User talk:Ec5618

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Welcome to my talk page. Please post new messages at the bottom, and use descriptive headlines when starting new topics.
I also prefer to contain discussions to a single Talk page. Thank you.

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Contents

[edit] Archive

  1. /Human - Archive development and human interaction.
  2. /Technical - Where I keep all references to PUI, AFD, TFD, Stubs and the like.
  3. /Dan Watts - I was asked to discuss my beliefs.
  4. /Block - I was blocked.
  5. /Adminship - My request for Adminship failed.
de | fr | nl | it

[edit] Moving Topics

The organization structure of the D&D classes section is haphazard at best. To make it uniform there are only two choices... either put (Dungeons & Dragons) at the end of each topic, or take them all off... The second option isn't really an option because topics like Shaman, Cleric, Crusader, Monk, etc. already exist in Wikipedia... so I elected to move them all into one topic... If there's some sort of problem (which I don't see why there would be) with imposing uniformity then I'll have to rethink the structure...

Also, is there any reason to leave comments on talk pages that have either been addressed or are rendered meaningless by changes (or in one of the cases for which you reverted, was me deleting my own question that I figured out the answer for)... seems like unnecessary clutter

Thanks for the heads up though... --Laxrulz777 18:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand your desire to create unity. And in this case, you have a definate point, as most of these topics are of interest only to people interested in Dungeons & Dragons related content. It is not policy, however. Consider that if it were to become policy to add 'Dungeons & Dragons' or 'Star Trek' to all relevant articles, an automated bot could quickly finish the job, 'pedia-wide. I again urge you to visit the Manual of Style. There are a large number of bots around, and finding one willing to help your project shouldn't be dificult, once policy reflects your views.
As for the comments on Talk pages, it is prefered to leave comments where they are, or to move them to an archive subpage. Adding a note explaining that the issue has been addressed is certainly useful, but removing comments can be confusing (as it forces interested users to check the history to see which comments were removed and why). In some way, all comments on the Talk pages are a part of the history of an article, and should be easily reviewable. -- Ec5618 18:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, though I didn't see anything in the Manual of Style specifically opining on which way was best (there's some discussion of when to use parentheticals but nothing specific). There discussions of avoiding "heirarchy" structures which this may be bordering on. I'll look more into it... Thanks for the input.
I'll be more careful with the comments. Thanks for that. --Laxrulz777 18:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: welcome/ DNA repair

Thanks for the warm welcome. I'll see what I can do on DNA repair pages. My first idea was to just copy-paste the introduction to my thesis there, but I doubt anybody would appreciate it :P (thirty-odd pages, 300+ scientific references). Some trimming down will be required haha. Groeten, Marvol 21:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Devolution

Hi Ec5618,

I want to make you acquainted with the WP:NPOV policy. Sentence one of this policy states: 'The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly, but not asserted.' I have the impression that we are dealing with conflicting views at the moment. The article Devolution (fallacy) is dealing with the theme started by Max Nordau. I am a socialist and don't agree with the devolution theory, still i think that the history of the thought on devolution should be included into this article.--Daanschr 13:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

You are mistaken. Devolution refers to a fallacy, in which biological evolution is seen as progresssion to an ultimately superior form. Degeneration, as used by Max Nordau, refers to decaying moral standards and decadence. This is not an issue of neutral poin of view, this is an issue of irrelevance. Max Nordau's views on civilisation are irrelevant when discussing biological evolution. -- Ec5618 13:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I will copy these discussion to the subsequent talk page.--Daanschr 13:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are we having fun yet?

You really walked into one of our high-bedlam periods on the ID, evolution and creation pages, eh? Glad to have your input because I was about to go crazy myself.  ;)

So have you become "acquainted" with NPOV yet? ROFL. •Jim62sch• 13:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I may have glanced at it at some point. Meaningless drivel, I'm sure. -- Ec5618 13:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. •Jim62sch• 14:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for archiving ID. Now we just need to see if the conversation rears it's ugly head again. •Jim62sch• 21:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps, at one point, we will be able to resist explaining these things to people who refuse to ask real people. The archives are filled with people who seem unwilling to trust scientists. And according to polls, that includes just a few too many people for us to handle here. -- Ec5618 21:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps, but I doubt it given that the first page many people turn to in the paper is their bloody horrorscope. •Jim62sch• 23:47, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe I'll try to find a typo in that last word. -- Ec5618 23:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Nope, I didn't fat-finger that one. Thanks for the tip on using <cite>! •Jim62sch• 16:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
So George speaks Spanish? (The grammar doesn't fit) Or better, manages his brain in Spanish? I'm beginning to think ID is a freak-magnet. Ugh. (BTW, thanks for moving that converstaion, it had degraded into the sublime) •Jim62sch• 23:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. What are your thoughts on the idea of moving such discussions to a user's talk page the moment they become long? I know some might object to being brushed off, but if we could make an effort to continue the dialogue on their talk page, we could keep the main Talk page clear of this sort of endless tripe. -- Ec5618 08:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Since the discussion was really becoming incoherent on Bob's part and wandering just a bit off-tiopic, I think moving it to the talk page was appropriate. We should probably consider doing that anytime a conversation/discussion resembles the one you moved. It's not really blowing the person off, it's granting them the ability to pontificate to another audience.  ;) •Jim62sch• 22:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Now we have to worry about what tack Bob takes next...and GeorgeFThompsom is simple friggin' insane, as in there are no ants at his picnic, his elevator is missing it's cable, two jokers do not a deck of cards make. •Jim62sch• 17:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
In my naiveté I always assume that people are sane. It's very distressing to discover they are not, but there is no other explanation for GeorgeFThompsom's behaviour. I can't understand such people. Why can't logic pierce their sense of self-satisfaction? How do these people justify lying to win a discussion? Still, no harm done, I guess. -- Ec5618 17:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
No harm if you own stock in Tylenol.  ;) I think George said he was developing a "new logic". Ought to be a pisser. •Jim62sch• 08:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Primal Photos

I found a name-tagged nude picture of myself and would like to remove it from the site. Please do not reload it. Thanks.

[edit] Anus

I didn't add nonsense. It made complete sense. The anus clearly had small pieces of fecal matter from the center of the hole to the bottom of the gooch.

Leave my edits alone and I'll leave yours alone. Deal? Thanks.


B

Erm, that's not really how this works. You reduced the fontsize of the entire article, and added irrelevant (and disputable) text to a description of an image. Such edits deserve to be reviewed, and as such I will not leave your edits alone, no. -- Ec5618 20:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't change the font size and I added an observation, just like the current caption reads. "Unshaven" is an observation and also could be considered irrelavent due to the fact that most males don't shave their rectums. How is what I did wrong and the caption currently there be acceptable?

Please review your edit. You did change the fontsize. As for the 'unshaven' observation, that appears to be a relic from a time when an image of a shaven female anus appeared next to it.
Again, that you appear to 'clearly' see fecal matter, doesn't mean such is obvious. In fact, I still see no such thing. That is why your observation is contentious. -- Ec5618 20:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I didn't not mean to or notice that I changed the font size, but I do know that the caption makes no sense and therefore I am going to remove the "shaven" part and leave the rest. Thanks.

I've taken the liberty of doing just that. Welcome to Wikipedia. -- Ec5618 20:47, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for listening and for the welcome. :)

[edit] Dungeons & Dragons

Hello, I seem to have a mild problem, or at least be setting myself up for one. I've made it a personal goal of mine to expand and add as many of the DnD prestige classes as possible and feasable to wikipedia, after looking at all the red links of the relivant page. This is mainly because I find them enjoyable to write and because the prestige classes have always interested me. Today I found out that there has been some debate over adding (Dungeons & Dragons) onto the ends of article titles. I've been doing this if the article already refered to something else (like when I wrote the Shifter article. Have I done anything wrong? It seems to fit in a neater style then having some be (game class) or (character type).

Also, since the character class template is so long, I was thinking of making a seperate template for prestige classes and leaving a link to it on the bottom of the current template. I'm worried that if I ever finish adding all the prestige classes I have than it will be miles too long. Sorry if this should be directed at somebody else, but I've had trouble finding anyone else interested in the prestige classes and don't want to have to deal with an angry mob at some point in the future; it also seemed common courtisy to run the idea past the author of the current class template. Morgrim 14:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice work. The base class template has the potential of becoming quite long by itself, so removing the Prestige Classes seems like a good idea. We have a list of Prestige Classes in the List of Prestige Classes article, so I don't think we really need a template to list them. Still, a lot of those Prestige Classes don't have articles, so it's a good thing that you're creating such articles.
As for the naming, recently a number of Dungeons & Dragons related articles have been renamed to include the words Dungeons & Dragons in parentheses, but there is no rule governing this. The Manual of Style suggests that article titles should only contain parentheses to disambiguate, but there's nothing wrong with adding them. So, either way of naming the articles is technically fine. Personally, I prefer the simpler name, without the parentheses. -- Ec5618 15:05, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I got bored with article writing and clean-up tonight and decided to try my hand at template writing. Any oppinions? I'm not sure I'm game enough to ever put it anywhere other than my user page, but I suppose at the very least I can use it to keep myself organised. I just think that the List of Prestige Classes is perhaps a bit long and redlinked-ish for most people.Morgrim 14:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
It looks nice, though I still feel that there really isn't a need for this type of template. I've edited it to include noinclude tags, so that it can be used in articles. (Mainly so we can easily see what it would look like in an article. All text between the noinclude tags is effectively hidden when the template is used elsewhere.)
As for being bored, I'm not surprised. Can you imagine ever creating anything like a comprehensive set of articles on this subject? The encyclopedic value of such articles may also be debated. Perhaps you should focus on Dungeon Master's Guide prestige classes, and perhaps classes from the main additional sourcebooks. Still, keep it up. -- Ec5618 16:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

My only problem is that I don't find most of the unwritten classes in the Dungeon Master's Guide very interesting, and the Masters of the Wild is the only other source book I own (as opposed to reading one at a friend's house). I just hate seeing a long page full of red links. Besides, the being bored was bored of typo and format cruising, not article writing. I'll get there...eventually. Thanks for the advice. Morgrim 08:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nuclear power as a renewable energy source

Have you been following Talk:Renewable energy? I don't have time to keep up this fight against the people who want to remove all mention of it from the article. See my post on the Village pump. — Omegatron 21:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Energy portal

Hi! As a contributor to WikiProject Energy development, I thought you might like to be aware of the opportunity to contribute to the new Energy Portal, now that there is one... No need to reply. Gralo 17:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your name

I'm curious where your name, ec5618, came from. Thanks! Taborgate 07:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creation-science peer review

Ec, I appreciated your edit summary stating that "peer review' does not consist of asking any scientist whether he agrees with you." That was indeed one of the things I found most offensive about the peer-review aspects of the teach the controversy issue in the sphere of ID, and the "petition" or "statement" they circulated. ... Kenosis 17:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

What excludes The Creation Research Society publication from being what they say it is (peer reviewed research)? Dan Watts 21:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Dan Watts, you are arguing semantics. I hope you already know that a system of socalled peer review that completely violates the basic principles of peer review while superficially adhering to a dictionary definition completely invalidates any scientific value of the 'peer review'. True Scotsman fallacy aside, CRS Quarterly does not do peer review in the traditionally accepted scientific sense. Peer review is a well established practice, which serves to get authors to meet the standards of their discipline and of science generally. The peer reviewer is selected by a publication, ideally to be an impartial but qualified judge of the scientific validity of the work. Generally, if an article would have failed peer review by any reviewer ouside of a small group of philosophically aligned people, the article should not be considered as having been peer reviewed. For example, any article that states in its summary that "Only a designing creator can create the visual systems capable of seeing and interpreting the information contained in the light that He created."[1] has not been properly peer reviewed.
As an aside, the aforementioned article seems to do little more than suggest that scrambling the pixels in an image somehow removes most of the information from an image (hardly a brilliant deduction), concluding from this that, since the neural connections between the optical receptors in the eye and the brain are not jumbled, the eye must have been created. "Today’s scientific research on visual systems shows that we are fearfully and wonderfully made." Hardly the kind of article that would successfully pass peer review by a publication such as Science.
I also came across this little gem in one other so peer reviewed article, proudly displayed on the website as a selected article: "It is unnecessary and unreasonable to resort to unknown and unlikely processes, such as mutations, as the sources of variation that could change simple cells into all we see alive today."[2] I'm sure I don't have to point out that mutation is in fact very likely.
Another quote, to illustrate the mindset of these scientists, and to hopefully make it clear that the motives of these scientists are at least suspect: "Although there are variations in both the evolutionist and the creationist camps, the controversy can be simplified to state that either evolution is true or creation is true. To eliminate one is to confirm the other." -- Ec5618 03:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
True, mutation is a likely occurence. It is debatable that mutation can fuel the microbe-to-man construct. Dan Watts 22:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Which is why it is odd that the article states that mutation is an "unknown and unlikely" process.
It appears that the use of "unknown and unlikely" is in regard to the putative grand scope of evolution.
As for the comment you included in your edit summary, but not in your post here ("So 'any reviewer' can prove the failure? Sounds like an appeal to the masses."), I hope you are not honestly suggesting that the examples I gave were the exception, and that most such commentary is removed after 'peer review'. Scientific research does not, and will not ever show "that we are fearfully and wonderfully made", and any publication willing to print that it does is not committed to honest science. I would hope we can agree that CRS Quarterly is very much motivated by religious doctrine, and that it is willing to publish almost anything that speaks of the glory of god in seemingly scientific terms. In fact, I would make that my main argument, and ask you whether we can, in fact, agree. -- Ec5618 00:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
So you mean this institutions is not committed to honest science. [3] It must make life simpler to have such a litmus test. Dan Watts 13:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Please, there's an obvious difference between an article about the fact of religion and an article that assumed there must be a god. Is this the defense of CRS you can muster? -- Ec5618 16:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I didn't choose the quote. The plain meaning of the author's words affirms it.
How can you state with certainty "Scientific research does not, and will not ever show "'that we are fearfully and wonderfully made?'" Do you:
  • have a "No True Scientist" definition which would preclude such conclusion?
  • have unassailable knowledge of the total scope (past, present and future) of scientific research?
  • make a wild guess?
I assume your unflattering "seemingly scientific" follows from one of the above reasons. If not, please educate me. As Wikipedia states

Scientists are free to use whatever resources they have — their own creativity, ideas from other fields, induction, Bayesian inference, and so on — to imagine possible explanations for a phenomenon under study.

[1] Dan Watts 02:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
You're quite right in suggesting that I am not the ultimate authority on truth, and it bears pointing out, I'm sure. But I fail to see the point of arguing that CRS Quarterly is a valid scientific journal. Even if the evidence, in this case a brief look at neural connections and an oversimplified calculation, were to show that humanity was undoubtedly created, it would in no way validate the statement that we were "fearfully" made. As for your list, I am not trying to insult your intelligence. Please don't insult mine. You could have removed all but one of the supposed options on your list, and I had attempted to address that point already. No true Scotsman. I am tired of this game.
Nevertheless, around and around we go. If I define a book to be a collection of sheets of paper, bound together in some form, someone can easily construct an object that matches that definition while clearly not being a book. The same could be said of any definition. Once you define something, it becomes easy to emulate. Intelligent design is attempting to do just that by emulating science. By offering doctoral titles to somehow prove to non-scientifically trained people that their points are valid but unjustly ignored. By using websites to advertise directly to the public, rather than to the scientific community. By proudly boasting about the one article that was accepted for publication, ignoring that it was retracted or even suggesting that a conspiracy of unyielding scientists is keeping the information from gaining acceptance.
Intelligent design is a wolf in poorly made sheeps clothing, but very few people know enough about sheep (or wolves) to spot the difference. And its proponents are directly fueling this ignorance, rather than spending time doing actual research.
Your move. What's your point? -- Ec5618 03:13, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
The discussion is CRSQ. They publish original research and it is peer-reviewed. You do not agree with the philosophical basis of the investigations and quibble about the specific methods used (or not used), membership qualifications, and using the Bible as a reference. That does not change any of the facts that I stated. Dan Watts 11:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
It is not peer-reviewed, as we explained above. That is not a quible, it is a vital distinction. That you do not acknowedge that doesn't change the fact that peer-review is not what you think it is. -- Ec5618 11:30, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
You gave an example: "[A]ny article that states in its summary that "Only a designing creator can create the visual systems capable of seeing and interpreting the information contained in the light that He created."[4] has not been properly peer reviewed." This is your pass/fail criterion of peer-review? It cannot allow proper attribution to God the Creator? This is a philosophical distinction. Is that the overriding facet of peer-review? If CRSQ published a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis would that lessen the proof? Dan Watts 12:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
No it wouldn't lessen the proof, as it would mean nothing. Only when the proof would be printed in scientific literature would it have been relevant to scientific discourse. And no, CRSQ is not scientific literature.
I'm amazed at your ability to ignore everything above, as though it contains no relevant points. I am quite uninterested in repeating what peer review actually means, so I'll ask you once again to read the above. Again, it isn't peer review when you define 'peer' as 'some guy who is likely to agree with my conclusions on philosophical grounds'. It isn't peer review when any other scientist would dismiss your conclusions as indefensible, scientifically. Grammatically, a peer is many things. In the context of peer review, it isn't. It is very specific. -- Ec5618 13:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rapid-decay theory

You placed a clean-up tag on this article. Please explain on the talk page what needs cleaning. I am removing the tag because it seems perfectly balanced to me - it describes the theory and then gives a rubbuttal reference. BlueValour 03:41, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Balance? I added a cleanup tag. Perhaps the cleanup tag isn't sufficient, but it is certainly valid.
The 'theory' is poorly described in any case. "It is based on the assumption that God created Earth out of water, with all of the molecules' spins aligned creating a substantial magnetic field." So, the Earth is water? And why am is it not explained that the point of this 'theory' is to explain the gradual decrease of the Earth's magnetic field, not the presence of that field? -- Ec5618 03:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I have added further rebuttal text that might meet your concerns. BlueValour 03:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
O my. I'm sorry, but that's hardly an inprovement. A factual statement about the age of the Earth, in an article about an alternate 'theory' just won't do. -- Ec5618 03:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
OK, please fix it - there is nothing on the takh page that outlines your concerns. BlueValour 04:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Which is why I only added a cleanup tag. I am not in any way an authority on this subject. What I do know is that the current article is incomplete (which is acceptable) and comfusing (which is not). Finally, please re-read my last point in the previous post. -- Ec5618 04:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
My appologies, it's getting late here in the UK so I didn't read your comment carefully enough. Please see what I Have done and check that it meets your concerns. BlueValour 04:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Marriage for men and women only?

The short answer to your question on the talk page is that it says that because we got another vandal. I think it's an American thing - didn't Bush try to get that put into the American constitution? - and, well, it seems he has some support. If you see it again, please feel free to revert it. Adam Cuerden talk 19:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

it has nothing to do with Bush (and if you're associating me with that, i'll point out in advance that i was a volunteer for the Howard Dean campaign and even introduced the governor to a town hall meeting during the New Hampshire primary in 2004), it has nothing to do with "an American thing", it has to do with the definition of marriage as shown in Webster and the OED and what 90% or 95% of the world's population understand what marriage commonly is. WP gets to reflect reality as it is, not what any one POV wishes reality to be.
don't take me for a vandal, i am here to clean up POV, even politically correct POV. r b-j 19:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Please take this somewhere else. Webster or no, this page is not the place to define marriage. -- Ec5618 03:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intelligent design

On the article Intelligent design, I noticed you reverted some changes made by a new user without discussion. Granted, the changes were stupid, but we're talking about a newbie, and newbies are generally stupid, and occasionally add weird commentary to articles. Per WP:BITE, if it's at all questionable, it's advised not to revert without giving an explanation in the edit summary, or leaving a message on the users talk page, unless it's straight-out blatant vandalism (see WP:REVERT). Thanks. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 09:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Palikar Publications

Defunct magazine, lapsed copyright. Do you have reason to beleive that is has not lapsed? Are you the Mr. Publications of Palikar Publications? If that article isn't public domain I'll eat my shoe! The Copyright office doesn't even have a record for Palikar, much less this article. It's a forgotten relic. A forgotten, public domain relic. Now that you've gotten my article in trouble, maybe you'd like to get it out of trouble.

[edit] Cons

See, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna). Sea lion should be at the lowercase since it is about a genus. --Peta 10:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverting without discussion or reasoning

Ec5618. You reverted my edit without any form of reasoning or discussion. Whats the matter? Can't you be bothered? Liontherock 09:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I apologise. It happens often that a new account is used to make a single odd edit, and then goes silent. Bothering to explain why every such edit is odd, especially when the edit was hardly discussed or explained, is not something I enjoy spending time on.
Now, the reason I reverted your edit is that it suggests that only the example of the iriducible complexity of flagella has been disproven, when in fact, all such examples have been shown to be wrong. Evolutionary pathways that lead to the formation of the eye, the blood clotting mechanism, and such, have all been proposed. But this article is not the place to into such details. Intelligent design proponents claim these things are irriducibly complex. The article on irreducible complexity shows why they are not, and in fact, the evolution of the eye has its own article, as does the evolution of flagella. -- Ec5618 09:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Relevance is the point here. Intelligent design arguments hinge upon those very colourful images of magical god given flagellae. The parts operate on their own though according to research. In the ID article, there should be an image or a description of how the parts can operate or can be evolved on their own. Its a crucial example. Liontherock 10:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
If you bring this up on the Talk page of the article I'm sure someone will either agree with you and make your point clear in the article, or explain to you why it isn't necessary. In any case, the article on irreducible complexity deals with irriducible complexity. The article on design, at this point, lists irreducible complexity merely as an example of arguments used by intelligent design proponents. -- Ec5618 10:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks much. I'll discuss more next time. Liontherock 04:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi there, about Behe..

Thought I'd bring up your point on your talk page, seeing that we have both made a couple of reverts already. No need to venture into the dangerous territory of three reverts... I skimmed down through the article, he didn't admit to no longer believing in the theory but that he admitted to some flaws in it. No real problem I see with that, all theories tend to have problems with it over time but then hopefully they get fixed up. But he certainly doesn't seem to think he has been discredited. So to say that it is pushing a POV onto the readers, best to let them form their own opinion. Mathmo Talk 13:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see [5]:

"Professor Behe admitted in "Reply to My Critics" that there was a defect in his view of irreducible complexity because, while it purports to be a challenge to natural selection, it does not actually address "the task facing natural selection.". Professor Behe specifically explained that "[t]he current definition puts the focus on removing a part from an alreadyfunctioning system," but "[t]he difficult task facing Darwinian evolution, however, would not be to remove parts from sophisticated pre-existing systems; it would be to bring together components to make a new system in the first place." Id. In that article, Professor Behe wrote that he hoped to "repair this defect in future work"

The point that Behe still believes in Intelligent design is irrelevant, as the point is that he can no longer use this argument. He 'introduced' an argument against evolution, claimed that it was an argument in favour of design, and has since admitted that the argument is moot. He still holds hope that other arguments exist, and he hopes to formulate an argument that would convince people that evolution would be incapable to 'bringing components together'. But that is all. Irreducible complexity is dead. Long live the king. -- Ec5618 13:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm.. wasn't referring to ID before but irreducible complexity, would have thought he still believes in irreducible complexity (d'oh, of course he still believes in ID! No surprises there really... ). Not fully convinced that it is his viewpoint from the quote from the quote from the court case you brought up, though you have sparked a bit of curiosity in me. Something I'll have to check up later if he believes that or not right now (though not now, very late over here...). Anyway... this is all besides the point of the main reason I posted to your page, to avoid us breaking WP:3RR. Which I see you have now done anyway... oh well, I did try. Please see this page WP:3RR#I.27ve_violated_3RR._What_do_I_do.3F Mathmo Talk 14:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Please limit this discussion to the Talk page of the article. For the record, 3RR has not been broken. Now, let's just be cautious, so that we never do. -- Ec5618 14:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, I was being cautious which is why I posted to your user talk page rather than the article talk page initially in the hope of not having either of us break WP:3RR. Though it seems I failed at that, didn't you notice the new message? Because count your reverts, you can't possibly claim WP:3RR wasn't broken. Mathmo Talk 14:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Please limit this discussion to the Talk page of the article. For the record, 3RR has not been broken. Feel free to re-read the policy. -- Ec5618 14:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Heh, my deepest apologies regarding WP:3RR. Has a strange name... would have thought the 3 to be more relevant, otherwise I'd be calling WP:4RR. Never mind, I see your point now. An indication I'm lacking enough sleep I ought to get some? Isn't that far off from daylight... Mathmo Talk 14:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
No problem, it's a commonly held misconception. Still, let's now focus on presenting arguments. And please, let's do so on the appropriate Talk page. -- Ec5618 14:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Yup, for sure. Just thought my previous comment was more relevant for user page than on the talk page of the article. Though doesn't matter now, because all that is left to discuss should be mentioned on the article page anyway. So... see you there! Mathmo Talk 14:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creationism

Take a look at Creationism and the venting in the reasons for edits.--Filll 21:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Evolution

Please stop leaving odd comments in the evolution article. -- Ec5618 18:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not leaving odd comments in the evolution article. I having posting a single thing to the evolution article.

I am attempting to submit facts into the discussion section of evolution, but most of my edits get deleted or moved by a small band of Admins who are evidently determined to keep the article biased and unscientific.Ymous 21:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Astrology

I could be wrong but I think someone is pulling your leg (and getting a kick out of it). I'm convinced he has been pulling all our legs, or trying, since day one. I could be wrong but I doubt it. Anyhow, good to have you around the ID article. Mr Christopher 02:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Raspor#Educating raspor. ..... dave souza, talk 10:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I am starting to think he is not serious. I tried. I give up.--Filll 18:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Why do you guys keep feeding this troll? Everyone has tried to be civil, if not nice, but his personality is to pick up the slightest offense, and claim that he's been offended. His persecution complex is getting to be truly annoying. He whines that no one accepts his ideas, and if you try to engage him in conversation, he proceeds to claim that he's been ridiculed, offended or demeaned in some mysterious manner. His tactics have passed from amusing to almost pathological. You know, he actually does have a couple of interesting points, but it's so clouded in his odd rhetoric, that I have no patience with him. I just ignore him. Maybe we should not answer him, because we're not getting anywhere with him. Orangemarlin 22:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I am trying to get raspor to agree that he is not helping matters by continuing to seek conflict. Perhaps in vain, but in the worst case scenario I get some flak from raspor while keeping the main talk page clean. In the best case scenario, raspor agrees and helps the project.
If raspor is a troll, he should be banned. I am not sure why he hasn't yet been. -- Ec5618 22:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
He was given a timeout. I don't think he used it to gain proper perspective. I wish there were an ignore button on Wikipedia!!!!Orangemarlin 05:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re: Talk:Irreducible complexity

Good evening, Ec5618. I've been following the thread both on Talk and through the edit summaries. I think it's time to stop feeding the troll. This is clearly an experienced user hiding behind the anonymous IP. He/she is attempting to wiki-lawyer our precedents in order to push his/her own point of view. I have lost my ability to assume the good faith of this particular user. I regret that I wasted my breath on the Talk page earlier today. I recommend that we stop responding to the troll. Rossami (talk) 04:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request to disengage

I have requested that Raspor stop engaging in debates over Intelligent Design as they violate WP:NOT and do not help with the larger goal of encyclopedia-building. I would like to ask you to likewise disengage. If he is looking for a debate on ID, evolution, and creation science, he can find a web forum offwiki. If you have any questions, please let me know either via my talk page or e-mail. (Just ignore that big ol' Wikibreak banner--I clearly am.) -- Merope 02:37, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks (wikibarnstarishly)

Thanks for popping in again on the Marriage discussion! I would award you one of those barnstar thingys for doing so, if only they weren't so silly-looking. By the way, reading your talk page is a delightful treat! Sdsds 05:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category filing

Hi. You appear to be slightly confused about how category filing works in Wikipedia: this edit certainly doesn't do what your edit summary would imply you think it does. The default filing by the article name lists the article under the "R" section of the category and would file it after "Red" but before "Rfd" if such articles existed. The suffix means that it would be filed after a separate "Red Wizards" article, but as there isn't one of those (it's a pointless redirect at the moment), this isn't an issue. By filing it as "* Red Wizards", you are causing the article to be listed at the start of the category, which is a place reserved for the most important article(s) about each topic. You could specify the sort key as "Red Wizards", but as noted above this is a non-issue. Please read and review WP:CAT#Category sorting. I will revert your edit. Cheers --Pak21 12:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Energy portal & future selected articles

Hi! Over the past couple of months I've been spending much more time than I should developing the Energy portal, and intend asking for a portal peer review within the next day or so.

The portal provides a showcase for energy-related articles on Wikipedia. One of the most prominent ways is via a the selected article that is currently changed every 6 weeks or so. It would be good to increase this turnover, and with three Wikiprojects dedicated to energy-related topics and a good number of articles already written, I'd like to suggest that members of each Wikiproject might like to use the 'selected article' to feature some of their best work.

With this in mind, I'd like to suggest that your Wikiproject bypasses the normal selected article nomination page and decides collectively which articles are worth featuring - or these may be self-evident from previous discussions - and add short 'introduction' to the selected article at the appropriate place on page Portal:Energy/Selected article/Drafts, which includes further information. Your personal involvement would be welcome!

Please make any comments on your Wikiproject talk page, my talk page, or on Portal talk:Energy/Selected article/Drafts, as appropriate. Gralo 15:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Linkimage

Template:Linkimage has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 22:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please help improve Plug-in hybrid

You are listed as a participant in WikiProject Energy development, so I am asking you to please consider helping to improve the plug-in hybrid article. This is an ad hoc article improvement drive. BenB4 08:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] removed

i removed the image because it was disgusting, blanked the page because commenting on my page for the removal was unneccesary. You want attention, you got it. Don't be a child about it. We are on the internet. I will surely sign this.BaRiMzI 18:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intelligent design FAR

Intelligent design has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: sermon is not a study...

No, but it is a result of a study. A preacher with study a subject/passage carefully with reference to other materials e.g. commentaries. Because of this, sermons can be helpful in getting to understand a particular issue. An audio sermon is sometimes nicer than text as you can be doing other things whilst listening to it. I feel your revert in this instance was not necessary. I will await your reply here before further action. Thanks, 193.132.159.170 13:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability. Wikipedia should use reliable sources. I fail to see how a sermon, which describes the personal musings of a preacher based on his reading of a text, qualifies as such.
I also fail to see what good linking to a random sermon will do. -- Ec5618 14:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
You obviously haven't even reviewed the webpage for yourself but just read the word sermon, and disregarded the edit. This is not good practice. The page doesn't contain a random sermon, it contains a list of reliable sermons. The preacher who preached them is well known and reliable. He also writes articles for a newspaper of which I could provide links. Sermons are more than just "musings of a preacher" and by saying that you prove your lack of understanding of a sermon. Since this proves to be the case, I shall ask somebody else, who is well established on wikipedia for their own advice on the matter. 193.132.159.169 15:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] revert of the marriage article

Hi Ec I'm a little confused by your revert on my edits in the marriage article. I made 3 changes, each of which were mentions of the legal status of marriage. For each change, i specified that this was referring to US laws, rather than the existing implication that, for example, 'civil marriage' was a universal legal concept. Could you please explain how you think I should have reworded the original so that legal concepts are specifically labelled as from the US? The article already states that only some jurisdictions are involved (in the first of the three edits i made). thanks WotherspoonSmith 12:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

For one, you changed the text to incorrectly read that "Beginning in 2001, civil marriage has been expanded to include same-sex marriage in some US jurisdictions." This is false. In 2001, civil marriage was expanded to include same-sex marriage specifically in the Netherlands. It wasn't until 2004 that Massachusetts did the same.
The same is true for each of the changes you made. Civil marriage is a legal concept of marriage in several justifucations, not just the US. -- Ec5618 15:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merry Christmas

Wishing you the very best for the season - Guettarda 04:40, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Wishing you the very best for the season - Guettarda 04:40, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question?

So you believe in evolution? ElisaEXPLOSiONtalk. —Preceding comment was added at 16:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea who you are. I do know that you dismiss an important field of science. You believe that the vast majority of scientists active in the biological sciences are inept or lying. I really don't see why I should bother talking to someone who refuses to be rational. But to answer your question: no, I don't believe in evolution. -- Ec5618 18:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Creationism2

Template:Creationism2 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Neelix (talk) 20:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)