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What sort of freak then is man!
How novel, how monstrous, how chaotic, how paradoxical, how prodigious!
Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sink of doubt and error, glory and refuse of the universe!

―Blaise Pascal

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth in him, if he rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can be otherwise. The last chamber, the last closet, he must feel was never opened; there is always a residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That is, every man believes that he has a greater possibility.

―Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bill sings to Sarah. Sarah sings to Bill. Perhaps they
will do other dangerous things together. They may eat lamb or stroke
each other. They may chant of their difficulties and their
happiness. They have love but they also have typewriters.
That is interesting.

―Racter

Contents 1 Who are you to move my work from the evolutionary support page? 2 My Apologizes 3 Intro to Evo 4 Deletion review for "Good article" template star 5 Vital articles 6 Evolution 7 Evolution lead 8 move of Hannibal (Barcid) to Hannibal 9 Atheism 10 Your input is requested at this AfD 11 Evolution lead 12 Hello, world! 13 You helped choose Rwandan Genocide as this week's WP:ACID winner 14 WikiProject Atheism 15 Beautiful rewrite of The Trouble With Atheism 16 Encyclopedia-helping userboxes? 17 You helped choose Vladimir Lenin as this week's WP:ACID winner 18 Evolution Debates 19 I am looking for an administrator 20 Thanks. 21 Evolution lead 22 Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Atheism 23 Advice 24 E Bloody... well, you know. 25 User Category for Discussion 26 I was referred to you to help me with LaVeyan Satanism 27 AfD nomination of Misunderstandings about evolution 28 About the atheism introduction

[edit] Who are you to move my work from the evolutionary support page?

It's both relevnat, and it took me a long time writing it. You don't just go out and throw other people's work out of the window, esp. in the talk pages. I 'm bringin it back. Don't dare taking it out again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.170.207.96 (talk) 07:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

Article talk pages are solely and exclusively for discussing the articles in question, and, specifically, how best to improve this articles. Please review Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines: "Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." I did not delete your comment, but rather moved it to your Talk page, so that if anyone wishes to discuss or respond to your comment they can, but such discussion will not get in the way of the important task of discussing and improving the article in question. I encourage you to review Wikipedia's policies and then make a new comment to Talk:Level of support for evolution that is exclusively focused on the article contents and how best to improve them, without any digressionary rants against public figures, organizations, or philosophies. I also encourage toning down your outrage, "Who are you to...?" and "Don't dare..."-type statements are needlessly hostile and aggressive, and are likely to lessen the productivity of a discussion. Wikipedia:Civility is encouraged: respectful and calm discussion is more likely to be productive for all sides involved. -Silence 07:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Your action was needlessly hostile and agressive, I put a fair portion of my time and energies in my contributions and you just threw it to the garbage can. Not only that but you branded it as a rant too. I doens't get any more agressive than that. What I said was directly related to improving the article in question. Re-read what I said and you might grasp the relevance say, of support within the scientific community with respect to the actual validity of the theory in question, amongst other things. 213.170.207.96 08:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

User Talk pages are not garbage cans. I transferred a block of text from an inappropriate location for it to an appropriate one. Neither location is any inherently better or worse than the other; one is just more suited to its contents, in that the other is solely for discussing directly article-related matters, not general thoughts or opinions. The same thing is regularly done with other users who do as you did; for example, there is a thriving discussion on User talk:Jorfer that was originally moved there from Talk:Level of support for evolution because it wasn't directly relevant to improving the article. What you said was not directly relevant to improving the article, and your claims could not be used to change the article because that would violate Wikipedia's official no original research policy. The "actual validity of the theory" is not relevant to Level of support for evolution, which only concerns how popular and widely-supported it is in various circles, not whether one group or another is right to support or oppose evolution. Your comments are thus outside of the article's scope, and inappropriate for that specific Talk page. -Silence 08:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Wait a sec, let me just take YOUR comments in the talk pages of articles, and bring them over here to your talk page...Look I 've had it with your evolutionist zealotism. I don't like a lot of things I read, esp. in the talk pages, I don't go about taking them down, it's obvious that you have issues with what I am saying and the relevancy thing is a pretext. My opinion is both relevant and it stays there. The support of the theory is directly correlated to it's validity. If it's validity was not in question there wouldn't need to have an adjunct support page on, now would you? Huh? I don't see a support page for the laws of gravity. You evolutionist zealots are worse, far worse than the creationists, under a pretext of rationalism you are ten times more fanatical and vengefull to anyone challenging your godly conception or sceptisism, science, moral relativism or whatever you call it...Just get your issues sorted though and get off my back.

[edit] My Apologizes

My apologizes Silence for being so cantankerous and thwarting your genuine effort to improve the Evolution article. I was unaware of your list of 25 suggestions and the useful critique. I also apologize for being unproductive and treating the talk like a forum as of late. Anyways I found the whole page useful in what is expected and the criteria for excellent articles on Wikipedia. I am working on your list in a diligent effort to do something productive as I found the suggestions well thought. Once again my apologizes. Please remind me to "keep it simple stupid" if I get my head up my ass. GetAgrippa 20:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I haven't noticed any cantankerousness. You've been perfectly pleasant, and you're an amazing asset to the editing at Evolution. All of us have been letting the article slide lately, including myself—I just spent a few weeks doing essentially no work on the article in the middle of its FAR. I'm trying to make up for that now by working to focus efforts on fixing the article's weak points. But, I will try to remind you to "keep it simple" if I see too much technicality anywhere, sure. If we combine your knowledge with my simplicity, we can work wonders! :) -Silence 20:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intro to Evo

I like the "streamlining" edits you made to the introduction of the Introduction to Evolution article. What took you so long???? A lot of criticism of the term "blueprint" in the main article. Does the term "recipe" generate less criticism? --Random Replicator 14:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I haven't been doing much work on the evolution articles lately, so that's the only thing that "took me so long". The word "blueprint" is a (somewhat) adequate metaphor, in my opinion, but after reading up on it some more, I found that some people (e.g., Dawkins) prefer the word "recipe" over it, for a variety of reasons—for one, it doesn't matter what order the genes are in, whereas blueprints demand a very specific overall "picture". The size of the recipe/genome also doesn't have anything to do with the size of the organism, whereas one would expect a bigger blueprint to generate a bigger (or at least "more complex") organism. Of course, the analogy's still not perfect, but we don't need a perfect analogy, just something simple enough to help readers who didn't understand evolution "get it" this time around. That's the main function of the "introduction" article. -Silence 20:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion review for "Good article" template star

hi, you may be interested to note there is currently a DRV active about restoring the "good article" metadata in the article space. The discussion is occurring here: article —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.3.253.199 (talk) 21:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Vital articles

Hi Silence...

I see you removed a whole bunch of articles from the list of vital articles and I don't agree with several of your deletions. I added several of the articles you deleted back in December and left an explanation on talk. I'm specifically concerned about your deletion of John Rawls (by any measure the most influential political philosopher of the 20th century), Thomas Kuhn (along with Popper the most important philosopher of science in the 20th century... even if he's wrong), Michel Foucault (apparently the most cited person of the 20th century), Samuel P. Huntington (don't know whether you removed him but he's the most influential political scientist of the 20th century -- he's started several sub-disciplines) and Seymour Martin Lipset (probably the most prolific sociologist of the 20th century).

Thanks, Mikker ^(...) 12:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It is important to remember that the VA list should show little, if any, bias towards the 20th century. Someone who founded a discipline in the 20th century is not inherently more noteworthy than someone who founded one in the 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th, 10th, 3rd, 5th BC, or any other century. If anyone who founded or was greatly influential in a fairly significant subdiscipline was included in the list, we'd have a list of thousands, rather than of a couple hundred, which would make the overall list useless for its current purposes.

You correctly note that Kuhn is probably the most important philosopher of science of the 20th century, next to Popper. What you fail to notice, however, is that Popper isn't currently on the list either. That's because the core VA list at WP:VA is (or at least should be) more demanding than you seem to expect it to be. As I see it, anyone less noteworthy than the likes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Victor Hugo should be removed (heck, even those people are, in my view, very much toeing the line of our inclusion standards). In fact, Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded was specifically created for the purpose of including people who are around the notability level of Thomas Samuel Kuhn. This list is meant to be more suited to the likes of Voltaire or Thomas Aquinas.

However, I realize that my removals and additions are based on my subjective opinions, and am open to have my opinions on any of the figures you mentioned changed based on further information on them. I am also willing to discuss removing anyone else you think I should have for the sake of consistency, or re-adding anyone you don't think I should have. But first we need to agree on the basic level of inclusion WP:VA should have; if we go by your standard, the list will be about fifty times larger than it currently is, whereas if we go by mine, it will remain at around the same size. It thus seems easier to transfer your additions to the expanded list I mentioned, than to loosen the criteria so much. But, when I get back this afternoon, I'll gladly discuss this in more detail. -Silence 12:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You make several good points and I agree completely we shouldn't have a lax definition of "vital" as WP:VA would be useless if it had more than its current ~1000 articles. I would argue, however, that at least a few of the individuals I mentioned above pass even rather stringent criteria. (Additionally, I note social science only really flourished during the 20th century, so there is bound to be some overrepresentation of that century). John Rawls is most certainly worthy of inclusion on the list (he's monumentally influential; up there with Mill, Rousseau, Hume and Hobbes); Samuel P. Huntington should be included as he basically founded several sub-disciplines of political science (starting way back in the '60s) and has created significant controversy. I'm not sure about Foucault (as I personally hate him) but the rise of postmodernism is certainly significant and he's the major figure in that movement. Lipset and Kuhn are perhaps more marginal candidates.

Come to think of it, isn't it a good idea to split the philosophers from the social scientists? Granted, such a separation will create some fuzziness (Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau etc. were both proto-social scientists and philosophers) but philosophy and social science don't really have much in common in the modern understanding of those terms.

Cheers, Mikker ^(...) 17:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

"John Rawls is most certainly worthy of inclusion on the list (he's monumentally influential; up there with Mill, Rousseau, Hume and Hobbes);" - Could I get some substantiation of that, just to make sure that this isn't partly motivated by him introducing ideas that you really like? (I only ask because you mentioned "I'm not sure about Foucault (as I personally hate him)".) Neither the lead section of John Rawls (which should make this clear if it's true) nor the rest of the article suggest to me that he is in the ranks of Hobbes, Hume, and Rousseau—and, incidentally, you may not have realized that Thomas Hobbes isn't currently on the list either! (And I've also been privately debating the possibility of removing Hume and/or Rousseau from the list recently, though at the moment I'm leaning against that.) I'm also cautious because I'm currently more inclined to remove entries than to expand on them (the list is already so long that it's hard to maintain and has accumulated cruft), and because recent comments have increased our concern about cultural bias (I notice that only 23 Wikipedias other than the English one have articles on John Rawls, as compared with 37 for Hume, 38 for Hobbes, and 45 for Rousseau. And that can't be accounted for by time-period bias, because Bertrand Russell gets 40.)

"Samuel P. Huntington should be included as he basically founded several sub-disciplines of political science" - Diophantus was recently removed from the list, and he "basically" founded algebra!!! :P You think a few sub-disciplines of social science can compete with that?

"but the rise of postmodernism is certainly significant and he's the major figure in that movement." - I agree that Postmodernism is significant. That's why it's included on WP:VA. But if we included the "major figure" in every movement in history, the WP:VA list would be twice as long as it is now. It's just not vital enough. The French Revolution is much more historically important than Postmodernism, yet we include 0 important figures from the French Revolution, because it is sufficient to link to the overall event or movement in most cases. The only way it would even be worth considering would be if Foucault was so essential to postmodernism that he was mentioned in the lead section of Postmodernism itself; since he's not (in fact, he's only mentioned five times in the entire article, which is less often than the Nietzsche and much less often than Derrida), unlike figures like Charles Darwin (in the lead section of evolution) or René Descartes (in the lead section of rationalism), I don't see the need.

A movement is almost always much more vital than its proponents; I view biographical articles as relatively useless things (compared to articles on basic things like chemistry or furniture or Mars) because they're essentially glorified history articles, but only about an extremely selective, specific aspect of history: one individual's life. No individual, no matter how noteworthy, can even enter the top 100 of Wikipedia's most important, essential, vital articles. The limited value of listing biographical articles (e.g., compare how much useful and important information there is in general relativity vs. in Albert Einstein), combined with how much more difficult it is to choose NPOV choices for them than for many other areas (they even rival country-selection sometimes!), means that we should seek to de-emphasize them as much as possible in WP:VA and focus most of our efforts on topics of broader significance, like major historical events, scientific topics, basic concepts, etc. -Silence 18:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution

I made some major changes to the lead, but think I missed out on some of your improvements just before that. I don't think there's anything still relevant, as it was a fairly major tweak, but could you have a look? Adam Cuerden ^talk 12:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to go now, but I'll have a look later today. -Silence 12:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Right-o! Adam Cuerden ^talk 12:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution lead

"Competing variants of genes, known as alleles, cause different characteristics to become more common in different organisms, resulting in variation"

I don't think we should phrase it this way, as it's using "variation" in a different way than we will later. I'll tweak a bit. I also think we should explicitly explain natural selection in the first paragraph. What do you think? Adam Cuerden ^talk 10:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to tweak. But we certainly should not discuss natural selection at all in the first paragraph, as that's what the entire second paragraph is there for. The first paragraph should deal with the basic process of evolution (explaining genes and variation in the process), as well as its history (i.e., common descent). The second parargaph should deal with the mechanisms of evolution (which we've simplified to just covering natural selection). The third paragraph should deal with the theory of evolution, its history and scientific significance. -Silence 10:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, how does that usage of variation contradict our usage of variation elsewhere? -Silence 10:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, perhaps it's just wrong: It's saying that alleles becoming more common increase genetic variation, when, of course, alleles becoming more common, if they replace the old alleles, decreases variation.

By the by, went back in and undid almost everything I had done, replacing it with a simple combining of the first two paragraphs. Set up a survey to see if we need to add anything else, but doubt it'll come to much. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I do *not* like my transition towards speciation. Tear it apart, would you? Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the explanation of speciation to yours, but am slightly worried that we don't explain how differences accumulate. Do you think it's necessary? Suppose we could add it to the poll. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] move of Hannibal (Barcid) to Hannibal

Do you know how many Punic Hannibals we know? How do you plan to keep them apart? Hannibal is a commander of equal rank to Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar Barcaof the first Punic War and a heck lot more Hannibals. That name is as common in the Punic military as Smith. Yes I know, most times people talk only about that Hannibal, but on the other hand the commander from the First Punic War has the same claim for Hannibal as the most common name in English language. Problem is do we judge on fame? Wandalstouring 13:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep. From Wikipedia:Disambiguation: "When there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase, much more used than any other (this may be indicated by a majority of links in existing articles or by consensus of the editors of those articles that it will be significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings), then that topic may be used for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top. Where there is no such clearly dominant usage there is no primary topic page." The only two viable options are either for Hannibal to be an article about the Barcid Hannibal or for Hannibal to be a disambiguation page (replacing Hannibal (disambiguation)). At the time I made the move, neither of these two options was in use; Hannibal was a redirect to Hannibal (Barcid). This is unacceptably and arbitrarily contrary to Wikipedia conventions, and serves no purpose, as it has the same effective value of simply having the article at Hannibal, but with added convoluted extra steps involved to no purpose. If you think that the Barcid Hannibal is not the primary topic, then change Hannibal to a dab page; just don't, whatever you do, change it into a redirect to anything. -Silence 13:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see your point. The problem is a bit more complicated because hardly any Punic but Hannibal, the son of rbm(Punic title for commanders) Hamilcar Barca (his correct name according to the rules in inscriptions) gets researched. However we have a great confusion with all the other Hannibals in Carthage's wars redirecting here. Wandalstouring 14:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Atheism

So, you are a hypocrite as well. You implied that I was either "lying," or "crudely" pushing an agenda, when the majority of my edits were of a tidying nature. Yes, I was insulted by that insinuation, so I fired back. I was willing to continue to try to improve that article, but if that's how you welcome the newcomer I have enough experience to know that it's best to go elsewhere because people like you are not fun to deal with. You obviously have a lot of time on your hands. I also believe that you are pretentious and long-winded. Your response to me demonstrates your pretentiousness. As if you have been above insulting people. I also believe that you have some squatting tendencies, perhaps you should consider whether this has some merit. I'm sure you won't let me get the last word, so reply if you must, but I will not engage you further. Moomot 14:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

• I apologize if any of my comments offended you; that was not my intent. I never said that you were "either 'lying' or 'crudely' pushing an agenda"; the conclusion I came to, based on your own edits and comments (e.g., "my goal by placing him in the pejorative section was to give the reader pause; to think whether or not its fair to associate Marx (or Stalin's crimes for that matter) with atheism"), was that you were trying to push an agenda (which is true, though that doesn't make all your edits non-productive), but that your edits were the result of your being misinformed, not deceptive—i.e., you simply weren't aware that Einstein isn't a confirmed atheist; this is no great sin, but the error needed to be corrected, so I did so.
• You have been consistently uncivil and antagonistic in our exchange, not only to myself but to many other editors who are valuable contributors at Atheism. You have used uncivil personal attacks like "hypocrite", "pretentious", "long-winded", "tedious", "bore", and "squatter" (a rather absurd accusation, if intended to suggest that Atheism's editors only mindlessly enforce the status quo, considering how many dramatic changes and revisions this article has undergone; I have made changes much more dramatic than any of yours).
• But no, I do not consider myself "above insulting people"; I have made mistakes in the past, as has everyone. I do not need to be perfect in order to give others tips, and that is exactly what my post to your Talk page was intended as: you are a new user, and are not familiar with all of Wikipedia's policies, so I linked you to two very important ones. My purpose is not to criticize you; my purpose is to critize your edits (in the interests of further improving and discussing the article), and to provide you with valuable information. I have done so, in providing you with the links to WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA; you may take it or leave it. My only hope is that you will use the policy information there to avoid future conflicts like this one, which will surely recur many times if you are not more careful not to insult and attack others, even when you think they are insulting or attacking you! The proper response to unacceptable misconduct (though being "boring" is not misconduct, you should keep in mind) on others' parts is explicated at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes; counterattacking is never an appropriate or helpful response, as it escalates rather than diffuses conflicts. Good luck to you in your future edits and interactions. -Silence 15:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your input is requested at this AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Level of support for evolution--Filll 19:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution lead

I've made two changes to your version of the lead: The random changes of mutation to genes are acting on different things than the random chance of genetic drift, which alters survival and chances to reproduce. As both are important, I readded "While random chance can intervene and cause even the most beneficial trait to be lost", but left the rest out, so that both genetic drift and the competing process, natural selection, are mentioned. I also moved the mention of the term "natural selection" to after the description of the process: I think that makes it easier, as the reader won't be confronted with a (possibly) unfamiliar or poorly-understood term until after he's had it explained, and it also wasn't entirely clear, with where it was, that natural selection was the thing being described in the next few sentences. Adam Cuerden ^talk 03:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with moving "natural selection" to after the description of the process, but disagree with re-adding the "While random chance can intervene and cause even the most beneficial trait to be lost"; this seems like a very poor explanation to me (as it implies that it's extremely common for "the most beneficial trait" to be lost, else it wouldn't be noteworthy enough to mention in the lead section), and as it is entirely redundant and noninformative as it's currently worded (since the fact that randomness is involved and that natural selection isn't 100% is already implied by the previous sentence and by the use of uncertain terminology like "tends"). -Silence 05:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

...I just can't see the connection between mutation and genetic drift, so your concept that the statement on mutation means we needn't mention genetic drift is a little confusing. However, I can say this: It IS extremely common for the most beneficial trait to be lost - in small populations. The smaller the population, the more genetic drift dominates over natural selection. And, indeed, at the point of entering the population, the mutation is in one individual: If it dies, the mutation is lost. So, pretty common. Adam Cuerden ^talk 09:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

But the rest of the lead section is discussing evolution at the largest scale possible: it's discussing speciation, it's discussing natural selection, it's discussing universal common descent. Everything in the first paragraph should be helping further readers' understanding of the fact that organisms, by gradual, natural genetic changes, are all descended from the same ancestor (since that's the last sentence of the paragraph, and its "climax"). Saying "Oh but it's really really really random too and sometimes other shit happens", which is essentially the function of the insertion here, is absolutely useless to our readers without exactly the sort of clarification you provided above: that random chance plays more of a role the smaller a population is.

Moreover, since we don't even use the words "mutation" and "genetic drift" in the lead section, I don't see how it can cause any potential confusion not to go out of our ways to explain all the differences between them. What we should really be doing is not trying really hard to explain mutation or genetic drift per se, but rather just stating, as simply and clearly as possible, that there is a significant random component in evolution. My sole purpose in adding the sentence on mutation was to try to empasize that (and to mention variation between individuals), so I welcome you to rewrite the "mutation" sentence in vaguer language that will allow us to concisely give that message without specifically referencing mutation or any other process. All that matters is that we explain what will help readers understand the very basics of evolution; "While random chance can intervene and cause even the most beneficial trait to be lost" fails to do this on every level, because it's redundant to "tends", and extremely misleading without the context provided later in the article—that randomness is a stronger force on small populations, selection on large ones. If anything, I'd say that's such an obvious and intuitive idea (one would expect random chance to play a stronger role in any scenario where there are only a few individuals; that's why polls try to get large samples of people, for example) that it doesn't at all need to be explicitly mentioned, and the aspects of the idea that aren't obvious and intuitive are too complicated to effectively explain in the lead section. You're much more informed and intelligent on this matter than me, so the result is disastrous if I'm doing all the talking. -Silence 13:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not quite convinced, though I'm quite open to other phrasings. Shall we take it to the talk page and ask others for ideas and comments? Adam Cuerden ^talk 16:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

All your comments in this entire conversation have been really, really, really, really unhelpfully vague and non-explicit. Why do you so consistently refuse to make explicit why this phrasing or that doesn't work, why we need to make explicit something as seemingly trivial as "While random chance can intervene and cause even the most beneficial trait to be lost" at the very beginning of the article, why the conventional explanations of evolution given by all major layperson-intended sources I've seen are unsatisfactory because they don't explicitly address genetic drift? (Dawkins, for example, in trying to explain evolution very simply and clearly to laypeople, noted that randomness is involved in evolution, but only discussed mutation because he knew it was the only aspect that was centrally important to relate to an uninformed audience; and he also noted that understanding natural selection is the real key to understanding Darwinian evolution. After noting that natural selection is nonrandom, he said, "There is an element of chance in Darwin's theory, in the form of mutation. But mutation is a very small part of it. The really important part of the theory is natural selection.") I'm fully open to changing my mind on what we do or don't need in the lead section, if you'll simply take a minute to explain why we need a qualifier as seemingly trivial, convoluted, misleading, and inane as "While random chance can intervene and cause even the most beneficial trait to be lost," before going into a straightforward discussion of natural selection. 100% of the reason why this discussion is largely going in circles is that you won't make your reasoning explicit, so I have no new information to go on and we both hit a wall. -Silence 18:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that. To be honest, I was thinking of, of all things, that Terry Pratchett and Ian Stewart populisation, which universally emphasised the random chance and possibility of the best organism falling off a cliff every time. However, there are other good reasons for emphasising genetic drift: It is one of the major sources of variation between populations, though perhaps I'm stating it too strongly in the current lead. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I just don't think we can cut genetic drift as much as you want to without making the speciation and universal common descent sentences be unsupported. Evolution acts by both mechanisms, and I think we need to cover the importance of genetic drift equally to natural selection. There's only two main mechanisms of evolution (at least if you don't count the sources of variation): It's not ridiculous to cover both.

Admittedly, my logic above might, if taken to its logical conclusion ask for hybridisation to be given more emphasis, but I think we can consider such extreme sources of variation as very special cases. Shall we ask opinions on the talk page? Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, well, I've put both versions onto the talk page, and asked for comment. To be fair, I've emphasised that you've had less time to develop your version. Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

By the by, having had some time to step back and think about it, I think you may be right about me over-emphasising Genetic drift, though I still would like a little more about it, ideally. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hello, world!

I see what you did there.

I like it.

AmberAlert1713 19:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] You helped choose Rwandan Genocide as this week's WP:ACID winner

Thank you for your support of the Article Improvement Drive. This week Rwandan Genocide was selected to be improved to featured article status. Hope you can help.

AzaBot 23:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Atheism

If you are not going to respond any further to my comments on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Atheism, please let me know. --24.57.157.81 00:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Beautiful rewrite of The Trouble With Atheism

I think that should silence all neutrality and citation complaints. --Merzul 18:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Silence, may I ask what your personal view is, if you don't mind. The only reason I'm interested is because you seem to now so much about atheism. So, are you strong or weak atheist, or maybe agnostic? But I'm primarily interested in what label you use to identify your belief, because I thought I was myself a strong atheist; but this guy on the talk page said it wasn't normal to self-identify as a strong atheist. I'm a bit confused that I might have mis-identified myself :) --Merzul 23:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedia-helping userboxes?

Could you perhaps explain why seemingly innocuous, beneficial-to-collaboration userboxes like User:UBX/pagan are being moved out of templatespace? Are we going to see WikiProject userboxes moved out of templatespace next (i.e., I don't see a significant distinction between "This user is interested in paganism" and "This user is a member of WikiProject Paganism")? -Silence 22:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

You're certainly right, and if I had it completely my way (and there was no controversy at all), that template would have stayed in template namespace. Unfortunately, userboxes which display a political or religious affiliation are very controversial among the community, as can be seen by the deletion log of {{User:CharonX/Userboxes/User christian}} (see [1]). Of course, "This user is ..." is very different from "This user is interested in ...", but still, it's best to avoid controversy, and since there's no real loss in moving the templates into userspace, and they're safe there, I feel it is appropriate. I hope I've cleared things up; if I've not, feel free to write back. —METS501 (talk) 00:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] You helped choose Vladimir Lenin as this week's WP:ACID winner

Thank you for your support of the Article Improvement Drive. This week Vladimir Lenin was selected to be improved to featured article status. Hope you can help.

AzaBot 01:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution Debates

The Talk:Evolution subpage "Evolution Debates" that I created has disappeared. Is there a way for me to track when it was deleted? You made a good argument for not having that page, but I would have thought if someone deleted it, there would at least be a record of that somewhere. I assume whatever content the page had is now lost. Thanks in advance for any info. Gnixon 14:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, perhaps you could comment on EdJohnston's idea to hat/hab-archive such debates on the main talk page.Gnixon 14:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I am looking for an administrator

and after checking out three ahead of you decided that I liked your user page and here I am. Earlier today I uploaded a photo of John Henry Waddell, his article, top . . ...... right (I often get left and right mixed-up) . After some thought I decided to upload another, better (opinion) one. Fine, but what do I do with the old one? it is now an orphan and I'd like to remove it completely,it doesn't need to be using up space, but don't know how. So, any ideas? Carptrash 01:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks.

Thank you very much for trying to keep the evolution article accurate and detailed. More than half the arguments against evolution that I've seen have been from people who were beating up a straw man, not on purpose, but actually because they didn't know what the real thing looked like. That is never good for either side. Jesin 19:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution lead

I'd love to hear your input over at this discussion.--Margareta 21:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You're my new hero.--Margareta 15:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Atheism

I've made several changes and requested clarification on some of your points. Please strike out any rectified problems and consider changing your vote to Weak Oppose/Support. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-04-13 17:38Z

[edit] Advice

Hey, Silence. I realize I may have gotten a little under your skin with my excited editing of Evolution recently, but you seem to be a reasonable guy, so I thought I'd solicit some advice. I'd appreciate any thoughts you can offer on how I could better handle myself regarding Evolution and its talk page. Hopefully you understand that I've been long frustrated by its poor quality, but I've felt unable to provide the content-expert perspective needed to get started doing anything about it. On a related subject, I'd appreciate your thoughts on how I could better deal with TxMCJ and when, if at all, I should seek intervention. Thanks for any advice you can offer. Given the acrimony involved over there, I'll understand if you'd prefer not to discuss this with me. Best, Gnixon 04:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

I don't think you've handled yourself too poorly. Disagreements are inevitable when editing articles; what makes all the difference in the world is how we respond to disagreements. I haven't been observing all your interactions lately, since I just returned to the page recently, but if you want my advice, the best I can give is (1) to always clearly explain your reasoning, especially when someone seems to disagree on a point; (2) always pay close attention to the other person's reasoning, even if it you think you know what he wants; and (3) don't bother making or responding to comments that aren't directed toward improving the article.

Great advice, TxMCJ 17:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

3 is especially useful for minimizing and avoiding conflicts: if someone says something offensive to you, do not respond in any way. Don't even respond to say "I'm not going to respond to that", as even that can incite fights. If you must respond, do it on the Talk page, and seek third-party mediation if ignoring the problem and trying to resolve it yourself don't seem to be working. You'll not only save yourself a lot of time and energy, but you'll also help keep the overall atmosphere more relaxed. Remember that we're only here to improve encycloepdia articles; who cares if other people have wrong ideas about us, as long as that isn't relevant to the editing?

1 and 2 are useful chiefly because I've found that 99% of arguments are really just misunderstandings. Avoid misunderstandings and you avoid the overwhelming majority of conflicts. For example, if I'd known exactly why you found it more reasonable to group "speciation/extinction" with "common descent" earlier on, I might still not have agreed with putting it under that section, but at least I'd have seen where you were coming from and we could have reached a compromise much faster.

Regarding TxMCJ, just don't respond to anything he says except article-related matters; if you feel that he's persisting in harassing you or anything, then don't respond, but just request mediation. If you don't want to play games, then don't play games. -Silence 04:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Your general advice is good, and it's what I always try to follow, but I don't always succeed. I particularly should have read your comments more closely to avoid misunderstandings earlier tonight. For the Evolution page specifically, I wonder if I'm being a little too "helpful" participating in as many discussions as I do and reorganizing old ones. In a medium prone to misunderstandings, probably every word written or quick edit made is just another chance to annoy someone. Maybe I can take a cue from you in terms of popping in every once in awhile and making longer, more well-thought out comments, then quickly making a few substantive changes that are likely to be agreeable. Then again, I have noticed you getting caught up in debates before.  ;)

As for TxMCJ, the reason I ask for advice is because her offensiveness is particularly insidious and hard to ignore. Basically, for every single edit or comment I make, she seems to have a retort that (1) deliberately misrepresents or distracts from what I wrote, (2) in at least some way argues against and mocks my comment, and (3) argues or insinuates that I'm not qualified to edit the page or disagree with her. Frankly, although I've tried repeatedly to bury the hatchet, I'm no longer interested in communicating with her or influencing her in any way. However, I'm concerned that she's detracting from my ability to communicate with others by masking each comment I make with subtle misrepresentations and discrediting remarks. I think if you glance over a few of our conversations you'll see what I mean. That's why I'm not sure the usual advice of ignoring someone works here. On the other hand, she's not exactly cursing me out and calling names, so I'm not sure at what point I become justified in asking for intervention, and I'm frustrated to even think of spending more time dealing with her. (On the other hand, see this, this, and this.) Perhaps it's time for me to seek mediation. Until that point, I suppose I'll try literally ignoring her and see how that works. Not trying to get you involved here---just asking advice. Gnixon 05:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] E Bloody... well, you know.

Silence - Thank you! Your recent modification to the opening sentence in the Darwin article was all it took. I'm sure you read my tirade in the talk page. It was meant to stir up the... ah... fecal matter, but not in a confrontational way (I hope). Good job with the edits you did! Once I've calmed down a bit, I'll read over the article in its entirety (seeking "Darwin's fossilised bones", so to speak...) and tweak where I may - with explanation, of course. All the best. Esseh 03:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User Category for Discussion

[edit] I was referred to you to help me with LaVeyan Satanism

I was referred to you to help me "proofread and strengthen the prose" of LaVeyan Satanism. I was told that this is your area of expertise; I hope their right. The reason for this being that I have nominated the article for Featured article candidate. Your help would be much appreciated. Thanks. Lighthead 21:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nomination of Misunderstandings about evolution

An editor has nominated Misunderstandings about evolution, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not"). Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Misunderstandings about evolution (second nomination) and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. Jayden54Bot 19:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About the atheism introduction

Silence, I just now updated my introduction proposal in the atheism talk with nontheism. I would like your opinion on whether or not my edit would be an improvement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Atheism#As_a_Doctrine.2C_Proposal _Modocc 19:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)