User talk:Logicus

Thank you for providing a source for the "some scholars" claim regarding the interpretation of Aristotle's physics. Regarding the use of Newton as a secondary source, you are correct that it is technically a secondary source. However, it is also a primary source in this context, because it is centrally related to the interpretation of Newton's work and whether, or in what ways, it was revolutionary. I think common sense dictates that Scientific Revolution should rely on modern (i.e., 20th century) secondary sources, since the concept of a scientific revolution is a modern concept. Incidentally, we don't even have an article yet on Aristotelian physics, which would perhaps be the best place for a discussion/presentation of Newton's interpretation of Artistotle (and one where the use of Newton as a secondary source probably would be appropriate).--ragesoss 16:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Well thanks for this and the thanks. As I pointed out the Newton can be both primary source and secondary source depending on the proposition whose truth is being determined, but the context here is the nature of Aristotle's physics, not Newton's, and so it is secondary.

The crucial educational importance of Newton's text is that unlike anybody else he realises one must abstract from the gravity of bodies to enable a logically valid comparison between his and Aristotle's dynamics that observes the same initial conditions, and he identifies the only two passages in which Aristotle does so, in Physics and in Heavens.

But 'modern' cannot mean 20th century because the concept of a scientific revolution in mechanics goes back at least to Mach and Duhem in the 19th century, and in fact I suspect stems from positivist-Enlightenment anti-Aristotelianism, a thesis of the total overthrow of Aristotelian philosophy as a feudal relic. There is an argument that it stems from Descartes, but the card-carrying Aristotelian Newton routed the Cartesian mechanist anti-Aristotle revolution.

Wikipedia is notably rabidly ani-Aristotelian, although not that I am pro, but only for fair play. Logicus 16:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

moving forward

Logicus, I recommend that we do not dwell on accusations of bad faith, etc. Instead, let's be systematic about reaching a consensus; I think it is much easier to keep everyone involved and positive if we only work on one point of contention at a time, lest everyone get frustated and continue reading past each other. I've started a section on the talk page for us to work out the Ancient and medieval background part, where I believe the conflict is more over misinterpretation than disagreement. Baby steps.- ragesoss

This is an inequitable and unacceptable proposal. Whilst you apparently refuse to withdraw your allegations against me of NOR and DE breaches and Ancheta Wis seemed to suggest I was in Bad Faith, why must I not raise the issue of McCluskey's Bad Faith ? Logicus 18:17, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm suggesting that we ignore previous assumption of bad faith (and disruptive editing) that seem to have gone all around, and start treating each other's arguments with respect and assumptions of good faith from here on out. With respect to Original Research, it still seems to me that what you were proposing probably constituted OR; however, the earlier discussions were very broad and the frequent misunderstandings of each others intentions mean that I (and SteveMcClusky) may have been mistaken. The only way forward I see is to set those bigger issues aside for now, and go systematically through the article, one issue at a time, until we find out where each disagreement lies. If we focus on content and bring our collective literature resources to bear on each issue, everything else will take care of itself or become irrelevant.

All three of us agree that the purpose of the "ancient and medieval background" section (other titles could be entertained) is to describe the state of knowledge just before the Sci Rev. If (after SteveMcCluskey's latest suggestions) you still feel that section is totally off track, compose an alternative that fulfills that function and we'll discuss that.--ragesoss 20:39, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for comments

Thanks for your comments on my talk page, but it is more convenient if we keep our discussions on a single forum in Talk:Scientific Revolution --SteveMcCluskey 19:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Aristotelian physics

Logicus: much of your objections to Scientific Revolution content stems from your views of what Aristotelian physics was. Note that Wikipedia does not even have an article on Aristotelian physics yet (it's just a redirect to Aristotle). This could be a great way for you to organize your argument about what it; since you seem to be familiar with a variety of scholarly interpretations, perhaps you could create this article, describing Aristotelian physics in general. Then we can get a better understanding of how to incorporate your viewpoint into the Scientific Revolution article. (And yes, I have more than 1 bookshelf as well as access to a good library. In fact, I browsed through the Q125's the other day looking for alternate dating schemes: nearly all are consistent with "the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries". Also, in Essential Tension, Kuhn clearly distinguishes "the Scientific Revolution" from the 1300-1900 revolution you've been referring to. Kuhn even uses scare quotes to emphasize that he doesn't agree with earlier historians about the significance or name of it, but he recognizes it as a relatively well-defined thing. That thing is the subject of Scientific revolution.) --ragesoss 19:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

A break from Sci Rev

Logicus, I've been taking a break from it because I don't have time to do the sourcing and writing and discussing to make further progress on the article, at least for the near future. I think Steve is also overwhelmed with meat-space responsibilities; I certainly plan on returning to it (probably in February), and I think Steve does too. It's never been in great shape (and it's never been particularly coherent), but it's better now than it has been; like most articles on Wikipedia, no "work in progress" notice is necessary, as everything is to some degree a work in progress. While I am almost inclined to agree that a blank page would be less confusing for readers at the moment, that's not really an option on WP (considered the number of people who have some sort of stake in the article).--ragesoss 21:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Please see my reply on Ragesoss's talk page.--SteveMcCluskey 00:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Kepler

Logicus, I actually just replaced the Caspar quote with some info from Gingerich's Dictionary of Scientific Biography article; it's more informative, and still conveys how influential Epitome was without the objectionable aspects of the Caspar quote. But feel free to improve/replace that as you see fit with the material from Koyre. I moved the Koyre book back to "Further reading" because the top section is for works cited in the text, but obviously we can move it back we actually use material from Koyre. As for the technical instability, it's almost certainly a caching issue with your browser. Occasionally Wikipedia has weird problems, but that's rare. If you are using Internet Explorer, press F5 when you want to be sure of the current version; that should clear the cache and force it to refresh properly.

Deyyaz simply took it upon himself to review the Kepler article and certify it as a "Good Article", which anyone is free to do (on articles that one is not heavily involved in editing); see Wikipedia:Good articles. It's a pretty arbitrary designation, meant to separate articles that, while not Featured, at least have some sources and seem generally like legitimate content (as opposed to the majority of articles).--ragesoss 19:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

A new article

Logicus, you might be interested in the new article Continuity thesis.--ragesoss 18:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding your refresh problems, it sounds like your computer is giving you trouble. The only thing I can suggest is to make sure your browser is updated, or better yet, switch to Firefox.--ragesoss 18:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Kepler quotes

Iustinus Logico s.p.d.,

Happy new year to you too. It's been a while since we've encountered each other, so I'm glad to see you got a real account: I don't always agree with you, but you have been an invaluable contributor. I have a PDF of Astronomia Nova as well, and although I see that Part Four starts on page 215 in my copy as well, I cannot find this quote anywhere on that page. Here is my attempt at a translation (I confess that I wasn't sure what he was getting at in a lot of places):

Pars Quarta: Investigatio verae mensurae primae inaequalitatis ex causis physicis et propriae sententia. Quae tertia parte demonstrata sunt, ad omnes planetas pertinet: unde non injuria clavis astronomiae penitioris dici possunt. Quam tanto magis gaudere debemus inventum, quanto certius est nulla alla ratione investigare potuisse, praeterquam per stellae Martis observationes.

Part Four: Investigation of the true measure of the first inequality, from physical causes, and the opinion of itself(??). Those things which were shown in the third part pertain to all the planets, whence they can not unjustly be called "The Key to Deeper Astronomy." How much more we should rejoice that it has been discovered, the more certain it is that [someone] could not investigate it by any other method than by observations of Mars!

The panis quadragesimalis diagram.

• Definite typos: alla should read alia
• Possible typos: sententia (does it really end with -a?), investigare (could it be investigari?)

Some other relevant quotes of which I happen to know already, are found on page 4:

RVRSVM autem animadversum est, hos uniuscujusque Plantetæ spirarum articulos in diversis zodiaci signis esse inæquales...

But again it is noticed , that these joints(?) in the coils of each planets, in various signs of the zodiac, are unequal...

More importantly, in the small text surrounding the famous Panis quadragesimalis diagram:

Similes autem spiras cogimur etiam quatuor reliquis asscribere,& Veneri quidem multo perpexiores..."

But we are forced to ascribe similar coils also to the four remaining planets, and to Venus in particular very complicated ones.

To me at least, this seems to imply that he had done at least cursory research on the other planets, but limited the detailed discussions of the data to Mars, by way of example. Of course, I don't have time to read through the whole book to figure this out. --Iustinus 00:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, actually, I forgot you were concerned specifically with ellipticity, so those quotes may not be relevant. Oh well. --Iustinus 01:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

My knowledge of AN does not extend much beyond what you see here. BUt I seem to recall seeing a passage where he talks specifically about elipses (because I remember some sort of phrasiology like "Not circular, but defective along the sides", which, I believe, is a literal translation of elipsis. If I have time, I'll see if I can track that, or some other helpful passage down. But I can't promise anything, because of course to read through AN would take forever, and I have a lot on my plate right now. --Iustinus 19:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, the quote I was thinking of turns out the be the first sentence on my version of page 215:

CVM PRIMVM in hunc modum certissimis BRAHEI observationibus edoctus essem, Orbitam PLANETÆ non esse circularem exacte sed deficere a lateribus; e vestigio & causam naturalem hujus deflexionis me scire sum arbitratus. Eram enim in materia capite XXXIX vehementer exercitus. Et admoneo lectorem, ut priusquam hic progrediatur, caput illud integrum diligenter relegat.

"When I had first been informed in this manner by the most certain observations of Brahe, that a Planet's prbit is not exactly circular, but is deficient on the sides; from this clue I judged that I also knew the natural cause of this deflection. For I was greatly agitated (or "trained") by the material in chapter 39. And I advise the reader that before he continues here, he should diligently reread that entire chapter."

So that gives us some clues as to where the information you seek is located. --Iustinus 20:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

RfC

Logicus:

A Request for Comment on your editing on Kepler and Scientific Revolution has been opened at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Logicus.

Please give your perspective on the events described in the Response section of the RfC.

I hope we can resolve this to arrive at a productive atmosphere in the History of science articles.

--SteveMcCluskey 14:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

After more than 17 months, McCluskey and Ragesoss have very notably failed to find any formal support whatever for their undocumented and unproven patently mistaken RfC charges of Disruptive Editing and of Original Research against Logicus in his editing of the two articles Kepler and Scientific Revolution.

Logicus has intentionally not commented on their accusations to date. This was at least in order not to deter any potential support for their charges. And so, a fortiori, their failure to find any support for their allegations by now surely implies that at least nobody else has seen any justice nor proven truth in them sufficient to publicly support them, even without Logicus demonstrating their falsity and injustice in detail.

To the very contrary of what McCluskey and Ragesoss allege, the documentably evident fact is that Logicus is a significantly Productive Wikipedia Editor whose many productive editorial contributions to Wikipedia articles include having provided almost half of the current bibliography of the Kepler article cited in which this specific RfC altercation arose, in addition to contributing many hitherto accepted edits or amendments in it concerned with correcting the historical factual misrepresentations of Kepler advanced by other editors and their illogical conclusions, especially Ragesoss and McCluskey. Similarly Logicus has made many productive contributions to the Scientific Revolution article cited in the allegations.

More generally beyond these two articles, contrary to the opinion of McCluskey and Ragesoss, User:Iustinus, the rather more appreciative Editor of the Latin Wikipedia - Latin notably being renowned as a very logical language - has wholly unprompted said of Logicus's editing in his comments immediately above:

"I'm glad to see you got a real account: I don't always agree with you, but you have been an invaluable contributor."

Most certainly Logicus has never engaged in any Disruptive Editing as Wikipedia defined, nor in Original Research as Wikipedia defined to the best of his knowledge, and to date, in spite of their cavalier accusations, McCluskey and Ragesoss have notably failed to demonstrate a single example of either practice, in spite of their voluminous but probatively inconsequential exegesis on these supposed sins of Logicus in their opinion in their most unfortunate RfC submission.

By way of further comment on a likely explanation of how these mistaken charges arise, Logicus notes that the mistaken charge of Original Research has only been made against him by editors such as McCluskey and Administrator Ragesoss possibly because they seem evidently insufficiently familiar with the pertinent literature of subjects on which they seem to regard themselves as experts, or at least as more knowledgeable than Logicus. This unfamiliarity seems to consist either of not having read it at all in many cases, or of having misread it without sufficient logical attention or competence to infer logically valid summary interpretations of it, rather than their logically invalid interpretations, conclusions and summaries of it, which thereby constitute OR, whether intentional or not. Many examples can be given of this error on the part of McCluskey, Ragesoss and others, however unintended.

Thus it seems they tend to mistake for original research either Logicus's representations of other points of view to be found in the literature they are either unfamiliar with or possibly do not wish to report because they clash with their biassed point of view, or else mistake Logicus's simple corrections of other editors' logically invalid interpretations or expressions of what literature they have read for original research.

As Logicus sees it, obstinate refusal to stand corrected in the face of Logicus's restorations of unjustified reverts of his corrections then leads to such editors getting themselves worked up into a paddy and making untenable wild accusations of Original Research and Disruptive Editing against what is in fact potentially corrective Productive Editing for improving Wikipedia.

However, in the last instance Logicus recognises the rules of Wikipedia seem to be radically confused and confusing from a logical point of view, whereby in addition to the fact that like all of us Logicus is far from infallible, it may be that he could be reasonably construed as having committed original research somewhere amongst his many contributions. But so far as he is aware, nobody has ever demonstrated he has to date. In this context, for an example of Logicus's rebuttal of an unsubstantiated assertion of such, see Logicus's contribution of 10 July 2008 to User talk:Deor for his rebuttal of User:Deor's allegation of such in respect of Logicus's proposed discussion of impetus dynamics in the Celestial spheres article, entitled "Logicus refutes Deor's accusations of irrelevancy and Original Research in 'Celestial spheres' ".

--Logicus (talk) 17:29, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't unilaterally add original research to articles

Please make your case at Talk:Bayesian probability before adding an unsourced theory to an article. See WP:5P for our policies, and our emphasis on consensus. Repeated addition of unsourced material could lead to full protection for this article. If no-one but you believes this is a fatal problem, you should publish it elsewhere, not in Wikipedia. EdJohnston 19:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

These comments of Johnston’s are quite inappropriate and unfairly biassed inasmuch as this article is replete with unsourced theories, as explicitly heralded at the top of its first page. So why did Johnston not delete these first, before deleting Logicus's addition ? Moreover nor was that addition original research, as demonstrated by the references to Howson & Urbach 1993 and to Watkins 1984 subsequently supplied, but which Johnston refused to accept without good reason. [See the article’s Talk page of 11 August following ]. A main reason why other bullish editors like Johnston sometimes make false accusations of Wiki-original research against Logicus’s attempted contributions is apparently their own inadequate knowledge of the literature/subject and invalid logical analyses of the contents of what they are familiar with. Presumably this all unfortunately contributes to the bad reputation of Wikipedia for reliability. And this raises the question of Johnston's status. In referring to "our policies", does this mean he owns Wikipedia or is a Wikipedia employee ? --Logicus 18:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Logicus, re this edit [1] at Talk:Bayesian probability and re your comment above: Your comment at Talk:Bayesian probability is rather long. Please try to keep your comments on article talk pages reasonably short. Consider that taking up space has a cost in the time of other editors who must read it or scroll past it multiple times when looking for other stuff. In some situations it's a good idea to wait 24 hours before posting. Using preview and editing and shortening your comments is also a good idea. Use of capital letters gives an emotional tone to a message; it's better to stick to calm, logical facts. Remarking about another editor's use of the word "we" is not productive. Try to stick to comments about the subject matter, i.e. what the article should say, rather than about editors and their particular choice of words. Re your comment above: please review WP:NPA. It's a good idea to hesitate greatly before applying any adjective at all to another editor. "bullish" doesn't sound much like a compliment to me. There's no need to make vague remarks about "inadequate knowledge". Just calmly supply the missing information for the particular cases you're interested in. If an anlysis is logically invalid, then present a counter-argument; again there's no need for vague remarks about it. To learn more about editing our encyclopedia and about who "owns" it, see Wikipedia:Introduction and the various policy and guideline pages. --Coppertwig 22:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

In reply to your comment at Talk:Bayesian probability: I didn't say that you use capital letters in order to indicate emotion. What I mean is that, whether you intend it or not, capital letters will often generate an emotional impression in others. If it happens around the same time that you've been applying adjectives to another editor, or applying to another editor's edits or behaviour adjectives or adverbs of a type that are usually applied to people not things, it's even more likely to be interpreted emotionally rather than as a calm clarification of a logical point. Italics or bold, when used for emphasis, have the same problem, italics perhaps to a lesser extent. I hope italics when used to set off quotations don't suffer from the same problem, since I use them frequently in that way. --Coppertwig 15:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Please comment about article content, not about editors.

Re this edit: [2] especially this bit: "whose expressions of his American pragmatist 'red-neck' attitudes ": please carefully re-read WP:NPA. I don't want to see this kind of remark about a Wikipedian editor. --Coppertwig 18:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Re this edit: [3] Please try to keep your posts on article talk pages shorter and more directly related to article content. A list of reliable sources and relevant quotes from them would be useful; a short statement that it would be good to have such quotes is OK; but a long message to say that it would be good to have quotes from sources takes up too much space.

Tautologies are useful in making predictions. For example, in the process of making a prediction one might carry out an algebraic calculation, and one might need to simplify an equation along the way and use a tautology such as "2x = 4y if and only if x = 2y".

Just in case you're considering it, please also avoid long messages on my talk page. --Coppertwig 18:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Please review WP:NPA

Re your message on my talk page:

Apparently the phrase "a prejudiced rat" is intended to refer to some specific Wikipedian. I ask you again to please review WP:NPA. Also please review Wikipedia:Avoid personal remarks. Please do not put those sorts of remarks about any Wikipedian on my talk page. Please don't put them anywhere on Wikipedia. I ask you again not to put long messages on my talk page. I ask you again not to use capital letters for emphasis due to the emotional tone such usage tends to generate.

If you want to discuss article content, please discuss it in an appropriate manner at the article talk page, not on my talk page, Logicus. If you want to discuss math, philosophy etc., I'm sorry I'm not interested in discussing that with you at this time. I might at some future time after a period of time has passed after you've started complying with my reasonable requests. --Coppertwig 23:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for giving me some things to think about in terms of how to improve my own behaviour.

If the reason for your earlier comment is as you suggest it might be, then it could be a violation of WP:POINT. --Coppertwig 16:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

You may be interested in my comment at User talk:BenE#Welcome to Bayesian probability. --Coppertwig 14:55, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Inertia

Regarding this edit. Yes, thanks for correcting me there. It was at least partially my error, and I should have paid closer attention to what I was doing. My sole focus at the time of the edit was to restate the sentence in a way that the "most commonly defined" bit would not require attribution. However, I took at face value the earlier sentence, which asserted that inertia was defined via the first law [4]. Thanks for catching it. Silly rabbit (talk) 21:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for acknowledging. I also suggest the Definition 3 quote should be from the latest English translation, Cohen & Whitman 1999, which I recall I did once post up here a while ago. --Logicus (talk) 14:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Whiteside

A published obituary can't just be posted without violating copyright, but it can be used as the source to write a biography. If you want to get it started, I'd be happy to help out, or I'll give it a shot myself when I have the time.--ragesoss (talk) 20:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Venus diagram

I drew Image:Phases-of-Venus.svg based on image:Phasesofvenus.jpg. I'm not all that familiar with the terms you just mentioned, but if there is a diagram online somewhere, it could be replicated. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Celestial spheres

I've responded on the article's talk page. That page is on my watchlist, so there's no need for you to post messages both there and on my user talk page. Deor (talk) 16:34, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Parallax

FYI, I've replied at Talk:parallax; please reply there. (I've refrained from reverting your edit for the time being to give editors some time to find a source to support your edit.) ASHill (talk | contribs) 17:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Celestial spheres redux

I'm going to revert your additions and deletions once again. Repeatedly adding material that is not relevant to the article's topic and, in essence, constitutes an original synthesis of material in primary sources is disruptive and impermissible in Wikipedia. Any further disruption at this article will be brought up at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, as you have repeatedly attempted to insert your original research and personal interpretations of historical sources into multiple articles. This is an encyclopedia that relies on information gleaned from secondary sources, not a forum for posting what appears to individuals to be "logically" inferrable from the historical record. Deor (talk) 18:31, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Please be civil

Logicus, please take care to treat other editors with respect. Steve McCluskey, myself, and now Deor have all at times been frustrated by edits from you that seem to us to promote idiosyncratic historical interpretations and/or original synthesis. But personal denigration, such as your characterizations of Deor in this edit, will not be tolerated.--ragesoss (talk) 01:22, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

You have posted the following text on my User Talk page

"Please be civil

Logicus, please take care to treat other editors with respect. Steve McCluskey, myself, and now Deor have all at times been frustrated by edits from you that seem to us to promote idiosyncratic historical interpretations and/or original synthesis. But personal denigration, such as your characterizations of Deor in this edit, will not be tolerated.--ragesoss (talk) 01:22, 6 July 2008 (UT "

Might I respectfully suggest you should be more concerned with admonishing Deor for his outrageously dictatorial and grossly mistaken claim that material on the impetus dynamics of the celestial spheres is irrelevant to the article on the spheres and his repeated deletions of such educational material contributed by Logicus ?

Also note how other users, such as Coffeewhite recently for example, find Deor's uncivil deleting arrogance unacceptable. His irritating invention of spurious rules and dictatorial pronouncements of what he imagines to be Wikipedia policy as though he owned the company or were a member of staff would be amusing if he did not also take the timewasting liberty of deleting material without rational justification. Please do beware of siding with this quasi McCluskey sockpuppet against Logicus ! --Logicus (talk) 01:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus, I have not taken any sides regarding the content dispute at celestial spheres, since I haven't been following the discussion closely. But derogatory personal comments are always unacceptable on Wikipedia.--ragesoss (talk) 01:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

But you have very clearly taken sides in respect of berating what you arguably misrepresent as intolerable derogatory personal comments by Logicus, but do not condemn those of Deor against Logicus on the Talk page and in User Talk. Moreover you fail to say why Logicus's characterisation of Deor as imperious, arrogant and mistaken in his personal criticisms of Logicus's good faith contributions is incorrect or intolerable rather than simply true, and needs to be said.--Logicus (talk) 18:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Deor, from what I've seen, limits his comments to discussion of your edits, without extrapolating to negative personal comments. If Deor has also been engaging in personal attacks, please let me know where, as those would be equally as unacceptable as your own. In any case, please refrain from personal attacks (see Wikipedia:No personal attacks).--ragesoss (talk) 18:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but having re-read both the 'No personal attacks' reference you give and also the Wiki article on 'Personal attack', it is now unclear to me I have made any personal attack on Deor in that text in which you claim I do, rather than just 'limiting my comments to discussion of his edits and comments' such as "Deor's latest arrogant imperious mistaken comments". Nor do I substitute these pejorative descriptions of his comments for rational objective criticism of them to substantiate these descriptions, unlike the Wikipedia definition of Personal attack ["...a personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when examining another person's claims or comments."], since I always give objective evidence of my criticism. So perhaps you would be kind enough to enlighten me by explaining where exactly, if anywhere, you think I have made a personal attack on Deor, and why it constitutes such on Wikipedia rules. It seems such clarificatory guidance on what constitutes personal attack is required before I can possibly comply with your request to let you know where Deor has made personal attacks, if anywhere.--Logicus (talk) 16:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello, again, Logicus. Ragesoss asked me to comment here. I know nothing about the content dispute at celestial spheres. I'm only commenting based on this thread on this talk page.

I would like to point out to you this exerpt from WP:NPA: "Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done When in doubt, comment on the article's content without referring to its contributor at all." (emphasis in the original). I suggest that a good way to tell whether something is insulting or disparaging is to ask whether a typical person would feel insulted or hurt if that comment were directed at them. It can be hard to answer this question objectively when one is emotionally involved in a situation, so if in doubt it can be a good idea to ask someone to look over your message before posting; I do that sometimes. You might also get some useful tips from my essay User:Coppertwig/Techniques for handling emotions when editing.

Logicus, if you like, I'm willing to explain to you why this comment by you to Deor would be considered uncivil by many people. I'm also willing to give you suggestions about how to accuse someone else of incivility while minimizing the chance that someone will consider your comment in which you do that to be uncivil itself. Please let me know whether you're interested in this information and suggestions. I'll watch for replies here. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus to Coppertwig: My dear fellow, if you wish to be of help here, the most useful thing you could possibly do would be to try and help poor tongue-tied Ragesoss to say what specific item(s) of my text he cites he claims is/are a Wiki Personal Attack on Deor. My repeated efforts to get him to do so have failed so far. Why is he so coy about it that he even tries to pass the buck to you rather than speak up for himself, one wonders. The unfortunate impression this leaves is that his allegations of PA have no substance in Wiki policy/rules, as nor do your own observations to date. Let us hope you can do somewhat better than you did in Bayesian Probability discussions.☺ --Logicus (talk) 14:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Dear Logicus: In response to the above post, I've given a message to Ragesoss (RS) on Ragesoss' user talk page. Meanwhile, note that these parts of your above post: "tongue-tied" and "Why is he so coy about it that he even tries to pass the buck to you rather than speak up for himself, one wonders," are the type of thing I meant when I quoted policy above, "...comment on the article's content without referring to its contributor at all." ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 17:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Logicus, the specific comments you made about Deor that constitute personal attacks include:

• "Should User Deor be banned from meddling with Wikipedia articles because of his severe anti-educational tendency."
• "Imperious User Deor has elected to set himself up as Police Constable Wikipedian who polices Wikipedia and reports breaches of what he imagines to be its rules and breaches of its rules to its administrators. Here we present Deor's latest arrogant imperious mistaken comments posted to Logicus's User Talk page for everybody to read"

As Coppertwig notes, things like "poor tongue-tied Ragesoss" skirt the border of personal attacks as well.--ragesoss (talk) 18:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Ragesoss' assessment. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:23, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Logicus

How's it going. Thank you for the thoughtful message. Let's examine some of these statements:

In their futile experiments, they did manage to discover new metal alloys, porcelain types, and dyes.

I don't think the use of "futile" here is entirely negative or sinophobic; I think anyone in our modern times would agree that a pursuit for the elixir of life or turning other elements into gold would be quite futile! :P If that word still sticks out in your mind as being inappropriate, you may reword the sentence as you like. As for your suggested statement:

Chinese thinkers of the Middle Ages proposed some scientifically progressive hypotheses.

I think it would be a step in the right direction, so I would not be opposed to that at all. Every advanced culture in the (European) Middle Ages created and provided one piece for an incomplete puzzle that would flower later into modern science. However, how do we deal with Mr. Toby E. Huff? He is a scholar, and his statements are there for others to judge or examine. Should they really be dismissed because he compares premodern Chinese science with modern science? One could point out the faults of this (as you already have), so if a proper citation can't be found to quickly refute him, his statement may be removed and used later if necessary (and in the right context). However, how do we deal with Yang Hui's statement of criticism for Chinese before him who failed to explicitly state a theoretical base or origins for their mathematical work?

Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:07, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments on Thomas Settle and Stillman Drake

Thank you for your appreciative remarks about my comments on Thomas Settle and Stillman Drake on my talk page. But the mere fact that you find them interesting and that they deal with the topic of the article on Galileo does not make them appropriate for inclusion on its talk page. According to talk page guidelines, "talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject", and should be kept on the topic of "how to improve the article." I placed my comments on my talk page because their sole purpose was to provide information about which you appeared to me to be misinformed. I was not making any suggestions as to how this information might be used to modify the article itself.

If another editor does have some ideas on how this material might be used to improve the article then of course a discussion of those ideas on the talk page would be appropriate. But until such time as that occurs, the material itself is, in my opinion, off-topic for that page.

I was therefore quite annoyed to see you copy and paste my comments from my talk page to the talk page of the article. I strongly object to having those comments, which I consider off-topic, being transferred to that talk page, and appear there above my signature. If you wish to refer to them, the most appropriate way to do so, in my opinion, would be to provide a link to them (which I have already done anyway), and possibly provide short quotations of any parts you wish to make particular comments on.

In view of all this, I propose to replace those comments of mine which you have transferred to the article's talk page with links to the appropriate places on my talk page. I would prefer to do so with your agreement, but if I don't receive it I will seek advice from WQA or 3O on the propriety of doing so without it.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 14:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Automated Translators

I'm afraid that every automated Latin translator I've ever seen has been atrociously bad. Frankly even a good one would likely be extremely faulty (even more so than they are for say German or Russian). See more of my thoughts here (to be fair there's an error in my Latin on that page). What were you interested in translating? --Iustinus (talk) 01:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Tycho Brahe#Tycho's Geo-heliocentric Astronomy

Thank you for letting me know. (This is a reply to User talk:84user#Your Tycho Brahe copy editing invitation) I have added some of my concerns to the Talk page. -84user (talk) 19:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been warned numerous times to read citations in the global warming and on that talk page, yet you insist on disruptively tagged the lead to the article. I have blocked you for 24 hours for repeated disruption. Raul654 (talk) 23:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Raul, you are an involved editor with regard to Logicus, you have been heavily involved with the article where he was allegedly being disruptive. Accordingly, your block of him is an improper use of tools, and I respectfully suggest that you unblock immediately. This is entirely aside from other improper aspects of this block, such as lack of formal warning. --Abd (talk) 04:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

(1) Being involved in the article does not a dispute with Logicus make. Your claims that the block is improper are false. (2) He's already been warned on the talk page of the article on multiple occasions. I will not be unblocking. Raul654 (talk) 04:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Raul654 replies to Logicus - http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AGlobal_warming&diff=244618130&oldid=244489949 - nothing in this is a warning;

Mishlai 20:52 Oct 10 states Your unwillingness to exert these minimal efforts leads me to believe that you are here to create a disruption, but this is not a warning either, nor is Mishlai an administrator.

Thats all I found on talk. Edit summaries -

BozMo, 18:31 Oct 14 - Undid revision 245269231 by Logicus (talk) This is borderline vandalism when you try to run against consensus, please stop

That last is the closest thing Logicus got to a warning at any point; it was included in the reversion of the edit Logicus was banned for. Jaimaster (talk) 06:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

On reflection I too suggest you reverse this block and request an admin not involved in the topic attend and warn if appropriate. I must say I came here after reading Boris' suggestion that Logicus might be RfC'd or blocked soon for his edits with intent to offer some advice; I guess I was "one edit" late. Jaimaster (talk) 06:43, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Request denied. Raul654 (talk) 07:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, this was an effort by two editors to resolve a dispute by direct discussion. That's the precondition for a user conduct RfC. Just noting it, I'm not planning on filing one, but if I were asked to do so, I might certify one, and I'd help work on it, assuming that the intransigence continues. Let's hope it doesn't. --Abd (talk) 16:00, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus, your block will have expired soon. I agree with Jaimaster's analysis. The block was not only improper because of Raul654 involvement -- he's contesting that, but I highly doubt that his position would stand up under ArbComm scrutiny if it ever comes to that --, it was procedurally improper as well, i.e., you were not properly warned. And what you'd done fell short of the level of disruption that would justify a block, in my opinion, even had you been properly warned. There were problems with your behavior, sure, but blocking you wasn't where we should start to deal with it. We should work together so that you become a more effective participant in the community. If you decide to request unblock, my suggestion is to simply ask for an independent review, do not make long arguments. Keep it simple. Your block is not an emergency, and it, and Raul654's subsequent responses, may turn out to be very foolish moves on his part and to have no long-term consequences for you, if you simply do nothing. If you were to, for example, become uncivil and tendentious, it could complicate the situation. Watch. This could get "interesting." --Abd (talk) 15:56, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I must reinforce one of Abd's points - if you choose to persue an unblock template, be consise and to the point in your statement. While I personally enjoy flowerly reasoned discourse and eloberate depth to arguments, it is a simple fact that the most common response to such is TL,DR. If your comments are not 'Too Long', people wont be as inclined to 'Didnt Read'. Jaimaster (talk) 21:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

It should be moot now, the block has expired so soon -- if not already -- that it would be rude to ask for an admin's time to gain a few minutes of editing. Sometimes, Logicus, an IP "autoblock" hangs around a while, I don't know much. I hit one of those the first time I was blocked (in error), I put up a request to be unblocked and it was done immediately. --Abd (talk) 23:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Use of {{fact}} template

Thank you for your invitation to clarify the passage on Soto in the article Galileo Galilei. However, please do not add a {{fact}} template to a claim for which a source has already been provided. The purpose of that template is to request a citation. Applying it to a claim for which an allegedly reliable source has already been cited is apt to confuse or even irritate other editors and lead to conflict. If you want to flag problems which you believe remain even after a citation has been provided, there are a variety of other templates you can use for that purpose. Given your explanation of the problems you perceive in the passage in question, the {{Clarifyme}} template would appear to have been the most appropriate one for your purpose. I have therefore taken the liberty of substituting this for the {{fact}} template you originally inserted in the article. Your template also appeared to me to be in the wrong place—before, instead of immediately after, the piece of text you were querying—so I have also put the replacement in what would seem to be its correct place.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 14:07, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus to David J Wilson:Thank you for this editorial opinion and advice. However, at least from what I know of Wikipedia policy, I do not necessarily agree with your view of appropriate 'fact' tagging edit policy. When the sources given for claims made do not ostensibly verify them and/or are suspect for whatever reason, or even falsify them, it seems to me quite reasonable and appropriate to tag them with the 'fact' template to request the provision of a directly verifying quotation either from the source given, in compliance with footnotes 1 & 2 of Wikipedia:Verifiability policy, or else for the provision of some other verifying source, and ideally along with a verifying quotation from that source. Or rather reasonable at least if it is made clear in a discussion of the reason for 'fact' tagging provided in Talk exactly what is being requested and why, or else made clear in the Edit Summary, and which I believe I have always provided when inserting the 'fact' template.

This was a case where the citation provided may not verify the claim made, and so as I explained in Talk, I was requesting a source that does

"Immediately I flag the de Soto claim for a source that he claimed gravitational free-fall would be uniformly accelerated."

and also said in the Edit Summary

“Citation flagged because text creates impression de Soto claimed free-fall is uniformly accelerated, needs clarification/confirmation)”

Thus in short, I can see no good reason why such editorial practice should confuse or even irritate other editors and lead to conflict, unless of course they simply do not read the Edit Summary or Talk explanations, but which is of course thoroughly unreasonable and unacceptable. However as the above 'Blocking' case suggests, sadly it seems there are such.

Nor do I think the 'clarify me' template is more appropriate than the 'fact' template in such cases, at least because it does not explicitly request a quotation or citation where this is what is crucially needed. I regard it rather as intended for requesting the clarification of gobbledegook or ambiguities or whatever, rather than for requesting the specific provision of some verifying citation.

However, having said all this I would be only too willing to learn from you if there is some more appropriate template for requesting verifying citations/quotations when those given are not such, or are at least suspect. But otherwise I am minded to continue with my current practice, which I hope you will now accept as possibly best practice in view of my analysis here. As you may be aware, to date this practice of mine has unearthed many cases in Wikipedia history of science articles where the sources given either did not verify claims made, or even falsified them. But of course such malpractice is by no means confined to Wikipedia, for it is a widespread fact that academics and others weave fantastical narrative fairy-tales out of both primary and secondary sources that in fact do not verify them and even falsify them.

But now just having checked out your reference to other possible tags, I do wonder if the ‘Citequote’ or ‘Failed verification’ tags might possibly be more appropriate for these situations, rather than ‘Clarify me’. What do you think ?

Whatever, my tagging was indeed mislocated as you point out, an error made in haste, and so thanks for correctly relocating it.

On the ultimate substantive issue involved here, my basic question is why in the first place should the Wikipedia article reproduce the farcical Enlightenment-positivist practice of crediting Galileo for subscribing to the radically mistaken scholastic theory that free-fall would be uniformly accelerated ? The facts are Galileo made a big blunder and de Soto blundered even worse before him, not that Galileo discovered some correct theory and de Soto nearly did before him.

--Logicus (talk) 18:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus, for situations where a source does not validate the content I suggest you try -

failed verification - where an assertion simply is not supported by the source
syn - for where a source has been manipulated to say something different
verify credibility - for sources that probably dont meet wp:rs

Sounds in this case like failed verification would have been more appropriate than fact. Jaimaster (talk) 22:58, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus to Jaimaster: Thanks for this most helpful further advice Jaimaster, for pointing out these other possibly useful tags. However in this particular Galileo case I would have thought ‘Citequote’ is more appropriate than ‘failed verification’ insofar as it was unclear the cited verifying sources actually do fail given I have not read them, but which are rendered suspect by Grant’s report of de Soto's analysis. Thus requesting a verifying quotation surely seems more appropriate. Would you agree ?

On this topic of appropriate tagging, I would be most grateful if you could possibly suggest what kind of citation request tag you think would be most appropriate for the opening definition of the GW article that has no source, but which still crucially conflicts with all other definitions referred to in various key respects, such as the IPCC and EPA definitions and the ‘Terminology’ section definition, thus being an apparently unique Wikipedia definition if not OR. That is, a tag that might avoid the ministrations of the vicious bully boys who seem to dominate the GW article but apparently fail to read the reasons given for tagging it, and might thus possibly promote an improving result. ‘Citation’ requested and ‘clarify me’ have simply been repeatedly reverted.--Logicus (talk) 18:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

When it comes to the GW articles, further good faith attempts to clear up sourcing issues in the lead of global warming are likely to get you blocked again, as they will be interpreted as a "disruptive" attack on a certain bully boys POV. Id say leave the citation tags out of it. Lead changes to reflect sources in such a way as to make anthropogenic causation seem at all less absolute (such as Abd inserting the IPCC definition of "very likely") will not only be reverted, but put you at risk of a longer block for "ignoring previous warnings and continuing your disruption". Jaimaster (talk) 23:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus to Jaimaster: Thanks for your interesting views on what would happen if I tagged the opening definition, but I have no current intention of doing so, and so did not ask your opinion on that. What I asked you for was your opinion on what kind of citation tag to request some source for it you think would be most appropriate and which might not get reverted by the illeterati, irrespective of who may or may not apply it.

As for your opinion comment that “Lead changes to reflect sources in such a way as to make anthropogenic causation seem at all less absolute (such as Abd inserting the IPCC definition of "very likely") will not only be reverted, ...” I do not understand its relevance since the current opening Wikipedia definition of GW:

“Global warming is the increase in the average measured temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century, and its projected continuation.”

makes no reference to anthropogenic warming, this of course being one reason why it conflicts with the IPCC definition.

The two leading problems with the opening definition are surely its inclusion of air temperatures over water and its inclusion of the temperatures of oceans, conflicting with those definitions such as the IPCC definition that (i) excludes all air temperatures over water but (ii) includes more than ocean temperatures, namely all sea temperatures, and also conflicting with the American EPA definition that includes no ocean, sea nor water temperatures whatever, being confined to near-surface air over land and the troposphere. The other two problems are its restriction to the last half century and its inclusion of projected continuation. These issues have nothing whatever to do with advancing any POV on whether global warming exists or its causes if so, as some editors seem to have assumed.

I would be grateful for your opinions on the two questions I asked you, namely would the ‘Citequote’ tag be most appropriate for the Galileo article issue, and what tag would be most appropriate for the GW definition problems.--Logicus (talk) 20:19, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus correction: Whoops, in haste I confused the significantly different IPCC and EPA definitions of global warming in the above analysis, and so shall now correct that text to make sense.--Logicus (talk) 18:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

For the Galileo article, I cannot say I have really looked into the problem, but from earlier discussion it seems failed verification is appropriate. David Wilson indicates you used the fact template on a claim for which a source exists; if the claim is not in the source, then failed verification is appropriate.

On the GW article, it is my opinion that tagging any section of the GW article with any tag will quite possibly see Raul654 block you, probably for a full week, for "further disruption", regardless of how appropriate the tag might be. I dont think the man knows the meaning of the word "integrity". Jaimaster (talk) 02:06, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus to Jaimaster: Thanks yet again. But you still do not tell me what you think the most appropriate tag would be for the opening definition of ‘global warming’ to indicate the specific problems I have identified. Thanks for your further advice on blocking possibilities, but may I repeat that I have no intention of editing the article itself currently. I just want to know what you think the appropriate tag would be for this kind of problem i.e. a unique Wiki OR definition that apparently seriously conflicts with all others in various respects, and has no source. Please bear in mind the radical confusion this then causes e.g. the IPCC global warming statistic then cited in the second sentence is not for the same geographical entity defined in the opening definition, since (i) it excludes the temperature of all near-surface air over water, which is some three-quarters(?) of the air globally, but (ii) includes the temperature of all seas, not just that of the 5 oceans. Thus it seems impossible to get any clear and conceptually consistent quantitative data from this article --Logicus (talk) 18:57, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus wrote:

"Nor do I think the 'clarify me' template is more appropriate than the 'fact' template in such cases, at least because it does not explicitly request a quotation or citation where this is what is crucially needed."

But the {{fact}} template doesn't "explicitly request a quotation or citation"^[1] either, so that pretext for preferring it over the {{clarifyme}} template simply won't wash. I suggested the latter because it was evident to me that you had misunderstood what was actually written in the article. I am prepared to accept some responsibility for this misunderstanding—since I did make a dog's breakfast of the sentence preceding the one you tagged—but in my opinion there was nevertheless sufficient information provided in the citing footnote to indicate to you that your interpretation was mistaken.

However, given that this possibility apparently did not occur to you, the most suitable template for your purpose would appear to have been either the {{dubious}} or the {{verify source}} template, possibly in combination with the {{request quote}} template. In the circumstances I would have had no objection to your using any of those templates.

Jaimaster wrote:

"For the Galileo article, I cannot say I have really looked into the problem, but from earlier discussion it seems failed verification is appropriate."

No, I agree with Logicus here. As he indicates above, he had not actually read the cited source, and he had no reasonable grounds for claiming that it didn't support the assertion for which it was cited. I would therefore have had much the same objection to his using the {{failed verification}} template as I did to his using the {{fact}} template.

Logicus wrote:

"'However in this particular Galileo case I would have thought 'Citequote' is more appropriate ... "

No. If you would care to read the documentation for the {{Citequote}} template (by clicking on the immediately preceding link inside the double braces) you will find that the purpose of that template is to request a citation for a quotation that already appears in an article, and not for requesting a verifying quotation. The template you are looking for is {{request quote}}. However, in my opinion, that template is a poor substitute for actually checking the sources for yourself, and should be used sparingly.

1.^Well, ok, it does request a citation, but that request had already been complied with.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:34, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Logicus to David Wilson: David, thanks for this useful advice re the ‘request quote’ tag, but I do not understand your analysis here, and it seems to me you may have confused the de Soto citation case with the Jovian moons citation case. Another dog’s breakfast maybe (-:? The good reason to doubt the de Soto free-fall claim was Grant’s claim that he predicted uniform acceleration in a homogeneous medium. The good reason to suspect the Jovian moons case was simply that it is nonsense. They only support epicyclical astronomy in general, whether geocentric or heliocentric. Elementary my dear Wilson ! (However, I do note from your quotations provided elsewhere in Talk:Galileo Galilei that Drake did indeed make this silly logical error, one of the many that render his conclusions about Galileo utterly unreliable.) --Logicus (talk) 19:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Darwin

Please discuss your changes first, rather than simply adding them to the article. It's important that you source your proposed additions, and that they fit into the article without adding undue weight. And please deal with the concerns that have been raised on the talk page before adding additional material to the article. It will work much better if you focus on one thing at a time. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 14:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Logicus on Guettarda: I reproduce your comments below, with my responses added in italics within square brackets.

Please discuss your changes first, rather than simply adding them to the article. [I usually do so and have also done so on my current three Darwin proposals, except for just one sentence of the many I proposed that I put in as a provisional pro tem change for discussion. Your request implies a gross misrepresentation of my practice, for which I request an apology.]

It's important that you source your proposed additions, [So far as I am aware I did source all my proposed additions. But if you can identify any I did not, please do point them out.]

and that they fit into the article without adding undue weight. [But who is to say what is undue weight ? Correcting the many standard historical falsifications of Darwin hagiography such as tis article indulges requires a lot of due weight.]

And please deal with the concerns that have been raised on the talk page before adding additional material to the article. [But I am not aware of having added any material before dealing with any concerns about it raised on the talk page. Do you know of any ? Please do tell me of them. Otherwise you tend to create the unfortunate impression of talking nonsense that Wikipedia is notorious for.]

It will work much better if you focus on one thing at a time. [What on earth makes you think that ? Maybe it would work much better if you just kept what could easily be construed as your extremely arrogant nose out of this, most especially given you seem so confused ? Please consider this possibility. Thanks!]

Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 14:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

--Logicus (talk) 18:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

One simple issue here is whether there is any substantial truth in Guettarda'a charges and implications that Logicus has variously (1) Significantly not discussed changes in Talk before making them. (2) Not sourced proposed additions (3) Not dealt with concerns raised about it on the talk page before adding the material.

I submit there is not.

--Logicus (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You're entitled to remove comments from your own talk page, and of course that means that you've acknowledged receipt. WP:TALK gives good advice on how to work towards your aims, and of course verification from reliable sources will be needed to support your arguments, so that you're not putting forward original research. Remember that we must not give undue weight to minority expert views. Some of your behaviour looks rather tendentious, and I hope that you'll avoid disruptive editing and cooperate to improve the articles. Oh, and I hope you'll take great care to be polite and avoid personal attacks insulting other editors. The impression that you're trying to bulldoze changes through is unfortunate, and polite cooperation will be more effective. . dave souza, talk 16:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Thanks for picking up the error in the Jean-Baptiste Lamarck article. You're quite right that, as Mayr indicates, Darwin continued to believe that "use and disuse heredity" was a significant mechanism in evolution, in addition to natural selection. Inheritance of acquired characters was seen by him as one way that variations arose, and all variations whatever their cause would be subject to natural selection, so in some cases adaptations could in whole or part be due to one mechanism or the other. The term Lamarkism for "use and disuse inheritance" is a bit confusing, and dates to the late 19th century when the use and disuse mechanism was being contrasted with Weismann's insistence that asquired characters were not heritable, which equally confusingly was called neo-Darwinism and has since been commonly known as Darwinism, in contrast to the original meaning of that term to cover all sorts of evolutionary mechanisms. Hope that helps to clarify things. . dave souza, talk 20:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

dynamics of the celestial spheres

Maybe you could briefly summarize the dynamics of the celestial spheres in the celestial spheres article. The celestial spheres article doesn't need the full, detailed explanation. That's what the subsidiary article is for. Leadwind (talk) 17:11, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Tom Whiteside

Thanks for highlighting the source, the article could definitely benefit from some of the information in it. Time permitting I will try to do this shortly. Gareth Jones (talk) 22:58, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Darwin again

Once again, you're showing a tendentious and disruptive approach to discussing and editing the Charles Darwin article. Please properly discuss any proposed changes in accordance with talk page guidelines, including finding sources to back up your claims and accepting properly sourced statements. Seek consensus before making changes, and stop trying to edit war to get your own way. You appear to be pushing a fringe view, which is unacceptable. Also note that calling another editor "functionally illiterate"[5] is a personal attack: if you continue with such disruptive behaviour you are liable to be blocked from editing. . . dave souza, talk 20:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Logicus’s response to souza's comments: Insofar as the Wikipedia policy statements on tendentious and disruptive editing are at all intelligible, coherent and non-vacuous, so far as I understand them I have never engaged in tendentious editing nor in disruptive editing Rather Logicus is a constructive, productive and improving editor who, in particular, has successfully corrected many failed verifications in Wikipedia articles, including several in this one.

Yet once again you make allegations about breaches of Wikipedia policy by Logicus that you again fail to substantiate by demonstration. Moreover when challenged to substantiate such allegations in the past, you have notably not only always failed to do so, but have never even had the elementary courtesy to say what specific rule you imagine has been breached and by what action(s). This hardly promotes understanding of your interpretations of Wikipedia policy. I would be grateful if you would either substantiate or else withdraw your allegations.

In your second sentence you further insinuate I have (i) breached talk page guidelines by not properly discussing proposed changes in accordance with them, (ii) failed to provide sources to back up my claims, and (iii) not accepted properly sourced statements. So far as I recall, all these three insinuations are also false. Hence I would be grateful if you would provide what you imagine to be examples to the contrary so that I may at least conside your apparently different interpretations of policy. And again I would be grateful if your would substantiate or else withdraw your allegations.

Re your third sentence and your instruction to seek consensus before making changes, for your information as it happens there is no Wiki policy requirement to seek consensus with any group of people whatever before making changes, and certainly not with yourself, at least because that would conflict with boldness policy. On the other hand may I invite you to consider the charge that you are a Tendentious Editor by virtue of engaging in the following listed vice of Problem Editors:

"You delete the cited additions of others with the complaint that they did not discuss their edits first.

There is no rule on Wikipedia that someone has to get permission from you before they put cited information in an article. Such a rule would clearly contradict Wikipedia:Be bold."

You also accuse me of edit warring. But again I am not aware of doing so. So what sufficient criterion/criteria of edit warring do you imagine my edits satisfy, if any ? Would you please either substantiate or else withdraw this unsubstantiated allegation.

Re the allegation of your fourth sentence that I appear to be pushing a fringe view, in spite of how it may appear to you in a possibly hagiographically distorted perspective, my view immediately in question here in the current dispute over wording is that NS is not the basic mechanism of evolution in the MES, which is rather genetic variation that produces the basic variational material that is then selected from by NS. This is hardly a fringe view, but surely rather the main consensus when people are speaking scientifically seriously rather than blathering.

And nor can the alternative text that I am proposing possibly be interpreted as pushing or expressing a fringe view, except possibly by the most extreme lunatic fringe Darwin hagiographers. May I remind you what that text is:

“…but it was not until the 1930s that natural selection began to be widely accepted as an important factor in explaining the process of evolution.”

This text was designed to be neutral on the contentious issue of whether NS is the basic mechanism of evolution in the MES or not, whilst yet accepting it is an important factor. It seems to me a perfectly reasonable neutral compromise, whereas your proposed text is clearly pushing what I understand to be a minority POV and a gross error about the structure of the multifactoral causal model of evolution in the MES and the base and superstructure of that theory.

Re your last sentence, I deny describing somebody as 'functionally illiterate' is personally attacking them, as opposed to appropriately identifying their lack of competence or disability in some relevant respect, whereby their proposals should be ignored. Would you also regard the terms 'dyslexic' or 'paraplegic' as personal attacks ? 'Functionally illiterate' means being insufficiently literate with respect to some specific technical function, such as say technical proof reading or editing encyclopedias, as opposed to being wholly illiterate i.e. unable to read and write in some specific language. It seems to me the term is justly applicable, for pertinent example, to anybody who regards Carroll's blather about the power of Darwin's rhetoric as verifying "Darwin presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors" any more significantly than the following alternative source does:

"A wop bop a loo bop, a lop bam boom" Richard Penniman Tutti Frutti 1955.

It seems to me that suchlike ought not to be editing encyclopedias.

Finally, let me make it clear I am not concerned with pushing any POV on this article as you insinuate, but rather only with trying to improve it to provide a historically and logically accurate account of Darwin's theory of evolution, and of whether or not it ever constituted any empirical scientific progress in any version of the 6 editions of Origin, and of its achievements, if any.--Logicus (talk) 18:00, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

My advice above stands. Please take care to reflect reliable secondary sources accurately, and look to achieve talk page consensus. . dave souza, talk 18:27, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Au contraire, given your failure to substantiate any of it, your advice falls, or rather it never stood up in the first place. As for these further two pieces of unsolicited advice, the first is misplaced unless you can establish I have reflected reliable secondary sources innaccurately, apart from my silly error about the wrong page in Bowler. And on your instruction to achieve talk page consensus (before making changes or flagging), would you be so kind as to identify where this rule is stated in Wiki policy. Or is it just another souza invented dictat ? --Logicus (talk) 16:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have a habit of suggesting people have literacy problems. As for consensus, Wikipedia policy states "Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making." Dougweller (talk) 16:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy may well state "Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making." But it does not state the rule I stated that you and souza appeal to, namely that one must achieve talk page consensus before making changes or flagging, which would conflict with boldness policy. In fact to the contrary, if anything, there is even Wikipedia guidance against any such a rule that you and souza appeal to in order to block improvements. Please see Wikipedia:Don't revert due to "no consensus".--Logicus (talk) 15:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Logicus. Essays don't trump policies, and be assured that your edits have been reverted because they're not improvements, as has been fully explained and discussed on the talk page. . . dave souza, talk 15:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Please take note of the three revert rule regarding your repeatedly tagging the lead paragraph of Charles Darwin today.--Old Moonraker (talk) 16:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Dougweller over-states the importance of consensus - 1 good source trumps any amount of consensus, unless the consensus is backed by at least 1 good source too. --Philcha (talk) 17:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I agree. But what's the good source you have in mind? Dougweller (talk) 15:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Take the AGF challenge!

User:Filll/AGF Challenge Le Docteur (talk) 02:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

nashpur to logicus

Thank you Logicus for your kind words. Wiki is a great enterprise and it would be a pity if editorial egos were to overwhelm the co-operative urge. Let me now turn to the issue of the relationship between SR and GTR. I say the following with some hesitation but let me blurt it out. If SR is taken to say that Inertial frames are superior and GTR taken to deny that claim then the two theories are in flat disagreement. On the other hand, one could view the situation as the following: SR is meant to apply only in inertial frames whereas GTR applies in any frame. In that case, SR could be an application of GTR. In both SR and GTR, it can be said that nothing can locally overtake light in vacuo. However, as is obvious from the daily motion of the heavens, the speed of objects can be greater than c.

Talk page for Tycho

Is there any reason for ignoring a discussion you started? Especially before editing? Every page has a history button. It can help prevent foolish mistakes. --Dgroseth (talk) 05:03, 24 October 2009 (UTC)