Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Talk:Freethought

2008-12-16T02:58:12Z

Freethought: I support this redirect whole-heartedly

Of course, there is no atheists who are freethinkers. Jesus said, "He who sins is the slave of sin" and surely [http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism#Commonly_Cited_Arguments_Against_Atheism_and_For_Theism the existing evidence points to the existence of God]. [[User:Conservative|conservative]] 23:54, 12 October 2008 (EDT)
:Why does this redirect to atheism? [[User:HelpJazz|Help]][[User talk:HelpJazz|Jazz]] 00:00, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
::I have my reasons. I suggest you go to http://www.reddit.com/ now and customize your viewing for [[atheism]]. :) :) [[User:Conservative|conservative]] 00:03, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
:::Can you share these reasons with the community? I don't really care much about who's linking to our website; nor do I care about user-rated news, since the internet community as a whole doesn't care about the same things I do :) [[User:HelpJazz|Help]][[User talk:HelpJazz|Jazz]] 00:12, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
::::Nothing? I see that [[freethinker]] also redirects to athiesm, but there the talk page is locked. [[User:HelpJazz|Help]][[User talk:HelpJazz|Jazz]] 20:07, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
Clearly freethought is a risk to Christianity. It must be stopped. The best way to do that is to scare people by redirecting it to the scary article about [[atheism]]. And it's a lot easier than actually writing an article about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought freethought]. Those atheists at Wikipedia describe it as "a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic". Sounds a lot harder, and scarier, than just believing what our mommies and daddie tell us if you ask me. [[User:Freethought|Freethought]] 21:58, 15 December 2008 (EST)

New Zealand

2008-06-08T04:07:11Z

Freethought: /* People */ Religion in wayward New Zealand

{{Country
|name =''Aotearoa New Zealand''
|map =New zealand rel 2006.jpg
|flag =Flag of New Zealand.png
|arms =Arms of New Zealand.png
|capital =Wellington
|capital-raw =
|government =Parliamentary Democracy
|government-raw =
|language =English, Maori, New Zealand Sign Language
|king =
|queen =Elizabeth II
|monarch-raw =
|president =
|president-raw =
|chancellor =
|chancellor-raw =
|pm =Helen Clark
|pm-raw =
|area =150,871 sq. miles
|pop =4,252,000
|pop-basis =2007
|gdp =$117.696 billion
|gdp-year =2008
|gdp-pc =$27,785
|currency =New Zealand Dollar
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}}
'''New Zealand''' ([[Maori]]: '''Aotearoa''' - translates as ''Land of the Long White Cloud'') is a country in the southern [[Pacific Ocean]] comprising two large islands (North Island and South Island) and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands. The Realm of New Zealand also includes the Cook Islands and Niue, which are self-governing, but in 'free association'; Tokelau; and the Ross Dependency (New Zealand's Antarctic territorial claim). New Zealand is notable for its geographic isolation, being separated from Australia to the northwest by the Tasman Sea, approximately 2000 kilometers (1250 miles) across. Its closest neighbours to the north are [[New Caledonia]], [[Fiji]], and [[Tonga]]. [[Wellington]] is the capital of New Zealand; [[Auckland]] is the largest city.

==People==
Most of the 4 million New Zealanders are of British origin. About 15% claim descent from the indigenous Maori population, which is of Polynesian origin. Nearly 76% of the people, including a large majority of Maori, live on the North Island. In addition, 265,974 Pacific peoples live in New Zealand. During the late 1870s, natural increase permanently replaced immigration as the chief contributor to population growth and accounted for more than 75% of population growth in the 20th century. Nearly 85% of New Zealand's population lives in urban areas (with over one million in Auckland alone), where the service and manufacturing industries are growing rapidly. New Zealanders colloquially refer to themselves as "Kiwis," after the country's native bird.
*Population: 4,267,678.
*Annual growth rate (since December 2006): 0.7%.
*Ethnic groups: European 64.8%; Maori 14%; Asian 8.8%; other Polynesian Pacific peoples 6.6%; Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African 0.9%; other 10.7%. (Note: People can choose to identify with more than one ethnic group.)
*Religions: Christian 50%, no religion 32.3%, not stated 7.3%, Hindu 1.6%, Buddhist 1.3%, Islam/Muslim 0.9%, Jewish 0.2%, Spiritualism/New Age 0.5%, other 0.6%.
*Languages: English, Maori, New Zealand Sign Language.
*Education: Years compulsory--ages 6-16. Attendance--100%. Literacy--99%.
*Health: Infant mortality rate (December 2006)--5.1/1,000. Life expectancy (December 2006)--males 77.9 yrs., females 81.9 yrs.
*Work force: 75.2% of 15-64 year olds or 2.057 million. Services and government--59%; manufacturing and construction--32%; agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and mining--8.9%.

===Sport===
[[Rugby union]] is the major sport in New Zealand, and the national team, the [[All Blacks]], are widely considered the greatest rugby union team.
The New Zealand [[cricket]] team (known as "The Black Caps") are currently third in world standings.
New Zealand is also noted for its [[Hockey]] (The Black Sticks) and [[Netball]] (The Silver Ferns) teams.[[Scott Dixon]] became in 2008 the first New Zealand driver to win an Indy 500 race.

===Religion===
Before the arrival of civilized Europeans, New Zealand was inhabited only by the savage [[Maori]] with their primitive religious beliefs. Settlers, mainly from Britain, brought with them the word of [[Christ]]. Sadly, however, New Zealanders have become increasingly [[atheist]]ic, turning away from the Lord in increasing numbers. More and more people are replying 'no religion' on their census forms, and some even mock His greatness by claiming to believe in the [[Jedi]] religion. Along with increases in other heathen religions, this is turning New Zealand into a haven for [[atheism]]. The country's prime minister [[Helen Clark]] is an [[agnostic]] herself, and even the opposition leader of the slightly more conservative National Party doesn't even believe in the [[afterlife]]. Despite the good work of Christians like Brian Tamaki, Christianity in New Zealand is becoming less and less popular. As a result, more and more New Zealanders will, no doubt, be going straight to [[Hell]].

== Government ==
New Zealand is a parliamentary [[democracy]]. Under the Royal Titles Act (1953), Queen Elizabeth II is Queen of New Zealand and is represented as head of state by the Governor-General, currently Anand Satyanand.

New Zealand is the only country in the world in which all the highest offices in the land have been occupied simultaneously by women: Queen [[Elizbeth II]], Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, Prime Minister Helen Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives Margaret Wilson and Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias were all in office between March 2005 and August 2006.
New Zealand's first woman prime minister was Jenny Shipley, however Helen Clark lays claim to be the first ''elected'' woman prime minister, as Jenny Shipley was appointed to the role by the National Party Caucus to replace the Prime Minister of the time, Jim Bolger.
[[Image:Auckland - New Zealand.jpg|thumb|300px|Auckland]]
The New Zealand Parliament<ref>[http://www.govt.nz/ Official government site]</ref> has only one chamber, the House of Representatives, which usually seats 120 Members of Parliament. Parliamentary general elections are held every three years under a form of [[proportional representation]] called Mixed Member Proportional. The 2005 General Election created an 'overhang' of one extra seat, occupied by the Māori Party, due to that party winning more seats in electorates than the number of seats its proportion of the party vote would have given it. The position of Prime Minister falls to the leader of the majority party in Parliament and may be changed at any time at the discretion of the majority party Caucus.

There is no written constitution: the Constitution Act 1986 is the principal formal statement of New Zealand's constitutional structure. The Governor-General has the power to appoint and dismiss Prime Ministers and to dissolve Parliament. The Governor-General also chairs the Executive Council, which is a formal committee consisting of all ministers of the Crown. Members of the Executive Council are required to be Members of Parliament, and most are also in Cabinet. Cabinet is the most senior policy-making body and is led by the Prime Minister, who is also, by convention, the Parliamentary leader of the governing party or coalition.

The current Prime Minister is [[Helen Clark]], leader of the Labour Party. Since 17 October 2005 Labour has been in formal coalition with Jim Anderton, the Progressive Party's only MP. In addition to the parties in formal coalition, New Zealand First and United Future provide confidence and supply in return for their leaders being ministers outside cabinet. A further arrangement has been made with the Green Party, which has given a commitment not to vote against the government on confidence and supply. Since early in 2007, Labour has also had the proxy vote of Taito Phillip Field, a former Labour MP. These arrangements assure the government of a majority of seven MPs on confidence.

The Leader of the Opposition, is National Party leader John Key. The ACT party and the Māori Party are both also in opposition. The Greens, New Zealand First and United Future all vote against the government on some legislation.

The highest court in New Zealand is the Supreme Court of New Zealand. This was established in 2004 following the passage of the Supreme Court Act 2003, which also abolished the option to appeal to the Privy Council in London. The current Chief Justice is Dame Sian Elias. New Zealand's judiciary also includes the High Court, which deals with serious criminal offences and civil matters, and the Court of Appeal, and subordinate courts.

The Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the second. The defence forces hold commissions and warrants from the Queen, signed on her behalf by her representative the Governor General. However command of the armed forces is by order of Parliament, rather than by the Queen.

===Principle Government Officials===
*Chief of State--Queen Elizabeth II
*Governor General--His Excellency Honourable Anand Satyanand
*Prime Minister--Rt. Hon. Helen Clark
*Foreign Minister--Rt. Hon. Winston Peters
*Ambassador to the United Nations--Rosemary Banks

===Political Conditions===
The traditionally conservative National Party and left-leaning Labour Party have dominated New Zealand political life since a Labour government came to power in 1935. During its first 14 years in office, the Labour Party implemented a broad array of social and economic legislation, including comprehensive social security, a large-scale public works program, a 40-hour workweek, a minimum basic wage, and compulsory unionism. The National Party won control of the government in 1949 and adopted many welfare measures instituted by the Labour Party. Except for two brief periods of Labour governments in 1957-60 and 1972-75, National held power until 1984. After regaining control in 1984, the Labour government instituted a series of radical market-oriented reforms in response to New Zealand's mounting external debt. It also enacted anti-nuclear legislation that effectively brought about New Zealand's suspension from the ANZUS security alliance with the United States and Australia.

In October 1990, the National Party again formed the government, for the first of three 3-year terms. In 1996, New Zealand inaugurated a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system to elect its parliament. The system was designed to increase representation of smaller parties in parliament and appears to have done so in the MMP elections to date. Since 1996, neither the National nor the Labour Party has had an absolute majority in parliament, and for all but one of those years, the government has been a minority one. The Labour Party won elections in November 1999 and again in July 2002. In 2002 Labour formed a coalition, minority government with the Progressive Coalition, a left-wing party holding two seats in parliament. The government relied on support from the centrist United Future Party to pass legislation.

Following a narrow victory in the September 2005 general elections, Labour formed a coalition with the one-seat Progressive Party. The government also entered into limited support agreements with the United Future New Zealand and NZ First Parties, whose leaders were respectively given the Revenue and Foreign Affairs ministerial positions outside of the cabinet. This gave Labour an effective one-seat majority with which to pass legislation in parliament. Labour has also secured an assurance from the Green Party that it will abstain from a vote of confidence against the government. The 2005 elections saw the new Maori Party win four out of the seven reserved Maori seats. There are 121 current members of parliament, the additional seat the result of an overhang from 2005 elections. There are currently two independent members of parliament (MPs): a former Labour Party MP and a former United Future New Zealand MP, both of whom left their respective parties in 2007. The next general election is scheduled for late 2008.

===Foreign Policy===
New Zealand maintains a strong profile on environmental protection, human rights and free trade, particularly in agriculture.

New Zealand is a member of the following geo-political organisations: APEC, East Asia Summit, Commonwealth of Nations, OECD and the [[United Nations]]. It has signed up to a number of free trade agreements, most recently with [[Japan]], of which the most important is Closer Economic Relations with Australia.

For its first hundred years, New Zealand followed the United Kingdom's lead on foreign policy. In declaring war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Michael Savage proclaimed "Where she goes, we go; where she stands, we stand". Post WWII ties with America strengthened, but unlike close neighbour Australia, have never done so to the point that they may be considered stronger than the ties to the UK.

New Zealand has traditionally worked closely with Australia, whose foreign policy followed a similar historical trend. In turn, many Pacific Islands such as Western Samoa have looked to New Zealand's lead. The American influence on New Zealand was weakened by the disappointment with the Vietnam War, the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by France, and by disagreements over environmental and agricultural trade issues and New Zealand's nuclear-free policy.

===National Security===
New Zealand is a party to the ANZUS security treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the US. While the treaty was once fully mutual between Australia, New Zealand and the United States, this is no longer the case. Since February 1985, New Zealand has refused nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships access to its ports. In 1986, the United States announced that it was suspending its treaty security obligations to New Zealand pending the restoration of port access. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 prohibits the stationing of nuclear weapons on the territory of New Zealand and the entry into New Zealand waters of nuclear armed or propelled ships. This legislation remains a source of contention and the basis for the United States' continued suspension of treaty obligations to New Zealand. Due to the US Navy policy of refusing to confirm or deny the presence of nuclear arms on any US Navy ship, the only US naval ships to enter NZ waters since that time have been unarmed auxiliary units with some exceptions where the US State Department have over-ruled the Naval policy for specific ships on visits.

In addition to the various wars between Maori tribes, and between the British settlers and certain tribes, New Zealand has fought in the Second Boer War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency (and committed troops, fighters and bombers to the subsequent confrontation with Indonesia), the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the Afghanistan War. New Zealand refused to participate in the Iraq War without UN sanction. However, they sent a unit of army engineers to help rebuild Iraqi infrastructure for one year following the invasion.

The New Zealand military has three branches: the New Zealand Army, the Royal New Zealand Navy, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force. New Zealand considers its own national defence needs to be modest; it dismantled its air combat capability in 2001. New Zealand has contributed forces to recent regional and global peacekeeping missions, including those in Cyprus, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sinai, Angola, Cambodia, the Iran/Iraq border, Bougainville and East Timor.

New Zealand has three defense policy objectives--defend New Zealand against low-level threats, contribute to regional security, and play a part in global security efforts. New Zealand has considered its own national defense needs to be modest. Its defense budget generally has provided for selected upgrades in equipment. Shortly after winning the 1999 election, the Labour government canceled a lease-to-buy agreement with the U.S. for 28 F-16 aircraft. However, Labour did embark on a significant defense upgrade and acquisition plan. All three services have benefited from the upgrades/acquisitions. In 2001, the government contracted to purchase 105 LAVIIIs for U.S. $300 million, with delivery completed in 2005. The Army also purchased 321 Light Operational Vehicles to make its forces more mobile. In 2002, New Zealand announced planned upgrades of its P3 and C-130 Hercules aircraft, and purchased two Boeing 757 aircraft for U.S. $100 million. In 2006 New Zealand contracted with NH Industries to purchase eight NH-90 aircraft to start delivery in 2009. In 2007 they entered an agreement to purchase 12 A-109 light helicopters from Agosta to also start delivery in 2009. The P-3s, C-130s, and B-757s are all currently being upgraded/modified. In 2007, the Navy began accepting delivery of the U.S. $250 million Project Protector program consisting of one multi-role vessel (MRV), two offshore patrol vessels (OPVs), and four inshore patrol vessels (IPVs).

In May 2001, the government announced it was scrapping its combat air force. New Zealand states it maintains a "credible minimum force," although critics maintain that the country's defense forces have fallen below this standard. New Zealand still maintains the fleet of A-4 Skyhawk jets and Aerromacche jets left over from the scrapping of its combat air force. Its attempts to sell the jets have thus far failed.

With a claimed area of direct strategic concern that extends from Australia to Southeast Asia to the South Pacific, New Zealand necessarily places substantial reliance on its defense relationship with other countries, in particular Australia. However, acknowledging the need to improve its defense capabilities, the government in 2005 announced the Defense Sustainability Initiative allocating an additional NZ$4.6 billion (U.S. $3.19 billion) over 10 years to modernize the country's defense equipment and infrastructure and increase its military personnel. The funding represented a 51% increase in defense spending since the Labour government took office in 1999.

New Zealand is an active participant in multilateral peacekeeping. It has taken a leading role in trying to bring peace, reconciliation, and reconstruction to the Solomon Islands and the neighboring island of Bougainville. New Zealand maintains a contingent in the Sinai Multinational Force and Observers and has contributed to UN peacekeeping operations in Angola, Cambodia, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia. It also participated in the Multilateral Interception Force in the Persian Gulf. New Zealand's most recent peacekeeping operations experience has been in Timor-Leste, where it initially dispatched almost 10% of its entire defense force. New Zealand participated in Operation Enduring Freedom and has fielded a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan, as well as having deployed a frigate to the Gulf of Oman. In support of the effort to reconstruct Iraq, New Zealand deployed an engineering team to the country.

New Zealand participates in sharing training facilities, personnel exchanges, and joint exercises with the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Brunei, Tonga, and South Pacific states. It also exercises with its Five-Power Defense Arrangement partners--Australia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Singapore. Due to New Zealand's antinuclear policy, defense cooperation with the U.S., including training exercises, has been significantly restricted since 1986.

==Economy==
New Zealand's economy historically has been based on a foundation of exports from its very efficient agricultural system. Leading agricultural exports include dairy products, meat, forest products, fruit and vegetables, fish, and wool. New Zealand was a direct beneficiary of many of the reforms achieved under the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, with agriculture in general and the dairy sector in particular enjoying many new trade opportunities.

The country has substantial hydroelectric power and reserves of natural gas, although the largest natural gas condensate and oil field--supplying nearly 75% of the country's hydrocarbons--is expected to be tapped out by 2009. Leading manufacturing sectors are food processing, wood and paper products, and metal fabrication. Service industries, particularly financial, insurance, and business services, form a significant part of New Zealand's economy. As of September 2007 New Zealand had 1,505,100 Internet subscribers, amounting to approximately 65% of New Zealand households, ranking above Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.

Since 1984, government subsidies including for agriculture were eliminated; import regulations liberalized; tariffs unilaterally slashed; exchange rates freely floated; controls on interest rates, wages, and prices removed; and marginal rates of taxation reduced. Tight monetary policy and major efforts to reduce the government budget deficit brought the inflation rate down from an annual rate of more than 18% in 1987. The restructuring and sale of government-owned enterprises in the 1990s reduced government's role in the economy and permitted the retirement of some public debt. As a result, New Zealand is now one of the most open economies in the world.

In the statistical year ending September 2007, the economy grew 2.7%, an increase over the 2.2% growth rate in 2006. Household spending was up 3.4%, and investment in new housing was up 2.2%. The demand for new housing is in part driven by immigration, but the net increase in new arrivals has begun to slow. The net permanent long-term migration inflow to New Zealand in the year ending February 2008 amounted to 4,600, down from a net inflow of 13,200 in 2007. The net outflow to Australia was 29,600 in the year ending February 2008, reaching the highest level since 2001, when it was 30,000. New Zealand did not experience the slowdown in growth seen in many other countries following the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent fall in overseas share markets. The prolonged period of good economic growth led the unemployment rate to drop from 7.8% in 1999 to 3.2% as of December 2007.

New Zealand's economy has been helped by strong economic relations with Australia. New Zealand and Australia are partners in "Closer Economic Relations" (CER), which allows for free trade in goods and most services. Since 1990, CER has created a single market of more than 22 million people, and this has provided new opportunities for New Zealand exporters. Australia is now the destination of 20% of New Zealand's exports, compared to 14% in 1983. Both sides also have agreed to consider extending CER to product standardization and taxation policy. New Zealand has had a free trade agreement with Singapore since 2001. In July 2005, both countries joined with Chile and Brunei to form a Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, liberalizing trade in goods and services between them. In April 2005, New Zealand initialed a free-trade deal with Thailand. In April 2008 New Zealand concluded a free trade agreement (FTA) with China and is negotiating an FTA with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). New Zealand held its first round of the New Zealand-GCC FTA in Wellington in July 2007 with representatives from the Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman).

New Zealand's top six trading partners from June 2006-June 2007 included Australia, the United States, Japan, the People's Republic of China, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Korea. Australia continued as New Zealand's principal export market, worth $5.3 billion with exports to Australia rising by 6%. The United States and Japan were New Zealand's second- and third-largest export markets, receiving $3.3 billion and $2.6 billion worth of goods, respectively. New Zealand's fourth-largest export destination was China with exports worth $1.4 billion from June 2006 through June 2007.

The U.S. is the second-largest trading partner for New Zealand, with U.S. goods and services accounting for approximately 13% of all imports. With the New Zealand dollar reaching a 24-year high of over U.S. $0.80 in July 2007 (the highest since the New Zealand dollar was floated), there are greater opportunities for U.S. exporters in 2007-2008. New Zealand's total imports from the U.S., as of June 2007, amounted to U.S. $3.3 billion. The market-led economy offers many benefits for U.S. exporters and investors. Investment opportunities exist in chemicals, food preparation, finance, tourism, and forest products, as well as in franchising. The best sales and investment prospects are for whole aircraft and aircraft parts, medical or veterinary instruments, motor vehicles, information technology, hotel and restaurant equipment, telecommunications, tourism, franchising, food processing and packaging, and medical equipment. On the agricultural side, the best prospects are for fresh fruit, snack foods, and soybean meal.

New Zealand welcomes and encourages foreign investment without discrimination. The Overseas Investment Office (OIO) must give consent to foreign investments that would control 25% or more of businesses or property worth more than NZ$100 million. Restrictions and approval requirements also apply to certain investments in land and in the commercial fishing industry. OIO consent is based on a national interest determination. Foreign buyers of land can be required to report periodically on their compliance with the terms of the government's consent to their purchase. The OIO, part of Land Information New Zealand, took over the functions of the Overseas Investment Commission in August 2005. Full remittance of profits and capital is permitted through normal banking channels. As of March 2007, the U.S. accounted for 12% of all foreign direct investment in New Zealand, amounting to U.S. $7.76 billion.

A number of U.S. companies have subsidiary branches in New Zealand. Many operate through local agents, and some are in association in joint ventures. The American Chamber of Commerce is active in New Zealand, with its main office in Auckland.
*GDP (September 2007, current prices): U.S. $131 billion; (1996 prices) U.S. $103 billion.
*Real annual GDP growth rate (September 2007, current prices): 2.7%.
*Per capita income (September 2007): U.S. $30,994; (1996 prices) U.S. $24,545.
*Exchange rate (average for Jan. to May 2008): U.S. $1 = NZ $1.2646 (U.S. $0.79 = NZ $1).
*Natural [[resources]]: Timber, natural gas, iron sand, coal.
*Agriculture (4.9% of GDP): Products--dairy products, meat, forestry products.
*Industry (goods-producing industries 21.5% of GDP, service industries 68.1% of GDP): Types--finance, insurance, and business services; manufacturing; personal and community services; transport and communication; wholesale trade; construction; government administration and defense; fishing, forestry, and mining; electricity, gas, and water.
*Trade (September 2007): Exports to U.S.--$3.572 billion: frozen beef, casein, whey, timber, sheep meat, wine, unwrought aluminum, cheese, and butter. Imports from U.S.--$3.212 billion: consisting primarily of aircraft petroleum oils (crude), medical or veterinary instruments, motor vehicles, computers, aircraft parts, machinery, turbojets, insecticides, and telephone equipment. Major trading partners (rank ordered)--Australia, United States, Japan, People's Republic of China, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Korea.

==History==
Archaeological evidence indicates that New Zealand was populated by fishing and hunting people of East Polynesian ancestry perhaps 1,000 years before Europeans arrived. Known to some scholars as the Moa-hunters, they may have merged with later waves of Polynesians who, according to Maori tradition, arrived between 952 and 1150. Some of the Maoris called their new homeland "Aotearoa," usually translated as "land of the long white cloud."

In 1642, Abel Tasman, a Dutch navigator, made the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand and sketched sections of the two main islands' west coasts. English Captain James Cook thoroughly explored the coastline during three South Pacific voyages beginning in 1769. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, lumbering, seal hunting, and whaling attracted a few European settlers to New Zealand. In 1840, the United Kingdom established British sovereignty through the Treaty of Waitangi signed that year with Maori chiefs.

In the same year, selected groups from the United Kingdom began the colonization process. Expanding European settlement led to conflict with Maori, most notably in the Maori land wars of the 1860s. British and colonial forces eventually overcame determined Maori resistance. During this period, many Maori died from disease and warfare, much of it intertribal.

Constitutional government began to develop in the 1850s. In 1867, the Maori won the right to a certain number of reserved seats in parliament. During this period, the livestock industry began to expand, and the foundations of New Zealand's modern economy took shape. By the end of the 19th century, improved transportation facilities made possible a great overseas trade in wool, meat, and dairy products.

By the 1890s, parliamentary government along democratic lines was well-established, and New Zealand's social institutions assumed their present form. Women received the right to vote in national elections in 1893. The turn of the century brought sweeping social reforms that built the foundation for New Zealand's version of the welfare state.

The Maori gradually recovered from population decline and, through interaction and intermarriage with settlers and missionaries, adopted much of European culture. In recent decades, Maori have become increasingly urbanized and have become more politically active and culturally assertive.

New Zealand was declared a dominion by a royal proclamation in 1907. It achieved full internal and external autonomy by the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act in 1947, although this merely formalized a situation that had existed for many years.

==International Rankings (2007)==
====Political and economic rankings====
*Political freedom ratings[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World_2006] - Free; political rights and civil liberties both rated 1 (the highest score available)
*Press freedom<ref>Reporters Without Borders. [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19391 Index methodology]</ref> - 19th freest, at 5.00
*GDP per capita - 27th highest, at I$24,769
*Human Development Index - 20th highest, at 0.933
*Income Equality - 54th most equal, at 36.2 (Gini Index)
*Literacy Rate - Equal first, at 99.9%
*Unemployment rate - 42nd lowest, at 3.8% <ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nz.html CIA World Factbook]</ref>
*Corruption - 1st equal least corrupt, at 9.6 on index
*Economic Freedom - 9th equal freest, at 1.84 on index

====Health rankings====
*Fertility rate- 140th most fertile, at 1.79 per woman
*Birth rate - 140th most births, at 13.90 per 1000 people
*Infant mortality - 192nd most deaths, at 5.85 per 1000 live births
*Death rate - 115th highest death rate, at 7.52 per 1000 people
*Life Expectancy - 22nd highest, at 78.81 years
*Suicide rate - 35th highest suicide rate, at 19.8 for males and 4.2 for females per 100,000 people
*HIV/AIDS rate - 149th most cases, at 0.10%

====Other rankings====
*CO2 emissions - 42nd highest emissions, at 8.7 tonnes per capita
*Electricity Consumption - 48th highest consumption of electricity, at 37,030,000,000 kWh
*Broadband Internet access - 22nd highest uptake in OECD, at 11.7%
*Beer consumption - 16th highest, at 77.0 litres per capita
*Environmental Performance Index - Comprising; Environmental health, air quality, water resources, biodiversity and habitat, productive natural resources, sustainable energy - 1st out of 80 countries, at 88.0/100[14]

==Famous New Zealanders==
*[[Sir Edmund Hillary]] - The first man to climb [[Mount Everest]]
*[[Ernest Rutherford]] - Discovered that [[Atoms]] have a [[nucleus]] and was the first [[physicist]] to split the [[atom]]
*[[Peter Jackson]] - [[Director]] of the [[Lord of the Rings]] trilogy
*[[Sam Neill]] - [[Actor]]
*[[Anna Paquin]] - Youngest person to ever win an [[Academy Award]]
*[[Richard Pearse]] - Thought to have flown before the [[Wright Brothers]] however this is disputed
*[[Scott Dixon]] - Winner of the [[Indy 500]] in 2008

==External Links==
* Ministry for Culture and Heritage[http://www.mch.govt.nz/]
* Tourism New Zealand[http://www.newzealand.com/]
* New Zealand travel guide from Wikitravel[http://wikitravel.org/en/New_Zealand]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==See Also==
[[Hamilton New Zealand Temple]]

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!colspan=2 style="width: 100%; text-align: center; background-color: #000088; color: white; "|'''Copyright Details'''
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|style=" background-color: none;"| Some content for this article is in the [[Public Domain]] in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the U.S. Code
|-
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|style="background-color: none;border-top: 2px solid black"| File available from the {{{1|[[United States Federal Government]] [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35852.htm]}}}.
|}

[[Category:Oceanian Countries]]
[[Category:Islands]]
[[Category:Christian-Majority Countries]]

Conservapedia talk:Editing article and talk pages

2008-06-08T03:49:08Z

Freethought: Capital letters?

'''[[Conservapedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive1|Archive #1]]'''

== Capitialization of article names ==

People do realize that when the names of the articles are in all caps, this makes it rather difficult for the wiki software and thus the editors to link to the proper article. As Conservative has pointed out, excessive redirects also hurt page ranking. When you want to talk about [[blocked trains]] by typing <nowiki>[[blocked trains]]</nowiki> you are instead forced to do <nowiki>[[Blocked Trains|blocked trains]]</nowiki> to get [[Blocked Trains|blocked trains]]. This adds an unnecessary burden on the person writing the article to add a pipe link, and a redirect from the lower case version so that if someone does link it, it doesn't show up as a wanted page and a red link. This is not so much a matter of "be different than wikipedia" but rather "this is how the software works and the way to make the most use of it." This becomes even more important if non-sysops are not allowed to make redirect page links.

I would strongly suggest that administrative types reconsider the name of the article. If it is a proper noun, certainly have it in the proper case - but if it is not, let the wiki software handle it correctly.

If the decision is to remain have it upper case, I would likewise strongly recommend that this be put down, enforced, and you go though all the pages that do not conform to this and rectify them. Do realize that you will be working against the software in trying to do this.
--[[User:Rutm|Rutm]] 11:28, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

*No, it isn't "working against" the software at all. That is not an accurate statement. Now some editors, on rare occasions might have to do as in your examples. How often does that happen? Not much. --[[User:TK|şŷŝôρ-₮K]][[User_Talk:TK|Ṣρёаќǃ]] 20:33, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

:: New articles, out of the past 500 that are not title caps:
::* New! Capitol punishment‎; 18:51 . . (+582) . . Boyscout (Talk | contribs)
::* New! Communazi pact‎; 16:04 . . (+37) . . RobS (Talk | contribs) (create)
::* New! Average velocity‎; 08:10 . . (+209) . . SharonS (Talk | contribs)
::* New! Instantaneous velocity‎; 08:09 . . (+203) . . SharonS (Talk | contribs)
::* New! Zone blocking shceme‎; 23:56 . . (+295) . . TimmyJdb (Talk | contribs)
:: Poking about, you've also got [[citizenship cases]], [[prior restraint]], [[parochial school]]. Look through [[:Category:US Senate Terms]] or [[:Category:Biology]] and you'll see many, many, many examples of non-title case articles. You might need to do a sysop education class if you want to change all of these and have that change stay going forward. --[[User:Rutm|Rutm]] 20:46, 17 August 2007 (EDT)
:: Linked from the main page, you've got [[mainstream media]], [[liberal bias]], [[public school]], [[2008 presidential race]], [[illegal alien]]. This happens quite a bit and is the natural way to write articles, which is the way the software best supports. --[[User:Rutm|Rutm]] 20:52, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

*Well, as you already knew before posting, this is something that we are doing just as you suggested, systematically changing. Originally most articles were created in title case, then it mostly stopped for a while, mimicking Wikipedia. So, does this mean you would like to coordinate this project, like Azriphale is doing with the categories? --[[User:TK|şŷŝôρ-₮K]][[User_Talk:TK|Ṣρёаќǃ]] 20:56, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

:: I believe you are waisting significant amounts of time and energy trying to do this which ultimately will end up as a bad thing. You are making it harder for contributors to add material, to link to existing material, and for search engines to find the material in question. Aside from 'being different than Wikipedia', what is the reason to do this? How much work and education will it take of sysops and users rather than working with the software as it is designed? --[[User:Rutm|Rutm]] 21:00, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

*So, you are merely a troll, spoiling for a disruption? Why do you insist on saying what several Wikimedia programmers have told me is false? Title case in no way disrupts the software or makes it "work harder". It in no way impacts search engine bots, as they are adaptive, and learn. It might effect placement for a day or two, but afterwards it compensates. And that information came to me from a pretty unimpeachable source at Google. --[[User:TK|şŷŝôρ-₮K]][[User_Talk:TK|Ṣρёаќǃ]] 21:12, 17 August 2007 (EDT)
:I don't know about search engine rankings and how "hard" the software works, but it does make it harder for editors, and it's not accurate to say that this is "not much". It's also fair to say that it's not the way that the software was designed to work. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 10:13, 18 August 2007 (EDT)
::I agree with Philip on this. It is much easier to put links into pages if only the first word is capitalized. --[[User:CPAdmin1|Tim (CPAdmin1)]][[User talk:CPAdmin1|talk]] 10:36, 18 August 2007 (EDT)

: Search engines don't like being redirected. If nearly every link to multi word link is a redirect, they will slightly lower the score of those pages. Nor do they like what appears to be duplicate content at multiple pages.
: Secondly, when writing articles, it is natural to put the <nowiki>[[ ]]</nowiki> around relevant word groups. This can be seen in [[instantaneous velocity]] where the contributor was writing and then put in <nowiki>[[average velocity]]</nowiki>. To make this upper case, it would either require the contributor to write <nowiki>[[Average Velocity|average velocity]]</nowiki> or create a redirect page at the lower case version to the title cap version - something that it appears that non-sysops are forbiden to do.
: This also increases the likelihood of having two articles that differ only in case that need to be merged later. If one user created a link to <nowiki>[[Average Velocity]]</nowiki> page and another created a link to <nowiki>[[average velocity]]</nowiki> without realizing what the other had done, and then two people come and each fill in content at each page, you end up having to merge the documents later.
: This makes more work for those with the move power to constantly patrol the recent changes and move files to the one that the manual of style states.
: It is not a matter of making the software work harder, but rather needlessly making the individuals work harder at getting an article into the wiki properly. It also makes it so you cannot leverage the wiki knowledge of other users entering who are familiar with other wikis (I challenge you to find another wiki out there that has all upper case article titles).
: --[[User:Rutm|Rutm]] 12:01, 18 August 2007 (EDT)

*Is there something about the statement above, ''that the decision had been made'', that is escaping my learned colleagues and editors? Has anyone done an actual count as to how many articles exist with Title Case as compared to what you suggest? And how many existing articles without Title Case are merely re-directs from ones that began with it? Now, please move on. --[[User:TK|şŷŝôρ-₮K]][[User_Talk:TK|Ṣρёаќǃ]] 14:57, 18 August 2007 (EDT)

::I hate to disagree publicly about this, but I think this is going to more trouble than it's worth. We can differentiate ourselves from Wikipedia by making quality articles that are objective and reliable; capitalizing words unnecessarily isn't going to help our reputation any.

::For proper nouns, like [[Abraham Lincoln]], we're already doing it. For book titles, we capitalize all but the small connecting words: ''[[The Church of Liberalism]]''.

::But terms like [[intelligent design]] (the theory itself) are ofter shadowed by a movie or book title having the same words: [[Intelligent Design]] (the book by [[William Dembski]]. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] [[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]] 15:22, 18 August 2007 (EDT)

*Ed and I have talked, and he believes he has a software solution (being the greatest Mediator on the Planet) that will please everyone. Stay tuned. --[[User:TK|şŷŝôρ-₮K]][[User_Talk:TK|Ṣρёаќǃ]] 16:41, 18 August 2007 (EDT)

I know this a bit back in time, but has any progress been made on a software solution? Or has any more formal policy as to the proper capitalization and how to create wikilinks been specified? Having it be inconsistent just leaves more work for the day it does become consistent. --[[User:Rutm|Rutm]] 15:32, 6 September 2007 (EDT)

*If you check the other page here, Manual of Style, you can clearly see it dictates Title Case, and to not wiki-link dates. ''Unless and until'' some other solution is found, that is the decision. I posted on your talk page, asking you to contact me, to inform you about this matter, so I am happy you decided to post here, at least. If some software solution is found, the Manual of Style will be changed. As for wiki-dating, that was a decision of the Owner. --[[User:TK|şŷŝôρ-₮K]][[User_Talk:TK|Ṣρёаќǃ]] 15:38, 6 September 2007 (EDT)
----
This policy has been reversed, following discussion [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&oldid=347410 here], and in line with the majority preference on both this page and the linked page. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 01:04, 6 December 2007 (EST)

== Saints ==

Currently there are three different styles in use: Saint, St and St. There are also unique links to various saints, like [[Paul]]. I propose that the title '''''Saint''''' be used for holy persons and that '''''St.''''' be used for places, institutions or other derivatives. '''St''' without a period to signify an abbreviation should be scrapped. Also because first names are common to many people the single name articles should be moved to '''''Saint Someone'''''. [[User:BrianCo|BrianCo]] 15:18, 25 November 2007 (EST)

*Good and logical points all. I agree. --[[User:TK|şyŝoρ-₮K]][[User_Talk:TK|/Ṣρёаќǃ]] 15:26, 25 November 2007 (EST)
: I suspect (but can't quote examples to be sure) that there are places which are known only by "Saint ''something''", so "St." wouldn't be appropriate.
: I agree, though, with dropping "St" in favour of "St.".
: As a Protestant, I don't like people like [[Paul]] being referred to as "Saint Paul", so do object to this being policy. The Bible uses "saint" of any Christian, not just ones granted that status by the Catholic Church. I do accept that simply "Paul" is not the best for an article title, but there are alternatives, such as "Saul of Tarsus", "Paul (missionary)", etc.
:[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 20:44, 25 November 2007 (EST)
::Where St is used in place names, the inclusion of a full stop (period) or not should surely be determined by the name itself - that is, whether the local municipality (or whatever - eg the US Board on Geographical Names) uses a full stop. In other cases, I would argue in favour of St rather than St. . Too much punctuation makes the page look messy, and the trend is in favour of doing away wuith stops. Who, nowadays, writes U.S.A. and U.K. rather than USA or UK? Think of keyboard wear and tear, quite apart from anything else. [[User:Koba|Koba]] 06:47, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

== Policy on categories: Capitalisation and singular/plural ==

There is currently no formal (written) policy on capitalisation of categories, although there has been un unwritten policy to use title case, probably in line with the former policy for article names.

Some discussion on this issue has occurred [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&oldid=350319#Page_and_category_titles. here] and [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Ed_Poor&oldid=349907#Categories here], and possibly other places.

At the first link [[user:Learn together|Learn together]] hinted, and stated more explicitly in the second, that there were more title-case categories than lower case categories. This seemed to me to be little more than gut feeling, so I did a rough count. There are currently 1669 categories, of which 951 comprise more than one word. Dividing those 951 categories very roughly into two groups, title case and lower case (both groups, due to the simple sorting algorithm I used, include categories that would remain unaltered under either option, such as [[:category:United Stated Department of the Interior]] (sic: that needs fixing!) under upper case and [[:category:Department of Justice]] under lower case) gives 426 lower case categories and 525 title case categories.

So Learn together is correct that there are more title case categories, although the difference is not enormous.

The advantage of lower-case names for article titles is that linking is easier, but this doesn't apply to categories, so the most reasonable thing to do would seem to be to make categories title case.

Any comments or objections? If we have/get agreement, I will incorporate that into the [[Conservapedia:Manual of Style|Manual of Style]].

[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 06:02, 11 December 2007 (EST)

: In my opinion, your thoughts on this are good, I agree with title case for Categories. But either way, it's a very good idea to make a decision on this now, as the category listing is growing, and there should be uniformity. -- [[User:Taj|Taj]] 06:29, 11 December 2007 (EST)

: Indeed, there doesn't seem to be much sense to reinvent the wheel. We had changed about a thousand entries or so from lower to title case when that was standard we were told. There is still work to be done (a lot of it), but it didn't seem to make sense to backtrack over the same ground we have already covered. By the way, a number of the lower case categories are shells, meaning that content has basically been removed, but they still exist. May I recommend having a formal section where we can point them out to you for removal? That would seem to be wise. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 10:27, 11 December 2007 (EST)

::I like title case for categories, but I'll go along with the consensus. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] [[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]] 19:40, 11 December 2007 (EST)

:::I have no preference for category case. I think the choice should be what ever comes more naturally, but that might be quite subjective. Whatever the decision it should be explicitly stated to avoid confusion and stuck to. I don't agree with Learn together's point about not backtracking. If you're going the wrong way then you need to turn round at some stage. If it means undoing work that has been done then so be it. I can appreciate him not wanting to undo all his own good work but that shouldn't be an argument for not doing it. The main thing is that we get it right. On balance though I probably go with title case. One good thing about categories however, is that anyone can change them but article titles are restricted to sysops. [[User:BrianCo|BrianCo]] 15:15, 12 December 2007 (EST)

::::Not backtracking is appropriate in cases where there is no indication that backtracking would provide a better solution. Since no one commenting so far, including you, seems to believe that would be the better way to go, I am surprised you called me out on this issue. It's not rocket science. Let's not make it a bigger issue than it is. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 03:01, 13 December 2007 (EST)

----
If we are going to write a policy on this, we might as well ensure that we have agreement on something else: Should categories be singular or plural? Learn together has asked me to delete [[:Category:Musical Instruments]] because [[:Category:Musical Instrument]] already exists. But I was under the impression that most categories were plurals. What's the thoughts on this? [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 00:52, 14 December 2007 (EST)

:I'm not sure any decisions have been made in this area in the past. I've seen singular and plural in categories. In this regard, if one category has 59 entries and the other has 4, I move the entries to the category that is established. In this case it happened to be singular. I would recommend a "spot check" of categories/articles that have singular or plural forms and see which way has been the most common until now. That should at least give us information to consider. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 01:12, 14 December 2007 (EST)

:In looking at this in more detail, the trend is strongly to plural. Let me know when a decision has been made to make this policy and I will see about implementing changes in this area as well. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 18:04, 14 December 2007 (EST)

:The following are groups I have come across so far that fit this criteria:
: * Category:Bird
: * Category:Creationist
: * Category:Musical Instrument (of course)
: [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 15:50, 17 December 2007 (EST)
=== Policy written ===
I was disappointed at the lack of response here regarding plurals, but I believe that there's been enough opportunity, and not having a policy is holding up some work. I believe that Learn together is correct regarding the trend being towards plural titles for categories, although there's plenty of examples where plurals are simply not applicable (e.g. [[:category:New Testament]]).

So I've now amended the Manual of Style to include categories. If the plural bit is not clear enough, we can tweak it later.

[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:15, 22 December 2007 (EST)

:Thank you. I will be sure to adhere to the approved specifications. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 20:26, 22 December 2007 (EST)

== Books by foreign authors ==

What's the MoS recommendation regarding book titles written by non-English-speaking authors?

For example, say you want to write about Machiavelli's "The Prince" (original title "Il Principe", apparently), would you start the article at the original title or at the most common US translation? --[[User:JakeC|JakeC]] 18:02, 28 December 2007 (EST)

:I believe the practice has been the common English translation. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 20:55, 28 December 2007 (EST)

::I guess that makes sense. :) Thanks for the reply! --[[User:JakeC|JakeC]] 22:51, 28 December 2007 (EST)

== Etymologies and the like ==

I was looking at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrenees Pyrenees] on Wikipedia recently, and had to wade through the language variations cluttering the opening sentence:{{QuoteBox|The Pyrenees (Spanish: Pirineos; French: Pyrénées; Catalan: Pirineus; Occitan: Pirenèus; Aragonese: Perinés; Basque: Pirinioak) are a range of mountains ...}}

Conservapedia, being younger, is not replete with this sort of clutter, but it does have some. This example from [[Sin]] is about as bad:
{{QuoteBox|Sin (from Old English synn, from either Old Norse synd or German Sünde, from sun(d)jo it is true, from Sanskrit(?) es- it is) is any failure ...}}

It's not worth putting such details in a separate section (i.e. under it's own heading), but surely we shouldn't be cluttering opening sentences like this. Might I suggest that we create a template that would be an "[[etymology]] box", so that these sorts of details can float off to the right (or wherever) rather than clutter the opening sentence?

Oh, and the reason I'm posting this here is so that we don't just have a template, but we make this template a requirement.

Support? Opposition? Alternatives?

[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 04:40, 7 January 2008 (EST)

: I agree --[[User:CPAdmin1|Tim (CPAdmin1)]][[User talk:CPAdmin1|talk]] [[User:CPAdmin1/Election08|Vote for President]] 11:05, 4 February 2008 (EST)

::I've created the {{tl|etymology}} template for this, and applied it to [[theater]] and [[sin]]. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:03, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

== Titles ==
Yoinked from main page's talk: Dunno if there's a better place for it, but is there an official policy on bolding titles in articles? For example, should it be "'''Sir Elton John'''" or "Sir '''Elton John'''"?

Also for military ranks, doctorates, etc. Any titles held for life (IE, not POTUS). [[User:Barikada|Barikada]] 09:20, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:I don't think they should be bolded. My preference would be for something like:
::'''Isaac Newton''' (Sir Isaac Newton FRS) was a ...
:or
::'''Norman Schwarzkopf''' (General Norman Schwarzkopf, also known as Stormin' Norman) is a retired...
:However, if it forms part of his actual name, then the whole thing should be bolded, such as
::'''Pope Benedict XVI''' (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger) is the current...
:[[User:Ajkgordon|Ajkgordon]] 11:01, 4 February 2008 (EST)
:: In the case of "sir", I think that my preference is to bold the title as well, as is done in [[Isaac Newton]], but probably not bold otherwise (although it might depend on normal usage). I can't give a logical reason why this must be so, but it just seems to be better, in my opinion. I will note, however, that I've ''often'' seen or heard people refer to a title as though it was part of the name, such as "My name is Dr. Fred Nurk". (By the way, I'm assuming in these comments that the person actually uses the title. There was a discussion elsewhere (Isaac Newton talk page perhaps) about using the title "Sir" when the person themself doesn't normally use it.) [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 21:11, 4 February 2008 (EST)

==New Categories==
We should elaborate on the categories section. Some guidance on when it is appropriate and inappropriate to add ''new'' categories would be helpful. --[[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]] 17:46, 8 March 2008 (EST)
:Crocoite, do you mean new categories? I think every article should have some sort of category, its part of the basic organisation of the site. [[User:BrianCo|BrianCo]] 17:59, 8 March 2008 (EST)
::Yes, I mean ''new'' categories. I agree with the basic necessity of categories. --[[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]] 18:03, 8 March 2008 (EST)
::: Do you have any suggestions on what those guidelines should be? [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 00:38, 9 March 2008 (EST)
::::Large categories should be broken down when size becomes combersome or difficult to manage. It should also be appropriate for our target audience. Personally, I try to only create new categories when I can place several articles under the new category and make a logical link within the overall category structure. One of the big shortcomings of Wikipedia is the morass of categories and navigation. Generally I have found our KISS method to be easier for casual movement. It should also be noted that one of the strategies discussed by those who oppose the message of Conservapedia was to make our category system so complex or ridiculously redundant that we lose the ease of movement of the attention of people who might be curious about what our site has to offer. Any new contributors who jump in with creating a number of questionable categories and altering current category designations before even adding new articles should be looked at carefully. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 03:28, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

::::Thanks Learn together for your very helpful comments. I have incorporated your suggestions into my list below:

::::'''Appropriate'''
:::#Every article should have at least one category.
:::#Large categories should be broken down when size becomes combersome or difficult to manage.
:::#Appropriate for our target audience (conservative and Christian).
:::#Make a logical link within the overall category structure.
:::#New editors should discuss appropriate categories on the articles' talk page prior to adding categories.
:::#Categories are to be in title case (e.g. Australian Cities and Towns, not Australian cities and towns)
:::#Categories are to be plural where applicable (e.g. Planets, not Planet, but Rail Transport).

::::'''Inappropriate'''
:::*New editors adding categories without discussing it on the articles' talk page.
:::*Adding categories to articles based upon "silly" grounds.
:::*Categories in lower case (e.g. not Australian cities and towns)
:::*Categories in singular tense (e.g. not Planet)
:::*Few members in the category - it is possible to over-categorize if the category will only have a few members.
:::*A similar category already exists.
:::*Trying to use a Neutral Point of View (NPOV). Conservapedia doesn't follow Wikipedia guidlines regarding NPOV.

::::This is a start. --[[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]] 03:45, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

::::: Thanks for the comments. I've changed Crocoite's bullets to numbers for easy reference. I have a few concerns with the suggestions, however.
:::::* Learn together says that "Any new contributors who jump in with creating a number of questionable categories and altering current category designations before even adding new articles should be looked at carefully". Well, anyone, new or not, who adds ''questionable'' categories should be looked at carefully. So let's leave that point out. That leaves "Any new contributors who jump in with creating a number of categories and altering current category designations before even adding new articles should be looked at carefully". Now this I have a problem with. I know I'm at odds here with others, including Andy, but what's wrong with a new editor's first contributions being to add or alter categories, and even new ones, ''assuming that they are appropriate''? The point we should be focusing on is providing guidelines as to what is appropriate, not whether or not the editor is new.
:::::* Requiring editors to always discuss categories on talk pages is just bureaucracy, in my opinion (which is not to say that such things should ''never'' be discussed on talk pages).
:::::* Crocoite's points 1 to 4 are all good, except of course that points 2 to 4 could be somewhat open to interpretation (how large is too large, for example).
:::::* Crocoite's points 6 & 7 are valid, but already in the Manual of Style.
::::: I'm not commenting on Crocoite's "inappropriate" points, as they are mostly just the negatives of the first list.
::::: Perhaps we should be putting some numbers on things. Something like "any categories with fewer than x entries should not be broken down without prior discussion".
::::: I realise that my comments are probably not very helpful (and of course they should be taken as being from me as an editor, not as an administrator), but perhaps I'll have better ideas after some more feedback. Please feel free to disagree with me.
::::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 04:01, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

::Mr Schlafly seems to have made his views on categorisation clear [[User_talk:Aschlafly#Explaining_myself|here]]. If it's his wish that users can't easily find articles dealing with the pernicious nature of [[liberal]]s we should respect that. Tho personally I can't see much point in producing articles that visitors are unlikely to find due to the difficulty in second-guessing the somewhat esoteric titles for use in the search box. [[User:BenHyme|BenHyme]] 07:56, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

== City/town/county names as article titles? ==

Is there currently a defined style for articles whose title is the name of a city/town/county? I'm pretty sure that currently we have articles with the following style titles: City; City, ST; City, State. It seems reasonable to bring them all under a universal style, and in my brief searching I didn't see an existing style definition. I propose that for United States locations we use City, ST (or whatever the formal name is, if not a city; examples: Andover, MA; Town of Andover, MA; Essex County, MA). If this isn't the correct place for style proposals, feel free to move it. [[User:Jinkas|Jinkas]] 21:01, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

:Right place, but wrong priority. Even more important is whether Deborah should be uploaded stub articles for cities in Texas. Better to have a [[Cities in Texas]] article than a lot of stubs, I'd say. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] [[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]] 21:06, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

::It was Deborah's recent city-stub marathon that triggered the question, but regardless of priority I'm sticking with my initial inquiry. :-) See the [http://www.conservapedia.com/Category:California_Cities_and_Towns California Cities and Towns category] for some examples of the current diverse methods for titling city articles. [[User:Jinkas|Jinkas]] 21:13, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

::: Good suggestions, Jinkas. Unless another Sysop objects, I like your proposed standard.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 21:31, 21 April 2008 (EDT)
:::: Oh, I wish people would stop think just in U.S. terms! First, I'd go for "City, State", not "City, ST", as (a) (many?) other countries don't have two-letter codes for their states, so that format would not be universally applicable, and (b) the American state codes would not be as familiar to non-Americans as the names of the states. Second, and this is more of a query than an objection or proposal, what about countries without states? Do we say "Newcastle, England" ("City, Country") and "Newcastle, New South Wales" ("City, State") or "Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia" ("City, State, Country"), or what? It's probably okay to have "City, State" where there are states and "City, Country" where there are no states, but I'd be interested in other views on this. Then of course there are places with provinces or etc. instead of states, but I guess we simply treat them in the same manner as states. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 03:07, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

:::::Thank you for your input. I made a suggestion about US terms because it is with US terms that I am most familiar. As far as I know, other countries do not have two-letter codes for their states, so my proposal would be applicable to US cities only. Other users with more international experience, such as yourself, Joaquín Martinez, or any other of the good users who live outside of the US could certainly propose a style definition for cities in your country or international cities in general. Furthermore, although my proposal could be construed this way, I was not advocating for having only a City, ST article and nothing else. For US cities, let's put the main article (with category) in City, ST, but create City, State and City (if appropriate) as redirects. [[User:Jinkas|Jinkas]] 09:31, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

::: Personally, I'm not sure this is needed at this time. I go with the thought that the fewer rules we apply, unless obviously necessary, the better. The fewer rules that there are and the easier that we make it to edit, the more likely people are to want to create articles, or to edit those that already exist. Many cities are known by their names alone: "Las Vegas", "Los Angeles", "Boston", etc. I think there should be some amount of discretion left to the article creator. In the event that a city, ST naming convention is adopted (or city, state) then please also make sure that the city names alone are created as redirects. An article on Nevada may make mention of famous cities such as "Las Vegas", "Reno", etc. We don't want the Nevada article to say "Las Vegas, NV", "Reno, NV". (Note: I am aware the editor can put "Las Vegas, NV|Las Vegas" but again we are adding extra levels of complexity, and the greater the level of complexity, the less likely the rule is to be properly followed.

::: These are my thoughts, but I don't wish to have this classified as an "objection". If there is a concensus that city naming convention should be adopted, then I don't want to impede that view.

::: Thanks [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 03:39, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

::::Thank you for your comments; I would like to say a few words in response. I think it is important to adopt some sort of universal style at this time, while the number of city articles is still somewhat small and easy to change. As I mentioned above, a redirect from City, State to City, ST would be created, as well as a redirect from City to City, ST when appropriate (and I believe your mentioned examples of Las Vegas and Reno would be more than appropriate). I don't think this would inhibit or discourage editing as I have proposed no punishment or system of enforcement. Our users could edit as normal, and if a sysop or someone with the permissions to move pages notices an article that happens to be misnamed, they could simply move it to the correct name and establish the appropriate redirects. I think that uniform style definition in this regard will give a consistency to a large part of Conservapedia that will add to the professional appearance of this resource. [[User:Jinkas|Jinkas]] 09:31, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

:: I agree with Ed. In my opinion creation of lists of stub cities plays into the hands of our detractors who like to claim we are specialists at one line articles. We don't need to make that a reality. We've worked hard to improve our reputation, and that doesn't do us any favors. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 03:41, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

::: I took it for granted (but shouldn't have, particularly as Jinkas did implicitly reject this option) that this proposal to show (for example) "City, State" does not apply where the city is sufficiently well-known to just be referred to by it's name ("City"). That's why I chose "Newcastle, England" as an example rather than "London, England", as I assumed that the latter would be just "London". We already have [[Melbourne]], and I don't propose changing that to Melbourne, Victoria, despite the existence of Melbourne, Florida (which would be named that way), because Melbourne (the Victorian one) is a major world city (yeah, not as major as New York, London, or etc., but more than twice the population of Las Vegas).
::: However, there are or will be many places where just the city name itself will be insufficient of not unique ("Perth, Scotland", vs. "Perth, Western Australia", for example?) for which we should have a naming convention.
::: I'm not suggesting creating many stub articles, but sooner or later, if not already, we'll want non-stub articles on some of these places, and we'll have this issue. As it's been raised now, we might as well discuss it now.
::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 10:35, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

::::I agree with Phillip that we should have this discussion now. I created [[Colorado Springs]] and it doesn't have a state because I'm not aware of any other places named Colorado Springs. --[[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]] 10:55, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

So where does this stand? I see some discussion and some suggested improvements, but what does it take for this to be "policy?" Perhaps a few more sysops/editors could weigh in? I'd like to get to work on this (by the way, I'll need move permission to do this effectively), but I'm not the fastest editor here so it's going to take a while and I'd like to get started. [[User:Jinkas|Jinkas]] 16:50, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
: I'd like to see a few more opinions, and ones that form some sort of consensus. If we get that, I'll write it up as policy. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 19:27, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
::I put a note on the talk page of each active sysop that hadn't already been alerted or that hasn't already participated in this discussion. Hopefully that will give us some more opinions and a uniform view of how to treat these article names. [[User:Jinkas|Jinkas]] 19:43, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
::: You could include any non-sysops who have reasonable experience here and who might have an opinion on this. This sort of issue, being a consistency issue more than anything, is not something that needs to be decided by sysops exclusively. BrianCo and Arizaphale come to mind. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 20:02, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
:::: The circle has been duly widened. [[User:Jinkas|Jinkas]] 20:15, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

My two cents/tuppence/deux centimes/dos centavos/zwei pfennigen:

An article on any given city ought to have as its title the city and the state, or city and province, or city and country.

The style for cities and towns in any country big enough to have provinces the size of, say, Colorado (USA) ought to be: City, State, Country. Use the full name (except use USA for the United States). The reason: not everyone is going to know the abbreviations for Canadian provinces or Mexican states (or Australian States, for that matter).

Exceptions: States or provinces having more than two words in their names. Thus, "New York" ought to be spelled out, but not "New South Wales."

I want to encourage city articles on cities in all nations.

Every State or province ought to have one article listing all the cities within it. Then you should break out a city article only when you can fill a standard letter page with content (text and/or images). Cities and towns that rate only a paragraph ought to get a paragraph in the list article.

I grow tired of clicking on Random Page only to see stub after stub after stub. Let's fill them out or rake them all into one article, with header redirects if necessary.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]][[User talk:TerryH|Talk]] 20:49, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
::::I endorse Jinka's style suggestion. However, I think it should be a suggested guideline instead of a rule. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 20:50, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
::::: I agree on the guideline/rule distinction, whatever that means! This will be a Manual of Style "rule". I guess the difference is that failing to follow the Manual of Style is not (normally?) a punishable offence, but having it in the Manual of Style justifies anyone else (a sysop in this case, as only they can "rename" pages) changing the article to conform to the Manual of Style. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 22:12, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
:::::: I agree with Philip's interpretation; see my response to Learn Together above for my thoughts on "enforcement." Whatever we decide on, it shouldn't be a stick with which to beat users; rather, it should be a way to give a professional consistency to a subset of Conservapedia's articles. [[User:Jinkas|Jinkas]] 23:00, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

:::::::My take on this would be the following:
::::::::Country, state, province are unique; each would have separate articles (Mongolia, New York, Alberta, etc)
::::::::City articles that don't have to have countries or states attached as part of the article title, as they are recognized world-wide (Los Angeles, Lisbon, London, New York City)
::::::::City articles that ''do'' have to have countries or states attached as part of the article title (Lisbon, Texas; Saginaw, Michigan; London, Ontario)
::::::::Counties would be listed as Rutherford County, Tennessee; Genesse County, Michigan; Pima County, Arizona. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 07:51, 26 April 2008 (EDT)

::I agree with Karajou. It would cut down on the confusion. *nods* [[User:Kektklik|Kektk]] 12:06, 26 April 2008 (EDT)

(unindent) Feedback requested, so here it is: I think PJR has it right tht it should be city + state/province, spelled out. In those rare cases that a city and state need further clarification from the outset, the first line of the article could be an italicized indicator of disambiguation (how many people ever used this word before wikis, I wonder?). Spell out the state/province completely.

Feel free to visit my talk page for my broader opinion on this subject, but I'll spare the viewing masses. [[User:Aziraphale|Aziraphale]] 13:36, 26 April 2008 (EDT)

== Article title: Birth name, artist name, nickname? ==

Following [[User talk:Joaquín Martínez/archive5#Move_request|this discussion]], it has become apparent that there is no policy about an article title when it comes to persons.

I hereby suggest this policy:
{{cquote|When creating an article about a person or multiple persons, go in this order when choosing the title:
#If there is an officially acknowledged artist name, use that one ("Nicolas Cage" instead of "Nicholas Coppola", "Freddie Mercury" instead of "Farrokh Bulsara", "Donatello" instead of "Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi")
#If the person is almost exclusively referred to by a nickname, use that one ("Bill Clinton" instead of "William Jefferson Clinton")
#If none of the above apply, use the real name in the form it is most widely used.}}

Please state your opinions or suggestions here. --[[User:JBrown|JBrown]] 14:45, 18 May 2008 (EDT)

== Capital letters? ==

This is supposed to be a style guide, but it switches between headings of the style ==Capitalized Heading== and ==Lowercase heading== like a bird flitting between perches. I don't see anything about capitalization of headings, articles titles and words in general. What is it supposed to be? [[User:Freethought|Freethought]] 23:49, 7 June 2008 (EDT)

Conservapedia:Manual of style

2008-06-08T03:46:41Z

Freethought: Not sure why I don't get taken here automatically, but here's a redirect

#REDIRECT [[Conservapedia:Manual of Style]]

Pseudogene

2008-06-01T06:00:11Z

Freethought: Link

'''Pseudogenes''' are [[gene]]-like structures present in an organism's [[genome]] that have lost the ability to code for [[protein]]s due to [[mutation]]. <ref name=petrov>Petrov, D.A, Hartl, D.L. (2000). Pseudogene evolution and natural selection for a compact genome. The American Genetic Association 91:221-227. [http://www.stanford.edu/group/petrov/research/16.pdf]</ref> They were first identified and dubbed in the late 1970s when researchers began finding non-coding regions in some organisms that were similar to actual coding genes in other organisms. <ref name=sciam>Gerstein, M, Zheng, D. (2006). The real life of pseudogenes. Scientific American 95:48-55. [http://papers.gersteinlab.org/e-print/sciam2/preprint.pdf]</ref> So far an estimated 19,000 pseudogenes have been identified in the human genome, this is almost equal to the total number of coding genes (21,000). <ref name=sciam /> Humans have many pseudogenes including [[L-gulonolactone oxidase]] which is used to synthesize vitamin c. Research reports that this gene was inactivated in the common ancestor of all [[simians]]. <ref>http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/kmilton/kmilton.html</ref>

== Creationist Perspective ==
Creationist scientists assert that pseudogene analysis used to argue to validity of the [[theory of evolution]] is invalid. <ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/pseudogenes.asp</ref><ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/pseudogenes_genomes.asp</ref>

==Finding pseudogenes and the Evolutionary Perspective==
Pseudogenes have been identified in a wide range of organisms from bacteria to mice to humans, the total number of pseudogenes in a given genome is not predictable but specific pseudogenes are often compared across species to assert complex evolutionary relationships <ref name=sciam />

Pseudogenes are often difficult to parse from the large amount of non-coding base pairs in the genome. Convention requires two elements to be present to label a sequence a pseudogene. The first is [[homology]] which is the requirement that a sequence be demonstrated to descend from a functional copy of the gene and the second is non-functionality which is the requirement that the gene not code for a protein in the organism in question. <ref name=sciam />

Since all pseudogenes are asserted to be descended from a functioning gene the first step is to find the parent gene that it descended from. This is done by using computer programs to compare sequences of DNA across species. <ref name=sciam /> This is a large computational problem but by keeping in mind the phylogenetic relationships between species the search time can be decreased by looking at species that share a more recent common ancestor.<ref name=mito>Bensasson, D., Zhang, D., Hartl, D., Hewitt, G. (2001). Mitochondrial pseudogense: evolution's misplaced witness. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16: 314-321. [http://www.ioz.ac.cn/department/agripest/group/zhangdx/ZDX-s-pdf%5CTREE2001-Updated_numt.PDF]</ref> Once a functioning copy of a gene is detected its sequence is compared to the pseudogene. A high correlation in base pairs is used to assign homology. Non-functionality can be demonstrated by attempting to transcribe the sequence in-vitro. <ref name=sciam />

==Pseudogenes and neutral selection theory==

Because pseudogenes do not code for a function many scientists have hypothesized that the accumulation of mutations would not be constrained by selection pressures.<ref name=petrov /> This is known as neutral selection, and pseudogenes have been studied extensively to test various theories of neutral selection. <ref name=bustamante>Bustamante, C, Neilsen R, Hartl, D. (2002). A maximum likelihood method for analyzing pseudogene evolution: implications for silent site evolution in humans and rodents. 19:110-117. [http://www.mbe.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/1/110]</ref> It has been determined that mutations fixate in pseudogene regions at about 30 percent higher than in coding regions of DNA. <ref name=bustamante /> Some theorist have argued that there maybe some selection pressure on pseudogenes (such as on genome size in general) so conclusions should be tempered.<ref name=petrov /> Others have determined that base pair mutations are not completely random, favoring accumulation of [[guanine]] and [[cytosine]]. <ref name=bustamante /> Despite these findings research on pseudogenes still continues to be a productive avenue for exploring mutation and selection.

==See also==
*[[Endogenous retrovirus]]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/ Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics]

[[Category:Genetics]]

Pseudogene

2008-06-01T05:49:55Z

Freethought: /* See also */ Other link available

Pseudogene

2008-06-01T05:38:11Z

Freethought: Genes are functional, pseudogenes are therefore not genes

'''Pseudogenes''' are [[gene]]-like structures present in an organism's [[genome]] that have lost the ability to code for [[protein]]s due to [[mutation]]. <ref name=petrov>Petrov, D.A, Hartl, D.L. (2000). Pseudogene evolution and natural selection for a compact genome. The American Genetic Association 91:221-227. [http://www.stanford.edu/group/petrov/research/16.pdf]</ref> They were first identified and dubbed in the late 1970s when researchers began finding non-coding regions in some organisms that were similar to actual coding genes in other organisms. <ref name=sciam>Gerstein, M, Zheng, D. (2006). The real life of pseudogenes. Scientific American 95:48-55. [http://papers.gersteinlab.org/e-print/sciam2/preprint.pdf]</ref> So far an estimated 19,000 pseudogenes have been identified in the human genome, this is almost equal to the total number of coding genes (21,000). <ref name=sciam /> Humans have many pseudogenes including [[L-gulonolactone oxidase]] which is used to synthesize vitamin c. Research reports that this gene was inactivated in the common ancestor of all [[simians]]. <ref>http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/kmilton/kmilton.html</ref>

== Creationist Perspective ==
Creationist scientists assert that pseudogene analysis used to argue to validity of the [[theory of evolution]] is invalid. <ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/pseudogenes.asp</ref><ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/pseudogenes_genomes.asp</ref>

==Finding pseudogenes and the Evolutionary Perspective==
Pseudogenes have been identified in a wide range of organisms from bacteria to mice to humans, the total number of pseudogenes in a given genome is not predictable but specific pseudogenes are often compared across species to assert complex evolutionary relationships <ref name=sciam />

Pseudogenes are often difficult to parse from the large amount of non-coding base pairs in the genome. Convention requires two elements to be present to label a sequence a pseudogene. The first is [[homology]] which is the requirement that a sequence be demonstrated to descend from a functional copy of the gene and the second is non-functionality which is the requirement that the gene not code for a protein in the organism in question. <ref name=sciam />

Since all pseudogenes are asserted to be descended from a functioning gene the first step is to find the parent gene that it descended from. This is done by using computer programs to compare sequences of DNA across species. <ref name=sciam /> This is a large computational problem but by keeping in mind the phylogenetic relationships between species the search time can be decreased by looking at species that share a more recent common ancestor.<ref name=mito>Bensasson, D., Zhang, D., Hartl, D., Hewitt, G. (2001). Mitochondrial pseudogense: evolution's misplaced witness. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16: 314-321. [http://www.ioz.ac.cn/department/agripest/group/zhangdx/ZDX-s-pdf%5CTREE2001-Updated_numt.PDF]</ref> Once a functioning copy of a gene is detected its sequence is compared to the pseudogene. A high correlation in base pairs is used to assign homology. Non-functionality can be demonstrated by attempting to transcribe the sequence in-vitro. <ref name=sciam />

==Pseudogenes and neutral selection theory==

Because pseudogenes do not code for a function many scientists have hypothesized that the accumulation of mutations would not be constrained by selection pressures.<ref name=petrov /> This is known as neutral selection, and pseudogenes have been studied extensively to test various theories of neutral selection. <ref name=bustamante>Bustamante, C, Neilsen R, Hartl, D. (2002). A maximum likelihood method for analyzing pseudogene evolution: implications for silent site evolution in humans and rodents. 19:110-117. [http://www.mbe.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/1/110]</ref> It has been determined that mutations fixate in pseudogene regions at about 30 percent higher than in coding regions of DNA. <ref name=bustamante /> Some theorist have argued that there maybe some selection pressure on pseudogenes (such as on genome size in general) so conclusions should be tempered.<ref name=petrov /> Others have determined that base pair mutations are not completely random, favoring accumulation of [[guanine]] and [[cytosine]]. <ref name=bustamante /> Despite these findings research on pseudogenes still continues to be a productive avenue for exploring mutation and selection.

==See also==
[[Endogenous retrovirus]]

[[L-gulonolactone oxidase]]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Genetics]]

Pseudogene

2008-06-01T05:25:48Z

Freethought: Internal links

'''Pseudogenes''' are [[gene]]s present in an organism's [[genome]] that have lost the ability to code for [[protein]]s due to [[mutation]]. <ref name=petrov>Petrov, D.A, Hartl, D.L. (2000). Pseudogene evolution and natural selection for a compact genome. The American Genetic Association 91:221-227. [http://www.stanford.edu/group/petrov/research/16.pdf]</ref> They were first identified and dubbed in the late 1970s when researchers began finding non-coding regions in some organisms that were similar to actual coding genes in other organisms. <ref name=sciam>Gerstein, M, Zheng, D. (2006). The real life of pseudogenes. Scientific American 95:48-55. [http://papers.gersteinlab.org/e-print/sciam2/preprint.pdf]</ref> So far an estimated 19,000 pseudogenes have been identified in the human genome, this is almost equal to the total number of coding genes (21,000). <ref name=sciam /> Humans have many pseudogenes including [[L-gulonolactone oxidase]] which is used to synthesize vitamin c. Research reports that this gene was inactivated in the common ancestor of all [[simians]]. <ref>http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/kmilton/kmilton.html</ref>

== Creationist Perspective ==
Creationist scientists assert that pseudogene analysis used to argue to validity of the [[theory of evolution]] is invalid. <ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/pseudogenes.asp</ref><ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/pseudogenes_genomes.asp</ref>

==Finding pseudogenes and the Evolutionary Perspective==
Pseudogenes have been identified in a wide range of organisms from bacteria to mice to humans, the total number of pseudogenes in a given genome is not predictable but specific pseudogenes are often compared across species to assert complex evolutionary relationships <ref name=sciam />

Pseudogenes are often difficult to parse from the large amount of non-coding base pairs in the genome. Convention requires two elements to be present to label a sequence a pseudogene. The first is [[homology]] which is the requirement that a sequence be demonstrated to descend from a functional copy of the gene and the second is non-functionality which is the requirement that the gene not code for a protein in the organism in question. <ref name=sciam />

Since all pseudogenes are asserted to be descended from a functioning gene the first step is to find the parent gene that it descended from. This is done by using computer programs to compare sequences of DNA across species. <ref name=sciam /> This is a large computational problem but by keeping in mind the phylogenetic relationships between species the search time can be decreased by looking at species that share a more recent common ancestor.<ref name=mito>Bensasson, D., Zhang, D., Hartl, D., Hewitt, G. (2001). Mitochondrial pseudogense: evolution's misplaced witness. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16: 314-321. [http://www.ioz.ac.cn/department/agripest/group/zhangdx/ZDX-s-pdf%5CTREE2001-Updated_numt.PDF]</ref> Once a functioning copy of a gene is detected its sequence is compared to the pseudogene. A high correlation in base pairs is used to assign homology. Non-functionality can be demonstrated by attempting to transcribe the sequence in-vitro. <ref name=sciam />

==Pseudogenes and neutral selection theory==

Because pseudogenes do not code for a function many scientists have hypothesized that the accumulation of mutations would not be constrained by selection pressures.<ref name=petrov /> This is known as neutral selection, and pseudogenes have been studied extensively to test various theories of neutral selection. <ref name=bustamante>Bustamante, C, Neilsen R, Hartl, D. (2002). A maximum likelihood method for analyzing pseudogene evolution: implications for silent site evolution in humans and rodents. 19:110-117. [http://www.mbe.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/1/110]</ref> It has been determined that mutations fixate in pseudogene regions at about 30 percent higher than in coding regions of DNA. <ref name=bustamante /> Some theorist have argued that there maybe some selection pressure on pseudogenes (such as on genome size in general) so conclusions should be tempered.<ref name=petrov /> Others have determined that base pair mutations are not completely random, favoring accumulation of [[guanine]] and [[cytosine]]. <ref name=bustamante /> Despite these findings research on pseudogenes still continues to be a productive avenue for exploring mutation and selection.

==See also==
[[Endogenous retrovirus]]

[[L-gulonolactone oxidase]]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Genetics]]

User:Freethought

2008-02-29T23:28:21Z

Freethought: Describing myself

I am a [[freethought|freethinking]], [[liberal]] [[atheist]].