User talk:The Rationalist

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[edit] Welcome!

Hello, The Rationalist! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking Image:Signature icon.png or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! -- Levine2112 discuss 09:28, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
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Miscellaneous

[edit] Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button Image:Signature_icon.png located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 09:28, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Response to a query on Expert Withdrawal

Your watchlist is controlled through your preferences. You have a "my watchlist" feature at the top right hand corner of your screen that indicates the pages on your watchlist. You can set your preferences to e-mail you every time a change happens to an article on your watchlist. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll set this up. The Rationalist (talk) 13:46, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
You should also note the "watch" versus "unwatch" tab at the top of every WP page. That's the easiest way to add and subtract pages from your watchlist.
Excellent, thank you. The Rationalist (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


You mentioned being a little offended by a comment that your account may have been set up by another of the scientists. To which comment are you referring, because I'm a little confused? Best, Jay*Jay (talk) 15:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] example

You said: "Well notice I have just joined. I have no idea how to make a coloured block to highlight the statement." Copy, paste, edit this example. WAS 4.250 (talk) 14:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you !The Rationalist (talk) 15:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Offense by creation science supporters

Creation science supporters will take offense to the mainstream characterization of them as not being scientists. However, Wikipedia is not the righter of great wrongs and as long as it is verifiable that creation science is not, in point of fact, science, we can say so plainly. If they're offended, they merely need to change the outside world that Wikipedia reports on and we'll change the article to reflect the changes they enact to mainstream science. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:04, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Random Number experiment

Hi Rationalist, I was also interested in that experiment as it was described in the movie and tried to find it so I could see the actual data and data analysis for myself, but I haven't been able to come up with it. (And I, for one, appreciated the transcript because I've been wishing I had written down just what they said about it in the film.) My suspicion, just from the description, is that the two tapes were the same at the end because they were the same at the beginning; neither one of them changed, instead it was just assumed that they had changed because of their "deviation from randomness" in other words a "finding" based on a misinterpretation or overinterpretation of simple randomness, which deviates all over the place quite naturally; even very wide deviations aren't all that uncommon. But I wouldn't know for sure unless I actually saw the data and the writeup. If you come across it (it would most likely be found at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Dean Radin's workplace) I'd like to see it. I did find something called the "Global Consciousness Project" which involves random number generators and with which Dean Radin has done a couple of experiments, but these don't claim that the numbers are being changed in the past, only that random number generation is affected by "consciousness." I've spent some time poring over those data. There are a couple of good independent critiques that you can find on the site if you're at all confused about it, and I can tell you what I think if you're interested. It's worth a look even though it's not germane to the movie.

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

I'm new too so I can't offer advice, but when I looked in on the Bleep page it it didn't look like things were going very well there. I don't think they care as much as you and I do about getting it right, for instance being absolutely sure the science is bogus before saying so. I made the same "mistake" by poring over the movie, poring over the data, making my own determination about its merit. They don't care about any of that; that's all "original research." All they care about is that everything that's said about it is backed up by a source. For whatever it's worth, Woonpton (talk) 22:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. If you were also asking about the water "experiment," that is also ... well, lacking in rigor. Scientists have pretty much ignored it with good reason, but somewhere on the web there's a nice little experiment done by a high school class who were not able to replicate the effect. The original work was never intended as science but as a photo essay, and Emoto doesn't claim to be a scientist but an "original thinker." It's pretty easy to guess how it was done; he did say that some of the samples of water he used were pollluted, and it makes sense to suppose that there was so much gunk in those brown samples that they didn't freeze at the same temperature as the clean water and didn't form nice crystals. Again, that's just a guess, not a claim. I got two of his books, trying to find anything useful in them; there's not. There are pages and pages of pictres of ice crystals with fanciful interpretations, including a whole page full of pictures of water that had been given the message "thank you" in different languages, and lo and behold, they're all different (as ice crystals always are of course) which proves that not only can water read, it can read in seven different languages. Who knew? Also such information as this: "it is universally accepted that there can be no life without water, and if we accept that water, the source of all life, was sent from outer space, then logic leads us to the conclusion that all life, including that of human beings, is alien to this planet."

I wouldn't recommend trying to put any of this in the article; I wanted to put it in too, but I discovered later that SA had a great version a ways back that included a list of the claims with the refutation of each, all properly sourced, which was all discarded. Regards, Woonpton (talk) 23:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On personal comments

For your attendance, it's quite important not to accuse people of having a vested involvement in the articles. Whilst not always possible, as a rule one should avoid discussing other editors motivations on talk pages. It can be regarded as a serious breach of etiquette. Jefffire (talk) 23:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bleep

I'm happy to discuss at any time. Just drop by my "talk". As to where editors are coming from; I'm not sure anyone knows that, but the best idea might be to just get to know them and their work. I believe this takes time as it does with getting to know anyone, anywhere. (olive (talk) 20:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC))

Hi Rationalist.I'm getting over some kind of flu so am not ignoring you. I will respond tomorrow if that's OK . Still trying to rest.(olive (talk) 16:42, 24 February 2008 (UTC))
Hi there hope you get better. A couple of people had this round our way. Best The Rationalist (talk) 20:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Getting fed up

PS I'm seriously considering my involvement in this encyclopedia after looking at kww's comments above. This is a man who I would expect to be on my side, taking a position that he admits he is being forced to take for purely 'political' reasons. This is madness. And ScienceApologist has been blocked again for writing, then striking out ' Almost everyone who believes in this stuff is basically a moron or an absolute wacko ...' which I think is quite funny. This is the sort of thing I could easily have written - indeed I did make a reference on this talk page to the 'terminally stupid', but wisely deleted it rather than strike it out. I have already been threatened with being reported to the authorities for accusations of bad faith or whatever. Finally, I spent most of yesterday researching 'What the Bleep' when I could have been making crisps with my 11-year old son & I feel guilty about that. This all takes too much emotionally out of a person, and the end result hardly looks worth while. An introduction that looks as though it has been written by a committee, moreover one that may change at any moment unless watched night and day. Life is too short. I hope the sandbox and transcriptions are useful to someone. I did find the research into the movie interesting, as I had never heard of it before now. I do think it is sad (after reading all the comments on YouTube from people who were taken in by this) that this basically fraudulent work is getting free publicity on an 'encyclopedia' that seems to get top Google ranking for anything, regardless of its quality. There is something deeply wrong here. There is a brave band of people defending legitimate science on these pages but, as I commented above, it really is like the bridge scene in Apocalypse Now with a few soldiers defending the front line with little support against 'Charlie' who it seems is everywhere, and invisible. I'm going to make every effort to detach myself from this enterprise, and get back to work and my family, which are the two really important things. The Rationalist (talk) 08:23, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Why I rarely participate at this time. My family is much more important to me, then dealing with extremist. BTW, ScienceApologist has been, a major or maybe the major advocate of including pseudoscience in the lead. Anthon01 (talk) 16:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Feel your pain. I got aggravated with the WTB nonsense and decided to force myself not to look at that train wreck for a while. Rracecarr (talk) 02:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

I wish we could go get a cup of coffee and just talk. Woonpton (talk) 15:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

PS. I've set up my email, so if you're interested in that "cup of coffee" set yours up too and send me a note; it strikes me we share a lot of concerns and interests in common. Regards, Woonpton (talk) 19:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you mind if I don't set up the email? I want to keep a small part of my life private - happy to talk, though! Thanks for the thought. The Rationalist (talk) 19:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Message received. I'm not sure what you thought I was suggesting, but I assure you I had no intention of invading any part of your private life, or of opening any part of my private life to you. Of course I don't mind if you don't care to have a private conversation; that's perfectly understandable. I just wanted to share some information that I thought might be useful to you in a situation here, that I'm not comfortable sharing on the public space. So I'll just say this: check your assumptions. I'll trouble you no further. Adieu. Woonpton (talk) 23:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I hate to make a liar of myself, but I remembered another thing. I just wanted to add, FYI, that I've absented myself from the Bleep page since I discovered yesterday that comments were being removed from the page, and I don't know when, or even if, I'll ever be able to make myself approach that page again. I wish the best to anyone who is willing to put in the effort to try to steer things in the right direction there. I hope I didn't sound too abrupt above, but I was rather taken aback. Take care, Woonpton (talk) 00:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for writing. Actually, I do understand your concern, and should have been more sensitive to it. How the email works here, it seems, is that the sender's email address is visible to the recipient, so I understand that you would want to be careful about that. It's funny, I've had a significant online presence under my real name for 10 years, and never thought a thing about it or had any problem as a result of being so public with my real identity, but after a couple of weeks in Wikipedia, I'm so paranoid that there's no way I would want anyone here to know my real name. Because I do have a real-life identity I want to protect, which is immediately revealed on googling my usual email address, I set up a separate email account that's not connected to my real name, just to write to you. Here's a thought: If you would set up your e-mail, then I could write and tell you what I wanted to say. (Now you're going to think it's something really huge and top secret, but it's not that big a deal, actually, and I didn't intend for it to become such a huge deal). You wouldn't need to respond to the email, and if you didn't respond, your email would be kept secret from me. It's simple to set up, you just go into preferences and enter an email address in the appropriate box, then the system sends you an email at that address to confirm; when you click on the confirmation link, you're set up.

Thanks for your comment about my comments. I'm finding this all very fascinating and very disturbing at the same time.Woonpton (talk) 17:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. After you said you would prefer not to converse by email, I deactivated the email connection in my Wikipedia preferences, but now I've got it active again.Woonpton (talk) 17:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bleep again

I'm sorry. I have no idea what you are you talking about.(olive (talk) 15:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC))

More trolling. You know perfectly well. The Rationalist (talk) 15:32, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
What I did in trying to get agreement in this article, I did in good faith, and with what I know of Wikipedia policy. Nor was there intent to bait.(olive (talk) 21:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC))
I just saw your apology today for some reason. So sorry it took me so long to respond. Thank you. Accepted of course.(olive (talk) 23:02, 26 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Bleep again again

Hi friend, I don't understand what you're doing. Since I tend to agree with you on substance more often than not, I might well agree with much of what you're saying, but the vehemence of the delivery makes it hard to concentrate on the ideas and assess them rationally. I can only imagine that the difficulty may be that much greater for those who aren't inclined to agree with you in the first place. Just a thought.Woonpton (talk) 20:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Quite, but I have a very short fuse and this nonsense has gone on long enough. They just keep on needling me and I can't help the old Turette's thing. Thanks for popping by, I need to take a break. The Rationalist (talk) 21:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


Seriously, Woonpton has a good point. Your fury is getting in the way of getting anything accomplished. That article is never going to be a masterpiece. Focus on a few points, and figure out how to make them impervious to criticism. That's how that final sentence that no one likes is surviving ... there isn't an argument within Wikipedia's rules that can take it out. You have a clear idea of what you think the description needs to be. I fed you a few sources, now find a few more, and figure out a way to say what you want in a fashion that no one can put a dent in.Kww (talk) 21:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah I agree, thanks for the calming remarks. Sorry to everyone. Kw, thanks for the sources, they were good. But it still makes me MAD I have to cite something as obvious as that, so that every sentence is festooned with superscriptions. Ooops, getting angry again. The Rationalist (talk) 21:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Final warning

These comments, [1] adn [2] , are uncalled for. Consider this a final warning. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Rlevse is a rather power-hungry administrator who left in a huff a few months back when I pointed out how ridiculous he was being on WP:ANI. After "cooling off" he came back and resumed his towing-of-the-line in opposition to reality-based editors. He has a small but committed group of administrative friends who seem to be at least somewhat sympathetic to editors who are as dumb as oxen but fill their time hounding smarter editors by complaining about "civility" and other brain-dead Wikipedia policies and guidelines over and over again. His goal, I'm sure, is to become an arbitrator eventually, something which we should not allow given his rather extensively hostile record. He is far from an uninvolved administrator in regards to the pseudoscience wars and any block/administrative action he pursues in this regard should be strenuously contested on the grounds of his previous expressed hostility toward people attempting to keep Wikipedia in-line with its own stated content policies and guidelines. Take any warning he gives very seriously as he is one of those administrators likely to act "heroically" to save Wikipedia from incivility. Keep a record of his actions against you and, if need be, I'll give you a record of the more outrageous actions he has perpetrated against me. Oh, and he also doesn't like swears so don't put any swears on his talk page or in edit summaries that he may read. A user RfC is surely in his future. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cool

Glad you like it (: I really don't see any major obstacles to consensus on the lead at least. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Something to look at

I came across this this morning; may explain (at least in part) why conflicts of interest are treated so selectively on Wikipedia:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/06/the_cult_of_wikipedia/ Woonpton (talk) 20:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Woonpton! Again, my apologies to you and the others for 'losing it' the other day. The Rationalist (talk) 08:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
No problem, I was on a short fuse myself that day. I can see that I misread, sorry.
I just now saw the note you left me on March 9; I had been getting false "new message" messages for a few days there, so I just stopped looking when it told me I had a new message, and I guess I missed a real one. I was coming to tell you that, when I found your note above, thanks.
I've pretty discouraged with Bleep at the moment; we can't seem to keep a momentum going long enough to get something decided. And I do understand very much the frustration of bringing things up again and again, thinking they've been decided and then finding the group going off in a different direction, or, conversely, having things brought up and again and again that I thought had already been argued down decisively. It's a very weird process, and proof of the truism that nothing useful is ever done by committee. Woonpton (talk) 23:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Just driving by, and felt like commenting ... that's the reason why I'm trying a strategy of deciding one small thing at a time, and getting it incorporated into a protected articles. Too many chefs of too many strongly held conflicting opinions to let it be a free-for-all.Kww (talk) 00:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hey Rationalist

Glad to see you're still around.

I continue discouraged about the whole project, but keep hanging on, hoping to discover some new evidence that will prove me wrong. Carry on, Woonpton (talk) 04:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I perversely keep on trying. Did you see the recent one about the prize-winning physicist being shown the door by some 22 year old twit? The Rationalist (talk) 14:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey Rationalist, give me a holler if you happen to check back in; I take it you're taking a break. Woonpton (talk) 16:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

From "R Physicist" to The Rationalist: I perhaps should have first contacted you directly about this. I appreciate the support that you gave to my position at the Administrator's Notice Board discussion, but would like to ask you to kindly remove all posted speculations regarding my personal identity. At an earlier stage, when I still maintained a user account "R Physicist" I did post sufficient information about myself to allow someone interested to contact me directly. But at this point, I have chosen to delete my user account and would appreciate it if there were no residual speculations posted regarding my identity at such a public site. The fact that I am well enough qualified in my area to have taken the positions on scientific content that I did is not at this point being put into doubt by anyone, so there is no useful purpose in making further references to or speculations about my personal identity. In order to minimize the likelihood of possible mischief resulting, I would like to ask you therefore to kindly respect my preference for retaining a reasonable degree of privacy for all concerned, by removing all references to personal identities from your postings. 24.202.238.172 (talk) 03:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC) (alias "R Physicist")

Can I support that? Without entering into details, I think the respect for privacy of pseudonymous and anonymous posters is one of our basic values here, and should be respected. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, apologies for that. What do I need to do? The Rationalist (talk) 18:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
PS in mitigation JzG linked to a blog post that did appear to be connected to the issue, and I assumed that you wished it to be made public. Apologies again. The Rationalist (talk) 18:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for removing the postings that I mentioned. Perhaps you are not aware of it, but it seems that a renewed "AfD" is in process about the same article that I had nominated for deletion: Myrzakulov equations. I am not taking part in that debate, since I have decided to pretty well stay away from Wikipedia for the foreseeable future. I expect that WP will either continue to degenerate, and be viewed with increasing scorn by the general (educated) public, or it will change its internal rules and structures, eventually, which might perhaps lead also to an improvement in the value/junk ratio posted.
If you care to look at the current AfD debate, you will find (on the "talk" page, not on the main discussion page), a copy of a letter that I sent, on March 25th, to Wikipedia "adjudicator/administrator" Charles Matthews containing my third and final plea to intervene, and stop the deletions, transpositions, removals, collapses and other manipulations to which user:Cheeser1 was subjecting my remarks, and that of other expert contributors, as well as his increasingly aggressive insults, obscenities and false "denunciations". Nothing was done in response to these pleas for assistance. 132.205.67.123 (talk) 00:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC) (alias: "R Physicist")
Many thanks - I will drop into the debate. The Rationalist (talk) 12:06, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I saw your vote - but I think you forgot to sign it. (Beware: if you don't, they will accuse you of being a "sockpuppet"!)
I am not participating anymore, but feel somewhat sorry for this poor woman, N.G. Nugmanova (author of the the article), with her "Russian conspiracy" paranoia. Perhaps you, or someone else, could gently help her with this by pointing out that there is a very easy way to determine the geographical location of any anonymous IP address, using one of the standard IP address locator services available on the net. 24.202.238.172 (talk) 13:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC) (alias: "R Physicist")
Thanks I have now signed it. Best The Rationalist (talk) 15:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  • To R_Physicist. In your msg to user The Rationalist (User talk:The Rationalist) I found the following comments " I am not participating anymore, but feel somewhat sorry for this poor woman, N.G. Nugmanova (author of the the article), with her "Russian conspiracy" paranoia" [3]. I hope that I will find you and will has possibility to prove you "poor" or "antipoor" moments. Moreover I think that you are really poor man. Although I respect you as a senior scientist. But here I not about it. I never used the term "Russian conspiracy" (please read all my comments on these 3 AfD). I think that here not exist any "Russian conspiracy", "Kazakh conspiracy" or any other "conspiracies". I wrote just about 2 russian users which asserted for example that "Myrzakulov equations not exist" or like that. I personally inform you that I have many russian friends and relatives here. And some members of our group are russians. We, kazakhs, love them. So here no any national aspects. Any other assertions about "Russian conspiracy" are just consequences of your paranoia and trivial logic. Sorry I not would like any such kind comments. Just I can not not answer on your above mentioned comments. Barstaw (talk) 17:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
R_Physicist and Barstaw, this isn't constructive at all. R_Physicist, we've got a policy here of civility and we try not to judge by anything other than edits themselves. Barstaw, posting the same message in multiple places doesn't really help anything, it just makes centralized discussion difficult. You might want to try linking to a single post of it next time.
Also, come to think of it, The Rationalist, if you ever need a voice of reason and civility to help you calm down silly (or stupid) debates, feel free to drop me a line on my talk page. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 18:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some rhetorical questions to demonstrate how not to communicate

Having read your post on FT2's talk page, some questions come to mind:

  • I could find no contributions of yours to science articles, only to pseudoscience topics. Would you like to point me to any relevant works of yours in earlier incarnations?
  • What's so "illogical" about a user name that is PASCAL for "forever"?
  • Is it really a good idea to poke fun at a username that was acquired after serious off-line harassment?
  • Don't you think you user name is a bit presumptious?

Mind you, I agree with the positive things you have said about Giano. But saying them is much less effective when it is done by a young anonymous restricted purpose account whose rhetoric, in a way similar to that of Giano and R physicist, is aimed at impressing rather than convincing. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about. I contribute to pseudoscience topics as a rationalist, not as a 'pseudoscientist'. As to earlier incarnations, I assume you mean my real life identity. I have publications of all sorts, but then you would have to know my identity and I would rather you didn't, for now. The Rationalist (talk) 06:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)