Difference between revisions of "Talk:Richard Lenski"

Revision as of 19:30, July 2, 2008

Formatting

I borrowed a template from another wiki which might make the data section a bit easier to comprehend. I will include it here pending approval of senior sysops. Marge 12:03, 28 June 2008 (EDT)

Looks great. Please install in the entry as desired.--Aschlafly 12:55, 28 June 2008 (EDT)

Okay, I've moved it. I've also cut it from this page for economy's sake. Marge 13:07, 28 June 2008 (EDT)

Actually it makes the article look amaturish. For starters you have written in capitals and you have not explained why the missing data is significant which is the point of the side-by-side template to do a full rebuttle. DanielB 19:44, 28 June 2008 (EDT)

I agree. A discussion specifying what one expects from the 'missing' data and what usefulness such information would likely shed is necessary.--Argon 12:57, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

I agree that it is necessary to establish exactly what is being asked for in the terse comments on the right hand side, sadly such a discussion could get the majority of the contributors banned for the 90/10 rule. I myself have not contributed much to this question recently as a result of this rule. Could the powers that be explicitly suspend this rule on this issue so that the question may be freely discussed? --British_cons (talk) 13:12, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Listing fields

I'm not a parodist, though I did make a mistake on what a CV is.

Suggestion: Disagreements with E Coli paper should go to a new section?

Shouldn't this be a brief bio of Lenski, and a link to the controversy over the paper, including the discussions and the emails, be part of that page instead of here? It looks pretty bad putting it on the main page. 18:11, 30 June 2008 (EDT) On the other hand, after doing some research, I don't think it's standard for faculty to put degree fields in a list of their degrees.

I googled "MSU biology", then went over the "Faculty List A-G". Here is what I found:

No list of degrees: 2 List with fields: 3 List without fields: 12

Finally, Oberlin is a liberal college, and they do focus mostly on liberal arts. Drochld 14:26, 29 June 2008 (EDT)

Template / formatting

Out of interest, I help to administer a private wiki where I work, and think this template is quite nice. Might I ask where you found it, and what (if any) associated copyright restrictions there are on it? Henry8th 15:49, 29 June 2008 (EDT)

Really, "Henry8th"??? That's an amazing coincidence you describe: you just happen to administer a "private wiki" at "work". Before wasting people's time with your silliness, how about convincing us a bit more of the earnestness of comment, as in providing the wiki version number, the type of your employer and the location of your "work". I'm sure the wiki developers who freely donate their efforts for use by all would be thrilled to learn of your profitable use.--Aschlafly 16:33, 29 June 2008 (EDT)

We run Mediawiki 1.6.7 (yes, I know we're incredibly out of date, but we can't upgrade to a newer one as that would require PHP5, whereas we need that server running PHP4 to support other older software). I make it a habit not to disclose too much personal information on the internet, I'm afraid, but I'm a PhD student at a UK university and I help to administer a wiki run by my research group. By "private" I mean "accessible only to people within my research group"; we find that a wiki is an efficient way for us to edit documents collaboratively. Henry8th 16:47, 29 June 2008 (EDT)

The copyright policy here says "Conservapedia grants a non-exclusive license to you to use any of the content (other than images) on this site with or without attribution".JPohl 11:53, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

However, since it was admitted above that the template is not CP's creation, it should first be established whether or not the template was used in a correct way (and if any attributions are needed) before others borrow it from here. ZTak 12:06, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

I would ask the same question as ZTak above. Firstly, from a legal point of view I would want to be absolutely sure that any code I might upload to a server at my university was properly licensed (we have regular software audits, of course). Secondly, from an ethical point of view I would like to make sure that I can properly credit the original author of the template. As someone whose work involves writing computer programs, I certainly wouldn't appreciate it if someone took software I'd written and didn't attribute authorship correctly. Henry8th 14:36, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Fact checking could use some work on the omissions section

I strongly encourage editors to confirm that the topics on this entry's 'omissions' section page really refer to "data not provided" and do not reflect the lack of understanding of the research. At a bare minimum it is necessary to completely read the actual article. 'Skimming' it quickly is not fair to the goals of this wiki or Lenksi's lab. To at least be diligent, I recommend that the authors of the "omissions" section go to Lenksi's lab web page here (https://www.msu.edu/~lenski/), and peruse (read, not skim) the many papers related to the Long-Term Evolution project that are referenced in the current paper.--Argon 11:57, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

I do not understand why my last edit was reversed

It seems to be common practice (and therefore not "odd") to not list what fields faculty majored in, and Oberlin is very liberal. Drochld 12:34, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

I'm not certain what 'liberal' has to do with anything and "odd" has pejorative overtones. Rather than worry about 'oddness' why not investigate the degrees? In his graduate program Lenski studied insects and evolution and around 1983, worked with Bruce Levin, moving into the study of microbial evolution.--Argon 12:51, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

This man is nothing but a farce

Why must we, the children of God, even acknowledge this liberal atheist (as if there is any other form of an atheist) on our glorious site? We are only feeding his overinflated ego by doing so. --Dexter111344 12:52, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

A problem with: "Lenski is best known for his claim to have observed evolution of E. coli in a long-term laboratory study,"

This recent study is but one of many papers by Lenksi et al regarding the evolution of bacterial populations in continuous culture. He is best known professionally for his in vitro experiments studying the population dynamics of genetic adaptations in bacteria and other studies in microbial evolution.--Argon 13:14, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

don't clutter this entry with meaningless edits????

The topic of the page is 'Richard Lenski'. I added additional bibliographic information about Lenski's professional awards and they are reversed as "meaningless edits"? And the 'odd' comment remains despite the fact that it's common to leave the subjects of the degrees out of web pages?--Argon 13:43, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Yes, various links to things such as data as well. I thought data was central to the question at hand? Why not link to it (such as it is)? And a mention of his work with virtual organisms seems relevant - especially as it's mentioned again at the end.--British_cons (talk) 13:47, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

And now I'm a "Lenski supporter"? Anyone who actually read the paper and referenced the pertinent section of the article that clearly specified the glucose concentration used is a supporter? I think that addition of 'Lenksi supporter' is needlessly inflammatory. Furthermore, with regard to the question: WHERE IS THE DATA MEASURING OR CONFIRMING THE 25 MG/LITER GLUCOSE? DID THAT CONCENTRATION EVER CHANGE?", I also wrote: "A weighed amount of glucose is mixed into the medium. The paper states that the concentration listed was used in the media throughout the continuous subculturing experiment." and that got removed. Resubmitted.--Argon 18:14, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

shouldn't we move the E Coli paper discussion to a separate page?

It looks really cheezy to have this right on Lenski's biography, very unprofessional. Just have a link and move all that discussion to something like Lenski_E_Coli_controversy, don't erase a thing. Cathy 18:11, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Wrong format for a debate

Ignoring all the other issues with this "article", the side-by-side table is really not made for a discussion. Maybe move that part to a debate page? It's quite silly to see an encyclopedia article doing a question-and-answer session with anonymous participants. --KevinM 18:18, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Agreed. It's silly to post the page without doing the basic research. Better to corral the innuendos into debate pages.--Argon 18:20, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Also, we have yet to discovere the proper attribution for the side-by-side table, and as such it should be taken down or it might constitute a violation of copyright. ZTak 18:25, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Given that Marge said she took the template from elsewhere, it would presumably be straightforward for her to tell us where she found it. Given that information I'd happily aid the project by checking out this other wiki's copyright policy before reporting back here. Henry8th 18:45, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

My issue is mostly about using a left/right table when the left side is basically just the intro section while the right side is suddenly filled with a weird pseudo-debate that goes back and forth. It would be better to do it like this:

==Visual Inspection==
===Lenski's Paper===
(quote)
===Discussion===
(back and forth; not as debate, but in more encyclopedic "A claims B, to which C points out D." style)

==Study Omissions==
(quote)

And so on. It would make the article more readable. And it would have the added benefit of NOT USING SO MANY ALL-CAPS SENTENCES, BECAUSE DESPITE WHAT SOME SITES SAY, CAPSLOCK IS NOT THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL. --KevinM 19:12, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Furthermore, it would help review the status of claims rather than deleting them outright: Here's a most recent example: (removed least important point, which was obscuring more important ones)" Aschlafly. Revision as of 19:34, 30 June 2008

I think it is an important point in two senses: 1) If the level of glucose was not growth limiting then Cit+ mutants might not have been discovered. It is an important feature of the experiment in this instance. 2) It's clear that the glucose concentration was indeed disclosed. How about creating a section titled "Data someone repeatedly claimed was undisclosed but was actually found by looking" and move the deleted test there?--Argon 20:24, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Atheist Lobbying Organization

Should this remain in the article, given that it was inserted by an identified (and subsequently banned) parodist? --Benp 20:52, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Anything wrong with the cites for it? By the way, not every block is proper. If in error, and I don't know if this one was, the block is reversed.--Aschlafly 20:57, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

There's nothing wrong with the cites, per se; they just don't quite cover the assertion. The cited sources do a good job of establishing that the PNAS is largely atheistic (something which is pretty well-known anyway.) They don't really cover any "lobbying" activities, though. --Benp 21:04, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

OK, based on what you said, how about taking out the "lobbying" reference only? As to the rest, it's informative: most people don't know how atheistic the PNAS is.--Aschlafly 21:05, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Will do. --Benp 21:06, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Maybe need to add another section

It would probably be better to split the biographic information from the discussion of the letters exchanged with A. Schlafly. Perhaps a section titled: "Interactions with Andrew Schlafly" (or "site owner") would better hold that aspect.--Argon 21:05, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

e-mail

For public interest, could we at CP view the e-mail regarding the template here? If the claim in the e-mail has merit and further measures are pursued, it does not seem fair that the whole site should be punished for one man's refusal to remove the template. Perhaps we could see the e-mail and discuss whether or not the claim is valid. ZTak 22:04, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Professor?

Is Lenski an actual professor? I know there are plenty of people who exaggerate their status ad pretend they're something they're not. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he's one of them, given what we know of him so far. Have we seen his credentials? TonyT 08:26, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

TonyT I was about to give you a serious response, but then I realized that you have to be joking so thanks for making me laugh. Rellik 15:30, 2 July 2008 (EDT)

Digital Organisms

Lenski is famous for two things. His work with his work E. coli and his work with digital organisms. The work with digital organisms is the work referred to in a somewhat unclear way at the bottom of the page. I have twice tried to mention this other important aspect of his work and twice been reverted. This time the edit was called "Liberal Claptrap"!! One would have thought that, in an article about Richard Lenski, mention of what he actually does would be important and not "Liberal Claptrap".--British_cons (talk) 09:13, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

If I get no response, presumably I can assume it was reverted in error and I can put it back in?--British_cons (talk) 11:47, 1 July 2008 (EDT)