Talk:Jonathan Sarfati/Archive 4

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Contents

proposed change

I propose changing It is widely believed that Sarfati posts at TheologyWeb [2] and other online fora using the screen name "Socrates." [3] to In 2003, Dave Moore in an article titled "Reply to Jonathan Sarfati" at Origins.com said "Dr. Sarfati posts at TheologyWeb under the screen name "Socrates" with the habit of referring to himself in the third person". [1]. This provides who said what where when. WAS 4.250 21:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

To what end? There's more than just Dave Moore that believes this. The current phrase is accurate as it stands. FeloniousMonk 22:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
The Wikipedia style and citation rules allow phrasing like the current phrasing when there are many people who have a given opinion. That seems to apply in this case. JoshuaZ 22:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
What is the evidence? The second reference takes me to a page with nothing relevant on it. WAS 4.250 22:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
501 FeloniousMonk 01:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
O.K. That works for me. How about: Since at least 2003, Jonathan Sarfati has been identified with the name "Socrates" in some forums. [2] [3] [4]. WAS 4.250 03:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
While true, it is problematic, talkorigins.org is a reputable website, not a forum (although it shares the name with the internet group talk.origins). JoshuaZ 03:41, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Please suggest an alternative way of expressing this. I'm so stupid I didn't know that the term "forum" indicated something that was not a "reputable website". WAS 4.250 03:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Um, is posting to a forum (whether under his own name or a pseudonym) at all relevant to an encyclopedia article? I mean, I'm an active member of Theologyweb, and I've tangled with Socrates there, but compared to his other work and activity I would classify forum-posting as a tempest in a teapot. Justin Eiler 19:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Content dispute over 'Scientist?' section

wow, it seems to that basically all of what this discussion was about has been completely removed?? Howcome, why not put back in that he is/was a scientist (along with the views against it seeing that some people wish to push that)?? Can somebody who is more aware of what happened save me the trouble of searching back and point out exactly how/why/when this section went away?? Thanks. Mathmo 18:58, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Editing by enjoined users

User:203.213.77.138 is one of the enjoined parties precluded from editing this article and any other Sarfati-related article the arbcomm's final decision in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Agapetos_angel: "This list is not exclusive and the remedy applies to any user, registered or not, who engages in the same type of tendentious editing as has been done by Agapetos angel." Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Agapetos_angel/Proposed_decision#Agapetos_angel_et_al._banned

Additionally, User:203.213.77.138 was identified here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Agapetos_angel/Workshop#Sockpuppetry_.26_Meatpuppetry

User:203.213.77.138 has now been warned of the ruling on his talk page. Please report any instances of him continuing to edit Sarfati-related articles here: WP:AE. FeloniousMonk 05:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
FeloniousMonk is one who has been explicitly "reminded of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. They are instructed to seek dispute resolution rather than edit warring when involved with content disputes. The banning of Agapetos angel and her meat and sock puppets should not be interpreted as a license to make a hatchet job of the affected articles." Please report any violations of NPOV in any Sarfati-related articles here: WP:AE. 58.162.2.122 15:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
As one who has been warned for his bad behaviour, FM has shown himself not to be fit to administrate on this article. In fact, he should have been punished by having his admin powers removed for at least as long as this ban on AA lasts.60.242.13.87 01:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Physical chemist

I remember for listening to the Jonathan Wells talk page that there was a discussion that he is not a biologist. I think the same arguments employed on that talk page can be used to omit Sarfati from the category of "Physical chemist". Much like Jonathan Wells, he has a legitimate degree, but he doesn't significantly contribute to the field of physical chemistry. Surely he has some peer-reviewed publications that he has co-authored, but the same can be said about Jonathan Corrigan Wells, too. They both published in top-tier journals, with Wells publishing in [i]PNAS[/i] and Sarfati in [i]Nature[/i].

Sarfati is not a practicing physical chemist, although he conducted original research in the past. He should not be considered as a practicing scientist, but he was a scientist in the past.

For fairness, we should remove him from this category, or we should add Jonathan Wells to the category of "Molecular biologist" too. I would not protest if this happens to Jonathan Wells, even though I deem him as a pseudoscientist.

LinkinPark 19:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

This article:

  • Uses only creationist sources
  • Presents creationism as fact, ignoring the majority views of scientists
  • Fails to be at all objective.

This is the worst POV -probvlem-laden article I've ever seen on Wikipedia. Adam Cuerden talk 04:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Did you read the extended discussion above? The problem here is that all sarfati's opinions are published in creationist literature. If you want to cite his opinions you need to cite those sources. Second, people rarely bother to rebutt his opinion. As discussed above, in two of the talk sections (here and here), he is not even on the radar screen for most scientific sources, or even news sources. If you can find more than the two already cited:
Scott E.C. and Branch G. (2003). Antievolutionism: Changes and Continuities BioScience: 53(3):282-285.
Cartwright, R.A. and Theobald, D.L. (2001) Citing Scadding (1981) and Misunderstanding Vestigiality: Another Example of Poor Creationist Scholarship, Talk Origins archive.
then i'll be impressed. David D. (Talk) 20:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
When this article was being heavily disputed I looked for WP:RS-compliant sources that were critical of Sarfati and was unable to find any other significant ones. The bottom line is that David is correct, Sarfati is almost off the radar screen. Furthermore, he and AiG have become even less on the radar in the last few years as the main focus among evolution groups has been dealing with intelligent design. JoshuaZ 20:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, right. Well... is he actually notable then? Adam Cuerden talk 22:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


POV Sections

These sections, that seem to serve as nothing but an outlet for his views and a huge heap of non-notable chess stuff, I have moved here. We shouldn't be uncritically promulgating his views, as that's strongly POV, given the controversy, but there might be some usable content in these, so... I think without these, we're left with an article that stil needs work, but that can be brought into NPOV, but these sections need so much more work that there's little hope of fixing the article to a reasonable timescale with them in. Adam Cuerden talk 07:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC) Adam Cuerden talk 07:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am waiting for even a smidgen of criticism for the articles on the heroes of teh atheistic faith such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. 60.242.13.87 01:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

This bit puts forth a lot of pseudoscience as fact. Adam Cuerden talk 02:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Not that Adam would know real science if he tripped over it.60.242.13.87 01:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Behave yourself 60.242.13.87: Wikipedia:No personal attacks Josh Parris 02:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Sarfati's writing covers a wide range of topics both within and outside his areas of formal training. Discussing astronomy, for example, he writes that the remains of supernovae,[1] and distribution of comets,[2] can provide explanations consistent with the universe having been created 6,000 years ago. On biology, he argues that all the animals required in Genesis[3] to fit into Noah's Ark, including dinosaurs, would have been able to do so.[4] He also argues that vestigial organs may have an unknown purpose, or that their existence would be explained by the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.[5]

This bit quotes bible passages inline? Also, it's very listy. Can't it be worked into something coherent? Adam Cuerden talk 02:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I think this paragraph is very helpful in pointing out his extreme views. I'd put it back in. -- Ssilvers 07:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


Religion and morals

Sarfati says: "Right throughout Scripture, murder — that is the intentional killing of innocent humans — is regarded as a heinous sin (Exodus 20:13, Matthew 19:18, Romans 13:9). Since abortion kills an innocent human being, it is nothing less than murder. So all the usual 'hard cases' pushed by pro-abortionists, e.g. 'What if the woman was raped?', 'What if the child is deformed?', 'What if she can't afford to keep the child?' are completely irrelevant. We should also remember Ezekiel 18:20, which prohibits executing a child for the crime of his/her father — this means that even the tragic cases of pregnancies due to incest or rape are no justification for killing the innocent child conceived." [6]

He has argued that "the Bible speaks against racism regardless of any way in which people have misused it." [7]

He defends marriage as an institution joining one man and one woman, and opposes polygamy. [8]

He opposes homosexual behaviour, while advocating "love the sinner, hate the sin." [9]

He has endorsed Bernard Goldberg's suggestion that Roman Catholic priests who molest teenage boys should be called "gay priests" rather than "pedophile priests." In the same article, he used the terms "homonazis" and "sodomofascist" to refer to gays who advocate the imprisonment of pastors for calling homosexual acts sinful:

"Homosexuals are now a politically protected victim group, about which it is verboten to say anything negative. And certain homonazis want Christians punished if they quote from the Bible against homosexual behavior. Indeed, 63-year-old Pastor Åke Greenh was jailed in Sweden for just that, because they have such a sodomofascist law restricting Christian freedom. Fortunately his conviction was overturned on appeal, to the ire of homosexual activists, by a higher court because it was such an egregious violation of Sweden's free speech laws." [10]

This section might be alright, but seems overly long Adam Cuerden talk 02:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Chess

[[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg -->|right|thumb|300px|Sarfati playing blindfold chess at 12 boards simultaneously]] A New Zealand national chess champion in 1987-8, he represented New Zealand in three Chess Olympiads: the 27th in Dubai [11] in 1986, the 28th in Thessaloniki [12] in 1988, and the 30th in Manila [13] in 1992. He also represented New Zealand at the 5th Asian Teams in New Delhi [14]. He also tied Rey Casse in the Australian Junior Championship in 1981, but was not eligible to share the title because he was a resident of New Zealand at the time. [15]

He is currently the club captain/director-of-play for the Logan City Chess Club, Australia. [16]

He is known for giving blindfold chess exhibits at creationist conferences [17] and chess clubs, [18] and has played twelve such games simultaneously. [19]

His previous best was winning 11/11 at the Kapiti Chess Club in New Zealand [20].



This section probably has some useful content, but much of it is non-notable, and having all of this is seriously undermining the NPOV of the links section. Adam Cuerden talk 02:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Presumably a lot of people had previously agreed to these, which after all explain what the subject stands for. 219.88.95.90 04:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)


Articles

Original research

"Original research is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to material that has not been published by a reliable source. It includes unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position. ... It introduces an argument, without citing a reputable source for that argument, that purports to refute or support another idea, theory, argument, or position; It introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source;" Wikipedia:No original research.

The following qualifies, and also breaks "the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately"

He also accuses many origin of life researchers, such as David Bartel of MIT and Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute, of having a religious kind of faith,[Sarfati article] although those scientists do not demonstrate any manifestation of religious faith. He also misrepresents the work of ribozyme evolution. For example, he argued that the mutagenesis of those experiments employed high error rates, which would cause error catastrophe, but high mutation rates were needed in those experiments simply to reduce the amount of time it would take to satisfactorially mutate a population of ribozymes to a significant extent, as opposed to using normal PCR techniques.[ibid]

It is especially disgraceful that two admins, FeloniusMonk and JoshuaZ are parties to this rule violation, due to their extreme ideological bias against the subject of the article.58.162.2.122 15:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Instead of making attacks on FM and me you could have discussed and pointed out your concern on the talk page earlier. I've removed the offending section until it can be better sourced due to the BLP concerns. I am happy to see that you are now using the talk page rather than editing the article. Thank you for complying with the arbitration ruling. JoshuaZ 17:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Gerald Joyce the faithless skeptic

Well, according to the survey of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, according to that sample size, it seems unlikely that Gerald Joyce has faith. It seems unlikely that Professor Joyce would do anything like believing bread and wine magically turn into the so-called Body of Christ or that some "benevolent" God created life in 6 days without some evidence.

Here are some sites that show that Professor Joyce believes that pursuing a religious agenda (much like the creationists and religious apologists) impedes one from pursuing knowledge as they often misrepresent scientific data to support their agenda:

http://www.scripps.edu/mb/joyce/47.html http://debat.ateist.net/showthread.php?p=5233#poststop http://www.arn.org/docs2/news/ucsdoriginoflife062003.htm

also here is an interesting source although I do not deem it reliable: www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3aa6b38a607a.htm ("shatcher" who allegedly worked with Joyce said something interesting). Although I think Joyce disagrees with religious people, I doubt he will explicitly call them pathetic as he respects other peoples beliefs.

I do think using those sources above do count as "original research", but I think it is enough to use the survey of the National Academy of Sciences and Joyce's membership in the National Academy of Sciences allows one to say that it is unlikely for him to be religious.

So it appears Professor Joyce lacks an important prerequiste for being a Christian or a believer in creationism: unquestioning faith. LinkinPark 18:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

But the point I wanted to stress is that Sarfati has no evidence that Gerald Joyce (or David Bartel) has any type of faith. In fact, such a faith is detrimental to science. LinkinPark 19:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, I would say that Joyce is a reductionist, well at least in the context of molecular biology. Well reductionism has been quite successful in explaining biological phenomena, at least it does a better job than any supernatural "explanation".
"Molecular biology has been remarkably successful in following a reductionist programme aimed at providing a detailed understanding of biological phenomena in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry. It is natural to wonder to what degree this programme can be extended towards understanding the origin of life itself. All of biology rests on the foundations of neo-darwinism, drawing from the principles of population biology and molecular genetics." - Gerald Joyce. 1990. In the Beginning, Nature 346: 806. (too lazy to cite it properly).
So yes, he is quite confident that a reductionist explanation will be found, but he will obviously change his mind if some evidence comes in that supports intelligent design. Well, he has no reason to change his mind because he notes that reductionism has been quite successful in elucidating the evolution of life, and comprehension of that phenomena at the molecular level. LinkinPark 03:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The material is irrelevant to the article, which is an article about Safardi, not Joyce. It therefore amounts to attack, and I have removed it. I would urge that its re-insertion not be insisted on, since including such content does not help the article or the subject. There is enough other material here to dispute. (smile) DGG 02:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)