Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Talk:Sex

2007-03-23T22:59:04Z

OmnusErudito:

What about parents that want to have access to credible information on sex to educate their children? --[[User:Truth is bipartisan|Truth is bipartisan]] 01:01, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm confused as to why this page has been blocked. I am aware that its probably subject to much vandalism, but there is a valid reasoning behind allowing it.--[[User:Elamdri|Elamdri]] 22:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:Even though the page could be an informative article, it is forbidden (currently) under commandment 3 of [[The Conservapedia Commandments]]. It's not "family-friendly". --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 22:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Funny, isn't that how families are made? :D --[[User:Gulik|Gulik]] 22:50, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:Quite XD. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 22:51, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:*Leave it missing - that way the intended target audience will be wiped out by either underpopulation, overpopulation and/or rampant STDs, including HIV/AIDs.

Personally, I feel its possible to make a family-friendly page about sex, but I respect the decision.--[[User:Elamdri|Elamdri]] 22:52, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:I concur. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 22:53, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

This page is [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Sex|linked to]] from The [[Ninteenth Amendment]] of the US constitution, and from [[Choice]], but not from [[abortion]]. Which of these are "[[family friendly]]"? --[[User:Scott|Scott]] 23:38, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I too find it interesting that [[abortion]] is considered family friendly but sex itself isn't. [[User:Sulgran|Sulgran]] 23:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:I think this needs to be taken up with Aschlafly. It is clean, can be family-friendly, and is biblically described (we can use the song of Solomon, perhaps?) --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 23:46, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:I think the general reason is that the page has been targeted by vandals ten times. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 23:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Well, if the page was created it could always be protected, and users could post ideas on this talk page. I really think it needs inclusion; It's awfully important, and doesn't have to be amoral or obscene or anything like that. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 23:50, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
:Check with Aschlafly first. [[User:Geo.plrd|Geo.]] 00:08, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

::I was planning on it. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 00:09, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

I just want to ask... does anyone else think the place holder there is sort of funny? Anyways, I hope a page about this gets made, because quite frankly it's silly to pretend it doesn't exist, and I'm sure a family-friendly article can be made, as said before. --[[User:Ronnyreg|Ronnyreg]] 22:13, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

"Male and female created He them." Genesis 1:27
"And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived... 4:1 [[User:DDG|DDG]] 23:23, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

:::The irony here is fantastic!!! [[User:Menkatron|Menkatron]] 11:07, 16 March 2007 (EDT)
:Eh, that's a bit bland. How about some of the hotter quotes from the [[Song of Solomon]]? :D --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 01:55, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

== A joke ==

Dont take this offensivly, when I found that this article had been deleted and protected against re-creation, I thought it was a joke. I understand that conservapedia is supposed to be family friendly. By not having an article on it here, it will encourage younger family members to search elsewhere for the information. It would not be hard to create an article, explaining the purpose of sex, perhaps some historical references to it without going into the details of how it is done etc etc. [[User:Chrislk02|Chrislk02]] 10:50, 19 March 2007 (EDT)
: What does sex have to do with families? Oh, wait... :o)
: Seriously, this won't last, I think. You can't have a project with these stated aims and ''not'' discuss sex at some level. Experience on Wikipedia indicates that "ZOMG! No article on ''foo''! The entire project should be deleted!" are spectacularly unpersuasive, the way forward is probably to write a scratch version in your user space that is within policy and then propose that be moved in. If that doesn't work, or if admins won't even discuss it, ''then'' you know the project is doomed. --[[User:JzG|JzG]] 12:01, 19 March 2007 (EDT)
::I figured I would try and discuss it here. I really do think that not having an article here is much more detrimental than having it here. Sure, it is easy to be conservative on some issues. The challenge is writing an controversial article in a tone that is family friendly. Sure it possible, there is alot that does not need to be discussed it and alot of images that should not be included. However, If i were a kid looking for information on it (and lets face it, as some age we all become curious), and it wasent here, that wouldent stop me from searching further. If there was an article, with few details explaining the basics of it, i might accept that and not search further. [[User:Chrislk02|Chrislk02]] 12:06, 19 March 2007 (EDT)
::: It's not ''that'' hard, my kids have books which manage it. [[User:JzG|JzG]] 12:15, 19 March 2007 (EDT)
::::Every schoolkid knows how to use Google. [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sex&btnG=Google+Search Googling for "sex"] yields Wikipedia's "sexual intercourse" article in the second position, and experience tells me it will soon be in the first. That article, BTW, tells those aforementioned kids interesting things about anal sex among other things, and has a long list of links to articles about every possible form of human sexual behavior, including many that your clientele may not consider overly familiy friendly. And you don't want a sex article in your family friendly encyclopedia? Bwahaha. Bwahahahahaaaaaa!
::::: So, looks like it's official policy then? Sex doesn't exist. I'm sure that will stop kids looking elsewhere. --[[User:British_cons|British_cons]] [[User_talk:British_cons|(talk)]] 17:40, 19 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::I came here to learn what "conservatives" think, as they claimed it can't be put in Wikipedia. So far, I'm still confused - sex is taboo, but [[marriage]] includes a wide range of styles with multiple partners, and [[homosexuality]] can be discussed too. I cannot understand a "conservative" position that allows discussion of multiple partners of both sexes, but can't stomach an article about monogamous sex with a spouse. I haven't contributed much, because I just can't get my head around what might be acceptable. The [[divorce]] article is unlikely to help anyone who is going through it, or who's parents or friend's parents are, either! --[[User:Scott|Scott]] 18:00, 19 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::* I'm sure that Wikipedia does not allow an article on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_sexuality religion and sexuality], since it would offend our liberal sensitivities :o) [[User:JzG|JzG]] 19:09, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Plate tectonics

2007-03-23T22:40:49Z

OmnusErudito: New page: Can somebody correct the spelling of the title, please? ''It's tectonics''.--~~~~

Can somebody correct the spelling of the title, please? ''It's tectonics''.--[[User:OmnusErudito|OmnusErudito]] 18:40, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Why there are no transitional fossils

2007-03-23T22:26:23Z

OmnusErudito:

As I understand it there actually, of course, ARE transitional forms, however since I got banned from stating the fact that George W Bush was born in Connecticut, I dare not post as much for fear of public flogging. However, [http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html This Page at TalkOrigins] does a good deal to explain where that confusion comes from, which basically has to do with an almost anal-retentive need for there not to be any gaps whatsoever, which would, taken to its logical conclusion, require the cataloging of every creature that ever lived on the Earth to show the minor mutations that are naturally selected at some point, which is fundamentally impossible.

:*The page mysteriously disappeared, though no record exists of its removal. I have replaced it.--[[User:OmnusErudito|OmnusErudito]] 18:26, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Why there are no transitional fossils

2007-03-23T22:25:57Z

OmnusErudito:

As I understand it there actually, of course, ARE transitional forms, however since I got banned from stating the fact that George W Bush was born in Connecticut, I dare not post as much for fear of public flogging. However, [http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html This Page at TalkOrigins] does a good deal to explain where that confusion comes from, which basically has to do with an almost anal-retentive need for there not to be any gaps whatsoever, which would, taken to its logical conclusion, require the cataloging of every creature that ever lived on the Earth to show the minor mutations that are naturally selected at some point, which is fundamentally impossible.

:The page mysteriously disappeared, though no record exists of its removal. I have replaced it.

Talk:Examples of Bias in Wikipedia/Archive1

2007-03-17T16:05:28Z

OmnusErudito:

''"Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia gives the credit due to Christianity and exposes the CE deception."''

:Maybe, but the Internet is used by people of all cultures, who use different calenders. The year 2007 is different for "Christian" countries, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, the Chinese, Japanese, even Russians have a slightly different calender. Use of BCE is thus more inclusive of all cultures. Or do the editors of this website believe that only Americans, and only American Christains at that, be allowed to use the internet?--[[User:OmnusErudito|OmnusErudito]] 12:05, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

I think that we should call the page "Wikipedia."

Tim,

Thanks for your suggestion, but I'm inclined to disagree. "Wackypedia" conveys an important and valid point that merely calling it "Wikipedia" would not. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

Man oh man! We are really beating Wikipedia up!
[[Will N.]]

*Indeed. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:35, 6 January 2007 (EST)

Out of idle curiosity, is the important and valid point: "wikipedia is wacky"?

[[User:BenjaminS|Ben]]

The point here is that if we want to be a credible website we should call things by their proper names. If you want to make the point that Wikipedia is waky or biased or whatever, do it in the body of the article. I think that if Wikipedia had an article on Conservapedia, but called it Conserva'''stupid'''ia, you would not like it, and would probably include it in your list of Wikipedia bias. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 11:56, 6 January 2007 (EST)

I TOTALLY agree with Tim,

: '''REPLY'''OK, Tim, you win. Go ahead and erase the "Wackypedia" references as you like.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 15:23, 6 January 2007 (EST)

Don't give in yet Mr. Schlafly :) I vote to definitely keep it Wackypedia. Who are we trying to appeal to here? The biased editors on Wikipedia? No, the Conservative editors elsewhere. We believe Wikipedia is wacky. Why try to sound nice? Also, why did we move all the examples of Wikipeda bias to another page? That is our view of Wikipedia. When people visit our Wikipedia page, we want them to see this. Don't put it someplace else that someone may not see it. Tim, who cares if Wikipedia puts an article up as Conserva'''stupid'''ia? Even if they wanted too they technically could not because of their no "personal attacks" policy. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 01:18, 8 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply''': If we call it "Wackypedia we hurt our own credibility. If we have a valid poit to make, we can make it without resorting to "personal attacks." (For lack of a better term) It is just acting immature to use namecalling instead of logic or truth to make our point. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 10:56, 8 January 2007 (EST)

'''Counter:''' The "Wackeypedia" site is listed #2 in a Google search for "Conservapedia". But now that Wackeypedia has been omitted, many users who click on that link will be disappointed. This new piece of information may justify restoring the link. How about this: I'll redirect the link to "Wikipedia bias." Check this change out.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:58, 9 January 2007 (EST)

==Gossip and vulgarity==

The article states "Gossip and vulgarity are pervasive on Wikipedia."

I just tried an experiment. I clicked Wikipedia's "random article" link twenty times. I did not encounter any pages that I would describe as containing either gossip or vulgarity. I would be curious if others would try the same experiment and report their results. If you find one and are comfortable identifying which page contains the "gossip or vulgarity" do so, but of course do not if you think that the degree of vulgarity violates Conservapedia's standards.

Wikipedia's biographies, particularly of living people in the public eye, '''are''' more likely to contain ''unflattering'' material than some other sources. For example, the article on NPR news correspondent [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Totenberg Nina Totenberg], mentions a plagiarism incident. Such biographies are usually subject to editing by many editors, and material of this sort doesn't usually stay very long unless a source is cited; in this case, a Wall Street Journal article. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:29, 7 January 2007 (EST)

: '''Reply''' For starters, Wikipedia has no policy against gossip. That isn't just a matter of "editing by many editors." Gossip is not educational, and is often anti-intellectual. Look at 100 entries in the Encyclopedia Britannica and you're unlikely to see any gossip. Look at ten substantive entries in Wikipedia (other than the silly music/Hollywood/political stuff) and you're likely to see many instances of gossip. Also, I've noticed vulgar entries in Wikipedia that would never be found in a real encyclopedia, but it would violate the policy of Conservapedia to post examples here and they are not worth looking for.

: Let's take your Nina Totenberg example. Here are the first five sentences:

:Sentence one: Totenberg attended Boston University, and is the daughter of violinist Roman Totenberg, who is professor emeritus at Boston University and also teaches at the Longy School of Music.

:Comment: why this detail about her father??? That's gossipy. The entry is about Totenberg, not her father.

: Sentence two: Totenberg is the widow of the late former Sen. Floyd Haskell (D-Colo), whom she married in 1979.

:Comment: That fact does not define Totenberg, and should not be the second sentence. Again, this is leading with gossip.

:Sentences three and four: She married H. David Reines, a trauma physician, in 2000. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming.

:Comment: This is really silly gossip at this point.

:Sentence five: Totenberg began her career with the National Observer, from which she was fired for plagiarism in 1972.

:Comment: That was over 30 years ago, and it exaggerates an incident concerning a couple of paragraphs. This is gossip.

:One of the reasons people like Wikipedia is because it is so gossipy, without yet having the stigma of the National Enquirer. The same people would blush at the suggestion of reading the National Enquirer, which has higher standards than Wikipedia.

:Disclosure: Totenberg interviewed me once on NPR. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:39, 7 January 2007 (EST)

::Six degrees of separation: Nina Totenberg was a high school classmate of mine. (I knew her about well enough to say hi to her in the hallway).

::The policy relating to gossip is the "verifiability policy." Gossip may be included in Wikipedia if (and only if) it has been previously published by a reliable source. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 21:03, 7 January 2007 (EST)

::: That's interesting concerning your connection to Nina Totenberg!

::: Gossip may well be verifiability. I don't think it is unreliability of information that makes it gossip. The National Enquirer is reviewed each week prior to publication by high-powered attorneys, but it is still rightly scorned. So why isn't Wikipedia treated in the same light? It should be.

::: The Totenberg entry says, "She married H. David Reines, a trauma physician, in 2000. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming." Since medical records are considered highly confidential, I'm skeptical that claim is verifiable. I clicked the "reference" for it on Wikipedia and it is a "Site Error." There are many such "references" on Wikipedia. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 21:24, 7 January 2007 (EST)

'''Comment:''' Is the Totenberg entry the best example of wikipedia's gossip and vulgarity? The example above is only borderline gossip-ish. The other examples of "gossip" you gave are relevant biography information. I can see why you find "gossip" prevelant throughout wikipedia.

--[[User:BenjaminS|Ben]] 22:49, 7 January 2007 (EST)

:'''Reply:''' It is enough to observe that Wikipedia has no policy against gossip, other than a general (and relatively new but unenforced) policy against unverified claims. Gossip is welcomed by Wikipedia and, as with the National Enquirer, helps boost popularity with the general public.

: In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_controversy
: it was a hoax that created a backlash against Wikipedia. But perhaps the real problem was how Wikipedia welcomes gossip.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:14, 7 January 2007 (EST)

'''Another Comment:''' I suppose it is worth pointing out that gossip ''can'' be true and verifiable. Such a policy does harbor some worthless (though not necessarily bad) information.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 09:58, 8 January 2007 (EST)

'''Another Point of View'''
You can debate whether or not Wikipedia has a gossip problem all you like. However, that is not an example of Bias, just proof of alot of useless but not biased information. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 10:14, 8 January 2007 (EST)

:I agree. I think the "gossip" critique has more merit to it than the "bias" critique. I'd put it something like this:

:Wikipedia's openness and lack of central authority is particularly problematical in the case of biographies of living people. Many people enjoy attacking public figures whose ideology they disagree with by inserting unflattering, scandalous, or spiteful statements into an article about them. As the Seigenthaler incident shows, such statements may go uncorrected for a long time. But even when Wikipedia works in the way its advocates say it is supposed to work, the result is only that the unflattering information is presented neutrally and is an accurate representation of material that has been published by a reliable source. There is no overarching, enforced policy like the New York Times' "all the news that's fit to print."

:Thus, in the case of the Nina Totenberg article, it is possible to achieve a fairly stable consensus that an early incident of copied material should carefully attribute it to the columnist that reported it, accurately summarize what the columnist said, say where the columnist said it, not editorialize by calling it "plagiarism," and should include Nina Totenberg's own statement about the incident. What is not possible in Wikipedia is to declare that the incident is irrelevant, remove it from the article, and get the removal to stick. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:56, 8 January 2007 (EST)

== Examples Of Bias??? ==

Many of the entries in this article are examples of bias but some of them are just reasons why Wikipedia is not a very good website. Nos 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 18 are not examples of bias.

==Beating Out Wackypedia==

Hey me and Andrew were discussing, if we want to beat out the amount of entries that Wackypedia has, we have to really pick it up and start putting alot of post up. We need approx. 274 for 10 years and we just get to 1,000,100. Thats if they dont put up anymore post. We need to get out to others cause we cant do this by ourselves. If we are going to do this all by ourselves, each of us has to do at least 5 entries a day, that is everyone in the class. Just wanted to alert the community. We need to grow. Thats all folks! [[Will N.]]

Will, thanks for the encouragement. More postings are helpful, most of all to the person who is posting the information. He learns and won't forget that material for a long time. That said, the vast majority of postings on Wikipedia is silly trivial or worse, lacking in any real value. I bet 90% of Wikipedia could be removed without hardly anyone even noticing or caring. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:50, 19 January 2007 (EST)

:Well, you already have more articles than [http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page the Scots Wikipedia], anyway. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:58, 19 January 2007 (EST)

:Another thought:
:Do you expect the growth of a project like Wikipedia or Conservapedia to occur at a constant rate? ("274 articles per day for 10 years?") Or do you expect it to be an example of a [[geometric progression]]?
:If Conservapedia has 3,000 articles and grows at 70 articles per day, that means that it grows by 2.3% every day. I don't think it will really keep doing this, but let's suppose it did. My calculations show that 1.02331, that is 1.023 multiplied by itself thirty-one times, is 2.02. That means that the number of articles would double every month.
:'''If''' the number of articles in Conservapedia were to double every month, how long would it take to reach a million? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:55, 20 January 2007 (EST)

*I think that our focus should be not on the number of pages, but on the quality of the pages. The number of possible useful, high quality pages is finite. We do not need to have a million pages if half of them are going to be controversial or useless. It is much better to have less pages and maintain our high quality standards. [[User:SharonS|SharonS]] 07:53, 20 January 2007 (EST)

I agree with you Sharon, but disagree at the same time. We can make higher quality pages (which I have already seen us do), but lets make alot of them. Cant hurt us. It will only make us better. More pages, and higher quality. Thats what we should do. We have alot of pages (considering how long we have been around), but they are of a high quality. We need to keep doing this. On google if u punch in Online Encyclipideia, ours is not in the first 5 pages. We need to get more publicity. This is done by: 1. More terms and higher quality; 2. Sharing it with others. Thats all we can do for now. If there is anything else, add on to the list. [[Will N.]]

As a way of placing more information on Conservapedia and encouraging more posting by others, I've just added links to Conservapedia by other websites and posted my [[American History Lecture One]].--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:29, 20 January 2007 (EST)

== ...but Conservapedia does! ==

The article currently says:
:21. Wikipedia's article about the late Senator John Tower includes this choice bit of gossip: "Senator Tower married Lila Burt Cummings in 1977. John and Lila Tower were divorced in 1987, and she died thereafter. As the embittered Lila lay near death from cancer, she refused to accept flowers sent to her by John Tower, according to Tower's former assistant Ken Towery." No real encyclopedia would print such silly gossip.

I have to point out that as I write this, there are currently ''two'' online self-described "encyclopedias" containing this item: Wikipedia and Conservapedia. I'm not sure how you can best deal with this particular Catch-22.

:I took the liberty of rewording item 21 so that it does not directly retell the story. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:08, 26 January 2007 (EST)

P. S. There are two questions to be asked about this item: a) is it appropriate for an encyclopedia, and b) is it accurate? Looking only at the ''second'' question, I see that Wikipedia gives no source for the item, and a few quick searches on the Web and in Google Books don't immediately turn one up. I've marked the item in Wikipedia as needing a source, identified the editor who inserted the item, and left a note on his Talk page saying "I don't hold much admiration for Senator Tower, but an item like this really needs a good source citation." If a source citation isn't provided I'll remove the item, and if nobody finds a source, my removal of the item will probably stick. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:59, 26 January 2007 (EST)

P. P. S. The New York Times obituary for John Tower spells her name "Lilla," not "Lila," as the Wikipedia article did until a few minutes ago when I fixed it. The Times obituary does not mention the flower-rejection story, but does judge it appropriate to devote two of the article's twenty-one paragraphs to the topic "Bitter divorce in 1987," which is not irrelevant to his career since it says his wife's allegations "probably cost him the Pentagon post...." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 10:23, 26 January 2007 (EST)

P. P. P. S. As it happens I was able to find a source for the story myself, a newspaper article by Towery himself, so I added the source to Wikipedia's article. I expanded the quotation, because Towery's point was to illustrate Tower's civility toward his ex-wife. I added a note on the Wikipedia talk page saying I wasn't sure the incident needed to be in the article and asking for comment. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:08, 26 January 2007 (EST)

==Move this page?==

This page is no longer purley devoted to examples of Wikipedia's bias; I propose that we move it to "Reasons not to use Wikipedia". This title more accurately describes the page content.

Any thoughts on why we may want to keep the title as it is?

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 12:08, 26 January 2007 (EST)

==Ben Franklin==

How old was Ben Franklin when he was still a deist? To dismiss his conviction as "youthful" sounds like you are questioning the his maturiy-- implying that he was to naiive know any better and that he quickly turned from deism as soon as he gained experience. Unless this is strictly true I would requests removal of the adjective.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 09:56, 29 January 2007 (EST)

I don't see how it matters how "youthful" Franklin was when he accepted and then abandoned deism, though I welcome someone else researching this.

'''Reply:''' Exactly my point! While doesn't matter how "youthful" he was (he may have not been youthfull at all), it does leave a false impression.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 15:58, 29 January 2007 (EST)

==Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington==

I reverted back the edits that deleted the detailed description of how Conservapedia was censored by Wikipedia. Illustrating the mindset of the editors in control of Wikipedia is informative and interesting. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 15:11, 29 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:''' Unfortunately this example ''does not'' illustrate the mindset of Wikipedia editors. It shows that conservapedia is shallow-- citing the strange username of an editor as evidence of their bias; is there an inherent liberal bias in the use of a pen-name? Arguments such as this are diluting the good arguments against wikipedia and killing conservapedia's credibility.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 15:58, 29 January 2007 (EST)

*Isn't "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington" a literary reference? P. G. Wodehouse? Saki? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:32, 29 January 2007 (EST) Not quite, it's J. K. Rowling... he's in the Harry Potter novels. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:34, 29 January 2007 (EST)
** Exactly. I was just coming on to say that. We have our own here at Conservapedia. We have a user called "Gothmog". --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 16:53, 29 January 2007 (EST)
::: '''REPLY''' But "Gothmog" does not exercise super-user privileges here and censor entire entries.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 17:06, 29 January 2007 (EST)
::: '''Reply''' The name of a user does not matter. Just because one of Wikipedia's editors happens to be a fan of the ''Harry Potter'' Book Series does not mean that he has some kind of bias. I think that you are just upset that the article on Conservapedia got deleted. (the merits of its deletion are debatable) The name of the editor is meaningless. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 17:34, 29 January 2007 (EST)

Keep the thing up... it's perfectly acceptable. Who cares if people think we're shallow? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 17:52, 29 January 2007 (EST)

The point is that the name of an editor '''''does not in any way'''''' show that there is bias in wikipedia. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 17:57, 29 January 2007 (EST)

'''Comment''' The main reason why this should be deleted is that it waters down the good arguments against wikipedia; this page has be come tedious and boring. Out of curiosity, why are the names "Gothmog" and "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington" inappropriate for editors' use?

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:04, 29 January 2007 (EST)

:: '''REPLY:''' Censorship by an anonymous person is bad enough. But it is even worse when the censorship is by someone displaying a silly description of himself. It's not just his name that is silly, it is also how he describes himself. Another editor on Wikipedia displayed his praise of Chairman Mao on his website. Let's be candid about juvenile and liberal the Wikipedia editors are. They are nothing like real encyclopedia editors, or even the general public. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:13, 29 January 2007 (EST)
:: '''Reply''' He does not describe himself. And choosing a name from a novel is not necessarily juvenile and definitly not liberal. Also, it doesn't really matter what someone puts on their user page. I assume that admins are chosen based on their contributions to the website, and that is fair whatever their user name is --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 18:25, 29 January 2007 (EST)

Alot of the sections on this page are not really examples of bias. maybe the page should be split int 2 pages, one for examples of bias, and one for other reasons not to use Wikipedia. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 18:28, 29 January 2007 (EST)

'''REPLY''' The reader can be the judge of bias. Personally, and I'm sure many would agree with me, I feel that someone who names himself after a character in a children's book (a book to which many Christians object, by the way), '''and''' also calls himself "Nearly Headless Nick", is not likely to be an informed, fair judge of someone else's work. Of course you're free to disagree with my conclusion, but censoring this information so that others would be unable to draw their own conclusions is unjustified. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:25, 29 January 2007 (EST)
*Well said Mr Schlafly... [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 19:38, 29 January 2007 (EST)
'''Reply''' Nearly Headless Nick is the same character in the books as Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. someone who names themself after a character in a book, is not more or less likely to be an "informed, fair judge of someone else's work" then anyone else. It is a logical fallacy to assume that an editor is bad just because you do not like their name. They do not give out admin priveledges at wikipedia arbitrarily, they are based on (correct me if I am wrong) the contributions of the user who wants to be an admin. It is not "censoring" to remove information from a list to which it does not belong. The user names of wikipedia editors is not usefull information, and does not need to be on Conservapedia. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 19:42, 29 January 2007 (EST)

'''REPLY'''Tim, you seem to be saying that the pseudonyms of users is NEVER useful information. But how about the name "poison pen" that invaded our site until I blocked it? How about the name "Antichrist"? Surely many names are indicative of the views of the users. What someone calls himself may tell us a great deal. Choosing a silly name from a Harry Potter novel increases the likelihood that the editor has views more like other Harry Potter readers than, for example, daily Bible readers. The Harry Potter name also suggests that the editor may be less than 16 years old. This is far from conclusive, but the probabilities do shift based on this information. Give the facts and let the reader draw his own interpretations. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:58, 29 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply''' I just wanted to say that I am under 16, and a Harry Potter reader and '''''YOU''''' approved for me to be an admin!! This seems to be a bit of a double standard. (By the way I'm also a daily Bible reader.) I think that a better way to find wikipedia bais is to look at the things that "Nearly headless Nick" has edited and '''then''' decide if he is biased.--[[User:ChrisS|Chris]] 12:56, 4 February 2007 (EST)

:Indeed. Fortunately, MediaWIki makes this easy to do; here is a link to his [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=100&target=Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington&namespace=0 last hundred edits] to the article namespace. By far the bulk of them appear to be reversions of added content. I'm going to look at a few that seem to be relevant to issue of of political and religious bias.
::*In the Ronald Reagan article, he removed the words "Brian Higgins has a little [infantile euphemism for body part]"[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ronald_Reagan&diff=prev&oldid=103130341]
::*In the article on Epiphany (Christian), he reverted someone who had changed the name of the holiday from "Epiphany" to "Burger feast"[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Epiphany_%28Christian%29&diff=prev&oldid=103130012]
::*In an article on Father Jack Hacket (who, it turns out, is a fictional TV character) he removed a statement that "At one stage, he was a sea captain."[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Father_Jack_Hackett&diff=103132750&oldid=103118233]
::*In an article on the Qur'an, he removed an interpolated vernacular phrase asserting someone's sexual orientation and expressing contempt for same.[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Qur%27an&diff=prev&oldid=103132595]
::*In an article on the United States Bill of Rights, he reverted someone who had changed the statement that the Bill of Rights is kept in the U. S. National Archives so that it read ''Pakistan'' National Archives.
:I'll let others examine and judge some of his other edits. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:37, 4 February 2007 (EST)

'''REPLY''' Obviously a name like "antichrist" would be usefull information. It would say that the user was against christianity. I am saying that in this case the username is not very usefull, and clearly not an example of bias. What do you think are the views of harry potter readers? do you have any reason to believe that readers of Harry Potter generaly share the same views? What makes you think that this user ''isn't'' a daily Bible reader? Are you saying that most readers of Harry Potter are under the age of 16? Are you saying that people under 16 are not capable of being editors. Anyone who wants to know the facts about Wikipedia editors can look on Wikipedia itself. This is an unsubstantiated attack on an editor because of his username. If Wikipedia started attacking Conservapedia in a similar manner you would be up in arms about it. You would post it on the list of examples of Wikipedia Bias. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 23:38, 29 January 2007 (EST)

'''FURTHER REPLY''' Many Harry Potter fans are under 12 years old. And if an adult editor is naming himself after a silly Harry Potter figure, then that is also worth knowing. If an editor deleting pages on Wikipedia called himself "Winnie the Pooh" or the "Easter Bunny" then that would raise some concerns. Does Wikipedia have an age limit on editors? Does Wikipedia have a requirement that editors be informed, or be objective, or even take their responsibilities seriously? It is startling that an editor having power to delete entire entries in Wikipedia names himself after a silly Harry Potter figure. By the way, I do doubt that editor has an informed understanding of the Bible, and I also doubt he even cares. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 02:39, 30 January 2007 (EST)
::'''Reply''' What on earth does the fact that many harry potter fans are under 12 have to do with this debate? The editor is clearly not under 12. (or even under 16 as you said before.) Yes, Wikipedia does have standards for admins, (you keep calling him an editor. Isn't anyone who makes an edit an editor?) they have objectivity standards, and if you read the discussion that Dpbsmith posted further down the page you can see how they choose their admins. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 19:54, 30 January 2007 (EST)

: '''REBUTTAL''' I read Dpbsmith's link below with interest. The administrator was picked by majority vote '''<1>''' over some compelling dissenting views. '''<2>''' This Wikipedia process does nothing to ensure objectivity or to restrain tyranny of the majority. '''<3>''' Apparently he's a foreign law student who names himself after a silly Harry Potter figure. '''<4>''' If he were a juror in a real case, then many would request that he be recused immediately for lack of seriousness and responsibility. '''<5>''' Yet he apparently has the authority to delete hundreds or thousands of entries. '''<6>''' I think he may be amused by censoring hours of someone else's useful work. '''<7>''' I'm not amused.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:14, 30 January 2007 (EST)
:'''Reply''' I have so many rebuttals that I had to seperatly number them with corresponding marks in your argument to keep it organized. here they are<1>Actually it is not done by majority vote, but is a "discussion" after which one of the people in charge of choosing admins (I think that they are called Beuracrats) decides the issue. <2> Actually there were 4 people who were against, and 4 neutural, and none of their arguments were very compelling. <3> It is not popular vote, (see above) so it isn't "tyranny of the majority," and he was chosen based on his previous work on Wikipedia. If that is not unbiased, could you please give an example of how to choose admins in an unbiased manner. <4> Have you read the Harry Potter books? If not, then how do you know htat the character is silly? <5> An admin's job is not comparable to a juror's , so your argument does not work. Also an editor has to show responsibilty ''before even being consedered'' as an admin. <6> If he was deleting "hundreds or thousands of entries" that should not have been deleted, then his admin prevelidges would have been taken away. <7> This is a reckless personal attack with no basis in fact, and should not even be consedered in this debate. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 21:14, 30 January 2007 (EST)

'''Relpy''' Upon what do you base this claim? Does the name "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington" indicate ignorance of the bible? I must confess my disappointment in your judgment of this editor based on nothing but his user name.

Earlier in this debate you said: "Censorship by an anonymous person is bad enough. But it is even worse when the censorship is by someone displaying a silly description of himself." I must point out that deleting the article on conservapedia was '''''not''''' censorship or anything like censorship. The conservapedia article did not meet wikipedia's standards and was deleted through a very fair procedure.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 17:50, 30 January 2007 (EST)

:[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]], I think your description of the role played by "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington," in the process by which the article on Conservapedia was deleted from Wikipedia, is factually inaccurate... or at least makes it easy for a reader to draw a factually inaccurate inference. I'll leave it up to you whether you feel like taking on the challenge of rewording it in a way that I will acknowledge is accurate, while still making the points you want to make. (E.g. I would call it accurate to say that Wikipedia gave admin privileges to an anonymous user with a silly screen name). [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:00, 30 January 2007 (EST)

:P. S. Some may be curious to read [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington the discussion] that took place prior to his being given administrative privileges at Wikipedia. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:00, 30 January 2007 (EST)

: '''REPLY''' Thanks again for the insightful link, Dpbsmith! That did open my eyes about the selection of administrators at Wikipedia. Basically, it's majority vote, and there was some strong dissent in giving this individual administrative privileges. I suspect that some of his supporters liked the politics of this law student, and that's how bias rises to control (sometimes called tyranny by the majority). I'm not the only one to be taken aback by his choice of username.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:14, 30 January 2007 (EST)

==Wikipedia does/doesn't distort Benjamin Franklin's position on deism?==
The article gives as an example of bias,
:Wikipedia distorts the youthful acceptance of deism by Benjamin Franklin by never acknowledging that he later abandoned it.
However, Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Virtue.2C_religion_and_personal_beliefs article on Franklin] says:
:A few years later, Franklin repudiated his 1725 pamphlet as an embarrassing "erratum"
It also cites a source to the effect that
:Franklin became uncomfortable with an unenhanced version of deism and comes up with his own conception of the Creator.
It cites other sources:
:According to David Morgan, Franklin was a proponent of all religions. He prayed to "Powerful Goodness" and referred to God as the "INFINITE." John Adams noted that Franklin was a mirror in which people saw their own religion: "The Catholics thought him almost a Catholic. The Church of England claimed him as one of them. The Presbyterians thought him half a Presbyterian, and the Friends believed him a wet Quaker." Whatever else Benjamin Franklin was, concludes Morgan, "he was a true champion of generic religion."

Checking the history, there have been some back-and-forth in this section; a paragraph on how Franklin proposed "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God" as a motto for a Great Seal was removed, then restored, but the notes above seems to have been stable for a while. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:13, 30 January 2007 (EST)

: '''REPLY''' Wikipedia lists Franklin as a deist in a separate entry.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:15, 30 January 2007 (EST)

== A variety of comments ==
Question for you conservatives - how is the use of CE/BCE "anti-christian"? Different cultures and religions have different dating systems, and CE/BCE is a neutral system. In case you were unaware, AD stands for Anno Domini, meaning "In the Year of Our Lord", the Lord referring to the Christian lord, Jesus Christ. This is a decidedly pro-christian system, and using CE instead indicates a neutral stance, not an anti-christian stance. There are conservatives in the world (and US) who are not Christian, believe it or not. If you insist on using AD, perhaps you should call this encyclopedia "christipedia". ---[[User:Liberator|Liberator]] 21:29, 21 February 2007 (EST)

Having looked at the examples here, some of them seem to be valid and I have taken steps to correct them. In particular, I have removed some of the more gossipy comments in Wikipedia entries and thank this project for pointing them out. I have also corrected the century for the indentured servitude. I would therefore tentatively suggest updating those sections on this page to note that they were corrected after being pointed out here. The lack of an article on elementary proof is disturbing and I am currently writing a draft. One of the claims here however is flat out wrong- Wikipedia does not prefer CE to AD but has a compromise system where Christian articles generally use the AD/BC system, articles on other religions generally use CE/BCE, articles on other topics use whichever one the article creator had. In some particularly controversial cases, we have used CE/AD or similar comments. Also many of the issues brought up here would have taken a few seconds to correct or deal with. Thus, bringing them up here as examples of "bias" is inaccurate and misleading. I have not had time to look over all the claims here but will do so when I have time. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 17:00, 4 February 2007 (EST)

:I have the Nina Totenberg article on my watchlist, and I actually did notice your edit and think it was interesting in light of the discussion here about Wikipedia being gossip-oriented. The interesting thing will be to see whether your removal "sticks." (JoshuaZ removed a source item about Nina Totenberg's husband, a physician, treating her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming). I'm completely neutral about this sort of trivia. I'd never put it in, but I wouldn't personally take it out, particularly not since it has a good source citation. I'm more active when it comes to items that are a) factually true, b) embarrassing to the subject of the article, and c) appear to me to be motivated by a wish to attack the subject. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:11, 4 February 2007 (EST)

:: My opinion in regard to things like the Totenberg issue is mixed and is close to your attitude although I am slightly more willing to remove things. Stuff like that often just makes it more difficult for people to locate actually useful information an makes people less inclined to expand articles with details that really should be there. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 17:16, 4 February 2007 (EST)

:: Zenger matter is also now corrected. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 18:48, 4 February 2007 (EST)

::: '''REPLY''' Are you crediting Conservapedia with these corrections when you make them? To be fair, you should.

::: Wikipedia's bias includes its failure to credit Christianity, Americans, conservatives, etc. The BCE/CE is one glaring example of this bias, but there are many others listed here. If a date is used based on the birth of Jesus, then that attribution should be given regardless of one's view of Jesus. That's a matter of proper attribution, and it's anti-Christian bias to try to erase a factual attribution.

::: It's not true that most of the enumerated examples of Wikipedia bias can be easily corrected. Most of the examples remain uncorrected, and if you tried to correct them your edits on Wikipedia would likely be erased.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 21:17, 4 February 2007 (EST)
:::: I haven't been "crediting" Conservapedia when making these corrections for the following reasons a) my general habit when I see on a non-Wikipedia site a note about a mistake is to correct it and leave a note at the site in question (as I left above). Even when dealing with such corrections on Wikipedia one very often makes the correction and then thanks the individual on the talk page who brought the matter up. c) if I did go through the effort to "credit" those who found the mistakes, it would make far more sense to go through the history of this article and credit whatever conservapedia editor found the mistake in question as such-and-such on conservapedia. If however, you insist that it is somehow more "fair" for me to make a general comment about where it came from, I may do so.

::::: I do think the use of a list here of Wikipedia errors deserves attribution. Wouldn't that be fair? Your other examples are not comparable to your repeated use of the list here. You are most welcome to use anything here, but why the reluctance to give credit? This is particularly warranted after Wikipedia insisted on deleting the entry about Conservapedia. After that, Wikipedia is going to benefit from what it censored, and not even give credit? I don't think so.

:::::: Again, I don't see any censorship occuring but if you insist I will note when I make corrections or changes that were brought up here. As I explained above, my normal practice is not to do so. To expand upon my explanation above (especially the cause for the general habit mentioned in part a) above, I make about 2 to 5 corrections to Wikipedia a day based on concers brought up by people either through emails, IMs, messages I see on other websites or other venues. To note where each one comes from would make it much easier for people to internetstalk me and stalk me IRL- events which I would rather not occur. Therefore,I generally fix the problems and thank the people who brought up a matter in whatever venue they brought it up. Again, if you insist that I credit such fixes to Consevarpedia when they have been brought up here, it is likely that I will do so. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:14, 4 February 2007 (EST)

::::::: 2-5 errors ''per day'' is a great deal of errors. That's worth knowing and publicizing itself. An ordinary encyclopedia would not contain so many errors. But I digress.

'''Comment:''' An ''"ordinary"'' encyclopedia is nor user-controled; 2-5 errors per day is a good thing for a wiki the sise of wikipedia! If we ever get nearly that big we also will have many errors to correct.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 12:31, 5 February 2007 (EST)

::::::: The errors corrected on Wikipedia based on the Conservapedia entry deserve credit for several reasons. First, it is many errors from a single source. Second, the source is one that Wikipedia previously refused to recognize. So, yes, I do insist that Conservapedia receive credit in your use of it to correct specifically identified errors on Wikipedia. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:36, 4 February 2007 (EST)

:::::::: Regarding the 2-5 claim being a "great deal", I would disagree: many of the errors in question are issues of spelling and grammar. Second, as I attempted to explain to you earlier there isn't an issue of Wikipedia recognizing Conservapedia or not, even if Conservapedia found 10^8 errors, that wouldn't make it meet Wikipedia inclusion policies. Third, many of the issues brought up here are not errors of fact but rather errors of ommision, possible NPOV issues, criticisms of how Wikipedia is organized, or ad hominem attacks on Wikipedia usernames. Only about 5 of these seem to be possibly genuine errors of fact. That hardly seems like "many errors." In any event, when I look at the other ones on this list, I will attribute an corrections to Conservapedia in my edit summaries per your request. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 23:44, 4 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Now, as to your comments about AD/CE issues, I'd rather not get into a protracted discussion: the CE system is used by many academics and modern sources. In so far as that, Wikipedia isn't attempting to erase Jesus or anything like that. Its a simple matter of their being a lot of disagreement over what system to use and to avert further controversy without making any claims about which system is better or worse it has had a makeshift compromise. Not surprisingly, some atheists, agnostics, Jews and Muslims have objected to the US of the AD system anywhere on Wikipedia and think this smacks of a pro-Christian bias. I would tentatively suggest that the presence of objections on both ends demonstrates that it isn't biased with this matter but is simply attempting to compromise on a difficult issue. To quote Calvin (the comic strip character, not the theologian) "A good compromise leaves everybody mad." Now, aside from this matter, I'm personally inclined to agree to some extent with you. It is particularly strange in regard to the Jews who prefer CE/BCE since many of the same concerns still exist. That is, they are still using a system which revolves around what according to many Jewish authorities (such as Maimonides) is idolatry. It would thus make sense for them to use some other calendrical system such as the Jewish calendar or the Islamic calendar (which would not present such an issue because the muslims don't have a trinity and don't claim that a human was divine). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 21:34, 4 February 2007 (EST)

::::: The dates are based on the approximate birth of Jesus. Proper attribution is a matter of integrity, not a statement of faith. Insisting on denying credit reflects bias and nothing more. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 21:45, 4 February 2007 (EST)

=="Latent hostility?"==
I don't really expect to change any minds, but I don't think that Wikipedia's giving Nero's[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Nero] dates in the format "December 15, 37 – June 9, 68" expresses a "latent hostility" toward Christianity. If you check earlier Roman emperors, you'll see that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus Augustus'] dates are given as "September 23, 63 BC–August 19, AD 14" and Julius Caesar's as "July 13, 100 BC – March 15, 44 BC"

Notice that these article do use Conservapedia's favored AD/BC, not CE/BCE.

I think Wikipedia is simply following the recommendations in its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29#Years.2C_decades.2C_and_centuries Manual of Style], which say "Normally you should use plain numbers for years in the Anno Domini/Common Era, but when events span the start of the Anno Domini/Common Era, use AD or CE for the date at the end of the range (note that AD precedes the date and CE follows it."

That this is not particularly anti-Christian is suggested by the fact that the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 1911 and tending to reflect an Anglican point of view, gives [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Nero Nero's dates] as "(37-68)".

(On the other hand... the Columbia Encyclopedia, gives his dates as "A.D. 37–A.D. 68."[http://www.bartleby.com/65/ne/Nero.html]... while [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9055320/Nero the current Britannica] says "born Dec. 15, AD 37, Antium, Latium died June 9, 68, Rome" and gives his reign as "AD 54–68".)

I'd add that even conservatives do not, as far as I know, customarily use "AD" in ordinary parlance where the era is obvious from context (dating checks, for example). [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:16, 5 February 2007 (EST)

:'''REPLY''' The Encyclopedia Britannica uses BC/AD. I just checked my print edition from the 1990s, and it has AD for Nero's dates. Your citation to the online Britannica is merely "based on" the 1911 edition, rather than quoting it verbatim. The omission of "A.D." is striking, and may suggest a similar hostility. They copied from Britannica but dropped the AD, apparently

[[image:Nero003.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Image of Nero article from 1911 Britannica]]
::Oh, well... uh... er... you see... as it happens—believe it or not, and I know it's hard to believe!—I personally own a print copy of the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sorry, shoulda warned you... And it matches the online version. I acknowledge that I didn't check until after you brought up that point, though. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 21:50, 5 February 2007 (EST)

::: '''REPLY''' WOW!!!! That's amazing, Dpsmith!!!! What a stunning disproof of my argument!!!! A bit odd that Wikipedia makes the exact same mistake, don't you think? Could you check the Britannica convention for others living around that time to see if Nero's lack of A.D. was a mistake? (my 1990s Britannica uses A.D. for those dates, suggesting that the Britannica editors viewed this as a mistake and later fixed it).--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:14, 5 February 2007 (EST)

::::Yeah, thanks, you made my day. Remember the scene in a Woody Allen movie, "Annie Hall" I think, in which he is arguing with someone about what Marshall McLuhan meant? (Marshall McLuhan was a cryptic Canadian guru whose book ''Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man'' had everybody trying to understand what he was saying about "hot media" and "cool media.") And Allen says, "Well, I have Marshall McLuhan right here"—IRC Allen pulls him out from behind a large freestanding lobby card—and McLuhan proceeds to say that Allen was right. I think this about as close as I'll ever come to having that kind of moment.

::::The 1911 Britannica was some kind of high point in encyclopedia-making. From 1911 throught the 1960s, new editions of the Britannica were, in fact, based on the previous editions, and even contained some articles unchanged from it. Whenever they came out with the "Britannica 3" (29-volume Propedia/Micropedia/Macropedia) I believe that was a complete rewrite from top to bottom, so there's no continuity.

::::The 1911 Britannica ''does'' appear to be at least inconsistent. No time now for a thorough check. One article opens "Gaius Caesar (A.D. 12-41)," another opens "Galba, Servius Sulpicius, Roman emperor (June A.D. 68 to January 69)." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 05:57, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: You're right that we don't use "A.D." on checks, or sometimes where it is obvious. But it is not obvious in the case of Nero's birthdate, which was within 50 years of the birth of Jesus. The omission of A.D. there is glaring.

:'''Reply''' By your logic Mr. Schlafly, Wikipedia is hostile to Anti-Christianity because the article on Nero Omits "CE" from the Date. I would say that the lack of an AD or CE acknowledges the fact that there is debate on the subject, and avoids taking a side. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 22:48, 5 February 2007 (EST)

: People will omit things to be politically correct. "Happy Holidays," anyone? This is the same phenomenon in Wikipedia. When in doubt (about A.D. v. C.E., leave it out!

: I agree that not all of Wikipedia's articles use BCE/CE, but I think most do and the trend is to use BCE/CE. Our resident Wikipedia enthusiast defends the practice, for example. Wikipedia editors are hostile to Christianity in other ways, so this practice is not surprising.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 21:32, 5 February 2007 (EST)

Some of Conservapedia's articles do not appear to use AD for four-digit years, e.g.
:[[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]] (1906-1945)
:[[Rudolf Clausius]] (1822–1888)
:[[Richard Nixon]] (1913–1994)
Does this indicate a latent hostility toward Christianity?

It seems to me that A.D. is used primarily on gravestones, on very formal official documents, and in contexts where years A.D. and years B.C. are mixed. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:37, 5 February 2007 (EST)

One last observation and then I'll bow out, or at least try to, on this topic. I found an online resource, ''The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style,'' the Zondervan Corporation... Zondervan being a well-known Christian publishing house. It is a [http://www.zondervan.com/media/samples/pdf/0310487714_samptxt.pdf downloadable pdf]. I see several references to eras. All of them are devoted solely to the recommendation that they should be in full caps without periods:
:"For instance, we no longer recommend small caps for such abbreviations as AD, BC, CE, BCE, a.m., and p.m."
...periods should not be used for
:historical eras: AD, BC, BCE, AH, BP
:"Abbreviations designating historical eras, formerly set in small caps with periods, are now most commonly set in full caps without periods: AD, BC, BCE,BH."
I don't see any indication that AD and BC are to be preferred. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:50, 5 February 2007 (EST)

'''For What it's Worth''' I added AD to the dates of Nero on Wikipedia a couple nights ago, and as of right now it has not been removed. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 11:30, 7 February 2007 (EST)

:I won't be surprised if it sticks, but I won't be surprised if someone reverts it "per MOS" (manual of style). I'm not a Manual of Style maven and don't followed it closely, other than to check it when I have a question, but I suspect that if you want this to stick you'd need to make a proposal, and get consensus, that "AD or CE should be used with two-digit years" or something like that.

:There was some kind of great flaming AD/BC vs CE/BCE war about a year ago, but it's quite possible that at the moment nobody think it's very important... or that articles on Roman emperors aren't part of the arena on which it was fought.

:Small changes, good, bad, or indifferent can escape notice for a long time. Wikipedia's article on the Statue of Liberty mentioned that one Frederick R. Law made a parachute jump from the statue in 1912. A few months ago someone changed the name to "Caressea M. Lentino." I put the item in originally (based on a New York Times story), I have the Statue of Liberty article on my watchlist, but neither I nor anyone else noticed the change. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 12:13, 7 February 2007 (EST)

**For what it's worth, as of February 12th there have been six more edits to the article by five different editors, none of whom has touched Tim Svendsen's change. Possible interpretations include:
***The change wasn't noticed.
***It was noticed, and thought to be reasonable.
***It was noticed, and shrugged off... because none of these editors have enough "latent hostility" toward the use of AD and BC to fuss about it. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:22, 12 February 2007 (EST)

==#10==

While it is true that many of wikipedia's entries are of no educational value, we can hardly expect them to count which ones do and which ones don't; this is not an example of bias and I would like to remove it if no objections are raised.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 19:11, 5 February 2007 (EST)

:I don't like the idea of calling it "bias," but it seems to me that it's a fair observation that a good portion of Wikipedia's content would not be found in traditional encyclopedias... and that the article count might be inflated if you're a) are interested in traditional scholarly content, and b) are comparing it to the Britannica's article count.

:A lot of it Wikipedia's content, however, ''could'' be found in specialized books that have the word "encyclopedia" in their title. Searching Amazon on the word "encyclopedia" I find ''The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding,'' ''The New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia,'' ''DC Comics Encyclopedia,'' ''An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Clematis,'' ''The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball 2007,'' ''Armlock Encyclopedia: 85 Armlocks for Jujitsu, Judo, Sambo & Mixed Martial Arts,'' ''The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock: Expanded and Updated Edition,'' ''The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Revised and Updated for the 21st Century),'' ''DK Encyclopedia of Rock Stars,'' etc. etc. etc. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:44, 5 February 2007 (EST)

== Propose move to "Examples of Defects in Wikipedia" ==

...or ''Examples of Problems with Wikipedia''

...or ''Examples of Issues with Wikipedia''

or something of the sort. The article would sit better with me if everything in it were not ascribed to "bias." In fact, many of the complaints are about inaccuracies, which have nothing to do with bias.

I don't think saying that Wikipedia has "a bias towards popular gossip rather than helpful or enlightening information" is a good use of the word bias, either. Wikipedia certainly does have a lot of, um, material which may seem frivolous (or unhelpful or unenlightening) and as a result its article count may be inflated, but I don't think this is what people generally mean by bias.

Some of the complaints are really directed at the way in which Wikipedia is governed and organized. Some are really complaints at the fact that Wikipedia, being the "encyclopedia that everyone can edit," relies for quality control on the mass decisions of people whose only credentials are that they feel like editing Wikipedia. This is not bias, either.

Oh, by the way... would you like to know something '''truly''' scary? There was a longstanding dispute in the Wikipedia article about the Ivy League. It concerned a statement that, at the time the league was formed, Rutgers was invited to join, but declined. When push comes to shove Wikipedia editors demand published sources, and the editor who insisted on inserting this said he had seen it in microfilmed copies of ''The Targum,'' the Rutgers student newspaper, but declined to give dates and page numbers. The statement was in the article for, I don't know, months; sometimes in, sometimes out, sometimes marked "citation needed," sometimes not.

One day, someone found a recent newspaper article in The New York Daily News:
:"You don't have to define your college with your football team, but Rutgers long ago decided to give it a try. Back in 1954, when it was considered a 'public Ivy,' Rutgers might have joined the fledgling Ivy League and altered its destiny. But the school declined the offer - arguably the dumbest mistake in its history. Ever since then, Rutgers has scrambled to prove itself worthy of playing football with the big boys." — Bondy, Filip. "They Can Finally Say They Belong Here", New York Daily News, 2006-11-10, p. 92. Retrieved on 2006-12-13.

Well, that certainly looks like a published source, doesn't it? The issue seemed to be settled...

...until someone emailed the reporter to find out where he had gotten that fact.

It turned out he had gotten it from Wikipedia. (Presumably on a day when the article contained that statement).

This is not the only case of journalists using Wikipedia articles without mentioning Wikipedia as their source.

Is that scary, or what? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:33, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: '''WOW!!!''' That is scary!!! Maybe if that reporter saw our website he would not have made that mistake!!! :-)

: As to the title of "bias", most of the complaints are related to bias, so I think our title is description (and interesting to visitors). Even defenders of Wikipedia have reacted elsewhere to some of my observations with a statement like, "Boy, that sounds just like Wikipedia." There are (undesirable) characteristics of the Wikipedia entries that reflect the biased culture of its editors. Note how Wikipedia makes no effort to maintain balance among its editors, in contrast to a reputable publication. When I pointed this on Wikipedia's own entry about itself, Wikipedia editors then altered and censored my observation!--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 10:38, 6 February 2007 (EST)

I propose splitting the page (Because many of the entries on it are not "Bias") by moving some of the entries to a page called [[Mistakes and other Problems in Wikipedia]]. I would suggest:
:Moving Nos. 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, and 21,
:Leaving Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 17, 22, and a cut back version of #15,
:Deleting Nos. 3, 11, 14, 16, 19 and 20.
What does everyone else think. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 11:57, 7 February 2007 (EST)

I whole heartedly agree!

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 14:58, 7 February 2007 (EST)

If I don't have anyone dissagreeing with me I am going to go ahead with this. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 21:46, 12 February 2007 (EST)

==National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act <nowiki>{{sofixit}}</nowiki>==
(<nowiki>{{sofixit}}</nowiki> is a template sometimes used on Wikipedia which expands to a suggestion that someone should fix a problem with an article themselves).

Aschlafly, If you are actually concerned about Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Injury_Act article] on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, I think there is a ''very'' good chance that you could successfully edit the article for balance and that the changes would "stick." You can use this as a test of whether Wikipedia's "neutrality" policy is more than empty lip service.

As a start, I would suggest that you try adding a section under the subheading <nowiki>==Criticism==</nowiki>, that you try to put yourself into the same frame of mind you were in when you wrote the ''current'' contents of the [[HPV vaccine]] article, and in the spirit of the verifiability policy, you cite sources to the hilt. Don't try to ''control'' the contents of the article.

Remember that what your goal is not to prove that (say) "In no other industry are the manufacturers of products able to avoid legal accountability and full liability for damages caused directly by their products," but to prove that ''there are published sources saying that critics have said that.'' That is, don't try to prove that the criticism is ''true,'' try to prove that the criticism is reasonably widely held and is a point of view that deserves representation.

As an extreme example, if you manage to make your case solely in the form of direct quotes from critics that have appeared in the mainstream press, I think it will be very hard for people to argue that they should not be in the article.

Perhaps you want to remould the entire article nearer to your heart's desire, but that probably won't work. Don't try to delete the material that's there, even if you think it's biased, and don't try to change it unless it really says something demonstrably counter to the facts... but add the opposing view.

If you feel that it's not your job to keep Wikipedia neutral, OK, but the only way problems on Wikipedia get fixed is for people to wade in and fix them.

Try it, I ''think'' you'll like it. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 13:51, 6 February 2007 (EST)

:Dpbsmith, thanks for your suggestion. But I have spent many hours editing Wikipedia and nearly every time my edits have been censored, deleted, diluted or otherwise changed in a biased manner. These include topics ranging from politics to science to Wikipedia itself. And I don't mean simply editing opinions. I'm including how specific and undisputed facts that I have posted have been removed. The bias in the existing vaccine article on Wikipedia suggests many of the same problems that I have previously encountered, and unsuccessfully attempted to fix, elsewhere. So I'm not sure editing Wikipedia is time well-spent, though I will consider trying again.

:A simple poll of the political, religious, scientific and economic views of the Wikipedia administrators would illustrate the problem. But I don't expect any such poll to be published.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 14:03, 6 February 2007 (EST)

::Well, if you've had bad experiences in the past, perhaps it's asking for frustration to ask you to try again...

==Bias Among Wikipedia Admins==

::Re the deletion of the Conservapedia article, I've tried to tweak the description without blunting your criticism.

::Wikipedia ''does'' have (numerous!) policies regarding deletion.

::In most straightforward cases, of which the Conservapedia article was one, yes, it really amounts to a 2/3 vote for deletion by anonymous voters. It is formally "not a vote." The closing admin (who is whoever happens to be around and closing deletion articles that day) can exercise judgement. That usually only comes into play in situations where the admin judges there to have been voting irregularities, such as "sockpuppetry" (multiple voting by one person under several different user accounts) or "meatpuppetry" (when a person e.g. posts on a blog asking lots of people to come to Wikipedia, create new accounts, and vote). (It is usually thought to be suspicious when a new account's first edit is to a deletion discussion, for example). In such cases, or when the vote is actually close to 2/3, an admin ''will'' usually explain the decision.

::In this case, I think the admin was performing an almost mechanical exercise in vote-counting and that virtually any other admin would have called it the same way. That's probably why the decision was so curt.

::There is a "deletion review" process that is available when an admin appears to have acted arbitrarily. My personal opinion is that this particular deletion was so cut and dried that asking for deletion review would just result in further frustration, so I don't recommend trying.

::Wikipedia is what it is, but it is not due to Sir Mimsy exercising his personal whim.

::By the way, I think you ''greatly'' overestimate the degree to which admins influence content on Wikipedia. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:17, 6 February 2007 (EST)

::: Is there a Wikipedia policy that majority (or supermajority) vote can force the deletion of an entry? If so, then I'd like to publicize that.

:::: In effect, yes.

:::: If you were to say "articles can be deleted on the basis of a supermajority vote of a group of anonymous users," well, that's reasonably close. You can add that it's a group self-selected by their interest in voting on the article... and there are no membership criteria, no quorum calls, etc.

:::: That doesn't mean it's easy to get an article deleted, though! In practice it's more complicated than that. For example, if you nominated, say, the article on Dinesh d'Souza for deletion, the likely result would be a flood of comments like "Speedy keep, bad-faith nomination" and "<nowiki>[[WP:POINT]]</nowiki>," shorthand for "Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point." I don't think a group of cronies could get an article deleted just because they didn't like it. I do understand, of course, that that's exactly what you think happened with the Conservapedia article...

::: Scholars would be amused by such a policy.

::: Admins on Wikipedia can and do block users, freeze entries, delete pages, and prohibit entries on certain topics. I doubt it's possible to overestimate their influence. Let's see a poll of their views on politics, religion and economics. I bet their views are nothing like the American public's, or even that of Wikipedia users.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:45, 6 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Regarding the deletion policy, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AFD here]. While I think a poll in that regard might be interesting, since the admins are drawn from and confirmed by the general Wikipedia community(see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RFA this] for a description of how) , their viewpoints are likely close to the community attitudes. I wouldn't be surprised if there were significant deviation from the American public's attitudes since in general Wikipedia draws many users from outside the US (my guess would be that about 10-20% of admins on the English language Wikipedia are not native to the US) and admins are a generally well-educated group (and so are Wikipedians for that matter). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 20:37, 6 February 2007 (EST)

::::: For what it's worth, I think the attitude of admins as a class ''is'' probably close to the general Wikipedia community. As for the Wikipedia community, Wikipedia has been called "the encyclopedia that Slashdot built." That means it has, or traditionally had, an overrepresentation of software engineers, particular those with affinities for the Open Source movement. Politically, I'd bet there's an overrepresentation, ''not'' of liberals, but of libertarians. I honestly don't know how you'd go about finding out, though.

::::: There's some weak evidence that it's a young crowd[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_by_age], maybe a median age in the twenties. And I have the subjective impression that it's, how do I say this, a ''nerdy'' crowd. To which I belong, of course.

::::: Are people aware that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's "philosopher-king," is an adherent of Ayn Rand's philosophy, objectivism?[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales#Personal_philosophy] [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:56, 6 February 2007 (EST)
:::::: A point though, many objectivists think that Jimbo isn't really objectivist. A few in fact explicitly object to Wikipedia as being inconsistent with objectivist principles. As to how one would measure the political viewpoints of admins- the most naive way would be to make a note on the admin noticeboard about a questionaire one wanted admins to fill out via email, put a copy of the questionaire in your userspace. One could take questions that have been used in past polls by Gallup and others and compare the percentages. (The most obvious problem with this is that which admins choose to respond may be non-representative but as a decent first approximation this should work). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 21:06, 6 February 2007 (EST)

::: '''REPLY''' Joshua's cited Wikipedia deletion policy is 2800 words long!!! In practice, it appears that admins have almost unlimited power on Wikipedia, and they do not even have to give reasons for their deletions, blocks, freezes, etc. No reason was given by the admin for deleting the entry on conservapedia, for example. That's typical, and it invites bias.

:::: '''REPLY''' Actually the reason given for the deletion of the conservapedia entry was that it was not notable. which was technically correct based on Wikipedia's official notability policy for websites as follows

::::" Notability on Wikipedia for Web-specific content is based on the following criterion:

::::The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself.
This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper and magazine articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations. except for the following:
Media re-prints of press releases and advertising for the content or site.
Trivial coverage, such as (1) newspaper articles that simply report the internet address, (2) newspaper articles that simply report the times at which such content is updated or made available, (3) a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of internet addresses and site or (4) content descriptions in internet directories or online stores.
The above is the central criterion for inclusion. Below are some criteria that make it very likely that sufficient reliable information is available about particular Web content. Web content that satisfies at least one of the items below may merit its own Wikipedia article, as there is likely to be a good deal of verifiable information available and a good deal of public interest regarding it.

::::The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization.
The content is distributed via a medium which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster.[7]
The article itself must provide proof that its subject meets one of these criteria via inlined links or a "Reference" or "External link" section. Even if an entire website meets the notability criteria, its components (forums, articles, sections) are not necessarily notable and deserving of their own separate article."
::::So the deletion of the conservapedia entry on wikipedia was not an editor imposing his own personal bias. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 23:12, 6 February 2007 (EST)

::: The above estimates about the views of the Wikipedia admins are way off. Unless an effort is made to limit bias, whoever seizes a majority will quickly rise to close to 100%. This occurs in many organizations, cultures, etc. The Constitution prevents this from happening in the United States. But nothing prevents it from happening on Wikipedia, where no effort is made to limit bias. The Wikipedia admins are almost unanimously secular, liberal, anti-American, anti-conservative, anti-Christian and anti-capitalistic. Jimmy Wales' personal views have no bearing on this.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:02, 6 February 2007 (EST)

::: What Tim has said is pretty accurate. I'd also suggest that people who have had more experience with Wikipedia admins (such as people who are Wikipedia admins (such as myself and Dpbsmith) might have a better idea of what the general political and other attitudes among admins are. As far as I can tell, using the standard two-axis political model, there are admins of every type and as a matter of self-identification I'm aware of admins who self-identify as about everything except fascist. (Although point of fact, I'm not aware of the political viewpoints of many of the other admins I work with because the vast majority of the time our political beliefs are not that relevant). To say that the Wikipedia admins are "almost unanimously" anything is difficult. To also reiterate Dpb's comment about libertarianism above, I would agree with him that there are a disproportionate number of libertarians and that is one of the few political philosophies which does become somewhat relevant to what happens (the more libertarian users start making a lot of noise whenever anyone tries to establish a new policy, guideline or other restriction). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 23:23, 6 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Joshua, there usually is someone of "every type" in a large group and I do not dispute that. But "nearly" every admin on Wikipedia is, to take one example, a believer in evolution. To take another example, "nearly" no admin on Wikipedia is an advocate for prayer in public school. A poll should be taken of Wikipedia admins to determine their views. But release of that information would immediately discredit Wikipedia, because it would reveal that the views of the admins are nothing like that of the American public, or even Wikipedia users. George W. Bush won 51-48% in 2004. Among Wikipedia admins, I'd guess Bush would draw less than 20% of their vote. The Wikipedia admins as a whole are heavily biased.

:::: Which is exactly what one would expect under [[Gresham's Law]] or any theory of politics. Unless there are restraints on majoritarian tendencies, minorities will suffer and leave.

:::: The deletion of conservapedia was not the result of impartial application of rules, but rather the result of a biased call for deletion and mob rule in complying with that demand.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:33, 6 February 2007 (EST)

::::: At this point you seem to be repeating yourself rather than responding to anyone Else's comments or observations. Both Dpbsmith and I have tried to explain that if any single viewpoint is overrepresented it would probably be libertarianism, but you've simply ignored that point. Similarly, multiple editors above have attempted to explain how the Wikipedia deletion policy functions and you've simply ignored them and repeated your claims that there is bias. Your example of evolution is also not useful for a variety of reasons: first, acceptance of evolution is not intrinsically a politcal matter (indeed, the claim that it it political annoys me to no end. Science is not political, but that's a separate topic). Second, many prominent conservatives are more than wiling to accept evolution such as John Derbyshire, Charles Krauthammer (and if not mistaken one Phyllis Schlafly). Third, in the English speaking world outside the US evolution is not an issue of debate and as I have already pointed out, roughly 10-20% of admins are not native to the United States. Fourth, I'm not in any event sure if the claim that nearly every admin accepts is true in any event. Fifth, given that the entry for evowiki was deleted on Wikipedia if all the admins were evil evilutionists its a bit odd to claim that they would have deleted their own wiki if they are as biased in their actions as you think they are. Next, as to the George Bush claim, I really have no idea what the numbers are like. I wouldn't be surprised if at this time Bush had only around 20% of Wikipedia admins supporting him but Bush is much less popular now than he was in 2004. I have no idea what things would have been like in 2004 and I have no idea where your speculation about what the numbers would be come from.

::::: Continuing onwards, I have no idea what Gresham's Law has to do with this but I've never been very good at economics so maybe I'm missing something. The next claim is a statement by fiat with no evidence to back it up (but I'll be nice and honest and admit that a) it seems like most of the so-called "messianic Jews" have left, possibly for concerns connected to majoritarian issues (certainly, many of them would claim so. My impression is that there was more of an issue related to the "undue weight" clause of Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy as well as issues that many of their subjects were simply not discussed in independent sources) b) we have seen to a limited extent majoritarian problems on the small language wikipedias such as balkanization of the balkan language wikipedias). Your last statement seems to just be you repeating your initial claim. Repeating something many times does not make it true. If you want Conservapedia to have an article on Wikipedia the thing to do is to improve Conservapedia to the point where it gets discussed in multiple, independent, reliable sources. At that point Wikipedia will be more than happy to have an article about Conservapedia. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 00:44, 7 February 2007 (EST)

:::::: Joshua, we may simply end up disagreeing. But my point is a simple one: poll the Wikipedia admins, and I bet over 90% believe in evolution and less than 10% advocate prayer in public school. I bet less than 20% would have voted for George Bush in 2004. If you disagree with my estimates, then I'd love to see yours. If you agree with my estimates, then obviously the Wikipedia admins have views very different from the American public. That's what a bias is. Lacking any restraints on bias or accountability for decisions by admins, the bias is going to be reflected in editorial decisions. That's all. The deletion of Conservapedia, now having over 90,000 page views, while hundreds of thousands of silly Wikipedia entries remain undeleted, reflects in part that bias. If we continue to disagree about that, then that's OK. We can revisit this issue in a few months to see if either of us feels differently.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 01:07, 7 February 2007 (EST)

::::::: "Joshua, we may simply end up disagreeing." Sounds like a good resolution to me. We (I think Joshua and I are reasonably in accord) have made our points about as clearly as they can be made, Aschlafly has heard whatever he has heard, and the three-move rule in chess says that when same position has recurred three times in a row, the game is a draw....

::::::: Honesty compels me to opine that Aschlafly's guesses about Wikipedian opinions are probably not terribly far off. And I'd add that Articles for Deletion discussions are so poisonous that I think many outsiders who get articles deleted believe bias is involved, because everything about the discussion process promotes hostility. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:53, 7 February 2007 (EST)

::::::: I think that Wikipedia Admins are probably biased as a group, but I think that the list of "examples of Bias" contains alot of examples that are sketchy or just simply errors that have nothing to do with bias. I think that the deletion of the Wikipedia entry on Conservapedia was not an example of bias. We can wait until we get big enough to meet their notability requirements to have an entry. I disagree with Aschlafly that a large number of page views is a good indicator of notability. I also aree that this arguement is not likely to end up with any kind of agreement on this issue, so it is somewhat futile to be debating it. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 11:22, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Eagle Forum is clearly notable, and Wikipedia has an article on it[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Forum]. Although I assume Eagle Forum's politics to be closely aligned with Conservapedia's, it has never been proposed for deletion. I just added this sentence to it:
:Eagle Forum operates two nascent projects: Eagle Forum University, which offers conservative-oriented online courses on topics such as American History 101, and Conservapedia, a wiki-based online encyclopedia with a conservative point of view.
Anyone care to predict whether my change will stick? (By the way, I added external links, then removed them myself. Leaving them in made it look too much like "linkspamming." Since Eagle Forum University is linked from the Eagle Forum website, and Conservapedia is linked from Eagle Forum University, I don't think they necessarily need their own links). [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 08:52, 8 February 2007 (EST)

Dpbsmith, your entry should be removed immediately from Wikipedia. It's false. Eagle Forum does not operate Conservapedia. Should I add this to our list of Wikipedia falsehoods???--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:15, 9 February 2007 (EST)

*What language would you suggest? I'll fix it or remove it or whatever you like, if you don't choose to do it yourself. I'll remove the Conservapedia reference right now; I assume that Eagle Forum University is connected with Eagle Forum, from the similarity of name and the HTML link, although I wasn't able to find any formal statement on either website. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:51, 12 February 2007 (EST)

*I've changed it to:
::Eagle Forum is connected with Eagle Forum University, which offers conservative-oriented online courses on topics such as American History 101. Eagle Forum University courses make use of Conservapedia, a nascent wiki-based online encyclopedia with a conservative point of view.
::If you can point me to, or give a definitive statement of the relationships between Eagle Forum, Eagle Forum University, and Conservapedia, I'll be glad to update accordingly... again, assuming you don't want to do it yourself. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:54, 12 February 2007 (EST)

::Thanks, Dpbsmith. That's fine. Conservapedia has no formal connection with Eagle Forum or Eagle Forum University (other than cross-linking). The FAQ on Conservapedia has always explained its basis. Anyone is free to make use of Conservapedia and link to it, and we welcome that. Thanks again. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 10:37, 12 February 2007 (EST)

::: Apologies are due on my part. I shouldn't have used wording that involved assumptions, even plausible assumptions. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:16, 12 February 2007 (EST)

Talk:Free will

2007-03-15T18:56:42Z

OmnusErudito:

It is a logical inconsistancy to claim that foreknowledge of an individual's actions allows that individual to possess free will. If the will is known, it is not free. If the will is free, it cannot be known.

Thus, if a deity has foreknowledge of an individual's actions, then that deity has denied the individual's free will.

If an individual's will is genuinely free, then any claim that a deity can have prior knowledge of an individual's actions is false.

''Free will'' and ''an omniscient deity'' are mutually exclusive. If either is encompassed by a theologically honest position, the other must be denied. --[[User:OmnusErudito|OmnusErudito]] 14:24, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:This argument assumes that the future is capable of being the subject of knowledge (a fairly widely held assumption, but one I, and many other philosophers, reject). That is, it assumes that a statement about the future is true or false, rather than indeterminate. If the future is indeterminate then an omniscient deity would be able to know all that is knowable and still not know what I am going to do in the future. Of course, this position raises problems with respect to prophesy and that may be a problem for some theists (but not necessarily for all theists if they reject prophesy or if they view prophesy as a promise of what God intends to do in the future). So, while you are right, free will and the common understanding of an omniscient deity are at odds, free will and an omniscient deity are not necessarily at odds.--[[User:Reginod|Reginod]] 15:34, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

::Knowing all possible outcomes does not make a being omniscient - I know all possible outcomes of a dice-roll, but I am not omniscient. Given time and inclination, I could work out all possible results to a general election, but I will still not be omniscient. No matter how complex a system, no matter how many possible outcomes exist in potentia, knowing all the possibilities does not make a being omniscient, merely clever. Omniscience would require that the being know ''which'' of the possible outcomes will occur, bringing us right back to my original point. (I like your rewrite of the article, by the way)--[[User:OmnusErudito|OmnusErudito]] 14:28, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:::I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. My point was simply that it could be the case that the future is not something that is knowable--at all--so even an all knowing entity (one that knows everything that is knowable) would not know the future. Such an entity would know all the posable outcomes (just as we know what results a dice-roll may have), but it would not know the future. this assumes a non-static future (which is an understanding of the nature of the future that is more compatible with free will than a static, even if unknown, future). This would mean an all knowing God would still not know the future--so God's foreknowledge would not be in conflict with free will. I'm not saying it is the right answer, I'm not sure what the right answer is, but it is one way to make free will and the existence of an all knowing being compatible.
:::Thank you for the compliment on the edit, I'm of the opinion that it is better to note where the debate is than pretend knowledge of the truth.--[[User:Reginod|Reginod]] 14:50, 15 March 2007 (EDT)--[[User:Reginod|Reginod]] 14:50, 15 March 2007 (EDT)
::::That is much clearer, and a response needs much more thought on my part, not something I will have time to do for at least a week or two.--[[User:OmnusErudito|OmnusErudito]] 14:56, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Theory of evolution/Archive 1

2007-03-15T18:36:58Z

OmnusErudito: /* Dinosaurs and man coexisting */

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the [[Talk:Theory_of_evolution|current talk page]].

== Seriously flawed. ==

I'm not going to touch this article for now because I don't want to start issues but to put it mildly- this article is junk as it stands. Darwin's original ideas are not what the modern theory. The modern theory of evolution does not make a large deal about distinguishing between micro and macro evolution. and that's just for starters.

This article also gives definitions of micro and macroevolution which aren't fully consistent with the (bad) defintions given on the pages for those articles and conflates gaining information with speciation. These have little to do with each other by any reasonable defintion of information. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:43, 15 February 2007 (EST)

:Pay no attention to JoshuaZ. JoshuaZ is a fanatical bully boy evolutionist admin at Wikipedia and one of the many reasons why conservapedia.com was created. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 19:44, 22 February 2007 (EST)conservative

:: Wow, I haven't seen such charming ad hominem attacks in some time. You are aware that ad hominem attacks aren't logically valid, yes? [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 21:38, 22 February 2007 (EST)
:::I wasn't in a debate with you. I was merely calling a spade a spade and warning readers about you. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 23:35, 22 February 2007 (EST)conservative

:::: Warning them about what exactly? Even if your accusations that I was a "fanatical bully boy evolutionist admin at Wikipedia " I fail to see its relevancy. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 23:44, 22 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Just my two cents, but I have had some serious concerns with quality of some admins here at conservapedia, but Joshuaz is one of the best. He is not a "fanatical bully evolutionist." If you took 5 mins to participate in this site before you start throwing mud, you would know this. Josh seams to be the best hope for bringing credibility and actual value to conservapedia. Joshuaz's concerns about the article were entirely appropriate, but remember that we are here to build, not tear down.--[[User:Whatter|Whatter]] 01:41, 24 February 2007 (EST)
:::::Whatter, I base my comments on JoshuaZ based on my experiences of him at Wikipedia. I also think you mistakenly believe that JoshuaZ is an admin here at conservapedia. Lastly, I would ask JoshuaZ the following questions: Is Wikipedia biased in favor of the macroevolutionary position? Have you ever edited out material against the macroevolutionary position at Wikipedia? '''By the way, here is what JoshuaZ says about Conservapedia at his Wikipedia userpage discussion page''': "Yeah, a lot of the scienceblog people had a lot of fun tearing it into tiny pieces. I've almost given up myself. The only good that I can see coming of it is that we can maybe direct annoying people here over to there." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JoshuaZ] It seems as if JoshuaZ wants to direct those annoying creationist who point out flaws of the macroevolutionary position to Conservapedia so he spends less time removing their material from Wikipedia. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 21:18, 24 February 2007 (EST)conservative

Forget the content will someone please fix the incorrectly placed commas!

== Seriously flawed, part 2. ==
This is the first entry I checked out to see what Conservapedia was like, and to see if it's really the quality source it claims to be. Sadly, it is not. What a terrible, unscientific, irrational, and ideological understanding of the Theory of Evolution. Conservatives should be ashamed to have this be a representation of Conservative understanding of scientific issues. Thoughtful conservatives who want the straight science of evolution need to look elsewhere. I won't be back.

There's too much information to counter in this entry, but let me just leave you with this: Dogs can't turn into cats? No, and modern squids won't turn into people, either. But we can look back at the evolutionary history and see where different species branched off from a common ancestor. Cats and dogs are closer to a common ancestor than people and squids are. That is, unless someone produces evidence that overturns our understanding. That would be pretty powerful evidence. Kind of like if someone discovered that there's really no gravity.

Just to clarify, although I'm adding to the Seriously Flawed entry, I'm a different person.

Counter:

It's the purpose of Conservapedia to be a pro-Christian version of Wikipedia. You call Conservapedia all sorts of insulting things, but the bottom line is, if you don't like it, don't use it. Your "too much information" quip is precisely the reason that Wikipedia is so biased.
[[User:Ashens|Ashens]] 14:02 22 February 2007 (EST)

: That doesn't respond to a single part of the above complain. Many Christians accept evolution. Having factually incorrect information doesn't make this article pro-Christian. It makes it wrong. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:17, 22 February 2007 (EST)

:: "Many" Christians accept a lot of things, that doesn't make their position Biblical. Only God is incapable of error, and that's why this website follows God instead of the fallible beliefs of Men. You claim that this information is "factually incorrect" but you don't prove it. Besides, the founder of this website has proven, in no uncertain terms, that macroevolution (what most atheists mean when they say "evolution") is impossible. There's simply not enough time and even if there was, all mutations are harmful. The end. [[User:Ashens|Ashens]] 14:23 22 Februrary 2007 (EST)

::: Ok, so many problems with the above comment I'm not even sure where to start, so I'll just go through sentence by sentence. First, regarding your statement that "Only God is incapable of error, and that's why this website follows God instead of the fallible beliefs of Men" - don't confuse what God said with your interpretation of what God said. Your interpretations are still failible. Second, your claim that "the founder of this website has proven, in no uncertain terms, that macroevolution (what most atheists mean when they say "evolution") is impossible" - first, note that in science nothing is very proven - at best one has overwhelming evidence for a claim. Second, no I'm afraid that the "founder"(I presume you mean Andrew) did no such thing. Your claims that " There's simply not enough time and even if there was, all mutations are harmful" is such a bundle of contradictions and attempts to ignore reality it isn't funny. To point out only three of the problems- the majority of mutations are in fact not harmful nor beneficial but neutral (you would know this if you took a basic genetics course). Second there are many examples of beneficial mutations in the scientific literature, in fact examples have been around for over 50 years. See for See for example Lederberg and Lederberg, ''Replica plating and indirect selection of bacterial mutants''. Journal of Bacteriology 63: 399-406 (1952). More recently, bacteria have gained mutations allowing them to digest nylon: Negoro, et al. "The nylon oligomer biodegradation system of Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas" Biodegradation 5: 185-194. Third, a simple thought problem will show you that not all mutations are harmful- all point mutations are essentially reversible mutations. So if a given point mutation is harmful then the reverse mutation is beneficial. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:11, 22 February 2007 (EST)

::::(I wrote the second "Seriously Flawed" entry.) It's not my intention to be insulting. Forgive me for not reading everything about the site ahead of time. I didn't realize it was specifically Christian. I thought it was about Conservatism, which most certainly extends beyond Christianity. I understand your "if you don't like it, don't use it" comment. If you want to avoid more negative comments, perhaps you should make the site more obviously fundamentalist Christian. Just a suggestion, since plenty of conservatives are concerned with scientific truth over Biblical Truth.

:::It's interesting that God is infallible. Because, personally I mean, I would say he probably made a mistake in the Old Testament when he told Christians to murder anyone who works on Sunday, or when he told Christians to murder all gay people, or when he told Christians to murder anyone who 'spoke of other religions.' I was under the impression that most Christians think that's why he sent down a slightly less flawed little addendum called the New Testament- to fix all the mistakes he made. Thanks for clearing that up though- God did not make any mistakes in the Old Testament. He was just a complete douchebag.

== Article violates the site's own "commandments" ==

This article is a prime example of the sort of nonsense that gives conservatism a bad name. It's too silly to deserve any kind of discussion, but I would just point out that it is in contradiction with the site's own "commandments". Number 1 is that everything posted here should be true and verifiable. This article is very obviously neither.

:This comment was obviously posted awhile ago, but I'll reply anyway. First of all, Mr. Anonymous, I wish you would sign your comments. Second, you are in no way proving or backing up what you say. You just make these silly remarks and criticisms without even giving an example. This article looks good to me. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 10:12, 7 March 2007 (EST)

::I seriously hope you weren't serious there. Your first sentence acknowledges that this was posted a long time ago... and then you go on about how TODAY's article looks good to you. For what it's worth, the initial post came from [[User:Alfonz|Alfonz]], dated Feb 22. This can EASILY be checked. It most likely took me far less time to check that than it took you to write your reply. The actual article at that time had been [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Theory_of_evolution&oldid=15585 this version]. At the time of that posting, the context had been extremely obvious (complete lack of sourcing, pure opinions), so stop belittling people just because you're too lazy to do basic background checks. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 12:23, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Y'kmow, when I think of the best of Conservative writing I think of Bill Safire, Bill Buckley and George Will, folks who do their homework and are articulate intellectuals. Here, I see a lot of Rush Limbaugh wannabes. Muy triste. [[User:NousEpirrhytos|NousEpirrhytos]] 18:33, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

==Current outstanding issues==

I was told by a mod not to correct inaccuracies without discussion, so I'm going to list the issues outstanding. Most importantly, I hope the creationists here realize that there is a difference between disagreeing that evolution is good, well demonstrated science, and simply misrepresenting what evolution says and is. You don't have to agree that evolution is real, but you do need to at least get the CLAIMS correct.

*Darwin (and Wallace, actually) was historically the guy who first described evolution as a coherent theory in the modern sense, but this is relevant to an article on evolution ''only'' in the historical sense. Any article bearing the name "The Theory of Evolution" needs to discuss the actual, modern one, not focus almost exclusively on Darwin, much less only on natural selection. Common descent isn't even mentioned despite it begin a core idea even for Darwin's time.

*The section on dog evolution says that dogs have "many regressive traits," but this statement is vague and potentially meaningless. Dog populations have many different traits, and many new traits are added an extended over time via mutation.

*Many examples of reproductive speciation have been observed in a human timeframe.

*The evidence of science is not limited to eyewitness observation. Physical evidence can be just as strong, if not stronger, as directly observational evidence. Thus, the claim that this or that has not been directly observed happening in a lab is irrelevant. What ultimately matters is the evidence that confirms or disconfirms a given claim.

*The idea that mutations cannot add information is both ill-defined and incoherent for any definition. The fact of the matter is that anything a mutation can do, it can undo. By definition, if mutation can lose information it can also gain it, and being random, mutation cannot be said to prefer one to the other.

*As has been pointed out countless times, the claimed distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is simply phony, and claiming that it is a basic division in evolution is nonsense. While those terms are used in biology, they are not used in the way creationists claim. They are relevant primarily because different sorts of forces act on the direction of populations that can interbreed and those that cannot. What creationists really object to is not macroevolution, but rather common descent (which is the idea that all life speciated in a branching matter from a common ancestor or set of early ancestors).

I couldn't agree more. The sooner these changes are made the sooner this article will
become credible. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 19:53, 22 February 2007 (EST)

stubbstarbuck -- This article makes a specious argument at best (it's a straw man argument against natural selection), and at its Iworst makes conservatives look thouroughly uneducated. This response is not about defending the theory of evolution; there are countless resources that do this better than I can. What makes this article so insidious is its blatant propaganda motive. If Conservapedia is looking to provide a balance to Wikipedia, then its users should spend more time researching the issue. I'm not even sure the writer of the evolution article understands evolution, which, you would imagine, should be a prerequisite for authoritatively writing on the subject, or anything for that matter.

I laughed out loud when I read it - it could have been about anything I know a lot about, and I still would have laughed. It looks like it was written in about 15 minutes. I also enjoyed the hilarious inline edits, though I don't think that really makes things better - it only makes evolution naysayers less likely to learn the truth.

==2nd Law Problems==
This article is still making the second law violation claims. Credible citations are a MUST for a controversial entry like this, and I challange editors who put the 2LOT claims in to PLEASE cite appropriately.--[[User:Whatter|Whatter]] 01:41, 24 February 2007 (EST)
:One thing that people definitely need to understand is that the 2nd law is either a law or it isn't (it is, of course). And if it is, then it makes no sense to assert that natural evolution somehow violates it but design does not. Human beings obey the laws of thermodynamics just the same as everything else, for instance: when we design things, add information to things, its all in keeping with the laws of thermodynamics. I think once you realize that, the idea that evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics becomes more obviously silly. If complexity couldn't increase naturally, all sorts of very common things would be impossible. Entropy means that things are always ''overly wasteful'' not that any given event is thermodynamically impossible or that order always decreases even locally.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 04:01, 24 February 2007 (EST)

From the article:

:"Evolution does in fact lower the entropy of the sum of the living DNA on this planet"

I'd ''love'' to see the calculation demonstrating this. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 15:31, 25 February 2007 (EST)

<s>Obviousman points out:</s>(Not so obvious, it would seem) [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:12, 25 February 2007 (EST)

The second law only applies to a closed system. The earth plus the sun might constitute an approximation to a closed system. The earth considered by itself most definitely does not. Any decrease in entropy occurring on the earth is just a drop in the bucket compared to the huge increase in entropy that is occurring within the sun.

In other words, the gradual running-down of the sun not only provides enough energy, but enough entropy increase to "fuel" evolution, civilization, learning in human brains, the assemblage of spots on paper into the score for Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and all that. You could tidy up everything on earth into an obsessive-compulsive's dream without decreasing its entropy enough to matter when you take the earth-sun system into account.

And, yes, without the sun's energy (and, equally important, the ''difference in temperature'' between the surface of the sun and the blackness of the outer space surrounding it), you could not have evolution... or stable, creationist life. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:45, 25 February 2007 (EST)

:Second law applies to all systems, open or closed. It's just that one statement of the second law, namely that entropy cannot decrease in a closed system, isn't particularly ''useful'' in open systems.

:Incidentally, tidying isn't going to decrease the Earth's entropy at all. If anything, the work done in the process will increase it. But the ordering of macroscopic bodies doesn't affect their thermodynamic entropy; one can't decrease the entropy of a deck of cards by laying it out in order, for example. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 15:52, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::"If anything, the work done in the process will increase it." Well, that's sort of my point. I thought the second law allowed things to get tidier in one place as long as something else gets untidier... ''more'' untidier... as a result. But clearly I don't really know what I'm talking about, so maybe just for once I'll shut up... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:15, 25 February 2007 (EST)

:::Only for a sufficiently esoteric definition of 'tidy'; one which will generally not match our intuitive understanding of the term. This is why when talking about thermodynamics I find it better to avoid terms like order, which carry with them a lot of baggage, and just stick with entropy. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 17:25, 25 February 2007 (EST)

The point is that the article would be much better off if the 2nd law nonsense was just removed. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 18:55, 25 February 2007 (EST)

:Quite. Perhaps someone who disagrees would care to defend its inclusion? [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 06:22, 27 February 2007 (EST)

::I'll take that as a 'no,' then. Since no one seems willing or able to defend this arrant nonsense, perhaps an admin could remove it. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 05:30, 2 March 2007 (EST)

== conservatives, where is the extensive criticism of the evolutionary position? ==

In the conservapedia article which is prominently placed on the main page of this site and is entitled [[Examples of Bias in Wikipedia]] the following is written:

"Edits to include facts against the theory of evolution are almost immediately censored....For example, even though most Americans reject the theory of [[evolution]]..., Wikipedia editors commenting on the topic are nearly 100% pro-evolution.... The Wikipedia entry for the [[Piltdown Man]] omits many key facts, such as how it was taught in schools for an entire generation and how the dating methodology used by evolutionists is fraudulent."

Currently the article [[The Theory of Evolution]] is locked from further editing. I believe the article needs to be edited further in order to add more criticism of the macoevolutionary position.

For example, macroevolutionist have no real evidence that macroevolution occurs and there is no consensus on how it exactly occurs as can be seen below:

"When discussing organic evolution the only point of agreement seems to be: "It happened." Thereafter, there is little consensus, which at first sight must seem rather odd." - Simon Conway Morris (palaeontologist, Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, UK), "Evolution: Bringing Molecules into the Fold," Cell, Vol. 100, pp.1-11, January 7, 2000, p.11

"If it is true that an influx of doubt and uncertainty actually marks periods of healthy growth in a science, then evolutionary biology is flourishing today as it seldom has flourished in the past. For biologists collectively are less agreed upon the details of evolutionary mechanics than they were a scant decade ago. Superficially, it seems as if we know less about evolution than we did in 1959, the centennial year of Darwin's on the Origin of Species." (Niles Eldredge, "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p14).

In addition, creationist can cite material showing that there is no real fossil evidence for the macroevolutionary position:

"In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation." Mark Ridley, 'Who doubts evolution?', New Scientist, vol. 90, 25 June 1981, p. 831

"...I still think that to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation." - E.J.H. Corner, Prof of Botany, Cambridge University, England. E.J. H. Corner, “Evolution” in Anna M. MacLeod and L. S. Cobley (eds.), Contemporary Botanical Thought (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961), p. 97

"We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful anything is possible - and where the ardent believer is sometimes able to believe several contradictory things at the same time." Lord Solly Zuckerman (paleonthropologist of Birmingham University in England), Beyond the Ivory Tower, New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1970, p. 19.

"Fossil evidence of human evolutionary history is fragmentary and open to various interpretations. Fossil evidence of chimpanzee evolution is absent altogether". Henry Gee (evolutionist), “Return to the Planet of the Apes,” Nature, Vol. 412, 12 July 2001, p. 131.

For more quotes regarding the fossil record please see: [http://creationwiki.org/Fossil_record_quotes Fossil record quotes]

[[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 21:11, 24 February 2007 (EST)conservative

:Just so you now, conservative or not, science is not done via quoting people, even if the quotes were relevant or correctly contexted. It's done by looking at evidence. That creationists continually assume otherwise is a real embarrassment, particularly given how outright deceptive many of these quotes are (and I'm not talking mere mistakes either).

:Furthermore, talking about the "macroevolution" position is just a telling reveal of a lack of knowledge about what evolutionary theory claims. Macroevolution concerns things like genetc drift, mass extinctions, and so forth. What you really mean to criticize is the idea of common descent, not macroevolution.

:'''There is no unified conservative position on evolution, or even conservative Christian position.''' If this is a creationist site, then so be it, but that at that point it ceases to be a conservative, or even a christian conservative, site. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 11:08, 25 February 2007 (EST)

:: I am in complete agreement with Plunge. Furthermore note that all the quotes are classic quote mines, all either out of context or out of date and in many cases, both. For example, the quote from New Scientist about the fossil record in fact comes from a piece making the point that one doesn't need to use fossil evidence since there are many other forms of evidence which are even more persuasive. The very next sentence is "The does not mean that the theory of evolution is unproven" and the article then later goes on to say that "So what is the evidence that species have evolved? There have traditionally been three kinds of evidence, and it is these, not the "fossil evidence", that the critics should be thinking about. The three arguments are from the observed evolution of species, from biogeography, and from the hierarchical structure of taxonomy." Science doesn't work off of quotes and proof-texts, and especially not quotes that are out of context and distorted. If you are going to even attempt to engage in the fallacy of quotes being somehow evidence, please at least read the original items where the quotes come from and not just repeat them from nth hand creationist sources. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:37, 25 February 2007 (EST)

== This article is becoming an embarrassment ==

This article is supposed to be on evolution. Unfortunately it contains very little on evolution and a great deal on (pretty medicore) criticisms of evolution including the laughable entries on the "doubting ranks" of the world's scientists and the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If this site seeks to retain any credibility it just has to do better. This article makes a mockery of Conservapedia's criticism of Wikipedia's bias. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 19:48, 25 February 2007 (EST)

==Conservative Please Stop==
I second Horace's concern above. There is plenty of room for criticism of Darwinism, but to be taken seriously it must be presented seriously. This article is just asking for a flood of internet mockery.

Is it possible to unlock this article? I understand that it is a top target for vandalism, but vandals wouldn't be much worse than what it is right now. Lets unlock it and see how the community can make this better. As it is, it's just [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] making silly changes. The article isn't even about evolution.--[[User:Whatter|Whatter]] 19:59, 25 February 2007 (EST)
::Whatter, I was made a sysop at Conservapedia so I could make the changes I proposed in the talk page of this article. I am guessing the article will not be unlocked given that it is a lightning rod for liberals wanting to vandalize or liberals wanting to change the article in order to give it a liberal point of view. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 20:38, 25 February 2007 (EST)conservative

::: That doesn't change the fact that you are making a travesty of an article. You added in a series of quotemines, even after it was already explained to you why the quotes weren't that relevant. Your added in quotemines included one where I specifically explained to you how it was out of context. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:14, 25 February 2007 (EST)

:::: The article will be improved over time. This is what is great about Wiki software. However, even though the article would be "improved" much faster, we cannot (for obvious reasons) "open the floodgates" and un-protect the article. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 22:33, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::::: That doesn't mean an editor should be making controversial edits. On most other Wikis I've worked on (such as Wikipedia, the English language Wikipedia, and a variety of others), admins do not make controversial edits when the article is protected. Admin tools should not be used to make gains in content disputes. Furthermore, there is a solution to this sort of thing(which I presumse we have here if we are using an at all recent version of the Wikimedia software) - semiprotection. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:42, 25 February 2007 (EST)

:::::: 1) I don't know whether policy has been defined here, and I asked on PhilipB's talk page for clarification, but, yes, Conservative was given sysop status by PhilipB for the specific purpose of editing this article. I consider that the local authorities here have effectively decided to control some articles by protecting them and effectively making them editable only by sysops. Effectively, my understanding is that Conservative and the other sysops have been granted sole authorship of this article. In my opinion, that's a bad idea, but... not my site, not my rules.

:::::: 2) For the record, I think Conservative and others should understand that on Wikipedia, sysops are supposed to keep their sysop actions and their actions as editors completely separate. Sysops are not supposed to perform any sysop actions on an article on which they are an active editor, and, conversely, are not supposed to edit articles in which they have an administrative involvement. That's considered a pretty serious breach of the rules. Certainly on Wikipedia an sysop who unprotected an article, edited it for content, and then protected it again would be in immediate trouble unless the change was so uncontroversial that nobody complained, or unless he could show that the action has been authorized.

:::::: 3) (For example, ''if'' user Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington or whatever his name was, the admin who ultimately performed the deletion of the Conservapedia article, had been involved as an editor of that article, or had been involved in the deletion discussion of that article, the deletion action would probably have been taken straight to deletion review and the outcome would probably have been "undelete and relist"). [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 05:57, 26 February 2007 (EST)
:::::::JoshuaZ, I have never heard the word "quote mine" used in scholarly discourse. The phrase "quote mine" seems to be largely used by evolutionists who are extremely desperate to claim individuals are quoting out of context when expert testimony via quotes is damaging to the macroevolutionary position. I don't see proponents of other positions crying "quote mine" when expert testimony is not favorable to their position and I think the cries of "quote mine" reflect very badly on the macroevolutionary community. Secondly, you wrote at Wikipedia regarding Conservapedia the following: "The only good that I can see coming of it is that we can maybe direct annoying people here over to there." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JoshuaZ] I would ask you if you think Conservapedia is a very pointless enterprise and merely is good for directing people away from Wikipedia to Conservapedia then why do you insist on continually posting at Conservapedia? I ask this because you have yet to retract this statement regarding Conservapedia at Conservapedia and at Wikipedia where you originally made the statement. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 21:38, 26 February 2007 (EST)conservative
:::::::: To answer your various comments, I would agree that the term "quote mine" is not often used in scholarly discourse and that yes it does have negative connotations, and it is meant to. It is used not by "desperate" "evolutionists" but various annoyed and frustrated individuals at this sort of blatant out of context quoting. Simply making claims that the use of the term "reflect(s) badly on the macroevolutionary community" does not answer any of the above concerns. It does not address my point where I pointed out the original context of the New Scientist quote, nor did you adress any of Plunge's concerns. As to your repeated quote of the comment on my user page, I already addressed that [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&diff=prev&oldid=16598 here]. In any event, my personal attitude towards this project has nothing to do with whether your quotes are out of context or whether claims about the 2nd law of thermodynamics are wrong. I hope that in the future, you will refrain from ad hominem remarks and address the conerns raised. I would be particularly interested in an explanation for how the New Scienstist is not out of context. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:37, 26 February 2007 (EST)
:::::::::JoshuaZ, I understand why you don't like Mark Ridley's candid admission regarding the fossil record in regards to it being used to defend the evolutionary position, however, I see no reason to delete this testimony in regards to the fossil record. I am referring to this quote: "In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation." Mark Ridley, 'Who doubts evolution?', New Scientist, vol. 90, 25 June 1981, p. 831 [http://www.christiananswers.net/creation/orb-fossil-ref.html] You can continue to cry "quote mine", but please do not be surprised if am unconcerned. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 23:26, 26 February 2007 (EST)conservative
::::::::: Conservative, I don't mind "Ridley's candid admission" because it is no such thing. I strongly suggest you actually read the article. Do you not see how his saying "So what is the evidence that species have evolved? There have traditionally been three kinds of evidence, and it is these, not the "fossil evidence", that the critics should be thinking about. The three arguments are from the observed evolution of species, from biogeography, and from the hierarchical structure of taxonomy." is at all relevant? And I note that you also ignored issues about the 2nd law that were also brought up. Now, instead of attempting to figure out what I like or don't likem you could actually respond to the matter at hand, and ''explain'' why the quote in question isn't out of context given the additional sentences I have provided to you. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 23:39, 26 February 2007 (EST)
:::::::::Conservative, if you read the article, it's quite clear that the characterization of Ridley's view (and citing him as evidence that common descent is unsupported) is a dishonest one. The reason you don't hear "quote mine" that much in academia is that it is something Ph'Ds scrupulously try to avoid, because they know people will check their work, and they can lose their careers over this sort of misrepresentation. The problem I see for this wiki is that it will fast become just a set of articles written by a closed group of people with specially approved opinions, rather than the best facts winning out based on accurate evidence. The whole point of a wiki is that it's decentralized, like capitalism, and the BEST EVIDENCE wins out, not the person who happens to control the website.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 12:26, 27 February 2007 (EST)

I can confirm from conversation with the man that Simon Morris's comments have been taken out of context, "quote-mined" if you will. It is my opinion as a biologist that this page bears little to no resemblence to what is understood in mordern science. Much of it seems to have been drawn from religious literature rather than mainstream scientific sources, as would be prefered. Additionally, a number of liberal blogs are linking to this site as an example of conservative dishonesty and foolishness. User:conservative, you do this site a great disservice. [[User:Nematocyte|Nematocyte]] 05:51, 27 February 2007 (EST)
::Nematocyte, if you insist on making a claim of "quote mining" I believe you did not meet the burden of proof that it is incumbant upon you too demonstrate. Please show how the following Simon Morris quote was clearly out of context using the article in question: "When discussing organic evolution '''the only point of agreement seems to be: "It happened." Thereafter, there is little consensus''', which at first sight must seem rather odd." - Simon Conway Morris (palaeontologist, Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, UK), "Evolution: Bringing Molecules into the Fold," Cell, Vol. 100, pp.1-11, January 7, 2000, p.11" I would be especially interested in why the bolded portion of the quote was somehow misrepresented since it is quite embarrassing to the macroevolutionary position. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 20:06, 27 February 2007 (EST)conservative
::: Um, may I ask why it would make sense for Nemat to give more data on the original context? Especially since I gave you the original context of one of your quotes and you ignored it? [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 21:29, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::Why do you need to ask someone else to provide the context for your quotes? Don't you know it? Haven't you ''read'' the original sources? [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 04:17, 28 February 2007 (EST)

::::It's pretty clear at this point that he has not, which is the virtual definition of quote mining. The claimed point of those quotes is to try and show that the people in question, at least, think that common descent isn't supported by the fossil evidence. Take the Ridley quote. It's plainly obvious from reading the article the quote is taken from that this reading is patently ridiculous. So the usage is prima facie dishonest, and trying to pass it off as a "candid admission" doesn't even make logical sense. But the whole approach is ridiculous regardless. Science does not work on citing the authority of "proof texts." It's based off of the citing of evidence. Even if most of the quotes WEREN'T nonsense, simply compiling a list of quotations from papers you've never even read just isn't how science is done. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 04:15, 1 March 2007 (EST)
:::::[[CreationWiki]] now has a link to the original Simon Morris article which can be read in its entirety by clicking the CreationWiki footnotes for the quote.[http://creationwiki.org/Biology_quotes]
[[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 17:36, 1 March 2007 (EST)conservative
::::::That still doesn't excuse mischaracterizing it as saying that all the major elements of evolutionary theory are just up in the air. That's not what it is saying at all. And that's hardly an adequate answer to all the other objections given. For the last time: SCIENCE IS NOT DONE BY QUOTING SINGLE LINE DECLARATIONS FROM INDIVIDUAL SCIENTISTS. It doesn't make a lick of difference if there are biologists here and ther who, for instance, deny the germ theory of disease. That doesn't make all the evidence for it magically go away. You need to deal with the evidence, not try to take shortcuts by treating the opinions of some scientists as holy writ and then ignoring everything else they've ever written or anyone else has ever written or, more importantly, published. Are you deliberately avoiding debate on these issues? You've been near totally non-responsive to criticism. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 11:22, 3 March 2007 (EST)
: Ok, having read the article, that quote is out of context. Morris seems to be saying that there is not consensus about when evolution occurs, how precisely it occurs on the genetic level and how the genotype and phenotype interact in this context. That's not at all what the quote seems to be saying when you take it out of context. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 17:47, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Guys my view is don't try and argue science with a creationist, they already assume that science is incorrect and they have absolute blind faith in their quest to annoy everyone with they're psuedoscientific attempts at proving their position (I just watched some guy talk about noah's ark and obviously had no understanding of gene pool at all [i'm sorry but no matter how hard you tried two dogs would not turn into 100's of breeds]...but that doesn't matter because the bible said it happened so therefore it did....). Seriously it's like punching a brickwall i've found. While I view myself as conservative after going through this site I perhaps am mistaken, either that or this site is not appropriately named. [[User:ChrisF|ChrisF]]

==Develop and ongoing in an unprotected location, periodically copy to the protected location==
If [[The Theory of Evolution]] is going to remain protected indefinitely, I think it would be a really good idea to create an unprotected page, perhaps [[The Theory of Evolution/draft]] in which interested editors could work collaboratively develop a version that represents more than the ex cathedra pronouncements of a single contributor.

Vandalism on the this page would be largely hidden from casual users and the liberal blog. At intervals, sysops could copy its contents into the main article.

This would ensure that everything appearing in the article would be filtered by sysops, who presumably have internalized Conservapedia's policies and point of view, while allowing some reasonable intellectual give-and-take in the development of the article. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 10:32, 27 February 2007 (EST)
::Your comment regarding the "ex cathedra pronouncements of a single editor" is mistaken for several reasons. First, I vetted my material in the talk page and was made a SYSOP (administrator) for this website so I could incorporate the material I wrote in the talk page to the actual [[The Theory of Evolution]] article. Secondly, I wrote two out three sections in [[Theory of Evolution]] that were critical of the macroevolutionary position (I did not write the thermodynamics section). Third, I edited my material that I added to the article based on the recommendation of the Conservapedian Aschafly. Fourth, the position of Conservapedia relative to the macroevolutionary position is made clear in the [[Examples of Bias in Wikipedia]] article. Conservapedia is clearly a website which is not favorable to the macroevolutionary position. Lastly, I think it is a poor idea to create a second article via a draft article since it duplicates the function of a talk page. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 20:06, 27 February 2007 (EST)conservative
::: Um, you didn't vet your material on the talk page. You put it on the talk page, and then ignored all criticism of that material. That's not vetting by any strecth of the imagincation. Second of all, using the fact that you are an admin as justification for including them is precisely what Dpb means by such an ex cathedra pronounciation- a pronounciation based on authority, not dialogue and discussion. Who wrote the section on thermodynamics isn't relevant- if you agree with it, please explain why on the talk page, if you disagree, please remove the section. Your claim that "the position of Conservapedia relative to the macroevolutionary position is made clear in the [[Examples of Bias in Wikipedia]] article" is not at all accurate. Even if Conservapedia thinks that Wikipedia is somehow biased in favor of "macroevolution" it in no way implies that Conservapedia rejects macroevolution (to use an example, if a page said "X is an idiot" I can agree that this is not an unbiased description of X, even if I think it is accurate). Furthermore, even if Conservapedia is "not favorable to the macroevolutionary position" this is not an argument for having out of context quotes, poor argumentation, and flammable stawmen. Finally, drafts are very useful - they allow users to make other versions and see what the proposed changes would look like before being implemented. In many wikis it is common to have a separate draft space and only move approved changes to the main page. If this page is going to be protected for an extended period of time(as has been suggested by a few editors) then a draft page makes a great deal of sense. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 21:23, 27 February 2007 (EST)
::::Joshua, the conservapedian in question wrote "develop a version that represents more than the ex cathedra pronouncements of a single contributor". I am not going to wrangle with you and I am going to immediately get to the central issue. Please show that the article was one man's work and the result of one man's decision making process. So far you haven't done that. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 21:41, 27 February 2007 (EST)

::::: Conservative, you seem to have a problem with focusing on less than relevant details and ignoring most other points that people make. In this case, you insist that I show something that neither I, nor Dpb claimed was true, you ignored my comment about the lack of vetting, and ignored my explanation of what I thought Dpb meant when he said it was ex cathedra. You've also ignored my point about how the Bias page doesn't show that Conservapedia intrisically disfavors "macroevolution." Finally, you ignored my explanation of why in general draft space is useful which is true independent of any claims of how this article in particular has been editing. Now, I'd appreciate if you would actually try to respond to points and engage in constructive diaologue. Thanks, [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:40, 27 February 2007 (EST)

==New page for working on a draft of the article==
User:Conservative sees an issue with having an unprotected working area as a subpage of the article, so, accordingly, I've created a new one that is Talk space rather than article space. The new working page is:

[[Talk:The Theory of Evolution/draft]].

[[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:13, 28 February 2007 (EST)

== Dinosaurs and man coexisting ==

The Conservapedia article [[dinosaur]] has assembled quite a bit of information that points to dinosaurs and man coexisting. [http://www.conservapedia.com/Dinosaur] Should [[The Theory of Evolution]] article briefly make reference to this information? [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 12:23, 1 March 2007 (EST)conservative

:Perhaps you should deal with the issues of the existing page before trying to add new controversial matieral? I note that many of the cites involved in that discussion fail to mention all sort of key elements that undermine. For instance, the citation about supposed "recent" dinosaur bones fail entirely to mention that they were in fact, mineralized, and not in fact bone as the article implies. And so on. Just because someone is capable of making outrageous claims about modern dinosaurs doesn't mean they hold up to scrutiny. None of these have. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 13:23, 1 March 2007 (EST)

:That "information" - is it any more trustworthy than the forgeries held up as evidence so far (such as the chisel taken to the paluxy trackway to make the dino prints look human)?

== From Scientific American ==

[http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000D4FEC-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=2 This article] from Scientific American explains why '''creationism is right''' and '''evolution is wrong'''. Silly Darwinists.
[[User:Mike Newsworth|Mike Newsworth]] 22:04, 1 March 2007 (EST)

: Here is a creationist response to the Scientific American article: [http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2088] [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 23:55, 4 March 2007 (EST)conservative

::I've read two of the responces, the origins of life and 2nd law. The origins of life repeats the fallacy that the abiotic origin of life is a neccasery part of evolution, which is false (after all, if life had been created by a god 3.5 billion years ago life would still have evolved. The 2nd law aguement rests on the premise that since regulatory mechanisms are required to harness the energy the fact that earth's an open system can be ignored. But such mechanisms clearly do exist (photosynthesisand chemosynthesis for example), since we are able to continue living. Where they came from is another matter, but since they do exist the argument is incorrect. I urge members to correct the clear scientific inaccuracise in this entry, as we are being shown up as scientifically ignorant. [[User:Nematocyte|Nematocyte]] 08:02, 5 March 2007 (EST)

*As Answers In Genesis says, that article is nothing more than materialist bigotry. It does show that creationism is right, by proving how desperate the Darwinists are. That article presents strawman after strawman in an attempt to avoid the hard questions that Darwinism faces. Scientific American is an extremely anti-Christian publication. [[User:Ashens|Ashens]] 22:12 1 March 2007

: I'd be curious to hear what strawmen there are. While it is true that some of the arguments are not used by some of the more sophisticated creationists (For example, "If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" is one of the 15 and AIG lists it on their list of arguments creationists should not use) none of them seem to be very flammable. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:37, 1 March 2007 (EST)

::Indeed. Not only have I heard every single one of those arguments, I hear them considerably more often than the more sophisticated versions. Of course, my experience may not be representative. Still, several of those arguments can be found right here at Conservapedia. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 05:27, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Number 5 directly addresses the Simon Morris quote mine I drew attention to earlier, and number 9 succiently points out the flaws in the second law objections. If these are strawmen then why are they being made here? [[User:Nematocyte|Nematocyte]] 05:46, 2 March 2007 (EST)

:Because creationists are all scared, desperate individuals who are trying feverishly to discredit the true evolution. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 10:30, 7 March 2007 (EST)
:: Instead of sarcasm, you could try to actually answer the question. It is hard to see how they can both be strawmen and be employed here. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:39, 7 March 2007 (EST)

==Second law of thermodynamics==

Oh come off it, the argument here is utter nonsense. Evolution does indeed decrease the entropy *on the planet*. That isn't a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy *of the universe* is increasing. Pro-creationist bias is one thing, being utterly clueless is another. --[[User:John Galt|John Galt]] 13:32, 2 March 2007 (EST)

:It's not even clear that evolution ''does'' decrease the entropy on the planet. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 13:59, 2 March 2007 (EST)
::Oops, you're right. It's life itself that increases the entropy on this planet. If the creationists are right, we're all dead! --[[User:John Galt|John Galt]] 16:56, 2 March 2007 (EST)

:Your very comments discredit you. No one said anything about life increasing the entropy on the planet. Evolution doesn't decrease entropy; nothing can. It's inevitable. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 10:16, 7 March 2007 (EST)

== Parson Weems, Washington, and "design" ==

Sorta off-topic for the article, but too good to omit... Parson Weems' hagiographic "biography" of Washington is best known for giving us the tale of George Washington and the cherry tree, but Weems tells another story of the youthful Washington[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/gw/chap2.html online here]. Whether it is accurate biography or theology, you must judge for yourself:

It was in this way by interesting at once both his heart and head, that Mr. Wlashington conducted George with great ease and pleasure along the happy paths of virtue. But well knowing that his beloved charge, soon to be a man, would be left exposed to numberless temptations, both from himself and from others, his heart throbbed with the tenderest anxiety to make him acquainted with that great being, whom to know and love, is to possess the surest defence against vice, and the best of all motives to virtue and happiness. To startle George into a lively sense of his Maker, he fell
upon the following very curious but impressive
expedient:

One day he went into the garden, and prepared a
little bed of finely pulverized earth, on which he wrote
George's name at full, in large letters--then strewing
in plenty of cabbage seed, he covered them up, and
smoothed all over nicely with the roller.--This bed
he purposely prepared close along side of a gooseberry
walk, which happening at this time to be well hung
with ripe fruit, he knew would be honoured with
George's visits pretty regularly every day. Not many
mornings had passed away before in came George,
with eyes wild rolling, and his little cheeks ready to
burst with great news.

"O Pa! come here! come here!" 
"What's the matter, my son ? what's the matter ?" 
"O come here, I tell you, Pa: come here! and I'll
shew you such a sight as you never saw in all your
life time."

The old gentleman suspecting what George would
be at, gave him his hand, which he seized with great
eagerness, and tugging him along through the garden,
led him point blank to the bed whereon was inscribed,
in large letters, and in all the freshness of newly sprung
plants, the full name of

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

"There Pa?"said George, quite in an ecstacy of
astonishment,"did you ever see such a sight in all
your life time?"

"Why it seems like a curious affair, sure enough,
George !"

"But, Pa, who did make it there ? who did make it
there ?"

"It grew there by chance, I suppose, my son."

"By chance, Pa! O no! no! it never did grow
there by chance, Pa. Indeed that it never did!"

"High! why not, my son?"

"Why, Pa, did you ever see anybody's name in a
plant bed before?"

"Well, but George, such a thing might happen,
though you never saw it before."

"Yes, Pa; but I did never see the little plants grow
up so as to make one single letter of my name before.
Now, how could they grow up so as to make all the
letters of my name! and then standing; one after
another, to spell my name so exactly!--and all so neat
and even too, at top and bottom! ! O Pa, you must
not say chance did all this. Indeed somebody did it;
and I dare say now, Pa, you did it just to scare me,
because I am your little boy."

His father smiled; and said,"Well George, you
have guessed right. I indeed did it; but not to scare
you, my son; but to learn you a great thing which I
wish you to understand. I want, my son, to introduce you to your true Father."

"High, Pa, an't you my true father, that has loved
me, and been so good to me always?"

"Yes George, I am your father, as the world calls
it: and I love you very dearly too. But yet with all
my love for you, George, I am but a poor good-for-
nothing sort of a father in comparison of one you
have."

"Aye ! I know, well enough whom you mean, Pa.
You mean God Almighty; don't you?"

"Yes, my son, I mean him indeed. He is your
true Father, George."

"But, Pa, where is God Almighty ! I did never
see him yet."

"True my son; but though you never saw him,
yet he is always with you. You did not see me when
ten days ago I made this little plant bed, where you see
your name in such beautiful green letters: but though
you did not see me here, yet you know I was here!"

"Yes, Pa, that I do. I know you was here."

"Well then, and as my son could not believe that
chance had made and put together so exactly the letters
of his name (though only sixteen) then how can he
believe, that chance could have made and put together
all those millions and millions of things that are now
so exactly fitted to his good! That my son may look at
everything around him, see ! what fine eyes he has got!
and a little pug nose to smell the sweet flowers I and
pretty ears to hear sweet sounds! and a lovely mouth
for his bread and butter! and 0, the little ivory teeth
to cut it for him! and the dear lithe tongue to prattle
with his father! and precious little hands and fingers
to hold his play-things ! and beautiful little feet for him
to run about upon! and when my little rogue of a son
is tired with running about, then the still night comes
for him to lie down: and his mother sings, and the
little crickets chirp him to sleep! and as soon as he has
slept enough, and jumps up fresh and strong as a little
buck, there the sweet golden light is ready for him!
When he looks down into the water, there he sees the
beautiful silver fishes for him! and up in the trees there
are the apples, and peaches, and thousands of sweet
fruits for him! and all, all around him, wherever my
dear boy looks, he sees everything just to his wants and
wishes;--the bubbling springs with cool sweet water
for him to drink ! and the wood to make him sparkling
fires when he is cold! and beautiful horses for him to
ride ! and strong oxen to work for him! and the good
cow to give him milk ! and bees to make sweet honey
for his sweeter mouth! and the little lambs, with snowy
wool, for beautiful clothes for him! Now, these and
all the ten thousand thousand other good things more
than my son can ever think of, and all so exactly fitted
to his use and delight--Now how could chance ever
have done all this for my little son? Oh George!--

He would have gone on: but George, who had hung
upon his father's words with looks and eyes of all-
devouring attention, here broke out--

"Oh, Pa, that's enough! that's enough! It can't
be chance, indeed--it can't be chance, that made and
gave me all these things."

"What was it then, do you think, my son?"

"Indeed, Pa, I don't know unless it was God
Almighty !"

"Yes, George, he it was, my son, and nobody else."

::Well, I'm not sure about good biography, but that's fine theology. Mighty fine. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 17:20, 7 March 2007 (EST)

----

==Problems==

The article is way off the mark. Its title "Theory of Evolution" and the content do not match.

The theory of evolution is the theory of how evolutionists claim the alleged process occurs (natural selection).

Darwin and Wallace should be addressed; their proposal and how it was presented as a double paper in 1858 and the fact that NS was rejected by Science after Darwin died; and how NS was resurrected during the neo-Darwinian biological synthesis of the 1930s and 40s and how the synthesis defines NS; and then how modern Darwinists define NS and their claims that NS has produced the panoply of life as we see it today.

The article should begin by telling the world that the Theory of Evolution is an atheist interpretation of scientific evidence which attempts to explain how nature may have produced it self without any assistance from a supernatural Being.

[[User:Ray Martinez|Ray Martinez]] 22:29, 7 March 2007 (EST)

The portion below I did not write except the title and description - Ray

:Ray, click the first footnote to the article which is here also: [http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i2/brainchild.asp] The Wallace issue is raised there. I realize that this is not a perfect solution but I wanted to work on more important matters concerning the article first. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 23:03, 7 March 2007 (EST)conservative

Am I the ony one who noticed that source 18 links to a survey that replied on participants volenteraly returning written surveys, 40% did not reply, thats horrible!
----

==Troll Alert==

BEGIN SECULAR SERMON AND DISCUSSION DERAILMENT

Just a rebuttal of this entire website, especially the Evolution article:

Do you understand that science is in fact NOT the devil? Your religion teaches love and understanding, yet every time I read or listen to a conservative/Christian based piece of literature/radio/internet site, all I seem to get from the gist of it is this: Liberals are evil, science is wrong, and any moment now Christ will come and we can use all of the natural resources we want because Armageddon will bring us all to the Promised Land, where we will have no further need of material objects.

I have some faults to shed light on

-science is what brought you into this world. I'm just assuming (just assuming) that everybody who is alive somehow came out of their mother, either by Caesarean Section or by a normal birth in a HOSPITAL, probably not the all natural way in a barn or potato field with no medicine, no doctors, and no nurses to clean you and cut your umbilical chord. Ergo, science=not evil
p.s.= science is based on observation and logic. If you willingly choose to believe that scientists are making up things as they go and have no standards, logic, or any mental thought process behind what they think, you're very close minded.

-evolution is '''not''' the devil. It has been studied, restudied, discussed, debated, analyzed, observed, doubted, believed, disputed, argued, questioned, pondered, rejected, accepted, considered, contemplated, picked apart, and speculated. It is a
'''== theory =='''. A THEORY. Not the law, and not some liberals trying to compromise your beliefs for the hell of it. You do not have to accept it, but because the scientific community accepts it as a viable THEORY, then it should be taught in school. If you believe creationism should be taught in school, I would also like to point out that that is also a THEORY. It might have evidence, but the only evidence is in a text. Darwinism is also in a text, has been tested in labs, observed in nature, and recorded in millions of different ways. It is also a THEORY. Because YOU say that is untrue makes it untrue, Darwinism is wrong because YOU say it is? What if I believe that once you die you become a giant worm in the Arctic Circle? Because I believe it, does that make it a fact? If you say no, then you are hypocritical because that's the exact logic you are using. If we teach the THEORY of creationism, then we should teach the THEORY of evolution, the Hindu THEORY of creationism, Muslim THEORY of creationism, the Native American THEORY of creationism, etcetera etcetera.

-if you do not agree with scientific finds and research, stop using all that science has provided. stop using this web site. stop using the computer that you use to add onto this website. don't read your bible because it was printed by a machine created by science. don't believe in the laws of physics and gravity because they are summed up with scientific equations. don't drive your car, use natural gas to fuel your home, and just forget about electricity altogether. You cannot use a bicycle, you cannot listen to music unless it is in your head because all sound is made up of vibrations and vibrations are physics, once again, science. all music takes science to create the exact pitch needed on instruments. don't go to your church, because it was designed, planned, and created using laws of science and scientific method. if you do not like science, stop using what it has so graciously provided for.

-next time you come down with a nasty case of pneumonia or tuberculosis, don't go to a hospital because they believe that those viruses and bacteria have mutated, one of the principles making up the THEORY of evolution. they can treat you for what it was before it mutated, but it's always fun to be treated for something you don't have.

Please, I am proving a point using logic. When you do not use logic when discussing topics and choose to believe that anything you say is true, how can you change and grow as an individual?

No offense meant, just a new angle to look at life from.

:You're digging up dead arguments. Cut it out. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 21:06, 8 March 2007 (EST)
:You yourself have just dug your own grave. You said "planned, designed, created" referring to a church. As you can see, that church did not create itself. No accident, no matter how grand or large a scale, could have produced a building like that. Just look at some churches and cathedrals and you can easily see just how much planning, designing and work it took. They didn't come about by themselves. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 18:21, 9 March 2007 (EST)
::Please dont allude that building a church is comparable to the complicated systems that organisms use. Its a horrible analogy that compares something that is documented and well understood with something that is somewhat known, but still has many questions still open. Such statements only serve to undermine your position and make you appear uneducated. Just leave the troll alone.

==Bible==
Could we have more emphasis on the truth of the Bible please. This is meant to be a Christian site. I feel that there is already a pernicious liberal influence moderating some articles.

:This is a conservative site, not neccaserily a Christian one. People of all religious denominations can be conservative, and I would argue that Biblical literalism is NOT a conservative value. [[User:Nematocyte|Nematocyte]] 10:52, 8 March 2007 (EST)

::Which parts do you feel exhibit liberal influence? On this and many other key issues, Conservapedia tries to address all sides of the topic, while still holding a conservative and Christian viewpoint. Perhaps the content you saw as liberal was simply part of a section on a different viewpoint. ~ [[User:SharonS|SharonS]] 11:26, 8 March 2007 (EST)
:::Perhaps, although as can be seen from this discussion there are a number of users who are rather vocal in their contempt for Biblical truth. I don't want to criticise other articles in the talk page for this article. I will raise issues as I see them in the appropriate talk page.

::This is a Christian site according to the homepage. All Christians follow the teachings of Christ as laid out in the Bible. You cannot be a Christian and not believe in the Bible just as you cannot be a Christian and not believe in Jesus.--[[User:AustinM|AustinM]] 11:07, 8 March 2007 (EST)

:::Many Christians do not believe in Biblical literalism. I personally regard it as a form of paganism, replacing the worship of God with the worship of a book. [[User:Nematocyte|Nematocyte]] 11:10, 8 March 2007 (EST)

:::The book is the word of God. Would you describe yourself as a Christian?

::::That book was transcribed through many different incarnations and translations by various scribes, losing integrity at each step (remember information theory?). Many of the sections within have exceedingly dubious origins, such as Deuteronomy, which is widely regarded as having been fabricated to support certain theological opinions. Only two of the books of the new testimant and though to have any objective weight, the rest being based on paganist myths about Jesus and here-say. I can't see how anyone regarding it as the literal word of God can be considered a Christian as they believe so many pagan inspired myths. [[User:Nematocyte|Nematocyte]] 11:31, 8 March 2007 (EST)
:::: One doesn't need to reject the text's validity as a divinely inspired document to not take it literally, I doubt for example that our friend is a flat-earther or a geocentrist even though a literal reading of many Biblical passages would support those viewpoints. Furthermore, note that many Christian theologians have argued that what is assured to be correct in the text is the fundamental salvational messgae and that anything else is unimportant. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 11:36, 8 March 2007 (EST)
::Give an example, JoshuaZ. What biblical passages say that the earth is flat or that the earth is at the center of the universe? Stop making these irritating blanket statements and dig up some evidence (if you can find any) for your claims. And as for the Bible being inspired by paganist myths, this is absurd! You have no evidence for this claim. Many of the pagan myths are, in fact, inspired by the Bible. You also are not giving any evidence for your claims. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 13:20, 9 March 2007 (EST)
::: Murray has done a decent list of basic examples below so I will only briefly note thatI didn't make any assertion about paganism, that was Nematocyte. Please keep track of who says what. Users who disagree with you do not form a monolythic hivemind. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:24, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
There certainly are biblical passages that suggest the authors believed the earth to be flat. Job 38:12-14 refers to the earth being taken by the edges and shaken, and also to it being stamped into the same shape as clay under a seal. Matthew 4:1-12 talks of all the kingdoms of the world being visible from the top of a mountain, and in Daniel 4:10-11 a tree so tall it is "visible to the end of the whole earth" is described.--[[User:Murray|Murray]] 13:49, 9 March 2007 (EST)

:The passage in Job can be taken as figurative; you can usually tell if a passage is literal or figurative, especially if it's poetry. There's no mountain on earth tall enough for what Jesus saw, unless, of course, he was just seeing something of a vision of all the kingdoms of Earth. Then in Daniel 4 the tree was in a dream, but of course the earth would have "edges" when compared to the tree; the edges being the point from which you would go over the curve and not see it anymore. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 18:16, 9 March 2007 (EST)
::Is Genesis chapter 1 written in a poetic style? Who is it up to to decide if something is literal or figurative? --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 18:28, 9 March 2007 (EST)
::It's up to logic, that's what. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 18:04, 10 March 2007 (EST)
::: Scorpion a few points: first of all, note that many people have in fact used those and other passages to either support a flat-earth or a geocentrism. Indeed, even in modern times there have been people inspired by the Biblical passages to defend a geocentric universe. See for example- www.geocentricity.com. Such views are so common among creationists that CMI and AIG, two of the world's largest creationist ministries has had to write multiple articles against creationists who are geocentrists. (an example would be [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1814/]). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:24, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

The right is an extremely biased end of the political spectrum.

Most republicans once you have met them suffer fromn delusions and a general lack of common sense. Whether this is because of their undying worship of Jesus, the brain drain machines used on new Right Wing Cultists, or because their parents were brother and sister we shall never know.

Talk:Free will

2007-03-15T18:29:45Z

OmnusErudito:

Talk:Free will

2007-03-15T18:28:41Z

OmnusErudito:

Talk:Free will

2007-03-14T18:24:31Z

OmnusErudito:

User talk:OmnusErudito

2007-03-14T18:12:44Z

OmnusErudito: /* Get out NOW */

== Get out NOW ==

Get off our wiki, atheist scumbag.

:There's a welcoming, Christian attitude, I must say. You are a credit to your religion. Now, if you want to convert me from my atheist ways, I suggest you start by proving verifiable evidence that any of your creationist claims are correct.

:Please note that "the Bible says so" is not evidence, due to the numerous politically-motivated rewrites and re-translations that it has been subjected to, not to mention the plagarism from religions that existed prior to Judeism and the lack of provenance for the majority of the authors.

:Neither is "God told us" acceptable as evidence, as that is simply hear-say. Besides, "He" could tell you that I believe "He" exists, which would be a lie.

Please note that whoever wrote "Get off our wiki, atheist scumbag.", does not in any way represent Conservapedia's ideals. Anyone who intends to contribute intelligent edits is welcome on Conservapedia. I hope you are one of them. --[[User:David R|<<-David R->>]] 16:31, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:Thankyou.

User talk:OmnusErudito

2007-03-13T20:22:28Z

OmnusErudito: /* Get out NOW */

Precambrian

2007-03-11T23:27:37Z

OmnusErudito:

The Precambrian or Cryptozoic is the period of the geologic timescale from the formation of Earth (around 4500 million years before the present era) to the evolution of abundant macroscopic hard-shelled fossils, which marked the beginning of the Cambrian, some 542 million years ago. The majority of the evidence existing about the Precambrian has largely been discovered in the past four or five decades, but much has been destroyed or hidden by long-term geological processes such as erosion and plate tectonics.

Debate2:Is the theory of macroevolution true?

2007-03-11T23:21:55Z

OmnusErudito: /* No */

==No==

If you have questions about Evolution/Creationism, and want them answered honestly, see the articles on this website [http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/]

'''No'''

As a scientist, I can categorically state that the ''Theory of Macroevolution'' is not true. This is because '''there is no such theory'''. The Creationist division of evolutionary processes into ''micro'' and ''macro'' is false and disingenuous. What Creationists refer to as ''microevolution'' is merely the short-term expression of the exact process that results in speciation (which is the correct name for what Creationists term ''macroevolution'').

The fact that evolution has occured, has been happening for several billion years, and is still going on as you read this is irrefutable, except by fraud, forgery and lies. The honest scientific literature is full of examples. The driving forces behind evolution have also been clearly identified (external environment, internal environment, competition for resources, sexual preferences etc). The majority of the mechanisms involved have been identified. All that remains under debate are the precise details. Not whether evolution happened, not how long it takes to happen, and not why it happens - just the exact details of ''how'' it happened.

----

I would just like to say that the "theory" of Evolution ''does not even qualify as a theory!!'' According to the scientific method, after you make a hypothesis, if '''''ANY''''' data comes up that contradicts you hypothesis than it must either be revised or discarded! How come even though there is much evidence that contradicts evolution it is still considered a theory? [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

:You need to actually cite some of this information, not just claim that there is some. The evidence is remarkably consistent with evolution, in fact, in a way known as evidential convergence. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

'''No'''
: 1. No credible transitional forms (fossils reflecting evolution between species) have ever been found.
::'''Counter:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Some transitional forms]
:::'''Counter:'''

:::All of these examples given in the above about the evolution of the whale are nonsense:

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus Pakicetus] -- What makes this a "link"? It was nothing but a land mammal gone extinct.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambulocetus Ambulocetus] -- The reason given that this is a link is complete nonsense. It resembles a whale??? Most trees resemble eachother, they all have a trunk, branches, leaves, etc. Does this mean that all trees are somehow missing links between each other?

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorudon Dorudon] -- I guess Wikipedia supposes this is a missing link because it uses sonar??? Same as example above.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus Basilosaurus] -- Another extinct species called a link because it "resembles" a whale.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurhinodelphis Eurhinodelphis] -- No reason given that is may be a missing link.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalodon Mammalodon colliveri] -- The article just makes an unsupported statement. I would consider this article for deletion (no notability).

:::[[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:46, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:::: '''Counter''' This may be an example of where going to specialized sources rather than relying on Wikipedia would be in order. However, some of these do in fact make clear why they are considered transitionals. For example, Pakicetus (as discussed in the Wikipedia article) had an inner ear structure that was very cetacean.(Not mentioned in the article but also relevant, Pakicetus had teeth that were very similar to some of the later transitionals in this list although not quite of the standard cetacean form) Proceeding, ambulectus had a bone structure consistent with something which spent time both walking and swimming and bears some similarities to Pakicetus. Basilosaurus looks almost like a modern whale except for the vestigial limbs. I'm not going to go into the others in detail but that should make it clear that there is good reason to see these as transitionals. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:49, 13 February 2007 (EST)

::::'''Additional Counter''' [http://www.conservapedia.com/Why_there_are_no_transitional_fossils Why the are no transitional fossils].

: 2. There is no plausible explanation for the evolution of the whale, which is a mammal. Darwin suggested that the whale somehow came from black bears swimming with their mouths open!
:: Darwin was just speculating, and said so, and it hardly matters whether he was right or not anyway. As it happens though, he wasn't all that far off regardless: whales and dolphins are indeed descendants of land mammals (their closest living genetic relative is the hippo). All dolphins and whales form embryonically, just like other mammals, in such a way that "leg buds" appear on the embryo. However, in their case, these legs are later reabsorbed again. However, this process is not always perfect: some whales have even been discovered with atavisms of hind legs, legs attached, amazingly, to the remnants of their vestigial pelvis. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

: 3. Evolution cannot be reconciled with the evidence of a massive flood.
::And what evidence would that be?

: 4. All mutations are harmful.
::'''Counter''' This is a false argument. Firstly, it is estimated 1/3 of point mutations (mutations affecting one link in the DNA and no others) are not harmful. Secondly, though the number is small, there are documented cases of mutations being beneficial - an example is sickle cell anemia. This mutation is a flaw in the hemoglobin gene of humans, causing these molecules to covalently bond into long, bristly fibers inside the red blood cell that distort them into a sickle cell shape. This mutation makes sickle cell individuals immune to malaria, and many of the people residing in countries where this disease is prevalent have this mutation. The people affected by this mutation have lived and multiplied, thereby disproving this myth. Also see Counter argument to #5. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' Phyllis, I don't know where you got your information on sickle cell anemia but it was certainly a biased source. You have not given the full story; 25% of those with sickle cell anemia die prematurely! '''''This is not a good mutation.''''' As the closest thing to a good mutation that evolutionists can come up with this is not supportive of evolution at all.
--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

Benjamin please use statistics meaningfully. For your 25% to have significance you would need to compare it to the premature death rate of people without this mutation. You would also have to carefully define premature and look at the populations that have the mutation (if they are a population succeptible to malaria then they probably have poor living conditions). Also can you site a source for the 25%? -- [[User:Chris F|Chris F]]

'''Further Reply:''' Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations. Simple probability predicts this: a random mutation is far more likely to reach a less desirable form. The odds are overwhelming. It is the same reason that heat always flows to cooler places. If you think mutations can be beneficial, then do you also think heat can sometimes "by chance" flow to a hotter place? That if we added billions of years it must happen sometimes? Of course not. It never happens.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

::I don't see how you can claim that it is overall harmful. It confers immunity to a highly destructive disease to the majority of the population that has the trait. The price of the acute disorder is not a bar to it being an overall benefit for a population, especially since even those sufferers often live long enough to reproduce. Beneficial and detrimental are generally contextual and environmental, not absolute. The recent mutation (we was tracked back to a single man in Italy) that causes immunity to LDH cholesterol (and thus to many forms of heart disease caused by fatty modern diets) is certainly beneficial in modern society. Tetrachromatism in women (four color vision) is likewise a very neat mutational development, but it's not clear that it confers any selective advantage. In a different environment it might be beneficial or even detrimental for some reason.07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Heat flowing to cooler places is entirely irrelevant to our discussion. Please elaborate. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' You should try to bear with Mr. Schlafly's abstract analogies (I know that they rarely make sense) and respond to his points that are doing you any harm; e.g. "Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations."

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

*This is not '''exactly''' a counter to [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. But... Darwin was writing in the days when breeders were starting to do amazing things with selective breeding, which was one of the things that impressed him. Selective breeding is still going on and it is still amazing. In 1910 the average domesticated chickens laid 80 eggs a year; by 1999 292 eggs a year. There are similar stories for milk production per cow, meat per chicken, etc. Some of the improvement is due to changes in feed, antibiotics, hormones, whatever, but most of it is from selective breeding. So the question I would ask is: if all mutations are harmful, then where do breeders find the slightly improved animals to select as the progenitors of the next generation? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:46, 22 January 2007 (EST)

: The vast majority of mutations are neutral or have no observable phenotypic change. Furthermore, of those mutations which are not in those categories, for most mutations whether or not the mutation is beneficial is highly connected to the environment which the relevant organism is found (sickle-cell anemia provides a vivid demonstration of this). However, other examples which are more directly beneficial. For example, many bacteria have gained mutations for immunity to various antibiotics, while other bacteria have gained mutations that allow them to eat nylon (a purely synthetic material). A more prosaic example is lactose tolerance. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:43, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: 5. Species have being going extinct rather than being generated.
::'''Counter''' This is not true. For example, through a specific type of sympatric speciation, new species of plants are able to form and have formed in abundance. It occurs from meiosis not occuring properly in the production of gametes. These "mutant" offspring are a new species and cannot produce offspring with the species they came from, yet can produce fertile offspring with other plants that were mutated the same way. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' This is true; the statement above is only a general rule. What can be said for sure is that though mutations occur, there has never been a documented example of a organism '''''gaining''''' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)
:Nonsense. There is only one precise measure of information, and that is Shannon information. By that metric, virtually any change at all to an organism is an increase in genetic information. If that's not what you meant by information, however, then there are other ways to frame the question, and countless observed cases for every one. In fact, if say you accept microevolution then I'm sorry to say that you by definition accept that genetic information can increase. Anytime a gene pool is skewed via natural selection to alter the frequency of alleles in some adaptive way, the gene pool is clearly _gaining_ information about the particular environment it is in!

'''Further reply:''' Right. The mutant offspring devolved, not evolved.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)
:'''Further reply:''' The organism did not devolve. Please explain this reply further. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]
::'''Comment:''' I think that by "devolve" he is trying to point out that organisms only ''lose'' genetic information through mutation; evolution relies upon the ''gain'' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

: 6. All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time.
::'''Counter''' Which is an argument against the existence of technology, cities, cars and everything advanced. This is a (rather embarrassing) misconception about the second law of thermodynamics. It states that entropy increases in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system, as processes here are powered by the energy originating from the sun. Order can increase in a system as long as more energy is inserted. A '''closed''' system is a system that doesn't receive such outside energy.
::::'''Comment on "closed system":''' So what you are saying that the order and energy of the Earth is dependent and derived from the Sun. Where does the Sun get its energy? What happens when it runs out of fuel, whether that be millions or even billions of years away? Molecules are ''still'' breaking down within the Sun. No matter how you look at it, the entire universe, "closed system" or not, is a slave of the second law of thermodynamics. [[User:David R|David R]]

:::::'''Further comment:''' That's right, David. By the way, the injection of energy into a system ''increases'' entropy. The only way to decrease entropy is intelligent ordering or intervention. Without that, entropy and disorder always increase. Whatever species existed 5000 years ago, in the absence of divine intervention there must be less ordered, less advanced, fewer species today. We see many examples of this: species go extinct each year, breeds of dogs degrade (e.g., Golden Retriever), even humans have increased incidence of asthma and other health problems from generation to generation. Take a look at how smart humans were just 100 or 200 years ago by looking at their writings, and compare that to the average human writings today. Entropy predicts degradation of everything over time in the absence of intelligent intervention.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:26, 14 January 2007 (EST)
::::::The injection of energy into a system increases enthalpy, not entropy, Aschlafly. DNA, proteins, and other highly-ordered macromolecules stay together not because of intelligent intervention, but because of enthalpic contributions that offset the entropic cost. Also, you state that "Entropy predicts degradation... in the absence of intelligent intervention", just after you comment that everything is degrading. Wouldn't that imply, then, the absence of intelligent intervention?
::'''Counter:'''"All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time." This is just false. We know living things become more complex and organized over time, because we can see it happening, e.g. a seed growing into a tree.
::'''Counter:'''As water loses energy, it becomes ever-more ordered, and scattering is reduced. It's called ''ice''.

: 7. There is vast beauty in the world which would not exist in a purely evolutionary world. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1)
::'''Counter''' This is an irrelevant argument. What evidence exists to say that evolution cannot produce beauty? Besides that, what is the definition of beauty? Beauty can be a life form adapted to its environment, beauty can be a beneficial mutation, beauty can be monomers spontaneously forming polymers when dripped on hot clay...all examples of evolution. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

:::This argument "against" evolution is terrible! Though evolution is false this isn't why. Unfortunately for evolutionists everywhere your counter argument does no better supporting evolution than the first one did disproving it.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Brilliant autumn foliage is beautiful. You won't find anyone who sincerely denies it, exact perhaps the most hardened evolutionist. But it is impossible for the beauty in brilliant autumn foliage to have evolved before humans even existed.
:::::*Please explain why "beauty" cannot exist without humans? Does a tree cease to be beautiful if it is not seen by human eyes? What a ridiculous concept!

:::: Evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature. Over 99% of Americans think there is beauty in nature. Take your pick. Count me as part of the over 99% majority.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:47, 14 January 2007 (EST)

:::::I don't think "evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature." Where did you get that? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm curious to know. Do creationists go around saying such a thing?) Stephen Jay Gould wrote "Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned?" Darwin wrote
::::::"The view seen when crossing the hills behind Praia Grande was most beautiful; the colours were intense, and the prevailing tint a dark blue; the sky and the calm waters of the bay vied with each other in splendour;" "The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as egrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed." "The beautiful view of the distant wooded hills, reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon, quite refreshed us." etc. etc. etc.
:::::Maybe you think that evolutionists must seal their minds into logic-tight compartments in order to appreciate the beauty of nature while at the same time trying to explain it from natural causes, but they do it nonetheless. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:55, 22 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:''' I personally believe that God purposefully created nature for humans to enjoy and care for and that he purposefully made it beautiful as a blessing for us. nevertheless, from an evolutionary standpoint, beauty can still be explained; if we all came from a common ancestor, especially given our reliance on nature for suvival, I don't see why the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the fact that 99% of Americans find beauty in autumn foliage.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:57, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 8. Abiogenesis is impossible. Even the simplest life form possible would be way too complicated to spring from nothing.
::'''Counter''' Regardless if it's possible or not, it's not an argument against macroevolution.
::'''Counter''' You don't know that it's impossible. No one knows what the simplest life form is, but pretending that abiogenesis concerns the simplest MODERN life (i.e. a modern cell) is nonsense: that's not what's being suggested at all. Besides, talking about stacking chemical reactions that observably naturally occur is not "springing from nothing."[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 23:49, 20 February 2007 (EST)

'''No''': In short... no. In long... there is much evidence against the theory that proves it is false. First of all there is the classic argument that the "missing links" are '''''still''''' missing. Here is what Darwin had to say on the subject. <blockquote>"Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide then they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this having been affected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which can be raised against my views." (''[[The Origin of Species]]'', 6th edition, 1962, Collier Books, NY, p.462.)</blockquote>
:So wait, you are citing as your most recent survey of the fossil evidence something written in the '''1800s'''??? It's also more than a little dishonest to quote someone introducing a problem and then pretend that they didn't, as Darwin did, go on to answer the objection at great length. Finally, there are also no such things as "missing links" in a biological sense: this is a misconception. We will never have a fossil of every single species, let alone individual, that ever lived. And we don't need to. The fossils we do have are already more than enough to map out the overall picture and general relations of species, and all these fossils are consistent with the very specific pattern of geologic and geographic distribution that common descent demands of them. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Since when you are looking for data from the earth's history the first place you would look is the fossil record. What does the fossil record say? It says macroevolution '''''never''''' happened. There are even less documented "missing links" today then there were in Darwin's day. Obviously, macro-evolutionists want these "missing" links to be found desperately based on the elaborate measures they have gone through to try and fake the public out into believing one has been found. Take, for example, the famous Nebraska Man. He was supposed "evidence" for macro-evolution but in reality he was based entirely on a tooth from an extinct species of pig found among some ancient tools![http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html] This is only the beginning of the evidence against macro-evolution and I will be adding more to this edit as I get the time! [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:06, 17 December 2006 (EST)

:: ''''Counter''' The above claims are simply false. We have hundreds of major transitional fossils(which is what I presume you mean by "missing link") between a variety of different groups. Examples include Australopithecus as transitional between humans ape like ancestors and humans, hasiophis terrasanctus (sp?) a transitional snake with hind limbs and many others. Name almost any major grouping and we will have transitional fossils between the various groups. For some groups we have very detailed transitional sequences. For example, between fish and tetrapods is a particularly good example, and the transitions between land mammals and whales have become well developed over the last 20 years. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

: 9. The "Anthro-Simianic Paradox" -- If great apes evolved into humans, why are there still great apes? The inherent inconsistency in the pro-Darwinistical position can be verified scientifically, using the foam dinosaurs that grow larger in water. Place a package of tiny foam dinosaurs (representing apes) into a sink (representing evolution). All the dinosaurs will grow to giant proportions (representing humans) and no tiny foam dinosaurs will be left. Clearly, scientists must examine alternate hypotheses for the evolution of giant foam dinosaurs (human beings).

:: I'm presuming this is a parody. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 21:39, 21 February 2007 (EST)

Debate:Is the theory of macroevolution true?

2007-03-11T23:11:05Z

OmnusErudito: /* No */

Post Your Thoughts

== Yes ==

Arguments for * All life on Earth shares common ancestor

*All life on Earth shares common ancestor
#All life on Earth shares molecular features.
#*'''Counter:''' This is not a scientific argument for evolution. First, this argument says nothing about a *process* of evolution. It does not reveal any transitional forms between species, for examples. In fact, lots of DNA evidence tends to disprove transitions from one species to another. Second, there is no objective or scientific way to say one thing is like another. If you insist there is, then you'd have to agree that intelligent design is science also. Note, by the way, that all of Shakespeare's plays "share" similar features, but one play did not evolve by itself into another.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
#*:::What DNA evidence disproves transitions between species?
##Same macromolecules (DNA, RNA, protein)
##Same monomers for those macromolecules (five nucleotides, twenty standard amino acids)
##Same chirality of molecules. DNA in all complex life forms is right-handed, research suggests[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9802E1DB1F3DF936A15751C0A9659C8B63] that left-handed DNA would work just as well.
###If life forms did not have common ancestors we would expect to see a fairly even distribution of left and right handed DNA.
##Genetic system:
##*Ribosome structure
##*tRNA structure
##*The universal genetic code (and slight deviations from it)
##*Information encoded in nucleotide polymers (DNA or RNA).
#Differences between organisms can be explained by known mechanisms of genetic mutation.
#*'''Counter:''' There has not been enough time for mutation to generate existing biological diversity.
#**'''Counter:''' There has been enough time enough time to generate existing biological diversity.
#***'''Counter:''' The time argument doesn't help. Decay, scattering, extinction, defects, disasters, etc., all INCREASE over time. Besides, all mutations are harmful.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
#****'''Counter:''' Mutations are ''mostly'' harmful, but not always.
#****'''Additional Counter:''' Seedless watermelons are an example of a mutation, so is corn (it used to be tiny). There is no way to claim, let alone prove that all mutations are harmful.--[[User:ChrisF|ChrisF]]

NATURAL genetic changes can only account for diversity within a species. Mendellian genetics has demonstrated the existence of a closed field of genetic changes which can occur through the reproductive process.

#*#The speed of evolution is measured by the [[w:Darwin (unit)|darwin]] (change in an organism's character by a factor of e per million years.) [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#morphological_rates]
#*#Evolution in the lab can be as high as 200,000 darwins.
#*#As measured by the fossil record, the average evolutionary rate in the wild is 370 darwins.
#*#A rate of 400 darwins is capable of turning a mouse into an elephant in just 10,000 years.
#*No other (non-human) process has been observed to generate biological diversity.
#*Extensive biological diversity existed before humans had the ability to create new forms by molecular recombination.

Counter- The argument concerning rate of change assumes that biological evolution is described by a linear equation. However, observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote. For example, it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species. However, it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed- the graph of evolutionary change, with change on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, has reached a horizontal assymptote. The dog remains a dog.
-Chris J
::: Um, what? I'm a bit of a mathy person and have some background in genetics as well, and the above doesn't seem to be anything but an assertion dressed up in mathematical terminology. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:06, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Which part is unclear? The statements concerning the fossil record and crossbreeding within a species are simple, factual observations. If the argument concernig rate of change in units of Darwins is not based on a linear function, what is it based on? And to clarify- by saying that Change approaches a horizontal assymptote, I mean that change continues over time, but becomes infinitely small and and never exceeds a fixed point. The dog may, through natural reproduction, become another kind of dog. But observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird.
-Chris J
:::: Ok, for starters, you refer "observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote" - it isn't clear what your relevant vairable is that is being bounded. Continuing, your next sentence claims that "it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species." I'm not even sure what to make of this sentence since dog breeds aren't separate species. You furthermore assert that "it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed" if anything this is what one might have thought before Mendel. Since alleles come in discrete entities and one does not have genetic continua, this is false. Not only is it false, it is irrelevant, since whether we are able to breed something to be identical to some pre-existing similar organism is irrelevant. Your summary remarks that "The dog remains a dog" and your rephrase that "observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird" are simply assertions and not very relevant ones anyways(evolution wouldn't expect a dog to "sprout wings" although there are excellent examples of transitionals between true flyers and others). The terminology is so vague as to make it unclear exactly you mean that a dog will always remain a dog. Do you mean there will be never be a reproductive barrier? Do you mean that it will fit what your intuitive notion of what a dog looks like?. (Also, while we are on the topic of defintions, you use both "species" in a non-standard way, and use "kind" in a way that isn't even standard for creationists. If you are going to use terms in a non-standard fashion, defining them would be good). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:40, 13 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Chris, I think you have a misconception of how common descent works. The claim that no dog will become anything other than another kind of dog is, in fact, true, according to evolutionary theory, not a challenge of it. The statement is essentially no different than the claim that mammals never become anything other than mammals, or eukaryotes will never be anything other than eukaryotes. Common descent specifies that evolution happens via nested clades: groups within groups, not one group becoming another. This can be confusing because Linnean taxonomy is static, not cladistic.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:22, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::Evolution proposes that complexity increases such that more advanced species somehow emerge from less sophisticated ones. This is has never been observed, has never been duplicated in a laboratory, and requires a reduction in entropy at constant energy that contradicts all observations. All observations are of devolution, or the disappearance or reduction in complexity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:34, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::: That's incorrect. Evolution does not make any claims about some species being more or less advanced. Evolution does not work on a ladder. Also, I'm not sure what you mean when you claim that increases in complexity have never been observed. As in many cases, this may depend on what you mean by complexity. However, regardless of what you mean a variety of mutations have been observed in humans and other species which add essentially new functions to the species. One common example of this is bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 19:07, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I specified that evolutionary change is the dependent variable, or Y-value, bounded by a horizontal assymptote, with time as the independent variable, or X-value. Your second remark is entirely correct- I misused the word "species" when I meant to refer only to changes between breeds. Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring, but alleles place boundaries on the change that can occur through this process. It is true that it is difficult to quantify evolutionary change, since it does not appear to progress in any certain direction- another challenge to the above argument concerning the progress of evolutionary change over time. I chose a rational graph with the dependent variable bounded by a horizontal assymptote as an illustration because the aforementioned argument seemed to assume that evolutionary change could be expressed with respect to time or reproductive cycles by a linear graph. I chose the example of cross breeding because it is an example of the reproductive cycle being manipulated to produce maximum evolutionary change. The natural rate of change would be much slower, if indeed there were any measurable change. My statements about a dog "remaining a dog" and not changing species were meant only as examples of the genetic limitations of evolutionary change through natural reproduction, which is generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification.

: I'm not sure I completely follow some of what you said such as "Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring"- alleles are passed on just as frequently whether they are dominant or recessive. We are however, getting to the crux of the matter (although I incidentally note that you ignored the issue of discrete genetics), saying that change is "generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification" is not useful. Beyond the species level all classification has a highly arbitrary element to it, at which point it isn't at all clear *why* you would presume that evolution at that level wouldn't occur (there is no sign of any magic barrier or such). This has also the incidental problem that speciation is in fact common. There are possibly hundreds of observed speciation events and I could easily provide (if you wanted) 10 or 15 of them and the relevant citations. (Also, many creationists support not just that speciation has occured but that rapid speciation occured right after the Deluge(indeed, in AIG's account this speciation happened far more uniformily and far faster than any biologist would ever predict and far faster than any observed level). To some extent this reflects a changing of the goalposts- 100 years ago no creationist acknowledged any form of evolution, then in the 1960s the evidence got overwhelming enough that the creationists conceded "microevolution" meaning evolution within species, and more recently many creationists now agree that evolution above the species level can occur, but not much above it. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:'''
:::The boundry that defines into what an organism can and cannot evolve is not a "magic barrier" but its own DNA. An organism can only lose genetic information. There has never been an observed exception to this rule. What Chris tried to demonstrate (I think) by his example of a dog is that a dog can change but it cannot become anything beyond the limit set by its own genes; it cannot "sprout wings and become a bird"

:::--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 21:00, 13 February 2007 (EST)

::::: Ben, this doesn't help at all. This is yet more vague assertions with undefined terms. And almost any defintion of the terms will in fact render the statements false. For example the claim that "an organism can only lose genetic information" - so in this context what do you mean by information? Do you mean in terms of Shannon's measure of information? This is easily seen to be false. Do you mean in terms of Kolmogorov complexity? Again, the claim is false. Indeed, by any reasonable defintion the claim is false. To see why consider the following: Consider some function f that is a function of the current genetic makeup of some creature and turns out some non-negative real number representing how much information there is in that genome. Now, suppose creature A through either mutation or recombination has offspring A' and f(A') < f(A) (that is, A' has lost information). Then the mutation that goes from A' to something with genome A is an example of a gain in information. Since all mutations are reversible, we've established that for any reasonable defintion of information, information can be gained (modulo the essentially trivial case of all genomes having the same information value) [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:27, 13 February 2007 (EST)

#*'''Counter:''' Despite a century of teaching evolution in American schools, the majority of Americans still reject it. The burden of proof is on the evolutionists, and the proof just isn't there. Darwinists would be better off looking for another theory to try to replace Christianity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

>95% of academic biologists support it.

Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology.

:'''Comment on logic''': I am sorry, but your answer is an appeal to authority, a common logical mistake. But its ok. I am sure there is still more evidence to support your point? [[User:David R|David R]]

: '''Reply''': You say that "95% of academic biologists support it." What evidence do you have to support this statement? I have often wondered if there was a place were one could view this sort of information. It would be most helpful.

: You go on to say that "Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology." Again, what evidence do you have to support this statement? Here are some creation biologists, to name a few:

* Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin, Biologist
* Dr. Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
* Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
* Dr. Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
* Dr. David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
* Dr. Dudley Eirich, Molecular Biologist
* Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
* Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
* Dr. Duane Gish, Biochemist
* Dr. D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
* Dr. Bob Hosken, Biochemistry

: All of them have doctoral degrees in some sort of biology and all argue against macro-evolution and for creationism. Are you claiming that all of them have a poor understanding of biology? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 23:29, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Another Reply''': I assume that you have a better understanding of biology upon which to base this attack? Please enlighten us; how would a wise biologist refute the facts that seemingly disprove evolution? Where is the host of intermediate links? When have biologists observed an organism acctually '''''gain''''' genetic information through a mutation rather than lose it? [[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

:: '''Response''': I take it your claim is that all mutations cause a loss of genetic information. This claim is false. Consider: if all mutations cause a loss of genetic information, then point mutations cause a loss of genetic information. But all point mutations are reversible—that is, the nucleotide that changes can change back. So if the original point mutation caused a loss of information, the reversed mutation must cause a gain in information.--[[User:Stereotypical A|Stereotypical A]] 20:36, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::: REPLY: It requires intelligent intervention to reverse a mutation. Lost genetic information will not be restored simply by chance.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:52, 20 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Absolutely false. Point mutations can go either way (and frequently do). In fact, there are a number of tests which measure how mutagenic various mutagens are by using this property. Basically, you take a type of bactera which has a point mutation that leaves it unable to synthesize a necessary amino acid and then you grow a colony of that bacterium and expose them to the desired mutagen. Then you measure what fraction of the colony can survive if you remove the necessary amino acid from the medium. This sort of test has been done for about 30 years now. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:58, 20 February 2007 (EST)
Having studied and worked with scientists for a decade, and spending another decade debating armchair evolutionists, I've found that it is usually someone unsuccessful in the hard sciences (physical, chemistry, biology and you might add mathematics) who is drawn most to evolution. The late evolution-promoter Stephen Jay Gould, for example, was merely a geology major at Antioch College. Big evolution promoter Richard Dawkins was an assistant professor at Berkeley, and then a lecturer, and then it's not clear to me what his academic status was for a while. Meanwhile, real experts, such as Richard Sternberg who has TWO PhDs in evolution fields, have been critical of the theory. But Sternberg was harshly disciplined for daring to question the theory, and few are anxious to risk similar retaliation.

>It is at least a puzzle to understand how Creationism accounts for seemingly-badly-designed aspects of anatomy and physiology. For example, the eyes of cephalopods (squid, octopus) and those of vertebrates (mammals, including humans) are strikingly similar in their general "design" with one conspicuous exception. In the cephalopod eye, the retina is structured exactly as one would expect: the light-sensitive receptors face forward, toward the lens, and the nerve fibers that join to form the optic nerve exit in the back.

In the human eye, however, the retina is structured in a very surprising way that is exactly the reverse. The receptors face ''backwards,'' and not only the nerve fibers that collect to form the optic nerve but also all of the blood vessels that nourish it are in ''front,'' where they block the view and cast shadows on the retina. The result is that the human eye has a large and seemingly unnecessary blind spot, and that very intricate processing by the brain is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels.

It all works, of course, but it is puzzling as to why an intelligent creator would design it this way, particularly given that the much older cephalopod eye does it the "right" way. No doubt it is ''possible'' to explain this (just as it is ''possible'' to explain fossils by saying that God created the fossils along with everything else in 4004 BC).

It seems much easier to explain this as a series of incremental adaptations rather than as being "designed" the way a human engineer would design a camera. Of course that does not mean that the incremental adaptations were necessarily guided by pure natural selection as envisioned by Darwin, either. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:01, 18 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply''': I don't know where you got the thing about creationists believing that God created the fossils in 4004 B.C., but I believe that the vast majority of fossils are the product of Noah's flood as it is described in Genesis. [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

:: The fossil and geological record is entirely inconsistent with this belief. Even if everything was, against all other evidence to the contrary, laid down in a single flood event, how come not even a single Cambrian fossil floated up into what mainstream geologists think of as modern strata, or a dinosaur sunk down into the Cambrian strata? Why are fossils laid out in the column in a very particular nested pattern of change over time rather than sorted according to which bodies float best or worst? [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

: '''Reply''': I believe that almost everything you say here provides evidence '''for''' creation. Let me explain... in you first paragraph you state that mammals "are strikingly similar in their general 'design'". This is true but does this support macro-evolution? I think not. Wouldn't macro-evolution produce many different types of "eyes" that would work? Why are they all so similar?

::In fact, there ARE many different "evolutions" of eyes in the animal kingdom: many different sorts, in fact. However, the expectation that there would be many completely different types of eyes in one particular sub-branch that already started out having one particular SORT of eye is not what evolution would suggest, and isn't what we see. Common descent proposes descent via modification, not complete past-disregarding innovation. As such, we would expect that all mammal eyes would be nested variations of the same basic origin, and in fact that is exactly what we find. 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

: You go on to say that in the human the eye is just different from all these other eyes. You say this provides evidence against creation because, if it were true, why is it not the same as the others. Well, doesn't this also support creationism? Why would just one be different? Because our creator was original, he was an artist, not a robot. As for the "very intricate processing by the brain <nowiki>[that]</nowiki> is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels." This is more evidence for creation. Why would natural selection create a process like this? It seems pointless to us, but those "intricate" processes were intricately '''designed'''. Maybe our creator was trying to show that he existed... He created this one eye that wouldn't work; if it not for these amazing brain processes. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 15:11, 18 December 2006 (EST)

::It's certainly a point of view... but didn't you feel that you needed to work just a bit to arrive at it?

::Although it's certainly ''possible,'' I don't believe that God involves himself in the design details of vertebrate anatomy, and I certainly don't believe he goes to the effort of putting in deliberate design errors as a trick to test peoples' faith. I think a lot more likely that God created the general conditions under which evolution by natural selection takes place, and the "wrong" anatomy of the vertebrate retina is the result of the constraints of having evolved in gradual steps. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:48, 19 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply:''' There is nothing to indicate that the human eye is an "error"; it works wonderfully. Also under the belief that God is omnipotent, I have no trouble as you do in believing that God would design the details of vertebrate anatomy, especially in light of the arguments against evolution below (with the possible exception of argument #7). Why would he let life progress at random when he could create every thing "fearfully and wonderfully" to reflect his awesome greatness?

[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

'''3''' There is a double nested hierarchy. That is, all life forms two nested hierarchies, one morphological and one genetic and these hierarchies correspond to how they evolved. While it is true that when designers as we know them design things they design them with similarities, they do not design them in nested hierarchies. Human designers will use an idea in one place and then copy that section over somewhere else. (For example, one would not expect an engineer to design the panda's thumb but rather expect the engineer use the pre-existing thumb design from primates). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:01, 13 February 2007 (EST)

==No==

If you have questions about Evolution/Creationism see the articles on this website [http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/]

'''No'''

As a scientist, I can categorically state that the ''Theory of Macroevolution'' is not true. This is because '''there is no such theory'''. The Creationist division of evolutionary processes into ''micro'' and ''macro'' is false and disingenuous. What Creationists refer to as ''microevolution'' is merely the short-term expression of the exact process that results in speciation (which is the correct name for what Creationists term ''macroevolution'').

The fact that evolution has occured, has been happening for several billion years, and is still going on as you read this is irrefutable, except by fraud, forgery and lies. The honest scientific literature is full of examples. The driving forces behind evolution have also been clearly identified (external environment, internal environment, competition for resources, sexual preferences etc). The majority of the mechanisms involved have been identified. All that remains under debate are the precise details. Not whether evolution happened, not how long it takes to happen, and not why it happens - just the exact details of ''how'' it happened.

----

I would just like to say that the "theory" of Evolution ''does not even qualify as a theory!!'' According to the scientific method, after you make a hypothesis, if '''''ANY''''' data comes up that contradicts you hypothesis than it must either be revised or discarded! How come even though there is much evidence that contradicts evolution it is still considered a theory? [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

:You need to actually cite some of this information, not just claim that there is some. The evidence is remarkably consistent with evolution, in fact, in a way known as evidential convergence. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

'''No'''
: 1. No credible transitional forms (fossils reflecting evolution between species) have ever been found.
::'''Counter:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Some transitional forms]
:::'''Counter:'''

:::All of these examples given in the above about the evolution of the whale are nonsense:

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus Pakicetus] -- What makes this a "link"? It was nothing but a land mammal gone extinct.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambulocetus Ambulocetus] -- The reason given that this is a link is complete nonsense. It resembles a whale??? Most trees resemble eachother, they all have a trunk, branches, leaves, etc. Does this mean that all trees are somehow missing links between each other?

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorudon Dorudon] -- I guess Wikipedia supposes this is a missing link because it uses sonar??? Same as example above.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus Basilosaurus] -- Another extinct species called a link because it "resembles" a whale.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurhinodelphis Eurhinodelphis] -- No reason given that is may be a missing link.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalodon Mammalodon colliveri] -- The article just makes an unsupported statement. I would consider this article for deletion (no notability).

:::[[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:46, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:::: '''Counter''' This may be an example of where going to specialized sources rather than relying on Wikipedia would be in order. However, some of these do in fact make clear why they are considered transitionals. For example, Pakicetus (as discussed in the Wikipedia article) had an inner ear structure that was very cetacean.(Not mentioned in the article but also relevant, Pakicetus had teeth that were very similar to some of the later transitionals in this list although not quite of the standard cetacean form) Proceeding, ambulectus had a bone structure consistent with something which spent time both walking and swimming and bears some similarities to Pakicetus. Basilosaurus looks almost like a modern whale except for the vestigial limbs. I'm not going to go into the others in detail but that should make it clear that there is good reason to see these as transitionals. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:49, 13 February 2007 (EST)

::::'''Additional Counter''' [http://www.conservapedia.com/Why_there_are_no_transitional_fossils Why the are no transitional fossils].

: 2. There is no plausible explanation for the evolution of the whale, which is a mammal. Darwin suggested that the whale somehow came from black bears swimming with their mouths open!
:: Darwin was just speculating, and said so, and it hardly matters whether he was right or not anyway. As it happens though, he wasn't all that far off regardless: whales and dolphins are indeed descendants of land mammals (their closest living genetic relative is the hippo). All dolphins and whales form embryonically, just like other mammals, in such a way that "leg buds" appear on the embryo. However, in their case, these legs are later reabsorbed again. However, this process is not always perfect: some whales have even been discovered with atavisms of hind legs, legs attached, amazingly, to the remnants of their vestigial pelvis. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

: 3. Evolution cannot be reconciled with the evidence of a massive flood.
::And what evidence would that be?

: 4. All mutations are harmful.
::'''Counter''' This is a false argument. Firstly, it is estimated 1/3 of point mutations (mutations affecting one link in the DNA and no others) are not harmful. Secondly, though the number is small, there are documented cases of mutations being beneficial - an example is sickle cell anemia. This mutation is a flaw in the hemoglobin gene of humans, causing these molecules to covalently bond into long, bristly fibers inside the red blood cell that distort them into a sickle cell shape. This mutation makes sickle cell individuals immune to malaria, and many of the people residing in countries where this disease is prevalent have this mutation. The people affected by this mutation have lived and multiplied, thereby disproving this myth. Also see Counter argument to #5. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' Phyllis, I don't know where you got your information on sickle cell anemia but it was certainly a biased source. You have not given the full story; 25% of those with sickle cell anemia die prematurely! '''''This is not a good mutation.''''' As the closest thing to a good mutation that evolutionists can come up with this is not supportive of evolution at all.
--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

Benjamin please use statistics meaningfully. For your 25% to have significance you would need to compare it to the premature death rate of people without this mutation. You would also have to carefully define premature and look at the populations that have the mutation (if they are a population succeptible to malaria then they probably have poor living conditions). Also can you site a source for the 25%? -- [[User:Chris F|Chris F]]

'''Further Reply:''' Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations. Simple probability predicts this: a random mutation is far more likely to reach a less desirable form. The odds are overwhelming. It is the same reason that heat always flows to cooler places. If you think mutations can be beneficial, then do you also think heat can sometimes "by chance" flow to a hotter place? That if we added billions of years it must happen sometimes? Of course not. It never happens.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

::I don't see how you can claim that it is overall harmful. It confers immunity to a highly destructive disease to the majority of the population that has the trait. The price of the acute disorder is not a bar to it being an overall benefit for a population, especially since even those sufferers often live long enough to reproduce. Beneficial and detrimental are generally contextual and environmental, not absolute. The recent mutation (we was tracked back to a single man in Italy) that causes immunity to LDH cholesterol (and thus to many forms of heart disease caused by fatty modern diets) is certainly beneficial in modern society. Tetrachromatism in women (four color vision) is likewise a very neat mutational development, but it's not clear that it confers any selective advantage. In a different environment it might be beneficial or even detrimental for some reason.07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Heat flowing to cooler places is entirely irrelevant to our discussion. Please elaborate. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' You should try to bear with Mr. Schlafly's abstract analogies (I know that they rarely make sense) and respond to his points that are doing you any harm; e.g. "Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations."

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

*This is not '''exactly''' a counter to [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. But... Darwin was writing in the days when breeders were starting to do amazing things with selective breeding, which was one of the things that impressed him. Selective breeding is still going on and it is still amazing. In 1910 the average domesticated chickens laid 80 eggs a year; by 1999 292 eggs a year. There are similar stories for milk production per cow, meat per chicken, etc. Some of the improvement is due to changes in feed, antibiotics, hormones, whatever, but most of it is from selective breeding. So the question I would ask is: if all mutations are harmful, then where do breeders find the slightly improved animals to select as the progenitors of the next generation? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:46, 22 January 2007 (EST)

: The vast majority of mutations are neutral or have no observable phenotypic change. Furthermore, of those mutations which are not in those categories, for most mutations whether or not the mutation is beneficial is highly connected to the environment which the relevant organism is found (sickle-cell anemia provides a vivid demonstration of this). However, other examples which are more directly beneficial. For example, many bacteria have gained mutations for immunity to various antibiotics, while other bacteria have gained mutations that allow them to eat nylon (a purely synthetic material). A more prosaic example is lactose tolerance. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:43, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: 5. Species have being going extinct rather than being generated.
::'''Counter''' This is not true. For example, through a specific type of sympatric speciation, new species of plants are able to form and have formed in abundance. It occurs from meiosis not occuring properly in the production of gametes. These "mutant" offspring are a new species and cannot produce offspring with the species they came from, yet can produce fertile offspring with other plants that were mutated the same way. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' This is true; the statement above is only a general rule. What can be said for sure is that though mutations occur, there has never been a documented example of a organism '''''gaining''''' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)
:Nonsense. There is only one precise measure of information, and that is Shannon information. By that metric, virtually any change at all to an organism is an increase in genetic information. If that's not what you meant by information, however, then there are other ways to frame the question, and countless observed cases for every one. In fact, if say you accept microevolution then I'm sorry to say that you by definition accept that genetic information can increase. Anytime a gene pool is skewed via natural selection to alter the frequency of alleles in some adaptive way, the gene pool is clearly _gaining_ information about the particular environment it is in!

'''Further reply:''' Right. The mutant offspring devolved, not evolved.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)
:'''Further reply:''' The organism did not devolve. Please explain this reply further. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]
::'''Comment:''' I think that by "devolve" he is trying to point out that organisms only ''lose'' genetic information through mutation; evolution relies upon the ''gain'' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

: 6. All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time.
::'''Counter''' Which is an argument against the existence of technology, cities, cars and everything advanced. This is a (rather embarrassing) misconception about the second law of thermodynamics. It states that entropy increases in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system, as processes here are powered by the energy originating from the sun. Order can increase in a system as long as more energy is inserted. A '''closed''' system is a system that doesn't receive such outside energy.
::::'''Comment on "closed system":''' So what you are saying that the order and energy of the Earth is dependent and derived from the Sun. Where does the Sun get its energy? What happens when it runs out of fuel, whether that be millions or even billions of years away? Molecules are ''still'' breaking down within the Sun. No matter how you look at it, the entire universe, "closed system" or not, is a slave of the second law of thermodynamics. [[User:David R|David R]]

:::::'''Further comment:''' That's right, David. By the way, the injection of energy into a system ''increases'' entropy. The only way to decrease entropy is intelligent ordering or intervention. Without that, entropy and disorder always increase. Whatever species existed 5000 years ago, in the absence of divine intervention there must be less ordered, less advanced, fewer species today. We see many examples of this: species go extinct each year, breeds of dogs degrade (e.g., Golden Retriever), even humans have increased incidence of asthma and other health problems from generation to generation. Take a look at how smart humans were just 100 or 200 years ago by looking at their writings, and compare that to the average human writings today. Entropy predicts degradation of everything over time in the absence of intelligent intervention.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:26, 14 January 2007 (EST)
::::::The injection of energy into a system increases enthalpy, not entropy, Aschlafly. DNA, proteins, and other highly-ordered macromolecules stay together not because of intelligent intervention, but because of enthalpic contributions that offset the entropic cost. Also, you state that "Entropy predicts degradation... in the absence of intelligent intervention", just after you comment that everything is degrading. Wouldn't that imply, then, the absence of intelligent intervention?
::'''Counter:'''"All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time." This is just false. We know living things become more complex and organized over time, because we can see it happening, e.g. a seed growing into a tree.

: 7. There is vast beauty in the world which would not exist in a purely evolutionary world. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1)
::'''Counter''' This is an irrelevant argument. What evidence exists to say that evolution cannot produce beauty? Besides that, what is the definition of beauty? Beauty can be a life form adapted to its environment, beauty can be a beneficial mutation, beauty can be monomers spontaneously forming polymers when dripped on hot clay...all examples of evolution. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

:::This argument "against" evolution is terrible! Though evolution is false this isn't why. Unfortunately for evolutionists everywhere your counter argument does no better supporting evolution than the first one did disproving it.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Brilliant autumn foliage is beautiful. You won't find anyone who sincerely denies it, exact perhaps the most hardened evolutionist. But it is impossible for the beauty in brilliant autumn foliage to have evolved before humans even existed.

:::: Evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature. Over 99% of Americans think there is beauty in nature. Take your pick. Count me as part of the over 99% majority.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:47, 14 January 2007 (EST)

:::::I don't think "evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature." Where did you get that? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm curious to know. Do creationists go around saying such a thing?) Stephen Jay Gould wrote "Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned?" Darwin wrote
::::::"The view seen when crossing the hills behind Praia Grande was most beautiful; the colours were intense, and the prevailing tint a dark blue; the sky and the calm waters of the bay vied with each other in splendour;" "The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as egrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed." "The beautiful view of the distant wooded hills, reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon, quite refreshed us." etc. etc. etc.
:::::Maybe you think that evolutionists must seal their minds into logic-tight compartments in order to appreciate the beauty of nature while at the same time trying to explain it from natural causes, but they do it nonetheless. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:55, 22 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:''' I personally believe that God purposefully created nature for humans to enjoy and care for and that he purposefully made it beautiful as a blessing for us. nevertheless, from an evolutionary standpoint, beauty can still be explained; if we all came from a common ancestor, especially given our reliance on nature for suvival, I don't see why the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the fact that 99% of Americans find beauty in autumn foliage.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:57, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 8. Abiogenesis is impossible. Even the simplest life form possible would be way too complicated to spring from nothing.
::'''Counter''' Regardless if it's possible or not, it's not an argument against macroevolution.
::'''Counter''' You don't know that it's impossible. No one knows what the simplest life form is, but pretending that abiogenesis concerns the simplest MODERN life (i.e. a modern cell) is nonsense: that's not what's being suggested at all. Besides, talking about stacking chemical reactions that observably naturally occur is not "springing from nothing."[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 23:49, 20 February 2007 (EST)

'''No''': In short... no. In long... there is much evidence against the theory that proves it is false. First of all there is the classic argument that the "missing links" are '''''still''''' missing. Here is what Darwin had to say on the subject. <blockquote>"Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide then they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this having been affected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which can be raised against my views." (''[[The Origin of Species]]'', 6th edition, 1962, Collier Books, NY, p.462.)</blockquote>
:So wait, you are citing as your most recent survey of the fossil evidence something written in the '''1800s'''??? It's also more than a little dishonest to quote someone introducing a problem and then pretend that they didn't, as Darwin did, go on to answer the objection at great length. Finally, there are also no such things as "missing links" in a biological sense: this is a misconception. We will never have a fossil of every single species, let alone individual, that ever lived. And we don't need to. The fossils we do have are already more than enough to map out the overall picture and general relations of species, and all these fossils are consistent with the very specific pattern of geologic and geographic distribution that common descent demands of them. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Since when you are looking for data from the earth's history the first place you would look is the fossil record. What does the fossil record say? It says macroevolution '''''never''''' happened. There are even less documented "missing links" today then there were in Darwin's day. Obviously, macro-evolutionists want these "missing" links to be found desperately based on the elaborate measures they have gone through to try and fake the public out into believing one has been found. Take, for example, the famous Nebraska Man. He was supposed "evidence" for macro-evolution but in reality he was based entirely on a tooth from an extinct species of pig found among some ancient tools![http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html] This is only the beginning of the evidence against macro-evolution and I will be adding more to this edit as I get the time! [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:06, 17 December 2006 (EST)

:: ''''Counter''' The above claims are simply false. We have hundreds of major transitional fossils(which is what I presume you mean by "missing link") between a variety of different groups. Examples include Australopithecus as transitional between humans ape like ancestors and humans, hasiophis terrasanctus (sp?) a transitional snake with hind limbs and many others. Name almost any major grouping and we will have transitional fossils between the various groups. For some groups we have very detailed transitional sequences. For example, between fish and tetrapods is a particularly good example, and the transitions between land mammals and whales have become well developed over the last 20 years. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

: 9. The "Anthro-Simianic Paradox" -- If great apes evolved into humans, why are there still great apes? The inherent inconsistency in the pro-Darwinistical position can be verified scientifically, using the foam dinosaurs that grow larger in water. Place a package of tiny foam dinosaurs (representing apes) into a sink (representing evolution). All the dinosaurs will grow to giant proportions (representing humans) and no tiny foam dinosaurs will be left. Clearly, scientists must examine alternate hypotheses for the evolution of giant foam dinosaurs (human beings).

:: I'm presuming this is a parody. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 21:39, 21 February 2007 (EST)

== Evolution is a Racist Philosophy ==

*"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York: A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178)."

*"The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters. such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens. (Henry Fairfield Osborn, "The Evolution of the Human Races," Natural History, Jan./Feb. 1926. Reprinted in Natural History 89 (April 1980): 129.)" -evolutionist Henry Fairfield Osborn

::Is a comment from a book written at a time when racism was commonplace at all relevant? If this site wants to become at all credible, quotes taken both out of context and out of the social situation in which they are written should be removed. [[User:ChrisF|ChrisF]]

*The full title of Darwin's book is ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''
**It's worth noting though that "races" in the title refers to kinds of animals: it's never used to refer to people and in fact the book never mentions human beings at all until the very end, and then only briefly. It's rather dishonest to try and imply that this particular book says anything about human races.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:44, 20 February 2007 (EST)

*Hitler's atrocities were based on evolutionary philosophy.

::Evolution has certainly been used by racists in support of their views. Racists have used many things, including Christianity, in support of their views. Think of the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan.

::And, yes, Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day... which was the time when the British Empire was busily colonizing places inhabited by dark-skinned people. You would have been hard-pressed to find many people in Darwin's England who were ''not'' racists, by today's standards.

::I think the point being raised here is an appropriate one to raise. But I think "evolution is a racist philosophy" is an exaggeration. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:36, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::Christianity is not racist at its core, yet it is made to seem racist by some. Jesus came to save all, not just more "advanced races." Evolution '''is''' racist at its core, yet it is made to seem like it's not. Dpbsmith, you say that "Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day," this is true, but what does that have to do with he argument? Are you saying that racism influenced him when he came up with evolution, in the way that he uses evolution to support racism? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 16:09, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::1) I'm acknowledging that the quotation from Darwin ''can'' fairly be described as racist. 2) I'm saying that many evil things are done in the name of many causes, and that people who do evil things will usually find a way to justify them. 3) I'm saying that I think more people have been killed by people claiming to be acting in the name of Jesus than by people claiming to be acting in the name of Darwin.

:::It is sometimes difficult to believe just how prevasive racism was from, perhaps, the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s. When The New York Times reviewed Longfellow's ''Song of Hiawatha'' in 1855, the reviewer said that Longfellow had "embalm[ed] pleasantly enough the monstrous traditions of an uninteresting, and, one may almost say, a justly exterminated race." That doesn't excuse Darwin. But it does put it into context. I think I agree with you to the extent that Darwin said things that can be fairly called "racist" and that Jesus did not. I don't agree that that makes evolution "racist at the core." OK, I think I've made my point clearly enough... I'll leave you to get in the last word if you like. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:26, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Also note that racism on Darwin's part in no way matters for whether the modern theory of evolution is either racist or correct. First, in general, the truth or falsity of any idea is independent of who it came from (if Darwin were a serial killer who liked to steal candy from babies it would not change the validity of his ideas in the slightest (if you don't believe me, perform the same thought experiment with [[Newton]] or [[Josiah Willard Gibbs]])). Second, the modern neo-synthesis is far removed from Darwin's original notions. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:34, 6 February 2007 (EST)

:::: As a matter of fact, Darwin's attitudes on race were far more enlightened than most of his religious critics. Darwin was a dedicated and outspoken abolitionist, and advocate of rights for African Americans, and he argues in his works that African Americans and Europeans are actually far MORE ALIKE than most people thought at the time. Don't forget that the religious beliefs of his day were that either black people had been specially created separately from white people, or that they were a severely decayed form of white people. Darwin argued instead that all races were of very recent common origin. It's no co-incidence that millenia of racism collapsed almost overnight after the biological revolution that Darwin sparked showed that race is a relatively minor and confused factor.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

==The Scientific Method==
As I am being taught in biology at Middle Tennessee State University, the '''Scientific Method''' is that which is applied by scientists in the following order:
*'''Observation'''. The scientist observes the phenomena.
*'''Hypothesis'''. The scientist makes an educated guess as to the reason(s) for the phenomena.
*'''Experimentation'''. The scientist does a series of experiments to test whether the hypothesis is correct.
*'''Conclusion'''. The scientist's results from the experiment. If the hypothesis is proven to be wrong as a result, it is rejected. If proven right, the hypothesis is upgraded to a '''theory'''.

Now, with regard to evolution, there is a massive failure of the scientific method as used to support evolution. The scientist cannot use observation when he assumes animal A evolved into animal B; the scientist needs to see that happen, otherwise everything else collapses.

I think the Scientific Method can be successfully exploited in the [[evolution]] article. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 04:23, 11 March 2007 (EDT)