User talk:Hob Gadling/Archive 1

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Changes to Argument from poor design

Hob,
The second changes you made are better than the first; I won't be reverting them. However, in removing the word "appropriated", you left hanging subsequent references to "this appropriation" and the like. You might like to tidy them up. Philip J. Rayment 15:33, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Notice of Neutral point of view noticeboard discussion

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

Debunker

Thanks, I added a clause to Houdini's entry so someone would know why he's there. Salsb 18:16, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Doh! Martin Gardner is Apparently On Time

Sorry, your right, I was thinking of Philip Morrison when I added "the late" part.--Brentt 12:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Daniel Dunglas Home

Hi Hob, Thanks for your input. Do you know where I can find some details on Alexander von Boutlerow's tests? Are you familiar with them? User:Kazuba 10 Mar 2006

No, sorry. --Hob Gadling 12:21, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, we need to urgently cut down the size of this watchlist. Looks like many or most of the articles you added really concern paranormal, not pseudoscience. Can you make a copy of the watchlist (paste) in our own user space and help us delete non-psuedoscience items? TIA ---CH 05:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

comments

Hallo Hob
Was sollen Änderungskommentare, wie: "Stevy-POV entfernt. Wieviel Prozent der Fachwissenschaftler sind nicht etabliert? Bleibt trotzdem überwiegende Mehrheit"??? siehe [1] ...wenn du mir was zu sagen hast, dann tu das bitte direkt auf meiner Seite!
Oder soll ich auch noch so anfangen!??? Die Diskussionen und Kommentare gehören auf die Diskussions- oder Nutzerseite und nirgens sonst hin! Stevy76 22:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

You're in the wrong wiki. And that comment was a justification for the change and appropriate. --Hob Gadling 10:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Mag ja sein, dass es die englische WP ist. Du verweist in der dt. WP aber auf diese Seite! Nun denn: Ich schreib es gerne auch auf deine dt. Diskussionsseite und wir sprechen dort weiter... Grüsse, Stevy76 11:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


Serious attitude problems with two editors

There have been some serious edit warrings over at Orthomolecular medicine, Megavitamin therapy, and Pseudoscience.

Primarily two editors have been very aggressive:

This user is also involved as their sympathizer and ally:


Myself and User:Cri du canard are the ones being attacked:

You are more than welcome to examine our contributions

Here is one of my messages about the problem:

  • I have just left a warning on MichaelCPrice's talk page. He, Linas, and others are violating quite a few rules here, including conspiring against other editors, incivility, failing to assume good faith, accusing others of bad faith edits, personal attacks, etc.. Their personal edit histories are very telling. They are also coordinating their efforts to attempt to trap others in 3rr violations, and are simply taking total control over the
    Fyslee 23:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC) [2]


These good messages of warning from a fellow editor illustrate the problem. (The intervening belligerant responses by them say even more!):

Three Warnings to User:Linas:

Warning to User:MichaelCPrice:


Another related comment from editor Jefffire: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jefffire&diff=prev&oldid=69208687


Now I'm making a request for investigation and help from editors and administrators because it is beyond our control. These editors are extremely aggressive. --

Fyslee
23:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


Apologies for misspelling

Please accept my humble apologies for unintentionally screwing up your name in this edit summary. My brain is a little cloudy today thanks to antihistamines (ragweed is out in full force where I live). I've often wished edit summaries were editable. I'm catching up on the discussion page and appreciate your contributions there. Best regards, Jim Butler(talk) 07:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

CSICOP article

Hob, I'd like your opinion before we make any changes to the CSICOP article. Bubba, Karl, and I have agreed upon changes to the Josephson dispute section. Davkal is blocked and has quit the mediation (says he's going to file a request for arbitation). So Mike has closed the mediation. But we'd like to hear what you think before we make the edit. Askolnick 05:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Hope you're around for a long time to come

I just saw your name, and am thankful that we have such a, uh, seasoned editor around here. I know people with the depth of understanding you've gotten over the years are invaluable to us. John Carter 18:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

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Caution: Presume Good Faith when dealing with others

(This warning was originally put on the user's user page by accident. It belongs here.)

Information icon Please remember to assume good faith when dealing with other editors, which you did not do on Talk:Zecharia Sitchin. Thank you. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:07, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

GAR input sought

Hi, I followed here from the Jonathan Wells RFC and I don't believe we interacted before. I am reaching out to you for an opinion, as, having been dealing with ID, you appear to be experienced with the topics of sourcing, neutrality and extraordinary claims.

It has been suggested to me by editor Coretheapple in the

GA reassessment that the review be brought to the attention of a wider audience. The issues above are included in the review, so I hope there's enough of a cross-functional applicability. The article in question is Hyacinth Graf Strachwitz; no specialist World War II knowledge is required to be able to contributed to the GAR. The article has been described as "WP:Fancruft
" by the editor who suggested I seek more opinions.

I would welcome a review of the article to see if it still meets Wikipedia:Good article criteria and whether it should be retained or delisted as a Good article. I would also welcome any feedback you'd be willing to share. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:57, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, not my field. I let the historians deal with that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:48, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Ebell

I just read your comment in the Ebell Talk page and I thought I was reading another harassing message in my Talk page. I am sorry for the hasty reply, which I deleted immediately. My apologies.

talk
) 12:48, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

No problem. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:51, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

A couple of discretionary sanctions alerts

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NPA

Skeptical movement that didn't seem very civil, so it has been removed. Wikipedia is built on collaboration, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner. If you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page
. Thank you. Jytdog (talk) 10:05, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

That guy has been lying like crazy in the last few days an Talk:Myron Ebell. He claimed I said things I definitely did not say, and when challenged on it, he dodged and skipped. He inserts lies in articles too. I guess some of them are still there. That has been his normal behavior for years. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:19, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Notice old RfC withdrawn and recreated with a clarified question

This is to notify you that the prior RfC at Talk:List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming was withdrawn as the question confused several people, and instead it was re-opened with a new clarified question. I am notifying all those that responded to the old RfC (except those that have already responded) so that they may comment on the new RfC. The new RfC is here: Talk:List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming#RfC:_Should_the_phrase_.E2.80.9Cthe_consensus_has_strengthened_over_time.E2.80.9D_be_removed_as_WP:SYNTHESIS_or_WP:UNDUE_WEIGHT.3F Obsidi (talk) 23:40, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

What you added appears to be either

wp:reliable source supporting that content. Jim1138 (talk
) 22:23, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Blah blah blah.
It does not matter what I say, you do not listen anyway.
I said "Now explain what is wrong with my NPOV insertion "what he saw as"", and you did not.
I will remember you as a wikilawyering bot-wannabe. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:56, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

March 2017

Re your comments on

WP:CIVIL? Jim1138 (talk
) 13:00, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

That is exactly the type of response I expect from someone who has no case. I am not interested in messages from you. Please refrain from using my Talk page in the future. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:03, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Objections to evolution

Im sorry but someone has to do something..., all the weirdness it is due may be because of that that low punch on the stomach that is the article itself got me overnight and also may be because its so well disguised as a scientific article that oneself even finds weird when eventually finds scientific lemmas on it. Article is populated with such terms as "popularity", "beliefs", "level of dogmatism", "reason", "analogy" replacing other words (much more usual here) like "acceptance", "empirical proof", "dogmatic or not dogmatic", "credibility" and "deduction", Relevance and objectiveness its not about how many people have more reason on saying something, its not about the power on the number. You should understand that reading so many false oppositions in only one article is an irresistible invitation, article is much of a deaf dialogue than something coherent, it says; "These claims have become more popular in recent years as the neo-creationist movement has sought to distance itself from religion, thus giving it more reason to make use of a seemingly anti-religious analogy." what kind a naif mock is that having place here??? Expressions concerning those like that refuting theory A immediately verifies theory B or that because somebody knows that a known truth is true, that someone also is true, are unacceptable, even on the play field of the rebel child, moreover the second is a total false opposition; you cant refute someone for saying something that him has not said! What is totally absent saying on the article is that both POVs are right since they are both claiming about totally different things.--Neurorebel (talk) 12:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

This is gibberish. I have no idea what you want. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:25, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions

You were given notice of them last November, diff.

This kind of commentary on an article talk page is not helpful. Please restrain yourself. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I thought it was helpful if somebody learns that his reasoning is universally applicable to every subject and therefore not to the point. It could prevent him from using the same reasoning again.
If all I get is a link to a whole bunch of sentences, I can only guess what to avoid, so you are not being helpful. Maybe you were referring to the "useless crap" part or the "noses in the air" part instead? I can cut those. --Hob Gadling (talk) 22:21, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the the Talk contribution on the List of climate scientists page. I hope you add them to the page and are able to update the category to get these in better order. The List page is currently, as you noted, getting some overweighting of contrarians. --The Cunctator (talk) 23:24, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Watchlist

Hello Hob. I borrowed your pseudoscience watchlist. I may eventually check if there are gems there which would be appropriate to add to

WP:SKEPTICISM's watchlist, a project I'm part of (that is unfortunately not very active, however). Thanks, —PaleoNeonate
- 21:04, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I even forgot I had that page... --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:19, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Kittens are cute.

Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:10, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

You think you can cancel another user's malicious lies that way? --Hob Gadling (talk)

See

This.[3] Doug Weller talk 06:24, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, but I already knew. When I find a weird edit that must be undone, I always look at the user contributions of the user who did it. Sometimes I find more to be undone. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:11, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

You might want to look at some of these other edits and their talk page. Doug Weller talk 13:45, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Oops, you probably have already. But this may be becoming disruptive. Doug Weller talk 13:46, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

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HNY

Happy New Year!

Best wishes for 2018, —PaleoNeonate – 01:24, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

DISK?

Just a quick question as to how Wikipedia:WikiProject Discworld applies to Pizzagate conspiracy theory per the summary of your edit (see diff) --Auric talk 18:18, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

You are completely right. I meant
WP:TALK, the German version of which is de:WP:DISK. Stupid mistake to make, switching languages like that. Unfortunately, edit summaries cannot be corrected after the fact... --Hob Gadling (talk
) 20:54, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Hob, I've raised our dispute at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard with the following (rather long) link: Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Shroud_of_Turin#Deleted_sentence_"However,_none_of_the_hypotheses_challenging_..."_as_not_sourced. Cheers, Aarghdvaark (talk) 07:40, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Hob, the list of sources you gave in "Summary of dispute by Hob Gadling" is wrong - [16], [17], [18] and [19]. I deleted sources [13], [15], [16] and [19], and those sources are what this dispute resolution process is about. Cheers Aarghdvaark (talk) 08:36, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. I replaced the two sources. I don't know how I got the idea that 17 and 18 were involved. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:03, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Question on participation at DRN

Hey Hob Gadling,

I was wondering if you were interested in removing yourself as a party to the Turin Shroud case, given your lack of participation. If you so desire, I can remove you from the case and continue the case with the remaining members. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 13:56, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Creationism

Greetings Gadling. You made a statement I would like to discuss with you on the Fisher's Theorem talk page, but the discussion is not appropriate to pursue there. You said,

You also need to be reasonable in discussions. Defending ideas that have not a single good reason on their side, such as creationism, obviously requires the use of bad reasoning or even lying.

I would like to ask you to defend that statement. I do not find it obvious at all that creationism has no good reasons on its side, and in fact I cannot imagine any other reasonable conclusion based on the evidence. To say that there is not a single good reason, you would need to be more or less an expert in the area, having read a broad range of the most current creationary works by leading creationists. Could you name any recent creationary works you've read? Have you spent any time recently reading any articles at creation.com, for example? I'm just trying to get a feel for why you'd make a statement like that. If you'd prefer to have this conversation privately, feel free to email me at [email protected] . --Kanbei85 (talk) 12:11, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

This is irrelevant. It does not matter what I read or didn't read.
Instead, I suggest an easier solution I have used before with good success. You present what you consider a good reason, and I refute it. Pick the best you can find.
But in my experience, most creationists are too chicken to comply with my rules. They try to flood me with links that are supposed to contain lots of good reasons (but which actually contain only bullshit; this tactic is called Gish gallop), but they do not give any one reason. It is too risky for them: if they lose, they really lose because I refuted their supposedly best reason.
BTW, user names should not be used in section titles. It is bad style. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:33, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
I am happy to discuss some good reasons for believing in creation; however, that is not really the question I asked you. You made an extremely strong statement, namely, that there is not a single good reason on the side of creation versus evolution. Only an extremely educated person on the topic could possibly make such a claim— or else perhaps an extremely biased person! I am favoring the latter explanation. Since you have declined to answer my polite question asking what you have read from creationary sources, it is looking a lot like you have not actually informed yourself much if any on what creationists actually believe and teach. As a matter of fact, there is a large amount of misinformation and disinformation going around on the internet about creationists coming from the other side. The least you can do, if you are going to involve yourself in these matters, would be to inform yourself accurately as to the arguments being made.
The illusion that there is a great weight of evidence supporting Darwinism comes mainly from bullying tactics and bluster. Darwinism is, itself, a positive claim for which evidence would be needed. I have yet to find any good evidence out there for universal common descent, and even less evidence that the functional complexity of information we see in living things can come about through undirected natural processes in the absence of intelligence and design. Both sides have a burden of proof to shoulder, not creation only. However, creation and evolution are the only two options; life either was created, or it must have come about through some evolutionary type of process. There is no third option, so evidence against evolution implies creation. The strongest evidence I am aware of against evolution is Genetic Entropy. I will be happy to delve into the concept in greater detail, but the gist is: most mutations are very slightly deleterious and the overall effect on the organism is not such that it presents any survival disadvantage, and therefore is invisible to natural selection. These nearly-neutral mutations are thus building up over time in the genomes of all life, and cannot be reversed. All life will eventually go extinct due to 'mutational meltdown' or 'error catastrophe'.--Kanbei85 (talk) 18:52, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Cut all that blather next time you write to me. After wading through lots of more empty rhetorics, I fully expected you to evade and had almost decided not to read any further when I finally found at the end of the last paragraph that you actually intended to make an argument after all.
So, your argument is:
"most mutations are very slightly deleterious and the overall effect on the organism is not such that it presents any survival disadvantage, and therefore is invisible to natural selection. These nearly-neutral mutations are thus building up over time in the genomes of all life, and cannot be reversed. All life will eventually go extinct due to 'mutational meltdown' or 'error catastrophe'."
That does not hold water.
  • "most mutations are very slightly deleterious" is wrong already. Actually, most mutations are neutral. See [4].
  • The first sentence contradicts itself. A mutation by definition cannot be "deleterious" and at the same time "invisible to natural selection".
  • Also, you make a mistake very common among creationists: confusing "most mutations" with "all mutations". So, you are wilfully ignoring the part of reality that refutes your worldview - in this case, those mutations that are not among the "most".
  • "All life will eventually go extinct due to 'mutational meltdown' or 'error catastrophe'" This is a jump of logic. You concoct some weird concept about deleterious mutations that are somehow not deleterious, and abracadabra, extinction.
  • As you see from Mutational meltdown, this only happens in very small populations. In larger populations, there are enough genes without the deleterious mutations to ensure survival of the population.
  • As you can see from Error catastrophe, "To avoid error catastrophe, the amount of information lost through mutation must be less than the amount gained through natural selection".
  • Both mutational meltdown and error catastrophe are effects already known to evolutionary biologists, and they know when it happens and when it doesn't. You can't just take concepts that sound destructive to you and senselessly glue them together to make a catastrophe. Again, you are ignoring the part of reality that refutes your worldview: the "when it doesn't" part. Some populations going extinct is not enough to prevent evolution: they all need to die out to get to your desired outcome. You failed to show that mutational meltdown and error catastrophe are unavoidable.
So, you fail. But I have to say that your attempt is slightly more sophisticated than the usual creationist bullshit. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:44, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Talk Origins is an anti-creationist blog site, not a scientific source. It is not peer-reviewed. Let's get to your erroneous claims.
"Actually, most mutations are neutral."
Not according to the renowned population geneticist Motoo Kimura. See: PNAS 76:3440-3444
"A mutation by definition cannot be "deleterious" and at the same time "invisible to natural selection"."
Again that is wrong, and shows you do not understand the topic in the least. Natural selection only operates on the level of the whole organism, but mutations happen at the level of DNA code. There are many ways to make slight changes to DNA that are overwhelmingly more likely to be damaging, rather than an improvement, yet not damaging enough to affect reproduction in the overall organism. There are many more ways to break a complex machine than there are ways to improve upon it; that is why we have to study to become engineers, rather than just doing it at random. See above reference, as well as chapters 2 and 4 of Genetic Entropy by Sanford.
"You concoct some weird concept about deleterious mutations that are somehow not deleterious, and abracadabra, extinction."
I did not concoct any of these concepts. You could have even tried simply Googling the terms.
"In larger populations, there are enough genes without the deleterious mutations to ensure survival of the population."
Size is relative to time. Larger populations are small on a long enough timescale! Since these mutations are gradually building up over time and are not capable of being weeded out by the ham-handed process of 'natural selection', which cannot "see" genetics but only brute results in reproduction, on a long enough timescale the mutations will overwhelm any size of population. See Chapter 10, Genetic Entropy.
"the amount of information lost through mutation must be less than the amount gained through natural selection"
That is a bizarre statement to say the least, since anyone who understands natural selection will tell you that it can only act on already-existing information! Natural selection is not a creative process. See "Muddy Waters", for a creationist source on this, or "Misconceptions" for an evolutionist source.
"You failed to show that mutational meltdown and error catastrophe are unavoidable."
I never attempted to fully "show" that. I was giving you the gist of Sanford's argument, which is based on known facts of science published in the secular journals over the years. To get the full explanation of why that is so, you need to read Sanford's work for yourself. Basener and Sanford's paper is a powerful confirmation of the arguments made in Genetic Entropy.
--Kanbei85 (talk) 12:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Talk Origins is an anti-creationist blog site - If you were a bit smarter than you are, you would have seen that the talk.origins page gives high-quality sources for the things it says. Look at the sources.
  • Not according to the renowned population geneticist Motoo Kimura The link you gave does not seem to justify that claim. The abstract does not say anything about the actual number of neutral mutations and whether they are more or less common than other mutations.
  • If a change is overwhelmingly more likely to be damaging, then by definition, it is not invisible to natural selection. By no amount of sophisms you will get around that. Either the mutation is bad, thus causing natural selection to set in, or it is not.
  • "You could have even tried simply Googling the terms" Which terms? "Slightly deleterious"? "Survival disadvantage"? "Deleterious mutations that are somehow not deleterious"? You are supposed to give an argument, not a fill-in-the-word riddle with whole sentences missing and the footnote "google it".
  • Larger populations are small on a long enough timescale! This is bullshit. Large is small, black is white, and true is false?
  • Since these mutations are gradually building up over time and are not capable of being weeded out by the ham-handed process of 'natural selection' - This is based on the earlier assumption that somehow bad mutations can hide from natural selection until it is too late for the population to save itself. You still have not given any evidence of that... one moment. Are you by any chance talking about the late 19th century misunderstanding of maladaptation? The WP article says: "Note that the concept of maladaptation, as initially discussed in a late 19th-century context, is based on a flawed view of evolutionary theory."
  • That is a bizarre statement - so you are saying the Wikipedia article Error catastrophe is wrong. OK, let's look at that. I will ignore your creationist source, for obvious unreliability reasons (if I accepted creationist sources at face value, it would be easy to hoodwink me). Your "evolutionist source" does not say what you claim it says. It refutes some misunderstandings that have nothing to do with the sentence I quoted. At least I can see no connection between them. Maybe you are hallucinating? Which sentence is supposed to refute what I quoted?
  • a powerful confirmation of the arguments made Oh? I only want one argument. What you gave me is a confused jumble of self-contradictory claims, boasting, non-sequiturs, and baseless accusations of ignorance. Maybe you are just bad at explaining. But I don't believe it.
So it comes down to "read this paper, read this website". That is what I said from the start I do not want. I wanted a coherent argument which is not based on rookie mistakes. You could not give me that: Your answers to my responses are incoherent and illogical. At least two of the sources you gave do not say what you claim they say. You failed. I am not surprised. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:58, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
This is an interesting Catch-22 you've created. You want me to show you the facts, but if I attempt to do so by referencing anything, you claim I am not giving you a "coherent argument" and just trying to get you go "read this paper". Well, sorry, but if you are not interested in reading anything or educating yourself, it's plain this is a very pointless conversation with an individual who is hopelessly biased and uneducated, and intends to remain so. Since you refuse to read any sources that you don't already agree with, you are locked in an Echo Chamber. Disappointing to say the least.--Kanbei85 (talk) 13:06, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
No Catch-22. A coherent argument can be given, if one exists. When I could easily check whether what you say checks out, namely with the Kimura link and the Misconceptions link, the links did not say what you claimed they did. When I showed you that they did not, you just ignored that. So, you fully met the expectations I already had from dozens of other individuals: creationists are really bad at making sense; they distort sources, they invent stupid non-sequiturs, they use unreliable sources, and when you point out the stupid mistakes they base their argument on, they change the subject.
Of course I want reliable sources, and creationist sources are not reliable, for the reasons given in the paragraph just above this one. You tried to bluff me by randomly using links to justify your claims, but I actually looked up some of the links and found they did not say what you claimed they did. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

You claim to have read Kimura and found it did not support my statements. However, I have also read Kimura, and I can say with certainty that you have not understood it. Did you just skim the abstract? Look for Kimura's distribution of mutational effects. Do you see any that have a 0 effect? No, the vast majority of mutations, according to Kimura, have a very slight negative effect. This is also according to simple logic. There are many more ways to slightly damage a working machine than there are ways to improve upon it; and furthermore, if you have a finely-tuned machine, such as we see in life, making random changes to it is very likely to be disadvantageous. Step outside your rigid Darwinian thinking for a moment and apply some common sense. When you dismiss all creationist sources from the outset as unreliable, you are simply begging the question and admitting you have no interest in learning anything more or possibly changing your mind on the issue. It's closed-minded. I hope for your own sake you'll reconsider this attitude.--Kanbei85 (talk) 13:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

The source you gave was the abstract, so I read the abstract. How should I know you meant something else? When a scientist gives a source for what he says, he includes the page number, in order to spare the recipient the work of searching for the relevant part. So I am supposed to find a library which has that paper? That would take hours. I am not willing to waste that time based on what a creationist says. I have discussed you people for decades, I have seen only misrepresentation and lies and stupidity. As a consequence, I would not trust you with correctly giving the color of the sky.
Your "simple logic" is bad, and your "common sense" too. See Molecular clock: there are lots of neutral mutations that change the protein sequences only slightly so the function of the protein stays the same, and that can be used to measure the degree of kinship of different species. There is no "logical" reason why detrimental mutations should be more common than neutral ones. It may be that they are, and it may be that Kimura says that they are, but I will not believe that based on your word - see above.
"When you dismiss all creationist sources from the outset as unreliable, you are simply begging the question" Wrong. When a creationist says something, how do you know if it is true? Where does he get it? Either from a (reliable or unreliable) source or by his own research. If he gets it from a source, by my experience, it is always either another creationist (unreliable source) or it is a crude and obvious misrepresentation of a reliable source that can be debunked by just looking at the original source and comparing. If it is his own research, again by my experience, the research contains several rookie mistakes. The unreliability of creationist sources is an empirical fact.
If you are right, there is no way the only possible source is a creationist publication. A capable scientist, when asked to justify a true statement, can do it by reproducing, in a simplified way, the chain of logic that led to it.
I noted that you ignored your misrepresentation of the Misconceptions link. Did you mean something else here too? --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:41, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
The Misconceptions link did mention that natural selection only acts on existing traits/information. That was the point I was making: it is not a creative process, and cannot add information. Only mutations could theoretically add information, but we know that random changes do not produce information. Since you say you would not trust creationists to give the color of the sky, you are hopelessly biased and not even willing to give a charitable consideration. You can find the full text of Kimura's paper online for free in PDF format. I will leave it to you to do this, but the problem is that you are seemingly not a person interested in even considering ideas other than Darwinism. That would mean I'm wasting my time discussing it with you. Best wishes.--Kanbei85 (talk) 13:47, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
The Misconceptions link does not even mention information! But now you got more into detail, I can infer that you possibly mean the sentence "Natural selection just selects among whatever variations exist in the population." That sentence is very much obviously true. But there is no way to get from there to "natural selection will tell you that it can only act on already-existing information" and to calling "the amount gained through natural selection" a "bizarre statement". I think you simply do not understand the concept of information. Selecting specific traits and destroying others generates information. It reduces entropy. I know this collides with the usual creationist misunderstanding of information, but this is a wonderful example of how creationists distort the sources they quote - by implicitly adding their own wrong ideas. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
The claim "random changes do not produce information" is a typical young-earth creationism misconception. Random changes plus selection (natural or artificial) absolutely do produce information. This is part of basic information theory taught to every freshman engineer. See [5] and [6].

I never said that tradition is faultless. I said tradition has its weight.

WP:NPOV says that all relevant views are to be presented, not merely those that conform to the most recent fashionable criticism of tradition that in fact supports the idea of "challenging the validity of randomized double-blind trials"[7]. The traditional assumption that the placebo effect is a significant one, the fact that many doctors rely on placebo effects and that many doctors prescribe homeopathy for precisely this reason, needs to have its place in this article. I see the same pattern as every time: Because I don't conform to your dogma, I am instantly being identified as hostile, other articles I use to support what I say are changed (using judgements that are not in the source used) to not support it anymore, I am sublimally warned (twice) that blocking is due if I continue my criticism, now provocative edits are being made to get me into a formal violation of rules, and then finally the issue can be settled with a block. Critic Number 2000 blocked, nothing to see here, everything is fine, go ahead, let's keep that biased article. --rtc (talk
) 11:16, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

You are not "identified as hostile", you are hostile. Calling my actions "dogmatic" is a vicious attack. So, stop whining about getting the treatment you deserve.
When you point to articles that say things that cannot be justified, the articles are corrected. That is a normal occurrence.
This does not belong on my Talk page, and I do not want you on my Talk page. If you think my reasoning on Talk:Homeopathy is wrong, respond there. If you have complaints about me, use the appropriate channels. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:36, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Many years ago, you were a fairly reasonable user. Now you have radicalized pretty badly. You should seek help to get out of that group think again and get back on the fairly reasonable track you once were on. PS: "respond there" Certainly not. That discussion has been closed and clear indication has been given that I will be blocked instantly if I ever bring up taht topic on that page again. And now you are putting the next block indicator that I get blocked should I discuss here. So what you are saying is go away, don't raise criticism, keep your mouth shut, or you will be forced to do that by being blocked. --rtc (talk) 12:53, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Actually over the last ten years improved understanding of homeopathy and the crappy studies that support it has resulted in a substantially more robust scientific consensus that it is bollocks. The UK has removed all public funding for homeopathy. Australia's review recommended the same, so did Switzerland's. Homeopathy is bollocks, and, rather like creationism or climate change, the ability to acknowledge that is a litmus test for competence to edit the article. Guy (Help!) 12:57, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
You were arguing that the placebo effect was bollocks, not homeopathy. Arguing that one has to give a statement of belief in homeopathy being bollocks in every single respect to be allowed to edit the article or even comment on it is simply the most direct indication of this sect-like group think that has evolved around the controversial Wikipedia articles heavily guarded by a small group of adherents of scientism. --rtc (talk) 13:11, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Paranoid ranting. I said I do not want you here, not that I will get you blocked if you stay. You chose to ignore my wishes and behave like an uninvited guest who does also not leave when told he is not wanted. So I will just ignore you until you leave. If you continue trying to force your attention on me, that will only lead to you making a bad impression on those who read this page.
One last tip: Wikipedia is different from ten years ago. Times change. It's their job. Get over it. Start your own 2008pedia which always stays the same, or traditionpedia where old sayings are worth more than scientific finding, or IAmRightAndAnyConflictIHaveIsAlwaysTheOtherParty'sFaultPedia. But whatever you do, don't do it on my Talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:58, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
You need to talk to someone. Perhaps you can get your former ego back. I really wish you would. --rtc (talk) 18:50, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Notice of Arbitration Committee Clarification Request

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Thanks, --Guy Macon (talk) 03:58, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

The clarification request has been archived at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Paranormal#Clarification request: Paranormal (October 2018). For the Arbitration Committee, Miniapolis 19:32, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

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Leaky Gut Syndrome

You are a piece of crap. Do you know that? What are your credentials btw? How old are you? What is your wrorldview, you dumb creature? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LKapoor (talkcontribs) 16:30, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

LOL! You made my day. Thank you, I am honored to help you expose yourself as a primitive person who is unfamiliar enough with proper reasoning, helpless enough, and clueless enough to respond in such a way. This is a wonderful addition to my Talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:38, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Such poor standards of you users here indeed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LKapoor (talkcontribs) 18:29, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Re: the above comments by LKapoor:
"The most hostile group was the one with high but unstable self esteem. These people think well of themselves in general, but their self-esteem fluctuates. They are especially prone to react defensively to ego threats, and they are also more prone to hostility, anger and aggression than other people.
"These findings shed considerable light on the psychology of the bully. Hostile people do not have low self esteem; on the contrary, they think highly of themselves, But their favorable view of themselves is not held with total conviction, and it goes up and down in response to daily events. The bully has a chip on his shoulder because he thinks you might want to deflate his favorable self image."
Source: Roy F. Baumeister, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, p 149
--Guy Macon (talk) 18:32, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Good quote Guy. Now would you check the article on Leaky Gut Syndrome and tell me if there is any derogatory or bully thing mentioned there? You people writing articles here have no knowledge of matter and writing such bad comments on the topic. Appreciate the confidence and bully nature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LKapoor (talkcontribs) 18:41, 20 November 2018 (UTC)