraph helped document this fact. I have no idea what you regard as the majority opinion, how these views are an extreme minority, and how you have derived this conclusion, when the discussions at major conferences from AAGB, UAC, ISAR, and NCGR to articles in all of these journals, and the huge impact of books like Cornelius's The Moment of Astrology, Phillips' Astrology in the Year Zero, P. Curry's works, and the other extreme of financial astrology holding up the view of a scientific astrology, I cannot understand how you see this paragraph as representing an extreme view. DavidCochrane 15:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Extreme Minority Point of View

We need to do our best to present the minority point of view (i.e. point of view of astrologers) as accurately as possible in order to uphold the NPOV policy. The majority of authorities on the relationship of astrology to science within the astrological community agree with the skeptics that astrology cannot be validated through simple research studies. The view of the vast majority of leading astrologers regarded as experts in the area of the relationship of scince to astrology is that (1) either astrology is not a science and is divination or some other phenomenon, or (2) astrology requires some more complex analysis, such as, for example, chaos theory, as suggested by Bernadette Brady, multivariate analysis as suggested by Mark Urban-Luraine, qualitative research methods as suggested by Dr. Perry, more complex astrological techniques as suggested by myself, or new mathematical and research models as suggested by Dr. Lehman. Here is one example of evidence for this assertion: At a recent major astrological conference in Chicago, a panel of 11 leading experts (and astrologers, that may sound like an oxymoron to you :-), but they are regarded as experts within the astrological community) on the relationship of astrology to science presented their views. Not one of these experts proposed that astrology is a science. I was the moderator of this group, and my own view is that astrology some day will advance to the point of becoming a science but Gauquelin's research is not irrefutable and is nearly the only leg that astrological science currently has to stand on. Up until the 1970's astrologers were inclined to believe in astrology as a science, but Geoffrey Dean's work followed by the works of Cornelius, Curry, etc. has made it clear to both astrologers and skeptics that astrology is not a science at the current time and may never be a science. In astrological journals by respected organizations (like ISAR, NCGR, AAGB, etc.) you will not see articles purporting that astrology has suddenly joined the ranks of the sciences. That would be absurd. This will not happen until, of course, replicable research results warrant this. There is not as great a chasm between astrologers and skeptics as skeptics might think. The astrology article on a whole does an excellent job in living up to the NPOV ideal, but it is not perfect, and it does need more input from the minority group to improve the representation of the minority group. I hope that I have helped you to see that those of us like myself in the minority group do not like to be repreented simply as waiting for the right funding or that we are living in a bubble and not recognizing the failure of astrology to be validated scientifically, which is the impression that the article currently gives. The paragraph that you deleted helps give a much fairer representation of the minority view. We cannot prove one way or another what the majority opinion of astrologers is, but all evidence from the astrological journals, conferences, and statements of astrologers conforms to what I have presented above. Interestingly, the biggest threat to astrology now may not be skeptics but astrologers themselves, as many astrologers have watered down astrology from science to divination or mythic language! DavidCochrane 10:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Putting back deleted section

Great, we are coming to a better understanding. I will review the text and try to shorten it if possible as well because I know many are trying to keep the astrology article as condensed as possible, and then I will resubmit it. I'll try to put everything in a language and context that I think will be agreeable to everyone and that adheres to the very excellent Wikipedia guidelines. I may not get to resubmitting until next weekend. DavidCochrane 14:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)