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A respected news source, the New York Times, labeled the petition anti-evolution. This carries more weight than anonymous contributors (like myself and others who have contributed to this article). It also appears that most of the previous editors of this article seemed to have agends.
136.167.158.77 ( talk · contribs) Edit: Showing Skepticism and Asking for More Critical Examination of the Evidence -Clearly POV, no explanation needed
209.6.126.244 ( talk · contribs) Edit: Added POV material: (Note that the biological science signers are the most highly represented group.) -Again, this is POV and actually false since upon further examination lumping people in the "engineering/computational sciences" signers together creates a larger group than the biological science signers. It is safest to leave this out.
I suggest that all contributors read Wikipedia's Point of View guidelines. Other comments would be appreciated. 128.197.4.36 17:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
This is the teleological argument that the Discovery Institute's petition was Intelligently Designed to be Anti-Evolution:
This article from the Discovery Institute clearly demonstrates that the petition is being used by the Discovery Institute in its campaign against evolution (it's dated April 1, but although ridiculous, it's not a joke -- they take themselves quite seriously): http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2114
The petition and Rosalind Picard's name are certainly being USED by the anti-evolution, pro-creationism movement. There is no question of that fact. So the New York Times is correct in labeling it the Anti-Evolution petition.
I frame this as a teleological argument just to be ironic (the fact that the NY Times calls it the Anti-Evolution Petition is enough justification already). Countering with the Formal objections and counterarguments against teleological arguments simply raises the question: why don't you apply those same objections to Intelligent Design, which is also a teleological argument?
On 13 March 2006 18:32, someone edited the heading of this page from "Intelligent Design Support" to "Showing Skepticism and Asking for More Critical Examination of the Evidence", and removed the word "Intelligent Design" from the text. I ask for a more critical examination of the evidence of that statement! When has Picard ever shown any skepticism about Intelligent Design, or asked for more critical examination of the evidence for Intelligent Design? The petition she signed is one-sided and Anti-Evolution, because it doesn't ask for a careful examination of the evidence for Intelligent Design, only Darwinism. Science demands the critical examination of ALL theories, including the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Anti-Evolution petition is superfluous and patronising, because it admonishes scientists to do something they were already doing, without asking anyone to apply the same standards to Intelligent Design.
It's petty for Rosalind Picard or her toadys to engage in an edit war to white-wash the New York Time's term "Anti-Evolition" and all references to "Intelligent Design", instead of standing up for what they believe in and explaining WHY she signed her name and the good name of the MIT to that Anti-Evolution petition.
The question is not "Is the petition Anti-Evolution?" It certainly is, because that's how it's being used by its designers. The real question I'd like answered is: "Does Rosalind Picard believe in Intelligent Design, Creationism, or Evolution, and is she willing to stand up for what she believes in and signs her name to, or not?" She needs to answer that question herself, and this wiki page should link to that.
It would be interesting to hear Picard address this glaring double standard:
The Anti-Evolution petition urges that "careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." Why just Darwinism? The scientific method has always encouraged careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory, AS WELL AS ALL OTHER THEORIES, including pseudoscientific theories like Intelligent Design and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Discovery Institute and their supporters are intellectually dishonest, negligent and close-minded, because they refuse to carefully examine the pseudo-scientific claptrap they call Intelligent Design, which they promote for the reasons outlined in their Wedge Strategy. Where's the careful examination of the evidence of Intelligent Design, and why doesn't the Discovery Institute encourage that too, instead of ignoring the preponderance of the wide range of evidence for Evolution?
In the words of Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute: "It is an important day in science when biologists are bold enough to challenge one of the leading theories in their profession." If only Picard were bold enough to step up to the plate and explain her views on Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Evolution, and her dissent from Darwinism, and why she chose to sign her name and MIT's name to the Anti-Evolution petition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.47.110 ( talk • contribs) 00:43- 23:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC) and 22:56-23:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion refers to a subsequently titled and reinterpreted revision of the original 2001 (untitled) two-sentence petition calling for "skeptical examination of evidence for scientific theories." Since there is no reliable source to legitimize DI's controversial linking of the 103 signers of the original untitled petition to its subsequently titled, reinterpreted, and repurposed version, I propose archiving or deleting the above section (and this one) as it has now been revealed that there is no reliably established legitimate connection between the subsequently retitled and reinterpreted document and the subject of this biography of a living person.
In view of the "Do No Harm" principle of the WP:BLP I believe the ethical thing to do is to separate the above discussion (which harms the subject and her affiliates) from the subject of the biography. I also think it would behoove the editors who were deceived by DI's fraudulent linkage to revisit their role in propagating DI's deception, and do what they can to ameliorate the harm already done. Moulton 14:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
The entire intro for this article is unsourced, in violation of WP:BLP. I am therefore moving all but the first part of the first sentence here.
Rosalind W. Picard is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory and is co-director of the Things That Think Consortium, the largest industrial sponsorship organization at the lab. She holds a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering with highest honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Masters and Doctorate degrees, both in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, from MIT. She has been a member of the faculty at the MIT Media Laboratory since 1991, with tenure since 1998. Prior to completing her doctorate at MIT, she was a Member of the Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories where she designed VLSI chips for digital signal processing and developed new methods of image compression and analysis.
The author of over a hundred peer-reviewed scientific articles in multidimensional signal modeling, computer vision, pattern recognition, machine learning, and human-computer interaction, Picard is known internationally for pioneering research in affective computing and, prior to that, for pioneering research in content-based image and video retrieval. She is recipient (with Tom Minka) of a best paper prize for work on machine learning with multiple models (1998) and is recipient (with Barry Kort and Rob Reilly) of a "best theory paper" prize for their work on affect in human learning (2001). Her award-winning book, Affective Computing, (MIT Press, 1997) lays the groundwork for giving machines the skills of emotional intelligence. She and her students have designed and developed a variety of new sensors, algorithms, and systems for sensing, recognizing, and responding respectfully to human affective information, with applications in human and machine learning, health, and human-computer interaction. She was named a Fellow of the IEEE in November 2004.
Dr. Picard has served on many science and engineering program committees, editorial boards, and review panels, and is presently serving on the Editorial Board of User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research, as well as on the advisory boards for the National Science Foundation's division of Computers in Science and Engineering (CISE) and for the Georgia Tech College of Computing.
Picard works closely with industry, and has consulted with companies such as Apple Computer, AT&T, BT, HP, i.Robot, and Motorola. She has delivered keynote presentations or invited plenary talks at over fifty science or technology events, and distinguished lectures and colloquia at dozens of universities and research labs internationally. Her group's work has been featured in national and international forums for the general public, such as The New York Times, The London Independent, Scientific American Frontiers, NPR's Tech Nation and The Connection, ABC's Nightline and World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Time, Vogue, Voice of America Radio, New Scientist, and BBC's The Works and The Big Byte. Picard lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her husband and three energetic sons.
Feel free to move this material back into the article if and when reliable sources can be found for it. Hrafn42 14:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Could people please stop removing Picard from Category:Signatories of "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" and removing the brief mention of the fact (and the fact that her 'dissent' is an opinion volunteered well outside her field of expertise). The first is a matter of unambiguous fact. The second is clearly notable, given its mention in the NY Times. Hrafn42 02:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hrafn42: Please arrange to talk to me by telephone. Your edits are a gross and egregious violation of WP:BLP:DNH policy. You are not a subject-matter expert on the subject of this article, and your edits are doing harm. Please cease and desist. Moulton 03:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Here is the relevant clause of the WP:BLP:DNH...
An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moulton ( talk • contribs) 03:17, 23 August 2007
Look: this is not rocket science. Did Picard sign or not? She clearly did. Her name is on the petition and it is mentioned in the New York Times. She went out of her way to ANNOUNCE this to the world. Ok fine. So she is in this category, correct? Well here, we have a category for people who have done that. To some people this is a positive thing, to others it is a negative thing. You seem to think it is negative. I do not care. What matters to us is, is it true? And is it notable? And is it verifiable and particularly, is it verifiable using a reliable source? All these requirements are met here. So she is in the category. Fair enough? Stop using your own biases and POV to get in the way! She signed, and we can verify it in a WP:RS source. It is not up to you or me to judge if it is good or bad. I do not know. It just is. This has NOTHING to do with "doing no harm". Some might feel it is "doing harm" by not focusing on this aspect of her life- ever consider that?-- Filll 04:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hrafn42: You are publishing false information. The document which Picard signed was not entitled "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism." That title was added later by the Discovery Institute. It is false to claim that the signatories of the originally circulated document (which bore no title at all) were "dissenters" of Darwin's theory or its modern sequels. Please cease and desist from publishing false and misleading material. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Moulton ( talk • contribs) 04:11, August 23, 2007 (UTC).
“ | We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged. | ” |
You are unaware of the facts, Hrafn42. The document which Picard signed did not bear the title "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism." That title was added later, and dramatically changed the way the public viewed and interpreted the document. You should be more skeptical of what you read, especially when it comes to titles and headlines added after the fact. The original statement has been criticized as vague and ill-worded. Not everyone who signed it considered it a dissent from anything. To characterize the signatories as dissenters is therefore false and misleading.
The fact that the NY Times also got snookered is no reason to further propagate their error or pillory other people. Please stop victimizing people that way. It is an unbecoming practice. Moulton 04:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The reason I know that the original document (as circulated for signatures prior to publication) had no title is because Roz told me that some time ago. I've known Roz both personally and professionally for 27 years, and I'm familiar with her views. Please stop propagating false and misleading information.
Please arrange to talk to me by phone. I'd like to discuss this with you voice-to-voice, if not face-to-face. Moulton 04:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
How did the NY Times get snookered? How do we know that the title and/or the statement was not on the petition? You mean to tell me that an MIT professor would sign a blank petition, and the words could be added later, and would not threaten legal action to get her name removed if she disagreed? Others have had their names removed. She didnt? She disagrees? Where is your proof? How do you know this? How is this victimizing people? People are proud to be creationists. What is wrong with that? Let them stand up and be recognized for it. We are not to be skeptical about stuff in WP:RS and WP:V sources. We are far more skeptical of you. If you are in the USA, I will call you. And try to expain this to you. If not, well I wont offer.-- Filll 04:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Newspapers often get the story wrong. Even the NY Times. If you are skeptical of me, come out of anonymity and call me on the phone, so we can discuss this like gentlemen. I have much more to tell you, but I am not a young man, and I don't care to type long tracts here. Moulton 04:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I made my offer. If you accept, email me.-- Filll 04:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Please be patient. I keep colliding with your edits.
The fact that you don't know about the issue of the title of the document further illustrates why Wikipedia should not publish claims about someone signing a document bearing a purported title. Since you don't know that, and you should now be skeptical of any previous assumptions about that, I propose you revise your publications to remove the false claim about "Dissent". The word "dissent" does not appear in the document. Perhaps if you cared to do the research, you might find out the truth here. In the meantime, I am advising you that your publications on the matter are false and misleading, and are doing harm to the subject of this article, with whom you are entirely unfamiliar. Moulton 04:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Filll: Where do I find your E-Mail? I'll send you my phone number as soon as I cand find the page with your e-mail on it. I'm in the USA. Moulton 04:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
To find my email, go to my user page, and look on the left hand side for "email this user"-- Filll 04:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I found it and sent you my phone number. Moulton 05:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I just visited the NSCE page and it seems to support the claim that DI played fast and loose in more ways than one. The ad, as published, contained a lot more gratuitous interpretation than just the misleading title of the page. Two additional paragraphs appeared in the ad, supplying further interpretation that spins the meaning of the two key sentences which the signatories were asked to sign. The same NSCE article reveals how DI conflated Darwinian theory with the totality of evolution models.
The NSCE page concludes:
It is regrettable that the public is likely to be confused by these advertisements and be misled into thinking that all of these scientists reject evolution, or that there is a groundswell of scientists rejecting evolution. Neither is true.
To call it "regrettable" is an understatement. What troubles me, gentlemen, is that your team at Wikipedia seem to have bought into the DI's stronger interpretation of the statement, rather than the weaker one suggested by NSCE.
That's why publishing a claim that all signatories are "Dissenters" is unsupportable at best and harmful at worst. It not only harms the scientists who interpret the meaning differently from DI, it harms your own project by alienating the very scientists who could most help clarify the subtleties outlined in the NSCE page.
But take a good look at the ad, as reprised on the NSCE site. Clearly the signatories were not asked to sign the extra paragraphs that precede the two sentences in the gray box. And the title of the ad precedes those two gratuitous paragraphs. It occurs to me that there is ample evidence that the title of the ad was crafted along with the other two paragraphs that precede the two sentences.
Is this not strong (and reliable) evidence that the label "Scientific Dissenters from Darwinism" was coined specifically as spin for the ad, and was not part of the petition that circulated beforehand?
Finally, note that Roz is one of 105 signatories on this maiden appearance of the ad, which supports the claim that she is being unfairly labeled (first by DI, and now by your group) as a "Dissenter" from Darwinism. This claim cannot be sustained for the first 105 signatories unless they expressly affirm it.
Therefore I beseech you to remove the label "Scientific Dissenter from Darwinism" as there is insufficient evidence to establish that for the first 105 signatories on that maiden ad. Moulton 08:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Moulton (aka Rosalind Picard's press officer):
Hrafn42 09:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I am afraid to say you are not aware of the facts in this case.
And I worry that you may similarly be clinging to an ungrounded theory in as many as 102 other cases.
But Filll is now aware. I suggest you take a deep breath and wait until you hear from him. Moulton 11:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
In their rabid attempts to whitewash Picard's reputation, and hide the fact that she was foolish enough to push her own ill-advised and inexpert "skepticism" over the consensus of hundreds of evolutionary biologists, Moulton is repeatedly restoring this garbled sentence, which clearly involves two completely different sentences being welded together (between "respond" & "Picard"):
The Affective Computing Research Group develops tools, techniques, and devices for sensing, interpreting, and processing emotion signals that drive state-of-the-art systems which respond Picard has served on many science and engineering program committees, editorial boards, and review panels, and is presently serving on the editorial board of User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research, as well as on the advisory boards for the National Science Foundation's division of Computers in Science and Engineering (CISE) and for the Georgia Tech College of Computing.
This is the level of cack-handed partisanship that Moultan has descended to. Hrafn42 10:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I see that Moulton has finally realised that the stuff they were restoring was nonsense, so has removed the offending interpolation, while describing this action as "Add back missing material." [4] Such honesty! LOL Hrafn42 10:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hrafn42: I have written you a long essay or two on the main discussion page for the Darwin Dissent soap opera.
Your petulance is unbecoming. I suggest you join with Filll to assemble the evidence he now seeks, to shore up the theory I presented to him and to you.
Moulton 11:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
You're projecting, Hrafn42. I appreciate that you have an issue with immaturity. If you'll settle down, I'll help you develop some usable skills at evaluating material for accuracy and scientific soundness in a more mature and professional manner. Then we can proceed to cooperate to expose DI for the unreliable source that we both know it to be. That's Filll's goal too. I think you have at hand more than enough evidence already to make a damn good case. The 2006 NYT article (which DI objected to) reported the fact that DI published an arresting claim, and then, instead of substantiating DI's claim, the NYT article went on to cast doubt on it. Good for them. A skeptical reader of the NYT would come away with good evidence that DI had just published a pile of horse dookie. Now what we need to do here is to reinforce that view with some defensible evidence. NSCE has already provided an excellent critique of DI's original ad, revealing DI's shameful duplicity in the case of their mischaracterization of PBS. At least two of the original 103 signatories cited in the NYT article registered parallel complaints about how DI distorted, mischaracterized, and relabeled their two-sentence quote. NYT and NSCE hiked the ball to you guys. I don't understand why didn't you run it into the end zone way back then.
But it's not too late to repair the damage and do this right, using proper tools of science. Are you game to play chess against the real enemy now? Moulton 21:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The Times did report the claims of the DI in that story, along with some remarks by some of the signatories. The Times neither substantiated nor refuted the reported claims of the DI, but left it to the reader to judge what to make of it. That is, the Times adopted a neutral point of view.
The main article elsewhere in Wikipedia examines those claims and provides further material that allows a skeptical reader to adjudge whether or not to take the claims of the DI at face value.
I am curious as to whether the editors of this section wish to propagate the reported claims of the DI with a view to persuading the readers that the claims of the DI are either believable or doubtful. Or do the editors prefer to take a neutral point of view, emphasizing that the claims of the DI are simply being reported here with neither affirmation nor refutation. Moulton 01:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
There is no WP:RS to affirm the veracity of DI's doubtful claim either. That is, you have no WP:RS either way. Therefore it is not a verifiable fact that Picard (or any of the other 103 original signers) consented to or agreed with the DI's published interpretation or political position vis-a-vis PBS or any other subsequent political purpose regarding what should or shouldn't be taught in school.
All you have on verifiable record is that the 103 original signers called for skeptical examination of the evidence for scientific theories. DI's unverifiable claim which fraudulently spins that into consensual agreement or support for their interpretation or political agenda is not a fact under the rules of Wikipedia.
All the rest of DI's propaganda is utter hogwash fraudulently perpetrated by the DI without the verifiably demonstrated consent of the original 103 individuals.
In view of the WP:BLP "Do No Harm" clause, the unverified claim of the DI must not be promoted to fact and any content to that effect must be immediately expunged, per the WP:BLP:
This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous.
Moulton 16:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
As part of the unsourced puff-piece glorifying Picard that Moulton insists on restoring repeatedly is the claim that Picard's book is "award-wining". What award did it win? I have seen no evidence of an award mentioned, and the use of this term on Picard's webpage would appear to be mere self-serving puffery.
Hrafn42
02:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I also draw Moulton's attention to
WP:V#Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves, which specifically restricts information from self-published sources (like Picard's webpage) to information that is "not unduly self-serving" & "does not involve claims about third parties" and that the article cannot be "based primarily on such sources". I believe that this excludes most of the puffery from Picard's webpage.
Hrafn42 02:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
(Incidentally, the Edit Summary of my latest reversion of this material is inaccurate - it should have said "self-published puff-piece" instead of "unsourced puff-piece")
Hrafn42
02:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
This article is a biography of Rosalind Picard. There is an official MIT Faculty Biography Page (separate from the subject's personal home page) that is the source of the biographical information. That MIT Faculty Biography website has uniform biographies for all faculty members of the MIT Media Lab.
I am aware of your idiosyncratic beliefs, Hrafn42. You are welcome to harbor your personal beliefs. However your personal beliefs are neither facts nor demonstrated theories grounded in scientific evidence. You have offered (and published as fact) many of your beliefs, including ones that are demonstrably false. If you care to write a personal blog giving your opinions, theories, and beliefs, no one is stopping you. However a Wikipedia biography page of a notable living person is not the appropriate place for you to publish your beliefs or theories about the subject of the article, unless those beliefs or theories are known to be accurate and well-sourced.
You have at your disposal evidence to which you intentionally have turned a blind eye and disregarded -- evidence that demonstrates to any impartial observer that some of your theories, beliefs, or claims are dubious at best and demonstrably false at worst.
Professor Picard signed a petition calling for those who are working with theories to examine the evidence for those theories with a skeptical eye. Yet you persist in failing to apply that sound advice to your own dubious theories, beliefs, and claims.
Now this is Wikipedia, and you are an anonymous editor from New Zealand. For all intents and purposes you are immune from the consequences of violating the tenets of ethics in journalism.
However, you are not immune from being the subject of an article on ethics in journalism, as practiced on Wikipedia.
In the interests of full disclosure, I will tell you that even as I sit here typing in this window, I am conversing in another window with yet another faculty member who teaches a course on ethics in journalism. Her class resumes shortly after labor day. Her students will be doing the usual kind of stories, and publishing them on the university's web site. I've talked to this professor about Wikipedia on many occasions (not just this one), but this one strikes me as an excellent example of just the kind of story a student studying ethics in journalism might find intriguing.
My interest, however, is more along the lines of applications of the theory of emotions and learning. You might wonder why I spend so much time with you, Hrafn42. It's not really about the bio page of Roz Picard, or the Darwin Dissent Controversy. Those are only cover stories. It's your hook, not mine. My hook is watching how people learn their craft (or fail to learn it). I frankly don't understand how you go about the process of learning the craft you practice here.
One thing I do note is that you are an expert on the detailed rules of Wikipedia. You can cite a rule faster than I can click the mouse.
Now that also interests me, because I am also a student of the dynamics of rule-based systems. I discussed this interest of mine at some length with Filll last night. I wonder if you appreciate what theory or assumption you are operating under when you engage in your practice of rule-driven bureaucratic machinations. I suspect you are not aware of the theory that predicts the behavior of rule-driven systems. It occurs to me that if you were aware, you might migrate to a more functional method of practice.
But I digress.
I'm interested in the question, Cui Bono? Who is served by your obsession here with the biography page of some obscure MIT professor whom you've never met, and whose specialties hold no interest for you?
Tell me, for I am curious. Cui Bono? Who is served?
Moulton
03:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
There is an official MIT Faculty Biography Page (separate from the subject's personal home page) that is the source of the biographical information. That MIT Faculty Biography website has uniform biographies for all faculty members of the MIT Media Lab.
I'm rather well acquainted with her energetic children. I can assure you that, to the best of my knowledge, the elements of her biography are quite accurate.
I wish I could say the same for your remarkable theories about the subject of this article.
Moulton 04:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I see that you're idly theorizing again, with another of your legendary flights of fancy. Rather than speculate without the benefit of evidence and reasoning, why don't you interview me to discover the nature and extent of my interest in uncaring (and uncared-for) individuals such as yourself.
Are you a curious and courageous enough adventure writer to discover the truth, or do you prefer to remain safely ensconced in your cocoon of self-delusion, anonymity and utter indifference to the tragic harm caused by blindly acting out one's innermost fantasies?
Rest assured, I am becoming increasing familiar with your legendary and oft-disclosed lack of caring, which seems to be a recurring issue in your life and recently published remarks.
And I appreciate that your dreadfully provocative remarks elsewhere are a transparent attempt to solicit the kind of caring that you apparently crave in your real life outside Wikipedia and the Internet.
You have a keen sense of awareness of those who respond with a small measure of empathy and compassion to your desperate cries for attention.
So you've chosen me as your antagonist, respondent, and mentor. So be it. I'm flattered.
Not that I'm necessarily up to the task, but I'll give it a decent college try.
Let's begin by crafting a mutually-agreeable social contract setting forth the protocols of our budding and potentially troubled relationship.
What are your desires and objectives for this unfolding relationship?
Do you prefer comedy, tragedy, or bildungsroman?
Do you prefer functional or dysfunctional relationship?
Do you prefer highly emotional or emotionally subdued scenes in our continuing soap opera?
Moulton 11:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
A serious young man found the conflicts of mid 20th Century America confusing. He went to many people seeking a way of resolving within himself the discords that troubled him, but he remained troubled.
One night in a coffee house, a self-ordained Zen Master said to him, "go to the dilapidated mansion you will find at this address which I have written down for you. Do not speak to those who live there; you must remain silent until the moon rises tomorrow night. Go to the large room on the right of the main hallway, sit in the lotus position on top of the rubble in the northeast corner, face the corner, and meditate."
He did just as the Zen Master instructed. His meditation was frequently interrupted by worries. He worried whether or not the rest of the plumbing fixtures would fall from the second floor bathroom to join the pipes and other trash he was sitting on.He worried how would he know when the moon rose on the next night. He worried about what the people who walked through the room said about him.
His worrying and meditation were disturbed when, as if in a test of his faith, ordure fell from the second floor onto him. At that time two people walked into the room. The first asked the second who the man was sitting there was. The second replied "Some say he is a holy man. Others say he is a shithead."
Hearing this, the man was enlightened.
Hrafn42 12:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Adaptability is a highly functional character trait.
See, there you go again, publishing yet another theory without a shred of evidence and without bothering to examine your theory with a skeptical eye. I know full well that you did not write that Zen story yourself, but imported it from somewhere else. But you republished it here, so you are immediate source of the version I adapted. Neener.
But I confess I don't get the point of your perplexing formatting.
Moulton 12:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Did you know that the name "Satan" comes from the Greek satana which means adversary? In ancient stories, the adversary (or antagonist) was sometimes called Satan. In one of Shakespeare's plays, the heroine (who is mistakenly presumed to be dead during much of the play) is named Hero.
Who is the hero and who is the villain is sometimes just a matter of one's point of view. See, for example Wicked by Gregory Maguire.
A more interesting kind of tale is the Greek Tragedy, or Hero-Goat Story. The would-be hero suffers from a character flaw (hubris or arrogance). He stumbles and fails at his quest and then becomes the scapegoat, blamed for everything that went haywire. At the point where the fallen protagonist realizes he is his own worst enemy, he becomes remorseful and sings the Dithyramb, a lament that basically goes, "What kind of fool am I?"
Moulton 13:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
In fact, I am seeking help from a referee, mediator, or ombudsman to help resolve a vexing conflict with a combative and confused adversary.
Moulton 23:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
That Picard has signed a petition that states:
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
...has never been in dispute.
Hrafn42 04:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Given the degree of controversy over how this subject is portrayed in the article, I think a brief recap is in order.
This is how the subject was portrayed before I started editing: [10]
Darwin dissenter
Recently, The New York Times reported [1] that Dr. Picard signed the Discovery Institute's anti-evolution petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". This petition has been widely used by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and their supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution [2] and mandate the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, and it has it has been the subject of criticism and parody.
Although some of the signatories of the Dissent from Darwinism petition hold doctorates in science and engineering disciplines, only about one quarter of the signers have biological science backgrounds, and at least one signatory has abandoned the list, saying he felt mislead. By comparison, during the four-day drive A Scientific Support For Darwinism And For Public Schools Not To Teach Intelligent Design As Science gathered 7733 signatures of people who were verified to be scientists. [3] During the four days of the petition, it received 20 times as many signatures at a rate 690,000% higher than the Discovery Institute can claim. [4]
This is how Moulton originally proposed it be portrayed: [11]
This is Moulton's most recent proposal for its portrayal: [12]
Darwin dissenter
In February 2006, the New York Times ran a story [5] reporting an ongoing claim by the Discovery Institute that Dr. Picard was one of 300 professonals who signed the Discovery Institute's controversial petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". [6] This two-sentence petition has been widely exploited by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and some of their supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution [7] and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. While the Times did not independently substantiate the reported claims of the Discovery Institute, the story included comments from some of the signers, letting the readers judge for themselves what to make of it. [8]
And this is my current proposal: [13]
Anti-Evolution Petition Controversy
In February 2006, the New York Times reported [9] that Dr. Picard was one of 300 professonals who signed the Discovery Institute's controversial petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". [10] This two-sentence petition has been widely exploited by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and some of their supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution [11] and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. It has it the subject of criticism and parody.
Picard's field of computer science is unrelated to evolutionary biology. Writer Ed Brayton, co-founder of "Michigan Citizens for Science" and the The Panda's Thumb website, writes that, "the majority of the people on that list have no training or expertise in evolutionary biology at all. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know what they're talking about, but it does mean that putting them on a list that is used solely as an appeal to authority is ridiculous, since they have no authority in the field." [12]
Hrafn42 08:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I put it to Moulton (when he is unblocked again), that he has co-written a number of articles with Rosalind Picard (the subject of this article), is a friend of hers, and thus has a "close relationship" with her (per WP:COI#Examples), and thus a conflict of interest. "Compliance with this guideline requires discussion of proposed edits on talk pages and avoiding controversial edits in mainspace." I would also suggest that he reads WP:SCOIC.
As it has been "most strenuously pointed out that potentially conflicted editors do not lose their rights to edit Wikipedia pseudonymously, and that outing editors in terms of their real names is in all cases against basic policy", I have no intention of revealing Moulton's identity, and have in fact watered down my first sentence to avoid doing so, even indirectly. Hrafn42 15:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Rather than argue over the title or contents of the disputed second section regarding the pertinence of the controversial petition itself, I propose to insert an intervening section about the controversy stirred up by the appearance of Kenneth Chang's 2006 story in the NY Times, wherein Picard's name is mentioned. The reason I find it necessary to do this is because some elements of Chang's story, which report claims of the DI have been blithely elevated to facthood, without benefit of a critical examination of the reported claims.
Here is my initial draft for the new section, to appear below the biography and above the discussion of the controversial DI petition.
Controversial New York Times Story
In February 2006, the New York Times ran an investigative story [13] by Kenneth Chang of the New York Times Science Desk, reporting that the Discovery Institute had launched a new website [14] to promote their expanded public relations campaign regarding how theories of evolution should be taught in public school. The new website included a list of signatories to an earlier petition which the Discovery Institute had termed "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism." [15] The petition dated back to 2001 when it was first published by the Discovery Institute beneath an ad criticizing a forthcoming PBS series on evolution. [16] The headline on the Discovery Institute's 2001 ad was also "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," although the petition itself, embedded at the bottom of the ad, did not carry that label (it bore no label at all). The untitled 2001 version of the petition simply read, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Chang's story disclosed that Professor Picard's name appeared on the petition cited by the newly launched Dissent From Darwin website, but the Times article did not distinguish which version she signed. Indeed, Professor Picard's name first appeared on the original 2001 untitled two-sentence petition and her name remained on the subsequent controversially yclept versions, including the most recent one appearing on the new website. Chang's story neither substantiated nor refuted the claims of the Discovery Institute that the two-sentence petition supported or endorsed DI's slant on its meaning, but the story did include a mixture of quotes from some of the people whose names appeared on the list at different times, including some quotes that cast doubt on the Discovery Institute's characterization of all the petition signers as variously "dissenters from Darwinism" or "anti-evolution." Chang's story, in conjunction with the Discovery Institute's website and its attached list of petition signers left a wake of confusion over who among the list of signers of the earlier versions of the petition agreed with or consented to the Discovery Institute's characterization of the petition signers as "anti-evolution" "dissenters" who presumably supported the emerging and evolving agenda of the Discovery Institute. It is at present unknown to what degree, if any, Picard agrees with or supports the Discovery Institute's controversial interpretation of the petition as "dissent." It is also unknown whether Picard has ever supported any or all of the ongoing political agenda of the Discovery Institute.
The last two sentences of the proposed new section reflect the absence of verifiable published information regarding the attitude of most of the original 103 signers. So far, Wikipedia has only managed to obtain a reliably sourced comment from Stanley N. Salthe, who disputed DI's characterization and supplied his own salty attitude, "A plague on both their houses."
Skip Evans of the NCSE similarly casts doubt on the DI's interpretation, saying
The Statement
The signatories appear to attest to a statement about the ability of natural selection to "account for the complexity of life" - in other words, a statement about how evolution takes place. Given the anti-evolutionary tone of the introductory paragraphs, a layperson reading the advertisement might well assume that the signatories objected to evolution itself, rather than to the universality of natural selection as its mechanism. But did the scientists themselves object to evolution? Any of them? All of them? Or were some of them only questioning the importance of natural selection? Many scientists - including many associated with NCSE - could in good conscience sign a statement attesting to natural selection's not fully explaining the complexity of life!
It's unclear to me which of the editors here are persuaded by DI's interpretation, which ones are persuaded by the NCSE's point of view. But it occurs to me that a neutral point of view requires Wikipedia to avoid elevating DI's POV to facthood. All that can be stated reliably is that Picard put her name to the two sentences back in 2001, before the DI decloaked and published the original anti-PBS ad. It cannot be reliably established that she attested to anything more, notwithstanding DI's claim to the contrary, and notwithstanding Changs' story reporting that dubious claim.
A neutral point of view and a cautious application of WP:BLP "Do No Harm" therefore requires an abundance of caution when it comes to presenting DI's views, controversial labels, and interpretations as if they were established facts per Wikipedia standards (not to mention the standards of ethical journalism).
More importantly, it's essential to heed the exhortation found in one of those two sentences to examine the evidence for one's beliefs with a keenly skeptical eye. My skeptical eye happens to agree with Skip Evans and not with others who favor the characterization of the 2001 petition as "anti-evolution" or "dissent from Darwin" or as implicit support for DI's political agenda regarding PBS or DI's more recent agenda regarding the teaching of evolution in the public schools.
Moulton 14:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I can see a number of problems with this "proposed intervening section":
I therefore cannot support this section's inclusion. Hrafn42 15:28, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I would also point out that Skip Evans' comments refer to an earlier version of the 'Dissent', that interpolated commentary about the PBS documentary above the statement and its signatories, which interpolated commentary is the subject of Evans' criticism. The current version of the 'Dissent' does not contain this interpolation, so Evans' criticism does not apply to it. Hrafn42 15:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
A Web site with the full list of those who signed the petition was made available yesterday by the institute at dissentfromdarwin.org. The signers all claim doctorates in science or engineering. The list includes a few nationally prominent scientists like James M. Tour, a professor of chemistry at Rice University; Rosalind W. Picard, director of the affective computing research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Philip S. Skell, an emeritus professor of chemistry at Penn State who is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Having looked over the talk page, I'd like to weigh in.
On the issue of the petition, its existence is well established - the Skip Evans article states that DI placed ads in "at least three periodicals, including The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard." So this wasn't a stealthy issue. Anyone who was misled into signing the petition has had adequate opportunity to distance themselves from it. As of today, Picard's signature remains on the petition. Yet Picard does not appear to have issued any statements distancing herself from it. Unless Moulton can come up with a source to support his position, there is no way that we can act upon his suggestions.
In addition, since there are no sources that call the NYTimes story controversial, there is no way that we can call it controversial. As for the "do no harm" issue - all indicators are that Picard does not consider this harmful - regardless of what she signed, she appears to have no objections to having her name on the petition in its current form. It isn't our job to protect people from themselves. Guettarda 03:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
A request was posted for a third opinion on three disputes here:
Because more than two editors are involved and AGF is rather scarce, the request is not within the guidelines for third opinion Wikipedians. I hope other (including participants lightening up, backing off and cooling down) means of resolving disputes avail. — Athaenara ✉ 08:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
See also: Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. — Athaenara ✉ 08:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a large amount that is going on behind the scenes. If you want more details, please feel free to email me.-- Filll 11:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
By my count, Moulton has just introduced nine tags into this article. Whilst I would normally not dispute an editor's (even one in which I am in disagreement with) right to tag an article whose wording they disagree with, this does seem excessive. In particularly, his tags seem to indicate that he is claiming that the following is unverified:
I would inquire what, if anything, should be done about this. If nothing else, it certainly seems to be a violation of WP:POINT. Hrafn42 14:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Scientists Quibble Over Relevance of Darwin to Research on Molecular Biology and the Origins of DNA-Based Cellular Life
"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.
-- WP:V Hrafn42 15:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I have added some tags (please help me ensure the ones I have chosen are the most appropriately selected tags) to highlight the nature of the dispute, down to the detail upon which the dispute pivots.
I do not dispute that the NY Times published an article about the DI's (dubious) claim that hundreds of scientists had (allegedy) signed a petition as they characterized and interpreted it. What is unverified is the DI's reported claim that the signers (specifically the first 103 scientists who signed something prior to first publication) signed the precise document that the DI subsequently represented to the public. For example, the document the DI presented to the public bears a deceptive title and is further enrobed in interpretive commentary. The petition which circulated in academia in 2001 was untitled and was not enrobed in any interpretive commentary. Nor did it carry any disclosure of sponsorship, or any disclosure of the political purposes to which it would later be used. Adding a deceptive title that was not on the original petition and claiming anyone signed that is a potentially fraudulent act of deception. Further enrobing the altered document in gratuitous interpretive commentary compounds the deception by making it appear that the original signers subscribed to the retitled, repurposed, and reinterpreted version that DI presented to a gullible public. A careful reading of the NY Times article reveals that the NY Times did not report that everyone on DI's list signed the altered version that appeared on DI's web site; the NY Times only reported that the names of some prominent scientists appeared on the list published by the DI. Before you can publish as verified fact that the names on DI's list actually signed what DI says they signed, you have to get a reliable source to verify that. The only source you have is the DI itself, which is a notoriously unreliable source.
It may be a subtle point, but it's a crucial point, and the difference between accurately characterizing a living person with verifiable facts and mischaracterizing a living person by publishing as fact material whose validity relies on a single dubious source.
Moulton 14:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
She signed. We have plenty of RS and V evidence for it. And you have said she signed, although that is OR and we cannot use that. So we report; she signed. Period. Done.-- Filll 17:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry but you are incorrect, in addition to contradicting yourself-- Filll 18:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but a "request for whitewash" does not constitute a neutrality dispute. Guettarda 02:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Moulton said:
DI says she signed it. No one has contested that fact, not even you.
Moulton said:
I hate to go the "silence is consent" route, but if someone had a petition posted online with my name on it that I hadn't signed, I'd make it clear that I hadn't signed it.
Moulton said:
Really? So, in other words you are asserting that these 103 people are either very stupid or incredibly gullible? More to the point - evidence?
Moulton said:
We have a verifiable source - the DI says so.
Moulton said:
...except the fact that most of them have done nothing to distance themselves from the claim. What we lack is any verifiable source which suggests that Picard is not a creationist.
Moulton said:
The DI is a verifiable source. It is a source whose reliability is questionable on a number of issues. But there is no reason to doubt everything they say. It has been over half a decade - if the DI has libelled Picard, she has had more than enough time to challenge their libel.
Moulton said:
If anyone had challenged it, we would have to report both sides (the DI says X, but Picard denies it).
Moulton said:
No, not really. We cannot be absolutely certain that Chang found this. By your standard, what we can report is that NYT claims that Chang wrote this (or rather, since I'm sure all this comes off nytimes.com, that the publisher or nytimes.com, which claims to be the New York Times, claims that Ken Chang claimed... Guettarda 02:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
The article says:
“ | In February 2006, the New York Times reported[10] that Dr. Picard was one of several hundred professonals who signed the Discovery Institute's controversial petition, "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism".[11] | ” |
It doesn't say that she signed the petition, just that she is reported as a signer. I wasn't paying enough attention - I was too busy reading Moulton's deeply horrified language to realise that the actual wording was that weak. That is what he is wasting everyone's time one? Ok - I think that language is far too tentative. Maybe we should just change the article to claim she eats babies. Then maybe we will have something that justifies Moulton's complaints. This is just pathetic. Guettarda 03:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Possibly the person's lawyer should write a demand letter to wikipedia to cease and desist from using the NY Times as a reliable source. ... Kenosis 15:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
You're right, it's not a joke. Rather, it is simply unfortunate. It would appear that the issue should be stated as the NY Times has reported it. If there is a counterargument, the place to go is whoever is alleged to have misrepresented Picard's participation or lack thereof. That, in fact, is who the demand letter should be sent to. And, if any additional relevant information is, in the future, published in a notable, reliable source, it would be quite permissible to include such additional information in this article. In other words. the issue is not very complicated. As to the threat of public criticism of Wikipedia's handling of issues like these, well, what would people think if we deferred to threats like that in the section above, insisting that wikipedia participants discard such publications as the NY Times as reliable sources and substitute in its place the demands of someone under threat of public criticism for WP methodology? Submitting that kind of threat, IMO, would be silly and unfortunate. Besides, it wasn't just the New York Times. ... Kenosis 16:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Here's my suggestion for explaining the petition aspect in a neutral way:
Picard is one of several hundred professonals who have signed the Discovery Institute's petition, attesting to the statement that "We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." This petition and a list of its signatories was published late in 2001 as advertisements in periodicals under the heading " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" with a heading claiming that the signatories disputed an alleged claim that "all known scientific evidence supports [Darwinian] evolution". [17] The National Center for Science Education noted that the statement and headings were artfully phrased so that normal scientific questioning of the extent to which natural selection is involved in particular aspects of evolution could be confused with the Discovery Institute's anti-evolution position. [18]
The petition has been repeatedly used in Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns to promote intelligent design creationism. [19]
In February 2006, the New York Times reported that Picard had signed the list. [20] Picard's field of computer science is unrelated to evolutionary biology. It has been noted that many others on the list have no training or expertise in evolutionary biology. [21]
By stating the facts in sequence and noting the artful phrasing, there should be no further confusion. If there is any published statement by Picard dissociating herself from the list as presented by the DI, that should be noted with proper citation. .. dave souza, talk 16:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
For anyone who wants to check them:
Hi, there. I'm a Wikipedia editor with 7000 edits, and strong familiarity with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, especially WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. There was a request on the WP:BLP/N board for assistance in this matter. I would like to help, if the parties agree to letting me mediate. I work at a right-wing think-tank (in legal studies), and I am also a lifetime member of NCSE, so I am familiar with both the evolution/creation controversy and with the perception that the press sometimes treats religious arguments unfairly. I think this would permit me to have credibility with both sides, but perhaps someone would instead feel that this means I have a conflict of interest because I recognize the theory of evolution or because of my employer. Would mediation help matters? If so, we can set up a Talk:Rosalind Picard/mediation page. If one person disagrees, I'll walk away without hard feelings. THF 22:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
About half the article is taken up by this issue. There is already a (long) article about the petition itself. What is the reason for giving some much attention to it here? It almost seems like the intent is to punish Ms Picard for signing it. Steve Dufour 03:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Here is the version I proposed, which was reverted with a rather rude comment:
I don't see what the problem with it is? Steve Dufour 04:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest the the issue is not so much WP:UNDUE as notability ( WP:N).
Hrafn42 05:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
<undent> I invite you to try that sort of reasoning in a deposition. You might find yourself in hot water pretty quickly, I would venture. And it does not particularly carry any weight with me. I have heard these tedious and tendentious arguments 100 times or more now. And they are no more convincing now. It is all nonsense and OR. We are not here to engage in wild speculation and conjecture. And you cannot shove this nonsense on us. Thanks awfully though.-- Filll 14:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I am also leaning towards deletion. Has she really done anything that important? I could argue that she has not.
It is not a function of Wikipedia to do more than report what is in the RS and V sources. If there is "criticism" of an individual in RS and V sources, then it goes into Wikipedia. If we removed all "criticism" then Wikipedia would be of far less use.
Also, "criticism" is in the eye of the beholder. How do we know that Picard objects? We ONLY have Moulton's claims. These claims might be pure fantasy. We have not one word, not one breath, not one hint, from Picard herself over a 6 year period that there is any disagreement by Picard with this petition. Many people, in fact, I would venture that MOST people on the list, are proud to have signed and champion this cause. What evidence do we have that Picard is not one of them? Not one shred. Sorry Moulton. Your COI claims really count for very little. And every passing day when I do not hear back from my inquiries confirms this.
I do NOT believe for one second that over a 6 year period that biological or paleontological colleagues of Picard did not make her aware of the significance of signing and remaining on this petition and remaining on it. Her name has been on the web in this context for 6 years. It was in dozens of advertisements in major National publications when it was first announced in 2001. It was attached to press releases that came out once or twice a year for 6 years. It was in the New York Times article and possibly others. So Picard almost certainly knows what this means to biologists and geologists and other scientists. In fact, the Discovery Institute with their war on "materialism" wants to smash other disciplines like physics and chemistry, eventually, according to their oft-repeated statements and plans. And yet Picard stays on the list and never even whispers that she disagrees even though her name is used to champion this agenda over and over and over and over.
So if I was going to speculate, like Moulton likes to do, I would say it is quite plausible that: (1) Picard wants to stay on the list and meant to sign it, and only complained to Moulton to tell him what he wanted to hear (2) Mentioning this is not harmful at all to Picard, but beneficial. A pro-intelligent design position might easily help with fund-raising for example, or with personal relations. (3) Picard does not really care one way or the other, or even enjoys issuing a big "F-U" to the science community. Picard is an engineer, not a scientist, remember. -- Filll 12:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Since the question was raised of notability established by secondary sources, I'd a quick look and found a few. These could form the basis of some expansion of the biography, and doubtless there are other secondary sources which can be cited. BBC News, The future of affection, PBS Org., Rosalind Picard bio, FM interviews Rosalind Picard, ZDNet MIT's PC breakthrough ... dave souza, talk 12:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I would have to agree with Hrafn42 here. I have begged and pleaded with Moulton for one week to assist in a constructive way. I presented several options he could help with. More web information and documentation of the petition and campaign would help. Less plagiaristic pasting of POV biographical material. More prodding of the machinery to produce more RS and V sources that could be incorporated. Instead, he has chosen to fight instead here in a pointless exercise, wasting time and energy, and even being the subject of a temporary block and coming close a few more times. Moulton, work with us, not against us. It will go much easier that way.-- Filll 17:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I really do think that in defending science it would be better to make it more about, well, science and less about individuals. For instance in an article about Joe Creationist you could say he wrote a book saying that the universe was made in 6 days and that mainstream science says it took about 15 billion years. That is really all the readers need to know about him. You don't have to tell them that he has warts on his nose and hired an illegal alien to mow his lawn. Steve Dufour 13:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Well only partially true, and obviously due to incomplete knowledge. But ok...-- Filll 17:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The scientists here do not, and the WP articles they have written on this subject do not, as can easily be verified. However, WP must report on what is in the public sphere, not what we would wish it to be. We can write lots of articles and include lots of paragraphs explaining this, over and over and over (and we have), but this does not change the discourse in the public sphere or the public mind or in the media. And so we report what is out there. Not what we wish was out there. But reality, instead. -- Filll 18:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks guys. My problem with WP's coverage of creationism, etc. is really more the tone of hostility towards individuals which is sometimes seen on the talk pages and even sometimes leaks out into the articles. I think that distracts from the debate about the facts, which of course (IMO) the evolutionists would win. Steve Dufour 22:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Has there been some consensus that I failed to notice that we should not even mention "evolution" in connection with the 'Dissent'? I find it more than a little odd that it is mentioned solely as a "controversial petition". It would seem to me that it is:
I would thus consider it to be reasonable to characterise it as an "anti-evolution petition" or a "controversial anti-evolution petition" but not merely a "controversial petition". However, if the consensus is against me, I must needs bow to it.
Additionally, I am concerned to note that the appeal to authority aspect of the petition (which would seem to be directly relevant, given Picard's lack of any competence in evolutionary biology) has been completely pared out. Likewise I would inquire if there is consensus for this. Hrafn42 16:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The reason she got in New York Times was because her field had nothing to do with evolution. Otherwise, it would not have been much of an issue probably. It supported Chang's thesis.-- Filll 21:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I note that Moulton has restarted making controversial edits to the article in violation of WP:COI guidelines ("Compliance with this guideline requires discussion of proposed edits on talk pages and avoiding controversial edits in mainspace."). Hrafn42 09:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
(I had put a section title in here because Moulton appeared to want a section "continu[ing the] dialogue on negative reframing" - but as he keeps changing the section title, and moving stuff out of this section, I presume he doesn't, so I'll remove it.) Hrafn42 15:35, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Moulton: you are a disruptive editor, who apparently cannot contain yourself from repeatedly violating WP:COI. I have nothing whatsoever further to say to you. Hrafn42 10:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see the participants here craft a more functional social contract for establishing a more congenial climate for achieving and maintaining consensus on the issues which divide us. The present architecture, which operates more like a high-intensity chess game than an orderly and sober process of civil negotiation, is proving to be needlessly aggravating and contentious. I believe we need a more suitable framework, along the lines of a functional social contract, including some more functional protocols for conflict management and conflict resolution. Moulton 10:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Unlike Moulton, I have no desire to violate WP:3RR (compounding his violations of WP:COI), so rather than reverting his latest piece of unsourced partisanship on behalf of Picard, I will submit it for the consensus consideration:
Picard's field of affective computing is a field of scientific research which establishes her credentials as a practitioner and advocate of the protocols of the scientific method as they apply to all branches of science. The controversy arises from confusion over whether the statement is an expression of the technical protocols of the scientific method or an expression favoring a political agenda regarding the teaching of scientific subjects related to evolution.
Does anybody think that such a statement has any place in wikipedia? Hrafn42 11:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
It does not strike me as particularly enlightening for a biography like this. One could put such boilerplate in ALL engineering and scientific biographies. If this sort of standard was employed, biographies would quickly be filled with meaningless phrases of a similar nature.
Most of the edits I have seen here over the last week have been pointless. There were edits, which were instantly reverted. There was heated debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I think the best for all concerned would be if we just slow down and let things settle out here a bit.
And it appears to me, looking in, that Moulton is a big change agent here. So Moulton, please try not to engage in such pitched battles here. These are not helpful.-- Filll 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I took off Moulton's opinion. As I said before, this article is about Picard. It would be just as wrong to use it as a coatrack to attack evolution as to defend it. I also added the word "later" because I understand that the title of the petition was added after she signed it. If I got this wrong please take it out. I also took the word "Controversial" out of the section title. Too often that word is used to mean "bad" or at least "politically incorrect". That might be true, but it's bad style to give away too much in the title. Steve Dufour 12:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I understand the confusion about the word "promoting". Perhaps the phrase should be reworded to remove ambiguity. However, one of Moulton's main points is that we have no source that these people actually signed the petition aside from the Discovery Institute. I personally think that is a fairly reasonable source in this instance, particularly if the "signatories" did not object for 5 or 6 years after the petition came out and they were able to see what uses it was put to. However, clearly the people who purportedly signed were not promoting the ideas, but the website was promoting the ideas. -- Filll 12:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I have no strong objection to calling the petition an anti-evolution petition in the title, although some others seem to. I would like to point out that it might be a little confusing to some people. Maybe they will think the purpose of the petition is to do away with evolution and turn us back into chimpanzees. :-) Steve Dufour 07:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
There is dissent, and there is dissent.-- Filll 13:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Many engineers pretentiously call themselves scientists. And this comment is quite telling. Thanks.-- Filll 14:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Now I understand. Clearly from the evidence presented here, and the fact that Rosalind Picard signed the petition and has remained on the petition for 6+ years, in spite of assorted encouragement of Picard to get off it over the years and Picard's uncomfortableness with the media coverage, I have been mislead severely by Moulton. Picard's endorsement of the petition is obviously noteworthy and merited and not at ALL misrepresented by this article. In fact, it probably does not go far enough. I no longer believe any fraud was involved in Picard's signing of the petition. I no longer believe that Picard did not know who the Discovery Institute was before she signed. I no longer believe almost anything that Moulton has claimed. Moulton has revealed his true nature. Thank you Moulton for your honesty, however belated. -- Filll 16:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Enough is enough.-- Filll 16:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
It is over, and time for the RfC I believe.-- Filll 21:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe anti-evolution is a poor unreferenced POV (though, concedingly accurate) description for th petition. The easiest way I can see, is by simply referring to the title by name. User:Moulton has left a rather cryptic message on my talk page which suggests he objects to the use of the word "dissent". As this is the actual title of the petition, I see no way this argument can hold up for exclusion of the term. I think Discovery Institute petition would be fine (DI is synonymous with anti-evolution anyway), as long as that is an accurate portrayal of the petition.-- ZayZayEM 05:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
It's an interesting question what purposes are served by the petition, whether they are planned and intentional purposes or surprising and unexpected purposes of an opportunistic nature.
One purpose (albeit one not particularly respected or celebrated) is to raise awareness of the need to employ the critical thinking skills that honor and reify the protocols of the scientific method when reckoning one's beliefs ranging from fanciful idle speculation to comforting cultural myths to useful scientific theories to demonstrably provable mathematical theorems.
Another purpose (almost surely unintentional) is to provide an interesting sociological case study in the phenomenon of reframing. That would be an example of an opportunistic purpose.
In both biological evolution and cultural evolution, we find that an emergent happenstantial feature which originally serves one purpose may end up serving multiple purposes. That is to say, let us not thumb our nose at the Panda's Thumb.
Moulton 12:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Let's look what critic Ed Brayton says:
[This appears just after quoting the two lines of A Scientific Dissent] [The statement] has nothing to do with dissent from Darwinism. or support for ID. I would go even further than this statement goes. I'm not only skeptical of the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life we see around us, I flatly deny that those two things alone account for it. Random mutation is not the only source of genetic variation and natural selection is not the only means by which a trait can become fixed in a population. No evolutionary biologist would disagree with the statement above; even Richard Dawkins could honestly sign that statement. It is completely meaningless. [19]
Seriously guys, read your sources and you might understand the incredibly political nature of this debate and how important it is tread on eggshells so that we portray it accurately and properly without utilising the nasty brutish tactics of the creationist throng.-- ZayZayEM 04:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
According to the article on
fields of science,
computer sciences are a subset of
Mathematics and Computer sciences and
evolutionary biology is a subset of
life sciences, which is in turn a subset of
natural sciences. This would seem to me to be
prima facie evidence that the two fields are completely unrelated.
Hrafn42
08:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
In case anybody is interested, Picard's field is
affective computing within the field of
artificial intelligence. The closest that computer science and evolutionary biology come to meet is in the field of
evolutionary algorithms (an unrelated subfield of AI), which "uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, natural selection and survival of the fittest." You would be hard pressed to make the claim that because another sub-field of your field is "inspired by" an otherwise-unrelated field, that your sub-field is in any way related to this field. At best, this would be an argument for more narrowly characterising Picard's field as
affective computing.
Hrafn42
08:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Computer science is related to evolutionary biology. Oh, HELLO Bioinformatics Particular in running simulations and AI development. Not to mention the usefulness in providing algorithms for things like BLAST.
I really am going to require a citation to allow such an inflammatory anti-cross-disciplinary statement to stand (almost all fields of science overlap somewhat these days). Linking to another wiki-article is not the same as requiring a RS.
Additional the comments by Bryant are not directed towards Picard (Nathan Bradfield and Egnor are mentioned). They are directed towards all the signatories without any "training or expertise" in evo-bio. Not only have you not shown (and refused to show) that this is true for Picard; but its inclusion here will require its inclusion on all the relevant signatories' pages. Better to put it at the A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism main page if it is such a noteworthy comment.
In order to use Bryant's commentary it will have to be shown that Picard is one of those untrained non-experts he was referring to. Otherwise it is contentious synthetic OR on a very special sort of bio
-- ZayZayEM 10:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh HELLO -- tenuously thin argument:
This argument is about as compelling as claiming that stress-testing nuts and bolts is related to medicine because both the workings of nuts and bolts and of artificial implants can both be considered to be part of materials science.
The statement is not "inflammatory", it is simple common sense. Individual sub-fields of scientific fields (or more commonly sub-fields of sub-fields of fields) quite frequently overlap with sub-fields of other fields, but that does not mean that the entire fields are "related". Affective computing is in no way related to evolutionary biology. This can be seen from (1) the prima facie evidence I cited above, and (2) the lack of any evidence of any specific sub-field overlap.
The comments were directed towards a class of people that clearly includes Picard, who, as an Engineering graduate (a subject that is highly unlikely to include electives in even general biology,let alone evolutionary biology), has a vanishingly small probability of having had any academic contact with evolutionary biology. I rather doubt if Brayton demanded Bradfield's or Egnor's full academic transcripts before making his comment either. His point was that neither work in fields that have any contact or overlap with evolutionary biology -- a point perfectly mirroring Picard's own speciality.
Hrafn42 11:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
If anybody is interested here is GIT's 'prerequisite diagram and typical schedule' for a BS in electrical engineering Hrafn42 11:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
If the fact that, in my argument in the section above, I linked to a mere wiki-article is the problem, then NSF Fields of Science Codes and this explanatory information on them add up to much the same thing. Hrafn42 12:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
One of the cornerstones of Darwin's model is the principle that is typically captioned "Survival of the Fittest." One of the faculties that figures into one's fitness to survive is intelligence. Among Howard Gardner's celebrated list of multiple intelligences, author Daniel Goleman singles out Emotional Intelligence as arguably the most important variety of intelligence for overall success in life. Goleman tends to focus on emotional intelligence in humans, but studies of bonobos and chimpanzees by primate researchers suggest that social and emotional intelligence appears to have achieved strikingly different levels of sophistication in otherwise closely related species. Emotional intelligence depends, in part, on the ability to recognize subtle cues in posture, gesture, and facial expression that signal emotional state, and to rapidly process such non-verbal and sub-verbal data streams to identify, assess, reckon, and adaptively respond to affective states. Are these faculties of social-emotional intelligence heritable characteristics? Are they learned skills? How do they arise, evolve, and become impaired in different lineages? Autism research, for example speaks to these questions. So does research in pattern recognition. Moulton 13:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
It is ludicrous in the extreme to suggest that computer science, or computer engineering are the same as evolutionary biology, or have any substantial overlap with evolutionary biology, and that someone who is basically an engineer has any authority to make pronouncments about evolutionary biology. No journal in evolutionary biology would ever choose an engineer like Picard to review a paper on natural selection. No reputable university would hire Picard to do research and teach evolutionary biology. Why is Picard working in one of the engineering departments at MIT and not the Whitehead Institute or the MIT biology department? Why did Picard work in area 54 at Bell Labs? I did not notice any evolutionary biologists in that department. How many evolutionary biologists are members, let alone fellows of the IEEE? How many semester hours of coursework and laboratory work and field work in evolutionary biology and paleontology does Picard have at the undergraduate and graduate levels? Any scholarly peer-reviewed publications in this area? This is nuts. And the more people make these kinds of arguments, the more they discredit themselves and make it clear they are POV warriors.-- Filll 14:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
If and when Picard makes seminal contributions in evolutionary biology, this will be noted. Otherwise, my opinion stands. -- Filll 15:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
And we can summarise our findings with a quote from Benjamin Franklin: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Hrafn42 16:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The issue here really is that one or more of the signatories and/or their close supporters are attempting to do some public-relations-type ideological damage control -- in a word, propaganda. That's an inherently WP:POV position, and it may involve WP:COI considerations too. There are two basic possiblities w.r.t. the deniability that Moulton appears to seek. 1) The statement was presented to the signatories without a title, with the title folded over, or otherwse not visible, at the time of signing, to one or more of the signatories. Or, (2) the title was clearly visible and someone's lying. There are other possibilities, but those are the two main ones in the present setting. Problem is, none of this has any reliable sourcing thus far.
W.r.t. other apparent possibilies: Why haven't some of the signatories called or written one another? and said, for instance: "Hey, this title is a misrepresentation of the language of the statement I signed, for the followng reasons [enter reasons in the space provided or on an attached page ________________, _________________, __________________]. Send it off to the newspapers and other appropriate periodicals and make clear the nature of any assertions of misrepresentative language, lack of title at the time of signing, and/or other claims by one or more of the signatories and make sure it's published in a reliable source. Then it can be considered for use in Wikipedia.
In the meantime, Moulton hints at, and also explicitly threatens in several instances, allegations of libel, slander, public mockery of Wikipedia procedure, practice and substance in various as yet unnamed public fora. Gimme a break already. The threats ring hollow, quite frankly, and this lengthy discussion pretty much speaks for itself. Moulton attempts to break the rules and guidelines of WP, and get others to break them, in order to achieve her (or his) POV objectives. Moulton, this effort of yours is way out of bounds for awhile now. Seriously. ... Kenosis 16:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Moulton, much as you like to pride yourself on your intellectual superiority and presume to lecture the editors here and talk down to them, you have sadly and embarassingly failed in your efforts to understand Wikipedia and its internal culture, rules and checks and balances. All you have amply revealed is your own set of personal biases and inability to engage in reasoned debate and argumentation and collaborate with others in a productive fashion. I for one believe you have done over the edge long ago, and I believe the situation is irretrievable. -- Filll 17:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Filll, I must disagree, in part at least. My review of the statements of Moulton thus far indicates that this has not been, and is not now, about comparative assessments of innate competence. A significant number of the statements by Moulton are demonstrably manipulative, and/or threatening, and demonstrably seek to persuade the WP users to submit to Moulton's preferred, unsubstantiated version of events, under threat of legal action and/or informal sanctions such as publishing pieces in other publications about Wikipedia's alleged flaws in methodology and alleged flaws in its practice. I not only find the threats hollow, but indicative of very arguable hints of intellectual dishonesty by Moulton. All this is quite demonstrable based upon Moulton's submissions to date. If we need to spend the time going over it point by point, we will proceed to do so. Let's not mince words about this at this point in time. The evidence here is such that a random sample of reasonable, objective observers would likely conclude that what I've asserted here is a reasonable way of describing Moulton's approach. ... Kenosis 18:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Moulton, of course it is true that users who tend to be attracted to certain articles quite frequently have POV agendas for those articles. At this point in time, it appears you are not an exception to this all-too-frequent occurrence. The agenda you have asserted for this article is beyond POV, and has gone into (a) criticisms of Wikipedia rules and practice with threats of using other media to get your way here, (b) veiled and/or explicit legal threats, (c) other obvious attempts to manipulate users to accompany you in breaking Wikipedia policy and practice in order to include your unsubstantiated allegations, and (d) lengthy tendentious argumentation in an attempt to get this article to read the way you want it to read. The evidence of your comments thus far indicates that your prime objective is to insert your preferred POV, and that your assertions of a quest for improved quality of journalistic reporting are quite secondary to that objective. Time to cut it out. What's needed now is verification of your as yet unsubstantiated assertions. ... Kenosis 01:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
What the heck? Nothing like injecting pure nonsense in here at random intervals is there? Is this a profitable hobby for you? Of course, everything is connected to everything. And I can do brain surgery because I visited a doctor's office once. -- Filll 01:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
In a paper with T. F. Smith, Myron Stein, and William Beyer, Ulam carries out an investigation of the reconstruction of evolutionary trees based on 33 species of the protein complex known as Cytochrome-C from 33 extant plants or animals. A distance metric between these similar proteins is calculated by a mathematical theory (discussed elsewhere). Hypothetical evolutionary trees are then constructed by use of linear programming methods. Agreement of the trees with generally accepted evolutionary trees was reasonably good.
You need to establish Picard has "no training or expertise" in evo-bio to use Brayton's comments. Simply saying her field is unrelated (which I'm still not satisfied is exactly true) It's overkill. It's synthesis. And it cannot remain on a BLP.
Please wait till discussion is over, and dispute is resolved before restoring contentious material to a BLP.-- ZayZayEM 04:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
No one can deny the subject's expertise in digital signal processing and pattern recognition, which are computational tools that have wide applications in many diverse fields. No one can deny that there are people like Stanislaw Ulam whose primary field is applied mathematics and who have notably applied their mathematical expertise to brilliantly solve important problems in evolutionary biology. Participants here also cannot deny (because they could not have known) that the reason Ulam was on my mind this morning was because I was recalling his memorable talk, many years ago, at the General Research Colloquium at Bell Laboratories, where Picard and I were both employed back in the 1980s. She was in the Digital Signal Processing Group there and I was in the Network Planning Division. It was in that talk where Ulam described his mathematical model linking his metric on the differences in Cytochrome-C to the distances between species on the evolutionary tree. It was an enlightening and inspiring talk, especially for those of us who were trained in the use of similar mathematical tools as those employed so brilliantly by Ulam. Moulton 04:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This is the full context of Brayton's opinion:
Last week I had a post fisking Nathan Bradfield's ignorance about evolution and his trumpeting of the DI's famous list of dissenting scientists. One of the names mentioned in his article was that of Michael Egnor, one of the folks who has signed the DI's list, but is not a scientist but a professor of surgery. I pointed out that, in fact, the majority of the people on that list have no training or expertise in evolutionary biology at all. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know what they're talking about, but it does mean that putting them on a list that is used solely as an appeal to authority is ridiculous, since they have no authority in the field.
The post he linked to states:
If you thought Nathan Bradfield's take on church and state was absurd and overly simplistic, wait till you see what he has to say about evolution. To begin with, he's getting his information from the Worldnutdaily, which is a bit like learning about physics by reading Highlights. He's parroting this article about the Discovery Institute's famous list of "dissenting scientists" that has the gall to refer to it as a list of "top scientists." The very first paragraph:
The list truly is a "Who's Who" of prominent scientists in the world today, and now another 100 ranking leaders have added their signatures to a challenge to Darwin's theory of evolution.
Now that's just funny. A "Who's Who" of prominent scientists? In what alternate universe? How many of the names on that list do you suppose Nathan has ever heard of outside of lists like this? I suppose they think Richard Sternberg is a "prominent scientist", but if not for the Smithsonian controversy even those of us who keep up with this issue had no idea who he was. He was so obscure, in fact, that the head of the department at the NMNH where Sternberg was a Research Associate had never even heard of him and didn't know he existed and had an office in his own department until that controversy broke. Golly, that's sure "prominent."
The only names on the list with any prominence at all, even within their own narrow fields, are Phillip Skell, Henry Schaefer and Frank Tipler. And guess what? None of them are in fields that deal with evolutionary biology at all. Their opinion on evolutionary theory is no more authoritative than anyone else who has no knowledge of the issue. If you want a measure of just how obscure most of them are and how much effort the DI has to go through to make them appear more credible than they are, look no further than the list of credentials they give for each of them and the fact that they switch back and forth between citing where they got their degrees from and what organization they are affiliated with now, picking whichever one sounds more impressive.
And consider the fact that the majority of people on the list are in fields that have no relevance to evolutionary biology at all. A chemist or a physicist or a doctor has no more specialized knowledge of biology than a sociologist or a mechanic for that matter. This is not only an appeal to authority, it is an appeal to non-existent authority. Of course, the last thing the ID advocates should be engaging in is such appeals to authority, especially in light of the fact that well over 99% of scientists in the relevant fields accept evolution. If you're going to appeal to the authority of a tiny percentage of scientists, most of them obscure names in fields with no connection to evolution, it seems rather silly to reject an appeal to the overwhelming opinion of those scientists who actually work in the field. ...
I challenge anybody to show how applying the quote to Picard is taking it out of its original context, that of "the majority of people on the list are in fields that have no relevance to evolutionary biology at all." Hrafn42 05:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Material from self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs should never be used as a source about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article ( see below).
I accepted the elimination of the Brayton quote immediately that ZayZayEM raised the issue of inadmissibility of blogs under WP:BLP (edit summary of "Final WP:BLP warning" not withstanding), and have now replaced it. I wish that they had raised this matter several sections ago, as I could have avoided the trouble of debating, and providing evidence on, issues that this renders moot. While accepting wikipedia policy, I think I am not being unreasonable in feeling a considerable degree of frustration with perpetually moving target I have been presented on this issue.
On the subject of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, I would ask what the standard is for establishing a prima facie case (i.e. one that "denotes evidence that (unless rebutted) would be sufficient to prove a particular proposition or fact") for the unrelatedness of the two fields, that I would have to make without violating WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. At that point, I would be reasonable in demanding that any rebuttal would likewise need to meet the standards of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. As it is, it seems that I must counter a whole string of WP:OR/ WP:SYNTH arguments, without violating either rule myself. This would seem to me to be unreasonable. Hrafn42 08:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm over it. this is getting listed at
WP:AN/I and I am requesting protection. Citing various criteria to formulate and argumentative/convincing tone. (X says B is A, N did B, therefore A) is the exact formula used in the
WP:SYNTH example.--
ZayZayEM
08:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Neutral statement Concerns have been expressed over the inclusion of a disclaimer stating that Picard's field of expertise is unrelated to evo-bio; making A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism a failed appeal to authority.
Diff [23]
Concerns state that the section is in violation of WP:OR (bringing in previously unpublished arguments) and WP:BLP. A previous version of the material was referenced to a blog [24].-- ZayZayEM 09:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This RFC aims to address:
It does not concern:
-- ZayZayEM 09:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I have made a prima facie case that the fields are not related without resorting to WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. However I cannot rebut the host of WP:OR/ WP:SYNTH counter-claims that have been presented without resorting to WP:OR or WP:SYNTH myself. I do not think it is reasonable to expect that I should. Hrafn42 10:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Based on that, I think the statement is entirely reasonable. Guettarda 23:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I have protected this page for 48 hours, until the current disputes and issues with OR etc. are resolved. I hope that the problem will be all fixed by the time the protection expires. -- Anonymous Dissident Talk 09:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Wow. Please leave the attitude at the door.-- Filll 11:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well. I don't think it is productive to even attempt to try to add informative material any more. Given the harsh and unreasonable rigidity with which some editors are expecting WP:BLP to be applied, and the complete lack of any iron-clad, belt-'n'-braces WP:RSed articles that are squarely about the subject of the article (there are just a few WP:RS articles that mention her in passing, or have her venture a comment, but there has been some contention even here), the most logical course would appear to be:
Hrafn42 10:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
An alternative to simple deletion would be to have the article merged/redirected to affective computing. Hrafn42 10:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This article is more trouble than it is worth, for a very minor engineer who makes machines with smiling faces. As for her expertise in DSP, or computer science, or evo. bio. do not make me laugh.-- Filll 11:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The most contentious aspects of this episode, in my estimation, started with Moulton becoming a participant and asserting that there were "behind the scenes" elements related to the signing of the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, which has led to further arguments over how to present that short paragraph about the petition circulated by the Discovery Institute, which later bacame a central feature of the intelligent design controversy. Moulton's assertions were WP:original research, and IMO so are these other arguments about how precisely her area of expertise might relate or not relate to evolutionary biology. Same with other proposed additions -- in my observation it's unfortunately become a debate about a debate, with two opposing POVs drawing farther apart. Please stick to the readily verifiable facts here. The originally contested material in the article is quite adequate as it presently reads here. ... Kenosis 14:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I would note that only half of the MIT Media Lab#Media Lab Research Groups directors have wikipedia articles. Hrafn42 14:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This is nonsense in multiple ways. For example, more than 2 of the original 103/105 have articles I believe. And signing of course adds to notability, particularly if it leads to publicity in the mainstream media. So what? And also, there is NO proof about what the petition that was circulated said, and if it did or did not have a title. All we know so far is what was published, and republished probably a good 10 times and reported in the mainstream media. And we know there has been no evidence of retraction presented in this case, after 6 years. And lots of RS and V evidence of agreement with the intent of the petition and the Discovery Institute agenda by the subject. That is what we know.-- Filll 15:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Enough is enough with the disruptions; this discussion is going in repetitive circles with no additional substance to discuss at this point. The subject of this article is a minor player in the scheme of Things In The World. Perhaps the best claim to notability in WP is Picard's association with Ray Kurzweil. The book Affective Computing presently is ranked over 800,000 in sales rank on Amazon. If one copy sells today, it'll probably move up to the 700,000s -- in other words, it's way out at the thin edges of notability at most. Next thing you know, we'll have a Category:Published Tenured Professors at MIT, which would be ridiculous at this stage of Wikipedia's growth. The consensus is quite clear as to at least brief mention of the NY Times article and being a signatory of the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. Time to drop the issue, or alternately, if people don't feel the topic of this article is adequately notable, to put the article up for deletion. ... Kenosis 15:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
<OutDent>You'd probably find another book a better read. HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality came out in 1997, to coincide with the date that HAL "became operational" in Arthur C. Clarke's futuristic SciFi novel. Edited by David G. Stork, and with a forward by Arthur C. Clarke, the book examines how well Clarke's imagination matched up with the actual state of the art in 1997. Thirteen authors (including Kurzweil and Picard) contributed the 16 chapters. Kurzweil's chapter was entitled, "When Will HAL Understand What We Are Saying? Computer Speech Recognition and Understanding." Picard's chapter was entitled, "Does HAL Cry Digital Tears? Emotions and Computers." You can read the entire book online at the above link. Moulton 12:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
There is a clear consensus to have the information. It is well-sourced. That two editors continue to have issues with does not mean we should leave it out. JoshuaZ 00:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
If we keep it, we should keep the well documented and sourced information. She clearly is a creationist and ID supporter and always has been and is in fact proud of it. There is no problem with Do No Harm here. It is true, we can demonstrate it is true with our evidence (and we have a lot more now). So this fight was basically pointless, except it gave us more ammunition to discuss Picard's creationist beliefs.--
Filll
01:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
No we do not have that consensus. I am sorry you seem to be mistaken.-- Filll 01:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Neither Picard's original field of electrical engineering nor her current field of affective computing is related to evolutionary biology.
- See fields of science (or alternately NSF Fields of Science Codes and associated explanatory information) for an exposition of the general, hierarchical, relationship of scientific fields. For a non-hierarchical representation, see the map of science, which has featured in both Nature and Seed. [27]
- It should be noted that all scientific fields are related to other fields that are themselves related to further fields and so on. However, the degree of relatedness between two fields quickly becomes negligible with each intervening field.
- The following has been commented out as it might be considered OR, but is OR only to the extent that the argument it is intended to rebut (that evolutionary algorithms & Bioinformatics create a relationship to Evo Bio) is also OR. I.e. it is a (potentially) OR plug to an (equally) OR perceived hole in the above, non-OR prima facie evidence that affective computing and evolutionary biology are unrelated. If defence of this point is considered necessary, then this text can be introduced.
- Certain specific sub-fields within computer science,e.g. evolutionary algorithms (which uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution), and interdisciplinary fields involving computer science, e.g. Bioinformatics (which has applications in the modelling of evolution, among a wide range of other applications) have a closer relationship with evolutionary biology than this hierarchy would indicate. However, no claim has been made that these sub-fields have significant overlap with affective computing.
The statement attempts to base its claim to truth on the credentials of its signatories, a logical fallacy known as an ' appeal to authority.' Where the 'authority' in question is venturing an opinion outside their field of expertise (as is the case with Picard), it is known as an 'appeal to false authority.' A List Of Fallacious Arguments
I would seek a consensus from all editors on this article (not simply my two most vocal critics) on the following issues:
In asking this question, I would note:
What level of citation does the statement "Neither Picard's original field of electrical engineering nor her current field of affective computing is related to evolutionary biology." require?
Assuming that this statement can be established, is it sufficiently self-evident that the 'Dissent' is an 'appeal to authority' & Picard's involvement an 'appeal to false authority' from the definitions of these, or is a statement to this effect WP:OR? Hrafn42 05:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
[Update] I've managed to find a reference on the 'appeal to authority' bit: [31] Russell D. Renka, Professor of Political Science, Southeast Missouri State University. Can this be considered a WP:RS? Hrafn42 05:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
See Ohio Scientists' Intelligent Design Poll. The sample of 460 had a response rate of 31% and a sampling error of +/-4.5%.
The Discovery Institute would have to counter this poll's appeal-to-authority value, and in early 2006 they attempted that. The result is profiled in CSC - A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, released 20 February 2006, and is reviewed in Kenneth Chang, Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition - New York Times, February 21, 2006. The 514 credentialed signatories are short of biologists and long on overtly religious Christians whose dissent on Darwinism extends further to questioning of ancient earth and ancient universe propositions. In other words, these are largely creationists. The dissenters' list is at filesDB-download.
Many of the dissenters evade the overwhelming evidence for evolution by accepting micro-level evidence of emergent variation within species while rejecting macro-level emergence in nature of new species. But evolutionists do not separate these. Arguments among evolutionists occur not on whether speciation occurs, but only on the necessary conditions for that process. See Carl Zimmer, Palm Trees and Lake Fish Dispel Doubts About a Theory of Evolution - New York Times, February 21, 2006; this summation demonstrates evidence for sympatric speciation instead of the normal (and accepted) allopatric speciation. [33]
I know we've discussed this before, but I wish to crystallise my thoughts on this. I apologise if you are becoming sick of the question.
Picard's notability would appear to come from three sources:
My suspicion is that the former description would be the most frequently applicable and that Picard's contribution (although significant) is insufficiently differentiable from the field as a whole for her to be notable due to this in her own right rather than to simply be mentioned in the Affective Computing article. Hrafn42 05:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be prudent just to resolve one issue at a time. After unprotection, perhaps a test VFD would satisfy concerns of notability. -- ZayZayEM 05:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
In this essay I will submit for discussion a set of ideas on what I call “affective computing,” computing that relates to, arises from, or influences emotions.
I trust that any residual assertions that this article exists merely to criticize Picard's involvement in the intelligent design controversy are now put to rest. Thanks for the citation -- this would appear to deserve note in the article. Where was it published? ... Kenosis 13:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Picard's "notability" extends to her efforts to provide the insightful perspective of a computer scientist when considering questions in far-flung disciplines. The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in cooperation with the Harvard Divinity School, organized a new course in 1997 provocatively titled, " God and Computers," inviting the general public to attend the guest lectures. Among the invited guest lecturers, Donald Knuth may have been the most notable. Picard was also a guest lecturer one year, and part of her presentation is preserved as a one-act play, " Machines That Can Deny Their Maker." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moulton ( talk • contribs) 10:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
A concern has been raised on my talkpage about the IPs identified as belonging to Picard on top of this page. Do we know this for certain? If not, I would prefer that they be removed. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 12:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
You are not just wrong, but incredibly wrong. And apparently suffering from WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Let's try this again, shall we?
No that is not the main purpose of OTRS. You might want to check on the history of OTRS and what stimulated its creation and what is goals and purpose are. Nice appeal to authority there, but effectively spurious.
Please point me to the place in policy where you get to summarily remove talk page content especially important cautions like those notices.
So what does the notice really say? An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Rosalind Picard, has edited Wikipedia. So this article is called Rosalind Picard, right? And we have a few IP addresses from the MIT Media Laboratory where Picard works editing Picard's article, right? And yet you claim that these IP addresses have nothing to do with Rosalind Picard, right?
Do you claim that people at the Media Laboratory who happen to be editing the Rosalind Picard article are not related to Rosalind Picard? Do you claim that someone who is editing the Wikipedia article on Rosland Picard from the MIT Media Laboratory has no relation to Rosalind Picard and in fact does not even know who Rosalind Picard is? Sounds like a bit difficult of an argument to make, but nevertheless, you are making it. Do you think it is a very compelling argument? How many do you think would buy it? Does it seem very likely to you? Well, you might want to think about that before pressing that claim very hard.-- Filll ( talk) 14:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
So do you contend that Picard's students are not related at all to Picard, if these IP addresses belonged to Picard's students (an unfounded assertion or suggestion)? Picard is perfectly within her rights to file an OTRS request. In fact, I have invited her to do so for months now, over and over and over. In fact, I went even farther and instead of Picard contacting us, I contacted her directly to try to resolve this. I have bent over backwards over and over and over in this situation. So I do not need to be lectured by you, thank you very much. Or your students. -- Filll ( talk) 15:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Well show me the statement in policy that demonstrates we should not have these statements. Pretend I am from Missouri.
We are not assuming it is Picard by the way. Have you even read the templates?
And why do you claim Picard has not spoken to me or communicated to me? Again I see someone who is having trouble following the conversation. That is unfortunate. And how do you think she was warned not to? If she was warned not to, why did she?-- Filll ( talk) 15:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes and I gather you interpret them to mean that they state that Picard herself edited this article, and cover no other case. And I think that is the wrong interpretation. However, why not ask others how they read them? Also, in the case of many WP:COI violation cases, you think that only in the case where the subject of the COI violation confesses and we have solid evidence that these templates are applied? In that case, how do you even know that the subject of the OTRS ticket is who they purport to be? You have someone fingerprinted by the local law enforcement people or FBI perhaps? You have them swear an affadavit in court, under penalty of perjury?-- Filll ( talk) 16:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I've been asked to weigh in on this. Briefly considered starting a thread to similar effect last night, but it hardly seemed worthwhile because the matter was something that hardly any non-Wikipedian would recognize if he or she noticed it. Our site processes are often so dense that people's heads explode trying to make sense of them (I have a few exploded skull fragments right here at my desk as proof). Basically it breaks down like this:
Periodically, pages become drama central for mysterious reasons comprehensible only to the most experienced Wikipedians who reside in the inner sanctum of the secret crypt beneath Wall Street where the Nefarious Wikipedia CabalTM meets. Note to passing checkusers: I am disguising my actual location now. I appear to be editing from San Diego, but no...and actually I'm not in the secret crypt either; I'm atop the Great Mount of Wiki Wisdom in Tibet, praying beneath a thangka, and meditations have thus far revealed that this thread goes against the Tao/ force/ karma/will of the deity of your choice (forgive me if this offends your chosen religion; I'm trying to be lighthearted). Please archive without action, wait a month for things to cool down, and reopen if you still think it really matters. I doubt the underlying issue will make waves outside the Wiki, but this discussion itself is somewhat more noticeable. Durova Charge! 00:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Progress... User_talk:Hrafn42#Forget_I_said_anything
Okay. Given it is a connection highlighted by the NYT article, it seems a comment pointing out that Picard is not a biologist, or that here field does not directly relate to evo-bio will not constitute OR.
However, it is still perceivably WP:SYNTH (IMHO, a textbook case) to relate this back to the failed appeal-to-authority value of A Scientific Dissent. Is consensus for or against the inclusion of this?
Previous text, which may or may not reflect final content:
A Scientific Dissent] attempts to base its claim to truth on the credentials of its signatories, a logical fallacy known as an ' appeal to authority.' Where the 'authority' in question is venturing an opinion outside their field of expertise (as is the case with Picard), it is known as an 'appeal to false authority.' °context
I will be deleting any off-topic banter or trolling by any party, arguments have been presented numerous times by all parties involved, I don't think it really serves any purpose to continue.
For
Against
Looking at the source [34] carefully, it seems to me that a sentence added after the first sentence in the existing paragraph could summarise the statement in a neutral way:
In February 2006, the New York Times reported that Picard was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers, out of five hundred scientists and engineers, whose names appeared on the Discovery Institute's controversial petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". According to the Discovery Institute 254 of the signers held degrees in the biological sciences or biochemistry, leaving more than 350 nonbiologists including Dr. Picard. The two-sentence statement has been widely used by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and some of their supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
I did try "The Times noted that more than 350 of the signers, including Dr. Picard, were nonbiologists.", but that seemed to be going a bit beyond the source. ... dave souza, talk 08:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
On June 29, 2006, Picard [IP 18.85.10.17] proposed this version...
Controversial Petition Signer
Recently, The New York Times reported that Dr. Picard signed the Dissent From Darwin Petition (see page 6 of the petition for her signature). This petition has received criticism since although all of the signers hold doctorates in science and engineering disciplines, only 154 of the 514 signers have biological science backgrounds.
On February 4, 2007, Picard [IP 18.85.10.10] proposed this version...
Controversial Petition Signer
Recently, The New York Times reported that Dr. Picard signed the Discovery Institute's Petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" (see page 6 of the petition for her signature, which names the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as her affiliation).
-- Moulton 10:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I think there is no problem with drawing the conclusions that Chang did in the NYT, but in a brief abbreviated fashion. I have no problem with the blog as a reference, as long as we have a couple of other more RS sources if there are problems. I think she is not particularly notable, although she obviously gained notability from appearing in Chang's article.-- Filll 01:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Given that we appear to be at an impasse on gaining a consensus on disputed content in this article, and given that the non-disputed content is quite minimal, I would like to nominate that this article be merged into Affective computing. I make this nomination on the basis of WP:MERGE and specifically these two "good reasons":
2. Overlap - There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe. For example, "Flammable" and "Non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on Flammability.
3. Text - If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic. For instance, parents or children of a celebrity that are otherwise unremarkable are generally covered in a section of the article on the celebrity, and can be merged there.
Picard is notable for little beyond the field of Affective Computing, so overlap should be obvious. Additionally, there seems little likelihood of much expansion of this article (none at all as long as it remains protected, but much debate for little or no gain even if it is unprotected again). There is quite frankly little further to be said about Picard that could not be better said on the article on Affective Computing.
This proposal will require getting the template {{mergeto|Affective computing|Talk:Affective computing#Merger proposal|{{subst:DATE}}}} inserted into this (protected) article. Unless anybody wishes to object to me making this proposal (as opposed to objecting to the merger itself), I will seek a {{editprotected}}
to get it inserted (alternatively, if an admin wanders in & decides that this proposal is a reasonable one to make, they might insert the template without me having to go through channels). Once we get the template onto this article, I'll place the complementary template on
Affective computing .
Hrafn42
14:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Picard is notable for more than affective computing. Namely for being a signatory of Dissent. This information would have no relation to the affective computing page. That this article is not a stub (but still small) shows that two articles are favourable.-- ZayZayEM 14:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I also think she is barely notable. I would favor summarizing the New York Times article that mentions her, in the least offensive manner possible, to avoid upsetting anyone. However, we should still include the material that lead to her being mentioned in that Chang article. Otherwise, why did Chang single her out? If she was an MIT biologist, I suspect Chang might have mentioned her still, but maybe in a very different context. The context in which she was mentioned is important, and merits inclusion. By us excluding this information, or trying to spin it in another way, we are engaging in OR. However, if we just use the same context Chang did, we are not violating WP:OR.-- Filll 16:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I support a merge/redirect, but for a different reason: this is not a proper biography by a long shot. But note that mentioning the ID poll will probably not satisfy Due Weight concerns in the Affective Computing article.
Nevertheless, it may be possible to find sufficient published information on Picard to expand this into a true bio; those in favor of keeping a separate biography may want to spend some time digging it up. Topics e.g. early life, pop. science publications/(media) appearances/talks given on Affective Computing, her religious beliefs. Avb 13:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Hrafn42 06:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
If I am not mistaken, some of those are biochemists, which are not the same as biologists. Certainly they are not experts in evolution. They just need classes in organic chemistry, and not biology or genetics etc.--
Filll
23:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm really not caring too much anymore. I inserted the material about Picard being a non-biologist because consensus appeared to favour inclusion, and a source did actually point it out (if only someone had actually used this argument at the start). I am not accusing Hrafn of WP:DISRUPT, though it does seem that it seems certain parties seem to be having a "my way or the highway/all or nothing" attitude towards Picard's article. I'm quite happy to leave "emerging" out of the article if people feel it is overstepping the mark (noone actually commented as to why it was unreasonable to suggest). List of signatories to "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" is a relevant link, even if it doesn't actually list all 500 signatories (yet), perhaps it could be worded differently.-- ZayZayEM 08:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I've reverted an edit by IP# 18.85.44.145, location: United States [City: Boston, Massachusetts], owner: MIT
Apart from the fact that I feel such a change requires a consensus first, if only for WP:BLP reasons, this could be a sock or meat puppet trying to continue disrupting this article. Avb 14:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Not only is it MIT, it's
MIT Media Lab -- dhcp-44-145.media.mit.edu, so most likely Picard or an associate.
Hrafn42
Talk
Stalk
14:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Interestingly, this edit in the opposite direction of the Moulton edits and the purported Picard anon edits. So it might be just someone trying to create controversy, or more material for Moulton and his blogs and/or experiments with the "journalism" culture and standards of WP, or it might be an associate of Picard and Moulton's who really secretly feels that Moulton and Picard are wrong, and resents their views and activities. It is too coincidental.-- Filll 15:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The edit created a situation that, if handled incorrectly, would reflect badly on Wikipedia. The assumption that the change might stick without a consensus seems based on an incorrect understanding of (and plain disbelief in) WP style consensus - both hallmarks of moulton's type of editing. By the way, has Picard herself ever contacted editors, or the Foundation directly? It beats anonymous IP editing and proxy editing by a friend who does not want to go with the flow and attacks the system. Avb 17:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
True. Well, we'll simply go on editing as usual. If Picard ever follows up on that promise, we may be able to do something for her, or once again explain why we can't. Avb 18:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
NYT does make a point of her being a non-biologist:
The Discovery Institute says 128 signers hold degrees in the biological sciences and 26 in biochemistry. That leaves more than 350 nonbiologists, including Dr. Tour, Dr. Picard and Dr. Skell.
350> vs 128 is majority, so I don't think it is too bad to say that Picard is one amongst the majority of nonbiologists who signed the petition.-- ZayZayEM 00:07, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the section, Rosalind Picard#"A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", is a violation of the undue weight policy. It is clearly only a minor point, deserving one sentence maximum, not a section heading. As far as I can tell, there is no further information relevant to her other than that she signed it.
I'm removing all but the first sentence, and the rest of the information can be covered over at A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism. Sχeptomaniac χαιρετε 23:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
This is a big part of her notability. It should stay, maybe abbreviated, but it should stay. Without it, she is really just a professor who put smiling faces on computers. So what?--
Filll (
talk)
01:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
[Picard] tries to meet the criticisms of a sceptical audience by emphasising practical benefits and avoiding science-fiction rhetoric
I think at the very least we should summarize what is in the NYT article. I do not believe this can adequately be covered in one sentence.-- Filll ( talk) 21:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I concur 100% with Filll here - she's notable mostly for being a semi-respectable academic who signed a petition propagated by and fueling the conspiracy theories of cranks. Raul654 ( talk) 01:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It looks to me that Picard would pass WP:ACADEMIC without the ID info at all, as she is a full professor at MIT, a director of a lab, and has won several awards. The extended discussion of ID seems very out of place here, as it is certainly only a very insignificant part of her academic career. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 03:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Since this seems to have blown up spectacularly in my face, I might as well explain my edit. :/
I came across this BLP, which hadn't been edited since last year, and noticed that the paragraph about her signing that creationism petition seemed a disjointed and tangential - her signing the petition is unquestionably notable, but it seemed jarring to go straight from discussion of her research to "In February 2006, the New York Times reported... The petition, a two-sentence statement," without stating why she signed the petition or anything. We have an essay about these sorts of articles and the problems with them - WP:COATRACK. I checked out her personal webpage, noticed she was quite open about her religion, googled "Rosalind Picard christian" and found an Atlantic Monthly article that discussed at length why she was a creationist. So I added a sentence about that, making the article flow more smoothly into the signing of the petition. I also removed the second sentence explaining the petition, as I thought it was straying too off-topic.
I discussed this with Raul and can now see the merits of leaving that last sentence in - I think the article as it now stands is acceptable. What's greatly troubling to me is that instead of discussing this and working out a compromise, certain folks refused my invitation to discuss it and instantly jumped on me and started canvassing for a revert war when a few minutes of discussion would have cheerfully resolved the situation instead. (I'm personally as agnostic and anti-creationist as it gets... the only god I'm working in the name of here is WP:BLP.) This really isn't the way Wikipedia should work - assuming everyone is a POV pusher by default is not how we do things around here. krimpet ✽ 04:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely atrocious. And it is still not true that a negatyive book review constitutes a violation of WP:BLP for the author. Sorry, but that is...well you can imagine I am sure.-- Filll ( talk) 05:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
If you claim these are irrelevant, you just reveal your lack of knowledge of the situation. Better educate yourself before you commit another faux pas like claiming that a negative book review is a violation of BLP.-- Filll ( talk) 06:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm also not sure why the article is giving so much weight to this issue. It's the last sentence that is clearly undue weight here. Yes, she was in a NYT article, but please read it more closely - her name was mentioned in passing, she is in no way discussed in the article. To hang this sentence about the Discovery Institute's misdeeds off the end of this short article is simply not appropriate. And after clicking on a few names from
[40], it seems even less appropriate, since other articles - like
Philip Skell - contain either no or only a short mention. If the reason is we're afraid of handing Moulton and his fellow haters at WPR a victory, then that's stupid. They stand victorious whenever we make a decision based on criteria other than what's best for the encyclopedia. -
Merzbow (
talk)
07:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Let's look at the situation with some rationality here shall we ?
-- Filll ( talk) 14:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
With that sort of reasoning, I suspect you will have trouble. Sorry, but the only reason she is on Wikipedia is she signed the petition. She is not particularly notable as an academic. If you believe she is, spend a week or two writing a proper biography for her in a sandbox and let others look at it. And yes lots and lots of people have tried to claim she did not sign and wanted us to write that she did not sign and the New York Times writer is a stupid #$%^&* for writing that she signed. And just trying to hide the fact that she signed and the NYT wrote an article about it probably is not going to fly. If this is so all-fired important to you, why are you afraid of doing any real work? Stop complaining and do some real writing.--
Filll (
talk)
15:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I am not going to continue to fight with you about nonsense. Do some work if you want to improve this biography. -- Filll ( talk) 15:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The "why it is significant part" should be directly associated with the person whose biography we are writing and remains a matter of editorial interpretation (see Fill's investigative essay above) unless it has been notably commented on and can be cited as such. There doesn't seem to be any such notability or at lest no one here seems to be offering any evidence of it. As such why can't we just say she signed it with a link to the full entry where there is ample discussion about petition itself? Some minor discriptor could be added as well. Something like this for instance: "In February 2006, the New York Times reported that Picard was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers whose names appeared on the controversial ' A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism,' petition in support of intelligent design." In this example there we say it is controversial and that it relates to intelligent design. I'm still struggling to understand how a sentence about what the Discovery Institute has done with the petition belongs here and am still in hope that someone can explain that. Thanks. PelleSmith ( talk) 16:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Over the months, many many compromises have been attempted. I am telling you from experience, the compromises that involve whitewashing the endorsement of this petition will not work. The way to improve this biography is to IMPROVE THIS BIOGRAPHY. Is that so hard to understand? DO SOME WORK and add some material about her career in your own words if she is so notable and has had such a stellar important notable career putting smiling faces on computers. I will not continue to fight about this nonsense. If you want to have a better biography with more details here, then you have to write one. No one will write one for you or allow you to steal one from someone else. Also, we have plenty of other evidence that Picard supports the Discovery Institute and intelligent design and has an anti-evolution position. But in the interests of fairness and
WP:BLP, I do not suggest we smear this woman any more than necessary. Leave sleeping dogs lie. If she is prominent for other things, then go ahead and write about them. Let's not make this article a huge long discussion about how antiscience this woman is with all kinds of references to this activity of hers. Good lord...be reasonable. You want a better biography? Write one.--
Filll (
talk)
16:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
If and when you feel like doing some real work, you are welcome to do so. Otherwise, who can be bothered with this kind of nonsense?-- Filll ( talk) 16:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Can we start with a version of PelleSmith's sentence:
"In February 2006, the New York Times reported that Picard was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers whose names appeared on the Discovery Institute's controversial petition " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," which supports intelligent design."
and possibly expand it somewhat to find a consensus version? Or perhaps,
Picard has expressed support for intelligent design theory, and was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers whose names appeared on the Discovery Institute's controversial petition " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism."
I'm sure we can find a wording everyone agrees with. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 17:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
The current wording is clear, and it doesn't go beyond the references. She signed the DI petition. We explain what the petition is. We don't assert that Picard is a supporter of ID; it seems likely that she is (read this history of this page), but we don't know.
At present the article states a notable fact about her, and adds context. Why is that a bad thing? Guettarda ( talk) 17:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
The second sentence tells the reader about the petition, rather than stating uninformatively that she's signed some petition. The NYT describes her signing it in the context that "In the recent skirmishes over evolution, advocates who have pushed to dilute its teaching have regularly pointed to a petition signed by 514 scientists and engineers. The petition, they say, is proof that scientific doubt over evolution persists." That's what the second sentence explains. .. dave souza, talk 18:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
This is the source mentioned above, in case anyone is confused: http://news.therecord.com/article/264978. In this source she says she's not happy with Intelligent Design though her own perspective is certainly similar. Regards. PelleSmith ( talk) 18:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Be clear. The report says what the petition was, she had opportunity to distance herself from the petition and chose to give it tacit support. What her reasoning was is unknown, we can only report the facts. Note well that the petition does not oppose modern evolutionary theory, but it was used to oppose evolution. .. dave souza, talk 20:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/Hal/chap13/thirteen1.html
Something about this chapter might be useful in the article. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 19:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
“ | Imagine your robot entering the kitchen as you prepare breakfast for guests. The robot looks happy to see you and greets you with a cheery "Good morning." You mumble something it does not understand. It notices your face, vocal tone, smoke above the stove, and your slamming of a pot into the sink, and infers that you do not appear to be having a good morning. Immediately, it adjusts its internal state to "subdued," which has the effect of lowering its vocal pitch and amplitude settings, eliminating cheery behavioral displays, and suppressing unnecessary conversation. Suppose you exclaim, "Ow!!" yanking your hand from the hot stove, rushing to run your fingers under cold water, adding "I can't believe I ruined the sauce." While the robot's speech recognition may not have high confidence that it accurately recognized all of your words, its assessment of your affect and actions indicates a high probability that you are upset and maybe hurt. | ” |
Seems to be from Scholarpedia by R. Picard herself, and doesn't seem to be in the book at all. (I can see how you might get that wrong-ish). Can someone check where else it might occur? -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 19:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It is complained that for this biography, there are two parts:
and that B is too large compared to A. The only reason that there is an article here is because of B. Others claim that A justifies the article, even if B was not true.
To make A larger than B, either B can be reduced, or A can be increased. For those who claim that there is plenty of A to justify an article, they should be able to expand A. Stop complaining about it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over for months on end and just do it. Just do it. Is that so hard? Do it.
And so instead of attacking the two sentences of B, add to A. The reasonable way to increase the ratio of A/B is to increase A, not decrease B. If you claim there is not enough A to use to increase A/B, then lets just get rid of this waste of time. And set the size of A and B equal to zero.
This is not rocket science here. Just stop whining and work.-- Filll ( talk) 20:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I am not even going to justify that with a response. Just be aware that the last person who tried to claim such nonsense was banned for their trouble. And I already warned you in detail about it. So...--
Filll (
talk)
20:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Please feel free to be productive instead of violating
WP:CIVIL,
WP:NPA,
WP:AGF and a number of other principles. Cheers!--
Filll (
talk)
21:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:BAIT again huh? As I said, actually being helpful would be nice.--
Filll (
talk)
21:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Dave's version
She is one of the signatories of the Discovery Institute's controversial petition "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism which has been used in campaigns to discredit evolution and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.[19][20] In a 2007 interview she raised the idea of a "greater mind" making some intervention beyond random processes in the complexity of DNA, but expressed reservations about intelligent design, saying that people of faith should challenge it and be more skeptical.[21]
Current wording
Picard is one of 514 signatories of the Discovery Institute's "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," a controversial petition which has been used to promote intelligent design by questioning modern evolutionary theory.[21][22] In a 2007 interview she raised the idea of a "greater mind" making some intervention beyond random processes in the complexity of DNA, but expressed reservations about intelligent design, saying that people of faith should challenge it and be more skeptical.[23]
I think Dave's version is superior for a number of reasons
I'm still not sure why one sentence is better than the original wording (The petition, a two-sentence statement, has been widely used by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and some of its supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools), since that avoids the problem of having to characterise the situation at all. In addition, of course, the whole issue of notability is lost - Picard's being a signatory of the petition is notable because (a) she's relatively prominent, and (b) she's a non-biologist.
So, um, why is this wording better again...? Guettarda ( talk) 21:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Dave's wording is better and makes sense. The other is incoherent and bad grammar. And the hair splitting and nonsense is just serving to obfuscate the issues.-- Filll ( talk) 22:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Um, I hate to point this out to you Travis, but you're arguing for a passage that promotes a particular point of view. That the petition questions evolution is happening to used to promote intelligent design is itself a view. One which plays the Discovery Institute's hide the ID in the appearance of a legitimate but ultimately contrived dispute, read Teach the Controversy. Reliable sources and the facts show that the the ID/creationist text book Of Pandas and People came up with the notion and term of ID which was then picked up by the Discovery Institute which then founded the ID movement. The Discovery Institute's Wedge strategy set forth the aims and governing principles of the movement, and A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism is simply one the invidual Discovery Institute campaigns which seek to misrepresnt evolution as "a theory in crisis" subject to sweep doubt in the scientific community: [43] [44] Portraying A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism as anything other than what it is -a part of a campaign promoting ID- is to purpetuate the Discovery Institute's own PR rhetoric. Protraying it petition that questions evolution and just happens to be used by the DI (the source of both Dissent From Darwinism and the ID movement I remind you) demonstably violates NPOV's Undue Weight clause.
I've provided 2 sources above showing the Discovery Institute runs a cynical campaign of misinformation. I have literally dozens of sources showing the Dissent From Darwinism petition is an integral part of that campaign, and I'm more than happy to provide them all here over time and make it stick. Now we can spend a few days or weeks arguing over this or we can all acknowledge the verifiable fact that A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism promotes intelligent design by discounting evolution and move on to something more productive. It's your call Travis. FeloniousMonk ( talk) 02:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
PS, you are missing the point. This person signed a petition in 2000 or so. Maybe she was duped into it. Maybe she was confused. Maybe she was just really really stupid. Maybe she was delusional. It does not matter. She signed. Now, for the last 8 years or so, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over this petition has been used again and again and again and again and again in a massive multimillion dollar campaign to declare that science is nonsense and scientists are evil and on and on and on and on and on and on. On radio and on television and in state legislatures and in congress and in books and in newspapers and in magazines and in movies and on the internet and in court rooms. This has been an immense attack with public relations firms involved. Did you miss it somehow? Well no one who has not been in a coma in the United States could have missed this. Several people who signed the petition and realized that they had been lied to had themselves removed from the list. Several people who had signed the petition and realized that the petition was being used in ways they disagreed with made public announcements when questioned about it that they thought the uses the petition was being put to were wrong and it was deceitful. Picard was questioned, repeatedly by the New York Times. Her answer? Nothing. We asked her over and over and over. Her answer? Nothing. Several others have asked her over the last few years. Her answer? Nothing. Finally last fall, in November, she has issued a statement half distancing herself from the goals of the petition. Ok, so we report that. And what exactly is your problem? We have things partly clarified now. What is wrong with that exactly?--
Filll (
talk)
04:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
One of the biggest mistakes that writers of hyperlinked documents make is assuming too much of the readers and letting them just click for clarification of all the unfamiliar terms and all the details. This is extremely poor writing. A reader who has to constantly click to understand a piece of text will quickly get lost in a series of links, and not be able to read the original document and absorb the material. Just because hyperlinks exist on Wikipedia does not excuse us from writing clearly and accurately in a self-contained, self-explanatory manner.
We do a terrible disservice to readers to demand that they have to look everything up. For one thing, many people's internet connections are not able to cope with these sorts of demands. Also, many people's attention spans are not able to deal with this sort of sloppy writing. Our articles should be readable and accessible.
This idea that we can bury all the material in links 2 or 3 or 4 levels deep, and to heck with the needs of the reader is just outrageous and abusive. And the impression I get here is that people want to adopt this incredibly sloppy bad style of writing on purpose, to obscure the nature of this petition. Perhaps they believe it is embarassing to Picard. Perhaps they have bought into the intelligent design movement's strategy of obfuscation, to obscure the fact that Intelligent Design is just a form of creationism, and is essentially an anti-science religious movement that aims to roll back science to its position before the scientific revolution.
It does not really matter why people want to write vague sloppy inaccessible documents with no explanation of the details, demanding that readers have to click and click and click and click over and over and over on all kinds of wikilinked terms to understand an article. The bottom line is, we should not be asking anyone to do this. It is lousy writing. It stinks. And we should not stand for it.-- Filll ( talk) 04:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
So I guess you are in favor of lousy writing then and incomprehensibility and illiteracy? Ah ok fair enough. Well dont let the door hit you...-- Filll ( talk) 04:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
<ri>So, apart from (a) good writing style, and (b) not requiring people on slow connections to click through every time they come across an unfamiliar concept...apart from, you know, trying to write something that someone could actually read and understand, yes, there's the added point that if someone printed off the article they'd have no clue what was going on...apart from trying to write something that's useful to the reader, I can't see any reason to include that sentence. Nor can I, of course, see any reason to produce an encyclopaedia at all. So after you discard "usefulness" from the list of reasons for producing an encyclopaedia, what's left? The MMORPG aspect of Wikipedia? I'll pass on that one, and stick to the idea of trying to produce articles that are useful to readers. Since without readers, we really do have no reason to be here. Guettarda ( talk) 07:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Our job here is to provide information in a succinct and accessible form. The sources say a woman signed a petition. The reason she appeared in the NYT is she signed a very unusual petition for someone in her position. A singularly unusual petition. What makes it so interesting that the NYT would even write about it? Well that is what makes it newsworthy. And that is what makes it notable for Wikipedia, isnt it?
Look on the front page there are lists of awards she has won. About 90 percent of those are meaningless and should probably be removed, because they are not interesting and not notable and we have no context for understanding them in the article. It reads like a CV, and that is not what Wikipedia is supposed to be.
You would have us state that this woman appeared in the NYT for something that she did that was surprising given who she is, but we cannot tell you why it was surprising and why the NYT wrote about her and what it was that she did, aside from putting her name on a list. We cannot tell you more about the list or why the list is interesting to the NYT.
People who wanted to make your sorts of arguments months ago tried to argue that the NYT was not a good source, or that we should include a paragraph or two about what a piece of incompetent disreputable $#%^& the NYT is. They wanted to call this "good online journalistic ethics". You want to call what we are doing "twisting the sources". Amounts to about the same. Nonsense.-- Filll ( talk) 12:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I am totally mystified about why people want to continue to fight about this. About 10 months ago, we removed a copyright violation. People claimed we had an
WP:UNDUE problem. Ok now that is fixed. People claimed Picard did not mean to sign the petition so we had a
WP:BLP problem. So we asked for clarification and we now have it. So what is the problem? Why are people so frantic to continue to fight unless there really is something else driving this? --
Filll (
talk)
15:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Maybe link the top Affective Computing to the relevant article? Although Fill, Jim and OrangeMarlin seem to have done what is best described as "revenge editing" there...
/sigh 195.216.82.210 ( talk) 11:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
What on earth is your problem? Have you seen what a lousy article that is?--
Filll (
talk)
11:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
So get yourself an account and fix it. Make sure you include a more accurate history about how the Japanese were doing affective computing years and years and years before Picard.-- Filll ( talk) 14:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Being WP:BOLD with perhaps a touch of WP:IAR, I've archived this thread speedily with no action.
Let's give this a month's breather and reopen if anyone still sees a need. Durova Charge! 00:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Every time there is some complaint about this article, and it finally gets answered, then some new complaint "magically" appears. Makes me think that we have some who are being disingenuous, or who are only here to fight. For example:
Right, does any of that impact the article? Otherwise this isn't a forum, so perhaps you could just remove it, unless its meant to be light comic relief. (I don't get paid by the Discovery Institute unless I get results both on the article page and on the talkpage.)--
Relata refero (
disp.)
13:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Filll past arguments are not apropos to the current discussion. Please attribute the accusations that so unattributed only function to erect a straw man.
Who are your interlocutors here Filll? A phantom army of the ghosts of editors past? I see none of these arguments made by any of the editors arguing here. Please attribute these accusations, or admit that they are not actually directed towards anyone presently arguing against you. Thanks. PelleSmith ( talk) 13:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, there have undoubtedly been problems in the past. However, there have been great improvements to the article generally in the last couple of days. I think everyone's agreed that the petition issue has to be covered properly, and at least there's no longer any question of it taking up a dispropotionately large part of the article. .. dave souza, talk 13:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Why are you calling it a "whitewash" was the signing a bad thing? I just see an article about a LIVING human being that centered around ONE EVENT in her life and practicly ridiculed that, changed into an article that shows the accomplishments of this LIVING human being and highlights her achievements (the article on which you have shredded but hey alls fair it seems) and mentions the part about her signing (which seems oh so important to you) in passing, where it should be. The Wikipedia BLP's would be a WHOLE LOT better off if people remembered that they are writing about LIVING PEOPLE. Just because you disagree with someones statements doesn't mean you have to go to war against them o.O 195.216.82.210 ( talk) 14:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
All in good time. There is no rush, is there? And perhaps by this simple friendly caution, people will come to their senses and start to act sensibly instead.--
Filll (
talk)
14:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
You believe that is following
WP:AGF? Well I can see where your heads are at. Go ahead, you are characterizing yourself in a very interesting light. Don't let me stop you.--
Filll (
talk)
14:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
KTC, don't think you are anonymous. And you should be ashamed of yourself.-- Filll ( talk) 14:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
And what threat is that? KTC parades himself around making outrageous statements on the internet. It is pretty much public knowledge. And yes the statements he makes are about this article and relevant to this article. A little investigation reveals a lot.-- Filll ( talk) 14:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
All in good time. I just believe that we should give people plenty of warning and lots of second and third and fourth chances, but if they continue, then we give them the rope to hang themselves. Do you not think we should try very hard to keep our fellow editors out of trouble?-- Filll ( talk) 14:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
With all due respect, I reserve the right to defend myself from repeated personal attacks. If it escalates further, I will move it to their talk pages, and to assorted noticeboards etc.-- Filll ( talk) 15:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Filll am I to understand this statement to mean that the mounting evidence of proxy editing that you will deal with in due time refers to me personally? Please put up or shut up. You've accused everyone who doesn't agree with you of violating basic policy directed towards etiquette and now you're insinuating left and right that these people may in fact be violating some more serious policies by editing for banned editors. Please do consider this a personal attack, the one that took you over the line, and bring this to AN/I already. We will all benefit from some administrative scrutiny of your edits here. Cheers. PelleSmith ( talk) 16:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
In case you have not noticed, there is already plenty of administrative scrutiny of this situation. And guess what? They do not appear to agree with your arguments. Oh well. And in addition, I will decline to accept the WP:BAIT.-- Filll ( talk) 16:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Whatever.-- Filll ( talk) 16:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The article lead says:
Picard is the author of Affective Computing, a text-book that describes the importance of recognizing human emotions to the relationships between people and the possible effects this recognition would have on robots
First we make a statement
Picard is the author of Affective Computing
Then we explain what it is
a text-book that describes the importance of recognizing human emotions to the relationships between people and the possible effects this recognition would have on robots
We would do that even if we had an article about the book. That's because we explain statements after we make them. According to Relato, we should delete this because people don't know about it. According to Travis, we should delete this because is isn't it based on third-party sources and it's attributing all sorts of crazy beliefs to the poor woman. Oh, and Travis and Relato would see this as a coatrack upon which we are using to try to create and attack on the woman's beliefs about robots.
Yes, this is all ridiculous. As is the venom with which a hundred new editors have descended on this article to fight for this person that they keep making horrible statements about. If you hate Picard with the fury you keep expressing, maybe you're too personally invested in this article. Guettarda ( talk) 15:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Guettarda appears to make a very compelling argument. Ok Relata refero, since no one knows about Picard, lets just AfD this mess. Seems like the same sort of reasoning. --
Filll (
talk)
16:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Another key difference is that there is another article on the petition, but not another article on the textbook. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 16:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Picard is the author of Affective Computing
Strikes me as a singularly poor writing style. Nevertheless, that is what is being argued for.-- Filll ( talk) 16:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I do congratulate those who have expanded the article greatly using reliable sources. Kudos to all. At least something positive is happening here. spryde | talk 15:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Things have been very heated for a few days at this article. Google does index talk pages, unfortunately, and I'm concerned that some of the commentary here is indecorous. Let's remember that this is a living person's biography. Suggest a judicious early archiving of some of these threads, and/or implementing expandable box format. Durova Charge! 17:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not trying to assign blame, just pointing out the effect of Google indexing. We're all human and when things get heated few of us are at our best. Suggest the editors at this talk page prioritize the early archving of threads by this metric: put yourselves in Professor Picard's shoes, and if you suppose she would be unsettled by a thread - and the thread isn't contributing to encyclopedic progress - then move toward swift archiving by mutual agreement. Durova Charge! 18:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think most of this should be archived. It is essentially pointless and I do not know what people are still arguing about, given that the WP:BLP problem has been addressed by including her statement and the WP:UNDUE problem has been addressed by including more material on her career. In other words, the main sources of complaint for 10 months or so have been resolved. This is over people. Nothing to see here.-- Filll ( talk) 18:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
In response to Durova: as I have said recently on wp-en-l, I am an aggressive courtesy blanker, and will like to do so here unless someone views that as whitewashing something. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 19:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Trying to stay on track, there are two issues here as I see it
There are other issues, but these are the two main ones. So - does anyone still maintain that we should include a bald statement that she signed the petition with no explanation of what the petition says? Guettarda ( talk) 18:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
My impression is that there is general agreement on the following points:
Areas of disagreement include the amount of depth and detail in the discussion of the petition, and how the petition is characterized. I agree it's better to start with areas of agreement and work from there. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 18:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, this is very encouraging. Now we can starting thinking about actual phrasing. Guettarda ( talk) 19:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Next question - does anyone have a problem with my renaming the section "Religion and science"? I thought "Faith" was too nebulous, and missed the point that this was about the interaction between her religious beliefs (I don't like "faith", it's too ambiguous), her research and her views of science. "Religion and science"? "Faith"? "Hair colour"? Guettarda ( talk) 19:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
We could just link or add a box that says "signed Dissent from Darwinism", and then have a mile long article there. Oh, we already do. Right. So to save duplication of effort, link once and leave it at that. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 20:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
KC's point stands as valid: we must explain, not simply connect. •Jim62sch• dissera! 20:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
As I stated above, it is good writing style to make our articles self-contained, so something like what KC is suggesting is probably better.-- Filll ( talk) 21:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The current wording, as suggested by Travis, is in fact the most faithful to the entry A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, which states:
This entry also makes the nuanced distinction which is essential, between what the petition states and what the Discovery institute is doing with the signed petition. Those who think the other wording stating that the petition "promotes ID" is more faithful please have a look at the full entry. PelleSmith ( talk) 21:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The issue I am concerned with is that, if we say the petition supports ID, we imply that Picard supports ID, something that is contradicted by Picard's own words quotes lower in the paragraph. Her quotes imply to me that she is skeptical of both evolution and ID. On the other hand, saying she signed a petition which someone else uses to promote ID doesn't imply she supports that use of it. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 21:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Can we please have a source that verifies the "fact" that the petition itself "promotes ID?" It seems that the only hitch here now is between two propositions: 1) That the language should say that the petition itself promotes ID and 2) that the language should clarify that the DI uses the petition to promote ID. The factuality of the second proposition is not disputed, so I think those who support the first as more accurate or otherwise preferable to the undisputed fact that the DI does so use the petition should come up with some verification. PelleSmith ( talk) 22:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
No, the people who created the petition and promote the petition and maintain the petition are doing so. And they have created an instrument to try to confuse and mislead the unwary into signing, even if they disagree. And this is covered in depth at A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, including some interesting links in which it is explored even further. Interestingly, we have had a variety of intelligent design supporters and other creationists who have edit warred to try to remove that part of the article, since they do not like the insinuation that the petition is vague on purpose and many people have been tricked into signing it, or when surveyed later renounced intelligent design. They want to believe that there are secretly huge numbers of scientists that secretly agree with THEM. Maybe a majority...yeah right...-- Filll ( talk) 23:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Just relax. We have them. They will be presented when we are good and ready. There is no rush here. The article is locked. And you have any doubt that such sources exist? Please....-- Filll ( talk) 23:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope lots of sources exist of course. You can easily find them yourself if you want. I will not present any until it is time however.--
Filll (
talk)
23:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Of course they exist. How many times do I have to say this? Do you doubt this is true? Do you not think you could find sources yourself? There is no rush.-- Filll ( talk) 23:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think this argument may be over a misunderstanding. Filll, didn't you just comment that the petition is vague, possibly intentionally so? Wouldn't that make us all in agreement, that the petition itself does not support ID, even if it has been used to do so by DI? That would mean that the argument isn't over what the facts support, but what is the best wording. Sχeptomaniac χαιρετε 00:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's your source, straight from the horse's mouth, Bruce Chapman President of the Discovery Institute writing to the New York Times:}}
"Contrary to "Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker", more scientists than ever support intelligent design and criticize Darwinism. ... the number of scientists who have signed Discovery Institute's "Dissent From Darwin" list has now passed 470."
Here we have the president of the Discovery Institute stating using the petition to promote ID in the New York Times. Time to move along now folks. FeloniousMonk ( talk) 03:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Doing something like KC proposes would look roughly like this:
Placard is one of the signatories of the Discovery Institute's "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", a controversial petition which promotes intelligent design by attempting to cast doubt on evolution. More recently, Picard has expressed reservations about the intelligent design movement, saying that it deserves "much more" skepticism, and hasn't been adequately challenged by Christians and other people of faith. She argues that the media has created a false dilemma by dividing everyone into two groups, supporters of intelligent design or evolution. "To simply put most of us in one camp or the other does the whole state of knowledge a huge disservice," she said. Picard sees DNA as too complex to have originated through "purely random processes" and believes that it shows "the mark of intervention," and "a much greater mind, a much greater scientist, a much greater engineer behind who we are."
I think this is fair enough. Putting it all in context, we can honestly say what the petition is about, but still provide proper balance about her position. PS et al, please consider now the entire paragraph again, is it really that unfair? I think it's balanced and accurate wrt most reliable sources on this topic. Merzul ( talk) 23:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
What are you panicking about? This article might stay locked for weeks, or months, the way things look. Why are you in such a rush?--
Filll (
talk)
15:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to FeloniusMonk we have a new source from the Discovery Institute which explicitly differentiates between "challenges to Darwinian evolution" and "proposed solutions, such as the scientific theory of intelligent design." Here is what the Discovery Institute has to say in answer to the question, "What is the difference between a scientific challenge to Darwinian evolution and the theory of intelligent design?":
The institute then goes on to answer the question "What is the 'Dissent from Darwin' list?"
Now whatever their usage of this list may be in other campaigns, this source makes a pretty incontrovertible point that the list itself does not "promote intelligent design," but instead promotes "challenges to Darwinian evolution." Right from the horses mouth. Can it get any clearer? Can we drop this language now and stick with the current version? PelleSmith ( talk) 05:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
This entire discussion has veered into irrelevancy. We all agree that the DI is using the petition to promote intelligent design. As FM said, "I've already provided here two primary sources showing the institute using the list to promote ID". If that's agreed upon, then why the objection to saying in the article "petition is used by the DI to promote ID" instead of "petition promotes ID"? In almost any context but that of a BLP, this semantic difference would not really be that important. But the BLP issue is that "she signed a petition which promotes ID" very strongly implies that Picard knew she was promoting ID when she signed it. From her future, sourced, statements, we know she is skeptical of ID. If we can just agree on "petition is used to promote" instead of "petition promotes", then the issue goes away. - Merzbow ( talk) 07:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Nothing like dishonestly cherry picking sources is there? Well what else would you expect from those who like to quote mine?-- Filll ( talk) 11:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
"In most cases" means in all cases where this list is linked in the text of a BLP ... Go to Category:Signatories of "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" and start clicking. I will copy here the wording used for the BLPs in which the petition is mentioned in the entry itself so you get an idea (Note that a vast majority only provide a category at the bottom and make no mention in the main entry):
As you can see in no other BLP do we claim that the "petition promotes intelligent design." The closest to this entry is that of James Tour, and even there it says that the petition "has been used to promote intelligent design." So where exactly do I have to run around changing things? PelleSmith ( talk) 12:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Duh of course we can source it. And we can source it in an honest NPOV way. And if we do as PS suggests, we will take all the creationism and intelligent design articles in Wikipedia, about 500 of them, and turn them into religious tracts. Somehow I think that does not serve our readers or NPOV well. However, there is this place called Conservapedia I have heard about that you might be interested in... -- Filll ( talk) 12:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
And we are talking about a petition produced by an institute. And that petition and its associated programs are viewed and characterized in a certain way by well over 99 percent of the experts in the relevant field. And you would prefer to present the institute's version, not the mainstream version. And we think that NPOV is the way to go, and the mainstream description is more reasonable, not the institute's version. You are the one arguing frantically to present the view of this institute.-- Filll ( talk) 12:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you in some kind of rush? Did you not notice the page is locked? Is this a matter of life and death? You think that such sources do not exist? Well if you believe that, you do not know this field very well I would say. By the way did you realize that " agenda pushers" probably violates WP:CIVIL, an offense for which you can be summarily sanctioned? Possibly blocked or banned? So just a word to the wise to clean up your language. -- Filll ( talk) 13:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
From what I have read about this petition and the users who signed it, it was not presented to them as it currently is to the public. I t was presented in a straight forward manner saying "Do you agree with this statement?" and either sign it or not. The way it has been used after the fact is the problem for many of the people who signed it (or they are backpedaling, who knows...). This is the crux of the current debate. Do we present the petition to the readers as it was presented to the person who signed it or as it is currently being presented? I would support the former. I know I have done things in the past that have been twisted to support someone else's agenda/cause even though the intent was not to be that. spryde | talk 11:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
You know, the Discovery Institute is founded on the idea that they can redefine what science is, redefine what biology is, redefine what religion is, redefine a huge range of things. To them, ID is science, and evolution is not. To them, magic must be included as a cause in science. To them, ID is not creationism. And so on.
If we blindly and slavishly just take the Discovery Institute's word for it, we would be producing religious tracts here. But we are Wikipedia, and we do not do that. If you want religious tracts, you can go to Conservapedia or any number of other wikis with that orientation. We are different. Deal with it.-- Filll ( talk) 12:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
What are you so desperate for? Is this some crisis that needs to resolved to save the world right this instant? What is your problem? Do you have ants in your pants?-- Filll ( talk) 13:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
We have no way of knowing what it was that people signed or why they signed it. That's very true. In Chang's article he mentions someone who signed it but says "a pox on both your houses" to both evolution and ID. (I don't understand what he really means, but that's beside the point). Anyone who signed it after it was published in 2001 should be assumed to know that what they were signing, although even there, some people did not understand the DI and it's mission until the Dover trial.
That said, if you read Picard's comments in The Record interview, she endorses what Sober called "mini-ID" (the idea that some aspects of the natural world are too complicated to have originated through natural processes). Despite this, she is distancing herself from ID and calling on Christians to offer more scrutiny. Since this was November 2007, it should be taken as a direct response to what went on here. She never mentioned the petition, she made no attempt to distance herself from the DI, never said "I don't approve of the way my signature was used", never said "I didn't know what I was signing". Of course this was an interview, not a press release, so there's the added filter of Petricevic, but in general we trust journalists not to screw things up too badly.
So - the way the original petition was presented to the first signers is unknowable. The language has some red flags that should have jumped out at anyone with a solid background in biology, but a lot of the people who signed it aren't biologists. So for most signatories it could not have been seen as a petition aimed at their peers - it was a political statement aimed at an "other". If I signed a petition about the problems I have with string theory, it would be as a lay person, my PhD in biology notwithstanding. It would be a political statement, not a statement from a peer or to a peer.
The NCSE approached signers for clarification. So did Chang and others. After the fact, when it was clear how the DI intended to use the petition (initially to attack the PBS series on Evolution, later to argue for Teach the Controversy, etc.), some people distanced themselves from what they had signed. Picard did not. She was approached by several people during and after Moulton's disruption here. Her only response appears to be what she said to The Record.
We have the facts. Picard signed an obviously political petition. The petition has been used by the DI in its campaigns. Picard has been asked to respond to the use of her name in that way, and her response was "we need to be more skeptical about ID". She has said she belongs to neither camp. But she did not say anything about the way her name is being used by the DI. The fact that she said nothing about the petition despite being asked about it strongly suggests that she has no problem with it. So regardless of what she knew beforehand, Picard has made no attempt to distance herself from the way the petition is being used. Guettarda ( talk) 16:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I have said this over and over and over on this page. But somehow, no one listens. Interesting. 10 months ago, there were two major complaints about this page. WP:UNDUE because a large volume of copyright-violating material had been removed. This has now been corrected. WP:BLP because we did not have a direct statement from Picard to include, although the New York Times had asked for one over and over and over, and we had asked for one over and over and over. This has now been corrected. So the two major complaints have been answered. However, the fighting continues. And why? Well as I said before, obviously something else is going on here. People have what they wanted, supposedly, but they still want to fight. Hmm...-- Filll ( talk) 18:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
The only "them" I am agreeing with are those who want to have an NPOV article that follows the sources and does not violate copyright. I have been involved since I volunteered to fix this article at Moulton's request back in August and told him exactly what we needed (1) more content on her career that is not plagiarized and (2) a statement from Picard on her position. We have (1) and (2) now, and we also have a huge volume of people who have appeared out of noplace (I wonder why?...hmmm....) and for who (1) and (2) are not enough and in fact there is plenty of sabre rattling for far far far more. Well I will just try to make sure this article follows Wikipedia principles, following up on the task I have been doing since last August. Is that a problem?--
Filll (
talk)
19:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Nothing like making negative insinuations and taking a few liberties with the facts, is there? Let me try to address this latest unfounded attack:
Is that so? Well Moulton first edited this talk page [54] 3:07 August 23, 2007. Filll first edited this talk page [55] 4:08 August 23, 2007, 1 hour 1 minute later.
I called Moulton and spoke to him for several hours on the phone because of his pleading for assistance on that day. I still have the phone records for this. You should know this from reviewing the materials associated with the RfC, if you were being at all diligent before making such outrageous accusations.
I did clean up the main page considerably on August 8, 2007 [56]. But I have generally paid very little attention to this article's mainpage, and have edited it 7 times to date. Four of those edits were on August 8, 2007.
Moulton first edited the main page on August 22 at 00:52 [57].
I would never have paid more attention to this article except that Moulton asked for assistance. Even still, I have hardly edited the main page of the article at all. I have put huge efforts into trying to teach Moulton how to operate on Wikipedia, which he steadfastly rejected over and over and over.
Who knows why they were brought in? There is evidence of all kinds of canvassing offwiki, but who knows?
As I said before, is there some sort of world crisis going on that depends on me acting faster? Please give it a rest. What is it to you?
That is a vile offensive crock of nonsense. I am trying to get people to stop fighting frantically to engage in OR and make all kinds of assumptions that are at odds with our sources. I also have been bending over backwards to keep my fellow editors out of trouble. Is that a problem for you? Is it against policy? Then if I have violated policy, why not file an Arbcomm case against me?
Mind your own.
I see the tendentious twisting of logic. Yeah, real simple.
We have a few facts and a few sources. And that is what we propose to base the article on. What is wrong with that? Does that offend you somehow? It must I guess.
I do not understand what you hope to gain by continually gaming the system like this.
Have a nice day.-- Filll ( talk) 21:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Wow. A lot of activity on this page in a brief span of time. I'll add just one comment to the mix right now: we cannot use the DI, or any highly partisan source, for anything other than what they say. Guettarda stated it clearly: "Like any political organisation, the DI is an unreliable source, but they are a useful corroborating source. Primary sources are useful for corroboration, but they shouldn't be taken as reliable, especially when the contradict reliable sources.". We have tons of sourcing which makes it clear the document was created and used for promotion of ID. No one is arguing that Picard did not sign it. Are we all in agreement on those points? If not, please provide your (concise) reasoning below, thanks much. KillerChihuahua ?!? 12:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Incorrectly framed, in my opinion. Perhaps a response to Merzbow's of 07:14, 7 May 2008 might be more helpful. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 12:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I've created this subheading for transparency. PelleSmith ( talk) 13:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
It might be nice for you to actually review and understand WP:PSTS instead of just blindly repeating errors and misrepresentations. This is Wikipedia, and we follow certain policies. If you do not like those policies, there are many places that have different policies that you can consider. For example, have you considered:
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None of these have pesky problems like WP:NPOV and WP:NOR and they have different standards for WP:RS and so on. Not every wiki is going to be to everyone's taste.-- Filll ( talk) 13:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I think you should learn our policies first. I am not going to spoon feed you. And I think rather than removing links meant to suggest some helpful alternative to those of you that do not want to follow Wikipedia policies, the time is quickly approaching when we will have to userfy these repetitive WP:TE and WP:DE objections.-- Filll ( talk) 13:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
So you did not know that WP:PSTS is part of WP:NOR policy? Well now you do.-- Filll ( talk) 13:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
So why abuse Wikipedia procedures on a "whim"? You know that violates WP:POINT, a sanctionable offense.-- Filll ( talk) 13:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Whatever. I think the policy is clear. We just have some people that want to ignore policy or invent their own.--
Filll (
talk)
14:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
We favor secondary and tertiary sources over primary sources. Primary sources are used, but sparingly and we use secondary and tertiary sources to interpret them.--
Filll (
talk)
15:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Relata I think I know what he's referring to. Please allow me to try my best to interpret PSTS since he is not willing to do so publicly. Here are some possibly relevant passages from PSTS with suggestions as to what they probably mean in this context:
Relata that is the best I can do. I hope this helps. Cheers. PelleSmith ( talk) 17:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Well then it should be obvious if you just read the talk page. Obviously we have some arguing that we should go with "plain reading" of primary sources. And it should be obvious what that means in terms of policy.--
Filll (
talk)
16:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
What conclusions are evident from the source? That depends on your underlying knowledge base. To a child starting school it would probably be evident that there are two sentences, thirty-two words. To someone who had something less than an high school-level understanding of evolution (assuming that evolution was actually covered in their class) it would seem to be saying "we are skeptical of claims that {evolution, Darwinism, Darwinian evolution} can account for the complexity of life, and that the evidence for {evolution, Darwinism, Darwinian evolution} should be carefully examined".
To someone with a slightly more complete understanding of evolution, it would be evident that the petition is saying "we are skeptical that two elements of evolutionary theory can explain the diversity of life, and that the evidence for evolution should be carefully examined". Someone familiar with the creationist movement would read it as "we are skeptical of claims that [a common creationist caricature of evolution] can account for the complexity of life (duh), and that the evidence for [a common creationist caricature of evolution] should be carefully examined (standard creationist talking points which are meant to sow disinformation)".
All conclusions beyond the first are "not evident". This is a case where secondary and tertiary sources are especially important.
With an intentionally ambiguous document like this, there isn't a single standard for what an "educated person without specialist knowledge" would make of it...It is designed to feed off of misunderstandings. Someone with a basic understanding of biology would see through this document, someone with major misconceptions would fall for its disinformation. So the question is - did their education help the "educated person", or did their prior misconceptions prevent them from learning? From the studies I have read, a substantial proportion of American students emerge from intro biology courses with their misconceptions firmly in place (and I'm not just talking about creationist ideas, but a broader misunderstanding of what evolution is.) I haven't seen comparable data for Europeans, Canadians or Australians (where creationist ideas are held by a much smaller minority), let alone data for people elsewhere in the world.
The problem we have had here is that several editors (Travis most notably) want to replace secondary sources with their own interpretation of this primary source material. The document is intentionally ambiguous - there is no such thing as a "plain reading". There is an informed reading, an uninformed reading and a misinformed reading. All of these are interpretations of the text. The misinformed reading (which Travis called a "plain reading") is, in fact, the most problematic.
The fact that the petition is part of the DI's campaign to undermine evolution and promote ID is well established. The fact that the petition has been used as part of the DI's campaigns to undermine the teaching of science in schools is well supported. (Chang, for example, opens with that statement.) Guettarda ( talk) 18:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Its all a matter of interpretation, as Guettarda points out. And different sources interpret it differently. The DI interprets things differently than the NCSE for example. And the NAS and the AAAS interpret this differently than Focus on the Family. And what is your rush? No one yet has told me what their rush is.-- Filll ( talk) 19:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
To dance a dance, one must follow in turn
Iambic form, or will their partner go;
Stay with the beat or be you forced to yearn,
And crave after meaning! Will you say no?
Your form is brute, your words do only burn
Paltry readers, whose delicate minds so
Desiring beauty and all they will get
Is unpolished words saying only
- :)
Ottava Rima (
talk)
01:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
A respected news source, the New York Times, labeled the petition anti-evolution. This carries more weight than anonymous contributors (like myself and others who have contributed to this article). It also appears that most of the previous editors of this article seemed to have agends.
136.167.158.77 ( talk · contribs) Edit: Showing Skepticism and Asking for More Critical Examination of the Evidence -Clearly POV, no explanation needed
209.6.126.244 ( talk · contribs) Edit: Added POV material: (Note that the biological science signers are the most highly represented group.) -Again, this is POV and actually false since upon further examination lumping people in the "engineering/computational sciences" signers together creates a larger group than the biological science signers. It is safest to leave this out.
I suggest that all contributors read Wikipedia's Point of View guidelines. Other comments would be appreciated. 128.197.4.36 17:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
This is the teleological argument that the Discovery Institute's petition was Intelligently Designed to be Anti-Evolution:
This article from the Discovery Institute clearly demonstrates that the petition is being used by the Discovery Institute in its campaign against evolution (it's dated April 1, but although ridiculous, it's not a joke -- they take themselves quite seriously): http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2114
The petition and Rosalind Picard's name are certainly being USED by the anti-evolution, pro-creationism movement. There is no question of that fact. So the New York Times is correct in labeling it the Anti-Evolution petition.
I frame this as a teleological argument just to be ironic (the fact that the NY Times calls it the Anti-Evolution Petition is enough justification already). Countering with the Formal objections and counterarguments against teleological arguments simply raises the question: why don't you apply those same objections to Intelligent Design, which is also a teleological argument?
On 13 March 2006 18:32, someone edited the heading of this page from "Intelligent Design Support" to "Showing Skepticism and Asking for More Critical Examination of the Evidence", and removed the word "Intelligent Design" from the text. I ask for a more critical examination of the evidence of that statement! When has Picard ever shown any skepticism about Intelligent Design, or asked for more critical examination of the evidence for Intelligent Design? The petition she signed is one-sided and Anti-Evolution, because it doesn't ask for a careful examination of the evidence for Intelligent Design, only Darwinism. Science demands the critical examination of ALL theories, including the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Anti-Evolution petition is superfluous and patronising, because it admonishes scientists to do something they were already doing, without asking anyone to apply the same standards to Intelligent Design.
It's petty for Rosalind Picard or her toadys to engage in an edit war to white-wash the New York Time's term "Anti-Evolition" and all references to "Intelligent Design", instead of standing up for what they believe in and explaining WHY she signed her name and the good name of the MIT to that Anti-Evolution petition.
The question is not "Is the petition Anti-Evolution?" It certainly is, because that's how it's being used by its designers. The real question I'd like answered is: "Does Rosalind Picard believe in Intelligent Design, Creationism, or Evolution, and is she willing to stand up for what she believes in and signs her name to, or not?" She needs to answer that question herself, and this wiki page should link to that.
It would be interesting to hear Picard address this glaring double standard:
The Anti-Evolution petition urges that "careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." Why just Darwinism? The scientific method has always encouraged careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory, AS WELL AS ALL OTHER THEORIES, including pseudoscientific theories like Intelligent Design and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Discovery Institute and their supporters are intellectually dishonest, negligent and close-minded, because they refuse to carefully examine the pseudo-scientific claptrap they call Intelligent Design, which they promote for the reasons outlined in their Wedge Strategy. Where's the careful examination of the evidence of Intelligent Design, and why doesn't the Discovery Institute encourage that too, instead of ignoring the preponderance of the wide range of evidence for Evolution?
In the words of Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute: "It is an important day in science when biologists are bold enough to challenge one of the leading theories in their profession." If only Picard were bold enough to step up to the plate and explain her views on Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Evolution, and her dissent from Darwinism, and why she chose to sign her name and MIT's name to the Anti-Evolution petition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.47.110 ( talk • contribs) 00:43- 23:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC) and 22:56-23:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion refers to a subsequently titled and reinterpreted revision of the original 2001 (untitled) two-sentence petition calling for "skeptical examination of evidence for scientific theories." Since there is no reliable source to legitimize DI's controversial linking of the 103 signers of the original untitled petition to its subsequently titled, reinterpreted, and repurposed version, I propose archiving or deleting the above section (and this one) as it has now been revealed that there is no reliably established legitimate connection between the subsequently retitled and reinterpreted document and the subject of this biography of a living person.
In view of the "Do No Harm" principle of the WP:BLP I believe the ethical thing to do is to separate the above discussion (which harms the subject and her affiliates) from the subject of the biography. I also think it would behoove the editors who were deceived by DI's fraudulent linkage to revisit their role in propagating DI's deception, and do what they can to ameliorate the harm already done. Moulton 14:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
The entire intro for this article is unsourced, in violation of WP:BLP. I am therefore moving all but the first part of the first sentence here.
Rosalind W. Picard is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory and is co-director of the Things That Think Consortium, the largest industrial sponsorship organization at the lab. She holds a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering with highest honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Masters and Doctorate degrees, both in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, from MIT. She has been a member of the faculty at the MIT Media Laboratory since 1991, with tenure since 1998. Prior to completing her doctorate at MIT, she was a Member of the Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories where she designed VLSI chips for digital signal processing and developed new methods of image compression and analysis.
The author of over a hundred peer-reviewed scientific articles in multidimensional signal modeling, computer vision, pattern recognition, machine learning, and human-computer interaction, Picard is known internationally for pioneering research in affective computing and, prior to that, for pioneering research in content-based image and video retrieval. She is recipient (with Tom Minka) of a best paper prize for work on machine learning with multiple models (1998) and is recipient (with Barry Kort and Rob Reilly) of a "best theory paper" prize for their work on affect in human learning (2001). Her award-winning book, Affective Computing, (MIT Press, 1997) lays the groundwork for giving machines the skills of emotional intelligence. She and her students have designed and developed a variety of new sensors, algorithms, and systems for sensing, recognizing, and responding respectfully to human affective information, with applications in human and machine learning, health, and human-computer interaction. She was named a Fellow of the IEEE in November 2004.
Dr. Picard has served on many science and engineering program committees, editorial boards, and review panels, and is presently serving on the Editorial Board of User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research, as well as on the advisory boards for the National Science Foundation's division of Computers in Science and Engineering (CISE) and for the Georgia Tech College of Computing.
Picard works closely with industry, and has consulted with companies such as Apple Computer, AT&T, BT, HP, i.Robot, and Motorola. She has delivered keynote presentations or invited plenary talks at over fifty science or technology events, and distinguished lectures and colloquia at dozens of universities and research labs internationally. Her group's work has been featured in national and international forums for the general public, such as The New York Times, The London Independent, Scientific American Frontiers, NPR's Tech Nation and The Connection, ABC's Nightline and World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Time, Vogue, Voice of America Radio, New Scientist, and BBC's The Works and The Big Byte. Picard lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her husband and three energetic sons.
Feel free to move this material back into the article if and when reliable sources can be found for it. Hrafn42 14:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Could people please stop removing Picard from Category:Signatories of "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" and removing the brief mention of the fact (and the fact that her 'dissent' is an opinion volunteered well outside her field of expertise). The first is a matter of unambiguous fact. The second is clearly notable, given its mention in the NY Times. Hrafn42 02:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hrafn42: Please arrange to talk to me by telephone. Your edits are a gross and egregious violation of WP:BLP:DNH policy. You are not a subject-matter expert on the subject of this article, and your edits are doing harm. Please cease and desist. Moulton 03:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Here is the relevant clause of the WP:BLP:DNH...
An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moulton ( talk • contribs) 03:17, 23 August 2007
Look: this is not rocket science. Did Picard sign or not? She clearly did. Her name is on the petition and it is mentioned in the New York Times. She went out of her way to ANNOUNCE this to the world. Ok fine. So she is in this category, correct? Well here, we have a category for people who have done that. To some people this is a positive thing, to others it is a negative thing. You seem to think it is negative. I do not care. What matters to us is, is it true? And is it notable? And is it verifiable and particularly, is it verifiable using a reliable source? All these requirements are met here. So she is in the category. Fair enough? Stop using your own biases and POV to get in the way! She signed, and we can verify it in a WP:RS source. It is not up to you or me to judge if it is good or bad. I do not know. It just is. This has NOTHING to do with "doing no harm". Some might feel it is "doing harm" by not focusing on this aspect of her life- ever consider that?-- Filll 04:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hrafn42: You are publishing false information. The document which Picard signed was not entitled "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism." That title was added later by the Discovery Institute. It is false to claim that the signatories of the originally circulated document (which bore no title at all) were "dissenters" of Darwin's theory or its modern sequels. Please cease and desist from publishing false and misleading material. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Moulton ( talk • contribs) 04:11, August 23, 2007 (UTC).
“ | We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged. | ” |
You are unaware of the facts, Hrafn42. The document which Picard signed did not bear the title "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism." That title was added later, and dramatically changed the way the public viewed and interpreted the document. You should be more skeptical of what you read, especially when it comes to titles and headlines added after the fact. The original statement has been criticized as vague and ill-worded. Not everyone who signed it considered it a dissent from anything. To characterize the signatories as dissenters is therefore false and misleading.
The fact that the NY Times also got snookered is no reason to further propagate their error or pillory other people. Please stop victimizing people that way. It is an unbecoming practice. Moulton 04:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The reason I know that the original document (as circulated for signatures prior to publication) had no title is because Roz told me that some time ago. I've known Roz both personally and professionally for 27 years, and I'm familiar with her views. Please stop propagating false and misleading information.
Please arrange to talk to me by phone. I'd like to discuss this with you voice-to-voice, if not face-to-face. Moulton 04:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
How did the NY Times get snookered? How do we know that the title and/or the statement was not on the petition? You mean to tell me that an MIT professor would sign a blank petition, and the words could be added later, and would not threaten legal action to get her name removed if she disagreed? Others have had their names removed. She didnt? She disagrees? Where is your proof? How do you know this? How is this victimizing people? People are proud to be creationists. What is wrong with that? Let them stand up and be recognized for it. We are not to be skeptical about stuff in WP:RS and WP:V sources. We are far more skeptical of you. If you are in the USA, I will call you. And try to expain this to you. If not, well I wont offer.-- Filll 04:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Newspapers often get the story wrong. Even the NY Times. If you are skeptical of me, come out of anonymity and call me on the phone, so we can discuss this like gentlemen. I have much more to tell you, but I am not a young man, and I don't care to type long tracts here. Moulton 04:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I made my offer. If you accept, email me.-- Filll 04:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Please be patient. I keep colliding with your edits.
The fact that you don't know about the issue of the title of the document further illustrates why Wikipedia should not publish claims about someone signing a document bearing a purported title. Since you don't know that, and you should now be skeptical of any previous assumptions about that, I propose you revise your publications to remove the false claim about "Dissent". The word "dissent" does not appear in the document. Perhaps if you cared to do the research, you might find out the truth here. In the meantime, I am advising you that your publications on the matter are false and misleading, and are doing harm to the subject of this article, with whom you are entirely unfamiliar. Moulton 04:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Filll: Where do I find your E-Mail? I'll send you my phone number as soon as I cand find the page with your e-mail on it. I'm in the USA. Moulton 04:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
To find my email, go to my user page, and look on the left hand side for "email this user"-- Filll 04:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I found it and sent you my phone number. Moulton 05:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I just visited the NSCE page and it seems to support the claim that DI played fast and loose in more ways than one. The ad, as published, contained a lot more gratuitous interpretation than just the misleading title of the page. Two additional paragraphs appeared in the ad, supplying further interpretation that spins the meaning of the two key sentences which the signatories were asked to sign. The same NSCE article reveals how DI conflated Darwinian theory with the totality of evolution models.
The NSCE page concludes:
It is regrettable that the public is likely to be confused by these advertisements and be misled into thinking that all of these scientists reject evolution, or that there is a groundswell of scientists rejecting evolution. Neither is true.
To call it "regrettable" is an understatement. What troubles me, gentlemen, is that your team at Wikipedia seem to have bought into the DI's stronger interpretation of the statement, rather than the weaker one suggested by NSCE.
That's why publishing a claim that all signatories are "Dissenters" is unsupportable at best and harmful at worst. It not only harms the scientists who interpret the meaning differently from DI, it harms your own project by alienating the very scientists who could most help clarify the subtleties outlined in the NSCE page.
But take a good look at the ad, as reprised on the NSCE site. Clearly the signatories were not asked to sign the extra paragraphs that precede the two sentences in the gray box. And the title of the ad precedes those two gratuitous paragraphs. It occurs to me that there is ample evidence that the title of the ad was crafted along with the other two paragraphs that precede the two sentences.
Is this not strong (and reliable) evidence that the label "Scientific Dissenters from Darwinism" was coined specifically as spin for the ad, and was not part of the petition that circulated beforehand?
Finally, note that Roz is one of 105 signatories on this maiden appearance of the ad, which supports the claim that she is being unfairly labeled (first by DI, and now by your group) as a "Dissenter" from Darwinism. This claim cannot be sustained for the first 105 signatories unless they expressly affirm it.
Therefore I beseech you to remove the label "Scientific Dissenter from Darwinism" as there is insufficient evidence to establish that for the first 105 signatories on that maiden ad. Moulton 08:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Moulton (aka Rosalind Picard's press officer):
Hrafn42 09:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I am afraid to say you are not aware of the facts in this case.
And I worry that you may similarly be clinging to an ungrounded theory in as many as 102 other cases.
But Filll is now aware. I suggest you take a deep breath and wait until you hear from him. Moulton 11:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
In their rabid attempts to whitewash Picard's reputation, and hide the fact that she was foolish enough to push her own ill-advised and inexpert "skepticism" over the consensus of hundreds of evolutionary biologists, Moulton is repeatedly restoring this garbled sentence, which clearly involves two completely different sentences being welded together (between "respond" & "Picard"):
The Affective Computing Research Group develops tools, techniques, and devices for sensing, interpreting, and processing emotion signals that drive state-of-the-art systems which respond Picard has served on many science and engineering program committees, editorial boards, and review panels, and is presently serving on the editorial board of User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research, as well as on the advisory boards for the National Science Foundation's division of Computers in Science and Engineering (CISE) and for the Georgia Tech College of Computing.
This is the level of cack-handed partisanship that Moultan has descended to. Hrafn42 10:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I see that Moulton has finally realised that the stuff they were restoring was nonsense, so has removed the offending interpolation, while describing this action as "Add back missing material." [4] Such honesty! LOL Hrafn42 10:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hrafn42: I have written you a long essay or two on the main discussion page for the Darwin Dissent soap opera.
Your petulance is unbecoming. I suggest you join with Filll to assemble the evidence he now seeks, to shore up the theory I presented to him and to you.
Moulton 11:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
You're projecting, Hrafn42. I appreciate that you have an issue with immaturity. If you'll settle down, I'll help you develop some usable skills at evaluating material for accuracy and scientific soundness in a more mature and professional manner. Then we can proceed to cooperate to expose DI for the unreliable source that we both know it to be. That's Filll's goal too. I think you have at hand more than enough evidence already to make a damn good case. The 2006 NYT article (which DI objected to) reported the fact that DI published an arresting claim, and then, instead of substantiating DI's claim, the NYT article went on to cast doubt on it. Good for them. A skeptical reader of the NYT would come away with good evidence that DI had just published a pile of horse dookie. Now what we need to do here is to reinforce that view with some defensible evidence. NSCE has already provided an excellent critique of DI's original ad, revealing DI's shameful duplicity in the case of their mischaracterization of PBS. At least two of the original 103 signatories cited in the NYT article registered parallel complaints about how DI distorted, mischaracterized, and relabeled their two-sentence quote. NYT and NSCE hiked the ball to you guys. I don't understand why didn't you run it into the end zone way back then.
But it's not too late to repair the damage and do this right, using proper tools of science. Are you game to play chess against the real enemy now? Moulton 21:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The Times did report the claims of the DI in that story, along with some remarks by some of the signatories. The Times neither substantiated nor refuted the reported claims of the DI, but left it to the reader to judge what to make of it. That is, the Times adopted a neutral point of view.
The main article elsewhere in Wikipedia examines those claims and provides further material that allows a skeptical reader to adjudge whether or not to take the claims of the DI at face value.
I am curious as to whether the editors of this section wish to propagate the reported claims of the DI with a view to persuading the readers that the claims of the DI are either believable or doubtful. Or do the editors prefer to take a neutral point of view, emphasizing that the claims of the DI are simply being reported here with neither affirmation nor refutation. Moulton 01:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
There is no WP:RS to affirm the veracity of DI's doubtful claim either. That is, you have no WP:RS either way. Therefore it is not a verifiable fact that Picard (or any of the other 103 original signers) consented to or agreed with the DI's published interpretation or political position vis-a-vis PBS or any other subsequent political purpose regarding what should or shouldn't be taught in school.
All you have on verifiable record is that the 103 original signers called for skeptical examination of the evidence for scientific theories. DI's unverifiable claim which fraudulently spins that into consensual agreement or support for their interpretation or political agenda is not a fact under the rules of Wikipedia.
All the rest of DI's propaganda is utter hogwash fraudulently perpetrated by the DI without the verifiably demonstrated consent of the original 103 individuals.
In view of the WP:BLP "Do No Harm" clause, the unverified claim of the DI must not be promoted to fact and any content to that effect must be immediately expunged, per the WP:BLP:
This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous.
Moulton 16:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
As part of the unsourced puff-piece glorifying Picard that Moulton insists on restoring repeatedly is the claim that Picard's book is "award-wining". What award did it win? I have seen no evidence of an award mentioned, and the use of this term on Picard's webpage would appear to be mere self-serving puffery.
Hrafn42
02:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I also draw Moulton's attention to
WP:V#Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves, which specifically restricts information from self-published sources (like Picard's webpage) to information that is "not unduly self-serving" & "does not involve claims about third parties" and that the article cannot be "based primarily on such sources". I believe that this excludes most of the puffery from Picard's webpage.
Hrafn42 02:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
(Incidentally, the Edit Summary of my latest reversion of this material is inaccurate - it should have said "self-published puff-piece" instead of "unsourced puff-piece")
Hrafn42
02:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
This article is a biography of Rosalind Picard. There is an official MIT Faculty Biography Page (separate from the subject's personal home page) that is the source of the biographical information. That MIT Faculty Biography website has uniform biographies for all faculty members of the MIT Media Lab.
I am aware of your idiosyncratic beliefs, Hrafn42. You are welcome to harbor your personal beliefs. However your personal beliefs are neither facts nor demonstrated theories grounded in scientific evidence. You have offered (and published as fact) many of your beliefs, including ones that are demonstrably false. If you care to write a personal blog giving your opinions, theories, and beliefs, no one is stopping you. However a Wikipedia biography page of a notable living person is not the appropriate place for you to publish your beliefs or theories about the subject of the article, unless those beliefs or theories are known to be accurate and well-sourced.
You have at your disposal evidence to which you intentionally have turned a blind eye and disregarded -- evidence that demonstrates to any impartial observer that some of your theories, beliefs, or claims are dubious at best and demonstrably false at worst.
Professor Picard signed a petition calling for those who are working with theories to examine the evidence for those theories with a skeptical eye. Yet you persist in failing to apply that sound advice to your own dubious theories, beliefs, and claims.
Now this is Wikipedia, and you are an anonymous editor from New Zealand. For all intents and purposes you are immune from the consequences of violating the tenets of ethics in journalism.
However, you are not immune from being the subject of an article on ethics in journalism, as practiced on Wikipedia.
In the interests of full disclosure, I will tell you that even as I sit here typing in this window, I am conversing in another window with yet another faculty member who teaches a course on ethics in journalism. Her class resumes shortly after labor day. Her students will be doing the usual kind of stories, and publishing them on the university's web site. I've talked to this professor about Wikipedia on many occasions (not just this one), but this one strikes me as an excellent example of just the kind of story a student studying ethics in journalism might find intriguing.
My interest, however, is more along the lines of applications of the theory of emotions and learning. You might wonder why I spend so much time with you, Hrafn42. It's not really about the bio page of Roz Picard, or the Darwin Dissent Controversy. Those are only cover stories. It's your hook, not mine. My hook is watching how people learn their craft (or fail to learn it). I frankly don't understand how you go about the process of learning the craft you practice here.
One thing I do note is that you are an expert on the detailed rules of Wikipedia. You can cite a rule faster than I can click the mouse.
Now that also interests me, because I am also a student of the dynamics of rule-based systems. I discussed this interest of mine at some length with Filll last night. I wonder if you appreciate what theory or assumption you are operating under when you engage in your practice of rule-driven bureaucratic machinations. I suspect you are not aware of the theory that predicts the behavior of rule-driven systems. It occurs to me that if you were aware, you might migrate to a more functional method of practice.
But I digress.
I'm interested in the question, Cui Bono? Who is served by your obsession here with the biography page of some obscure MIT professor whom you've never met, and whose specialties hold no interest for you?
Tell me, for I am curious. Cui Bono? Who is served?
Moulton
03:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
There is an official MIT Faculty Biography Page (separate from the subject's personal home page) that is the source of the biographical information. That MIT Faculty Biography website has uniform biographies for all faculty members of the MIT Media Lab.
I'm rather well acquainted with her energetic children. I can assure you that, to the best of my knowledge, the elements of her biography are quite accurate.
I wish I could say the same for your remarkable theories about the subject of this article.
Moulton 04:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I see that you're idly theorizing again, with another of your legendary flights of fancy. Rather than speculate without the benefit of evidence and reasoning, why don't you interview me to discover the nature and extent of my interest in uncaring (and uncared-for) individuals such as yourself.
Are you a curious and courageous enough adventure writer to discover the truth, or do you prefer to remain safely ensconced in your cocoon of self-delusion, anonymity and utter indifference to the tragic harm caused by blindly acting out one's innermost fantasies?
Rest assured, I am becoming increasing familiar with your legendary and oft-disclosed lack of caring, which seems to be a recurring issue in your life and recently published remarks.
And I appreciate that your dreadfully provocative remarks elsewhere are a transparent attempt to solicit the kind of caring that you apparently crave in your real life outside Wikipedia and the Internet.
You have a keen sense of awareness of those who respond with a small measure of empathy and compassion to your desperate cries for attention.
So you've chosen me as your antagonist, respondent, and mentor. So be it. I'm flattered.
Not that I'm necessarily up to the task, but I'll give it a decent college try.
Let's begin by crafting a mutually-agreeable social contract setting forth the protocols of our budding and potentially troubled relationship.
What are your desires and objectives for this unfolding relationship?
Do you prefer comedy, tragedy, or bildungsroman?
Do you prefer functional or dysfunctional relationship?
Do you prefer highly emotional or emotionally subdued scenes in our continuing soap opera?
Moulton 11:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
A serious young man found the conflicts of mid 20th Century America confusing. He went to many people seeking a way of resolving within himself the discords that troubled him, but he remained troubled.
One night in a coffee house, a self-ordained Zen Master said to him, "go to the dilapidated mansion you will find at this address which I have written down for you. Do not speak to those who live there; you must remain silent until the moon rises tomorrow night. Go to the large room on the right of the main hallway, sit in the lotus position on top of the rubble in the northeast corner, face the corner, and meditate."
He did just as the Zen Master instructed. His meditation was frequently interrupted by worries. He worried whether or not the rest of the plumbing fixtures would fall from the second floor bathroom to join the pipes and other trash he was sitting on.He worried how would he know when the moon rose on the next night. He worried about what the people who walked through the room said about him.
His worrying and meditation were disturbed when, as if in a test of his faith, ordure fell from the second floor onto him. At that time two people walked into the room. The first asked the second who the man was sitting there was. The second replied "Some say he is a holy man. Others say he is a shithead."
Hearing this, the man was enlightened.
Hrafn42 12:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Adaptability is a highly functional character trait.
See, there you go again, publishing yet another theory without a shred of evidence and without bothering to examine your theory with a skeptical eye. I know full well that you did not write that Zen story yourself, but imported it from somewhere else. But you republished it here, so you are immediate source of the version I adapted. Neener.
But I confess I don't get the point of your perplexing formatting.
Moulton 12:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Did you know that the name "Satan" comes from the Greek satana which means adversary? In ancient stories, the adversary (or antagonist) was sometimes called Satan. In one of Shakespeare's plays, the heroine (who is mistakenly presumed to be dead during much of the play) is named Hero.
Who is the hero and who is the villain is sometimes just a matter of one's point of view. See, for example Wicked by Gregory Maguire.
A more interesting kind of tale is the Greek Tragedy, or Hero-Goat Story. The would-be hero suffers from a character flaw (hubris or arrogance). He stumbles and fails at his quest and then becomes the scapegoat, blamed for everything that went haywire. At the point where the fallen protagonist realizes he is his own worst enemy, he becomes remorseful and sings the Dithyramb, a lament that basically goes, "What kind of fool am I?"
Moulton 13:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
In fact, I am seeking help from a referee, mediator, or ombudsman to help resolve a vexing conflict with a combative and confused adversary.
Moulton 23:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
That Picard has signed a petition that states:
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
...has never been in dispute.
Hrafn42 04:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Given the degree of controversy over how this subject is portrayed in the article, I think a brief recap is in order.
This is how the subject was portrayed before I started editing: [10]
Darwin dissenter
Recently, The New York Times reported [1] that Dr. Picard signed the Discovery Institute's anti-evolution petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". This petition has been widely used by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and their supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution [2] and mandate the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, and it has it has been the subject of criticism and parody.
Although some of the signatories of the Dissent from Darwinism petition hold doctorates in science and engineering disciplines, only about one quarter of the signers have biological science backgrounds, and at least one signatory has abandoned the list, saying he felt mislead. By comparison, during the four-day drive A Scientific Support For Darwinism And For Public Schools Not To Teach Intelligent Design As Science gathered 7733 signatures of people who were verified to be scientists. [3] During the four days of the petition, it received 20 times as many signatures at a rate 690,000% higher than the Discovery Institute can claim. [4]
This is how Moulton originally proposed it be portrayed: [11]
This is Moulton's most recent proposal for its portrayal: [12]
Darwin dissenter
In February 2006, the New York Times ran a story [5] reporting an ongoing claim by the Discovery Institute that Dr. Picard was one of 300 professonals who signed the Discovery Institute's controversial petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". [6] This two-sentence petition has been widely exploited by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and some of their supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution [7] and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. While the Times did not independently substantiate the reported claims of the Discovery Institute, the story included comments from some of the signers, letting the readers judge for themselves what to make of it. [8]
And this is my current proposal: [13]
Anti-Evolution Petition Controversy
In February 2006, the New York Times reported [9] that Dr. Picard was one of 300 professonals who signed the Discovery Institute's controversial petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". [10] This two-sentence petition has been widely exploited by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and some of their supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution [11] and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. It has it the subject of criticism and parody.
Picard's field of computer science is unrelated to evolutionary biology. Writer Ed Brayton, co-founder of "Michigan Citizens for Science" and the The Panda's Thumb website, writes that, "the majority of the people on that list have no training or expertise in evolutionary biology at all. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know what they're talking about, but it does mean that putting them on a list that is used solely as an appeal to authority is ridiculous, since they have no authority in the field." [12]
Hrafn42 08:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I put it to Moulton (when he is unblocked again), that he has co-written a number of articles with Rosalind Picard (the subject of this article), is a friend of hers, and thus has a "close relationship" with her (per WP:COI#Examples), and thus a conflict of interest. "Compliance with this guideline requires discussion of proposed edits on talk pages and avoiding controversial edits in mainspace." I would also suggest that he reads WP:SCOIC.
As it has been "most strenuously pointed out that potentially conflicted editors do not lose their rights to edit Wikipedia pseudonymously, and that outing editors in terms of their real names is in all cases against basic policy", I have no intention of revealing Moulton's identity, and have in fact watered down my first sentence to avoid doing so, even indirectly. Hrafn42 15:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Rather than argue over the title or contents of the disputed second section regarding the pertinence of the controversial petition itself, I propose to insert an intervening section about the controversy stirred up by the appearance of Kenneth Chang's 2006 story in the NY Times, wherein Picard's name is mentioned. The reason I find it necessary to do this is because some elements of Chang's story, which report claims of the DI have been blithely elevated to facthood, without benefit of a critical examination of the reported claims.
Here is my initial draft for the new section, to appear below the biography and above the discussion of the controversial DI petition.
Controversial New York Times Story
In February 2006, the New York Times ran an investigative story [13] by Kenneth Chang of the New York Times Science Desk, reporting that the Discovery Institute had launched a new website [14] to promote their expanded public relations campaign regarding how theories of evolution should be taught in public school. The new website included a list of signatories to an earlier petition which the Discovery Institute had termed "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism." [15] The petition dated back to 2001 when it was first published by the Discovery Institute beneath an ad criticizing a forthcoming PBS series on evolution. [16] The headline on the Discovery Institute's 2001 ad was also "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," although the petition itself, embedded at the bottom of the ad, did not carry that label (it bore no label at all). The untitled 2001 version of the petition simply read, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Chang's story disclosed that Professor Picard's name appeared on the petition cited by the newly launched Dissent From Darwin website, but the Times article did not distinguish which version she signed. Indeed, Professor Picard's name first appeared on the original 2001 untitled two-sentence petition and her name remained on the subsequent controversially yclept versions, including the most recent one appearing on the new website. Chang's story neither substantiated nor refuted the claims of the Discovery Institute that the two-sentence petition supported or endorsed DI's slant on its meaning, but the story did include a mixture of quotes from some of the people whose names appeared on the list at different times, including some quotes that cast doubt on the Discovery Institute's characterization of all the petition signers as variously "dissenters from Darwinism" or "anti-evolution." Chang's story, in conjunction with the Discovery Institute's website and its attached list of petition signers left a wake of confusion over who among the list of signers of the earlier versions of the petition agreed with or consented to the Discovery Institute's characterization of the petition signers as "anti-evolution" "dissenters" who presumably supported the emerging and evolving agenda of the Discovery Institute. It is at present unknown to what degree, if any, Picard agrees with or supports the Discovery Institute's controversial interpretation of the petition as "dissent." It is also unknown whether Picard has ever supported any or all of the ongoing political agenda of the Discovery Institute.
The last two sentences of the proposed new section reflect the absence of verifiable published information regarding the attitude of most of the original 103 signers. So far, Wikipedia has only managed to obtain a reliably sourced comment from Stanley N. Salthe, who disputed DI's characterization and supplied his own salty attitude, "A plague on both their houses."
Skip Evans of the NCSE similarly casts doubt on the DI's interpretation, saying
The Statement
The signatories appear to attest to a statement about the ability of natural selection to "account for the complexity of life" - in other words, a statement about how evolution takes place. Given the anti-evolutionary tone of the introductory paragraphs, a layperson reading the advertisement might well assume that the signatories objected to evolution itself, rather than to the universality of natural selection as its mechanism. But did the scientists themselves object to evolution? Any of them? All of them? Or were some of them only questioning the importance of natural selection? Many scientists - including many associated with NCSE - could in good conscience sign a statement attesting to natural selection's not fully explaining the complexity of life!
It's unclear to me which of the editors here are persuaded by DI's interpretation, which ones are persuaded by the NCSE's point of view. But it occurs to me that a neutral point of view requires Wikipedia to avoid elevating DI's POV to facthood. All that can be stated reliably is that Picard put her name to the two sentences back in 2001, before the DI decloaked and published the original anti-PBS ad. It cannot be reliably established that she attested to anything more, notwithstanding DI's claim to the contrary, and notwithstanding Changs' story reporting that dubious claim.
A neutral point of view and a cautious application of WP:BLP "Do No Harm" therefore requires an abundance of caution when it comes to presenting DI's views, controversial labels, and interpretations as if they were established facts per Wikipedia standards (not to mention the standards of ethical journalism).
More importantly, it's essential to heed the exhortation found in one of those two sentences to examine the evidence for one's beliefs with a keenly skeptical eye. My skeptical eye happens to agree with Skip Evans and not with others who favor the characterization of the 2001 petition as "anti-evolution" or "dissent from Darwin" or as implicit support for DI's political agenda regarding PBS or DI's more recent agenda regarding the teaching of evolution in the public schools.
Moulton 14:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I can see a number of problems with this "proposed intervening section":
I therefore cannot support this section's inclusion. Hrafn42 15:28, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I would also point out that Skip Evans' comments refer to an earlier version of the 'Dissent', that interpolated commentary about the PBS documentary above the statement and its signatories, which interpolated commentary is the subject of Evans' criticism. The current version of the 'Dissent' does not contain this interpolation, so Evans' criticism does not apply to it. Hrafn42 15:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
A Web site with the full list of those who signed the petition was made available yesterday by the institute at dissentfromdarwin.org. The signers all claim doctorates in science or engineering. The list includes a few nationally prominent scientists like James M. Tour, a professor of chemistry at Rice University; Rosalind W. Picard, director of the affective computing research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Philip S. Skell, an emeritus professor of chemistry at Penn State who is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Having looked over the talk page, I'd like to weigh in.
On the issue of the petition, its existence is well established - the Skip Evans article states that DI placed ads in "at least three periodicals, including The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard." So this wasn't a stealthy issue. Anyone who was misled into signing the petition has had adequate opportunity to distance themselves from it. As of today, Picard's signature remains on the petition. Yet Picard does not appear to have issued any statements distancing herself from it. Unless Moulton can come up with a source to support his position, there is no way that we can act upon his suggestions.
In addition, since there are no sources that call the NYTimes story controversial, there is no way that we can call it controversial. As for the "do no harm" issue - all indicators are that Picard does not consider this harmful - regardless of what she signed, she appears to have no objections to having her name on the petition in its current form. It isn't our job to protect people from themselves. Guettarda 03:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
A request was posted for a third opinion on three disputes here:
Because more than two editors are involved and AGF is rather scarce, the request is not within the guidelines for third opinion Wikipedians. I hope other (including participants lightening up, backing off and cooling down) means of resolving disputes avail. — Athaenara ✉ 08:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
See also: Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. — Athaenara ✉ 08:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a large amount that is going on behind the scenes. If you want more details, please feel free to email me.-- Filll 11:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
By my count, Moulton has just introduced nine tags into this article. Whilst I would normally not dispute an editor's (even one in which I am in disagreement with) right to tag an article whose wording they disagree with, this does seem excessive. In particularly, his tags seem to indicate that he is claiming that the following is unverified:
I would inquire what, if anything, should be done about this. If nothing else, it certainly seems to be a violation of WP:POINT. Hrafn42 14:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Scientists Quibble Over Relevance of Darwin to Research on Molecular Biology and the Origins of DNA-Based Cellular Life
"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.
-- WP:V Hrafn42 15:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I have added some tags (please help me ensure the ones I have chosen are the most appropriately selected tags) to highlight the nature of the dispute, down to the detail upon which the dispute pivots.
I do not dispute that the NY Times published an article about the DI's (dubious) claim that hundreds of scientists had (allegedy) signed a petition as they characterized and interpreted it. What is unverified is the DI's reported claim that the signers (specifically the first 103 scientists who signed something prior to first publication) signed the precise document that the DI subsequently represented to the public. For example, the document the DI presented to the public bears a deceptive title and is further enrobed in interpretive commentary. The petition which circulated in academia in 2001 was untitled and was not enrobed in any interpretive commentary. Nor did it carry any disclosure of sponsorship, or any disclosure of the political purposes to which it would later be used. Adding a deceptive title that was not on the original petition and claiming anyone signed that is a potentially fraudulent act of deception. Further enrobing the altered document in gratuitous interpretive commentary compounds the deception by making it appear that the original signers subscribed to the retitled, repurposed, and reinterpreted version that DI presented to a gullible public. A careful reading of the NY Times article reveals that the NY Times did not report that everyone on DI's list signed the altered version that appeared on DI's web site; the NY Times only reported that the names of some prominent scientists appeared on the list published by the DI. Before you can publish as verified fact that the names on DI's list actually signed what DI says they signed, you have to get a reliable source to verify that. The only source you have is the DI itself, which is a notoriously unreliable source.
It may be a subtle point, but it's a crucial point, and the difference between accurately characterizing a living person with verifiable facts and mischaracterizing a living person by publishing as fact material whose validity relies on a single dubious source.
Moulton 14:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
She signed. We have plenty of RS and V evidence for it. And you have said she signed, although that is OR and we cannot use that. So we report; she signed. Period. Done.-- Filll 17:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry but you are incorrect, in addition to contradicting yourself-- Filll 18:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but a "request for whitewash" does not constitute a neutrality dispute. Guettarda 02:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Moulton said:
DI says she signed it. No one has contested that fact, not even you.
Moulton said:
I hate to go the "silence is consent" route, but if someone had a petition posted online with my name on it that I hadn't signed, I'd make it clear that I hadn't signed it.
Moulton said:
Really? So, in other words you are asserting that these 103 people are either very stupid or incredibly gullible? More to the point - evidence?
Moulton said:
We have a verifiable source - the DI says so.
Moulton said:
...except the fact that most of them have done nothing to distance themselves from the claim. What we lack is any verifiable source which suggests that Picard is not a creationist.
Moulton said:
The DI is a verifiable source. It is a source whose reliability is questionable on a number of issues. But there is no reason to doubt everything they say. It has been over half a decade - if the DI has libelled Picard, she has had more than enough time to challenge their libel.
Moulton said:
If anyone had challenged it, we would have to report both sides (the DI says X, but Picard denies it).
Moulton said:
No, not really. We cannot be absolutely certain that Chang found this. By your standard, what we can report is that NYT claims that Chang wrote this (or rather, since I'm sure all this comes off nytimes.com, that the publisher or nytimes.com, which claims to be the New York Times, claims that Ken Chang claimed... Guettarda 02:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
The article says:
“ | In February 2006, the New York Times reported[10] that Dr. Picard was one of several hundred professonals who signed the Discovery Institute's controversial petition, "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism".[11] | ” |
It doesn't say that she signed the petition, just that she is reported as a signer. I wasn't paying enough attention - I was too busy reading Moulton's deeply horrified language to realise that the actual wording was that weak. That is what he is wasting everyone's time one? Ok - I think that language is far too tentative. Maybe we should just change the article to claim she eats babies. Then maybe we will have something that justifies Moulton's complaints. This is just pathetic. Guettarda 03:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Possibly the person's lawyer should write a demand letter to wikipedia to cease and desist from using the NY Times as a reliable source. ... Kenosis 15:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
You're right, it's not a joke. Rather, it is simply unfortunate. It would appear that the issue should be stated as the NY Times has reported it. If there is a counterargument, the place to go is whoever is alleged to have misrepresented Picard's participation or lack thereof. That, in fact, is who the demand letter should be sent to. And, if any additional relevant information is, in the future, published in a notable, reliable source, it would be quite permissible to include such additional information in this article. In other words. the issue is not very complicated. As to the threat of public criticism of Wikipedia's handling of issues like these, well, what would people think if we deferred to threats like that in the section above, insisting that wikipedia participants discard such publications as the NY Times as reliable sources and substitute in its place the demands of someone under threat of public criticism for WP methodology? Submitting that kind of threat, IMO, would be silly and unfortunate. Besides, it wasn't just the New York Times. ... Kenosis 16:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Here's my suggestion for explaining the petition aspect in a neutral way:
Picard is one of several hundred professonals who have signed the Discovery Institute's petition, attesting to the statement that "We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." This petition and a list of its signatories was published late in 2001 as advertisements in periodicals under the heading " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" with a heading claiming that the signatories disputed an alleged claim that "all known scientific evidence supports [Darwinian] evolution". [17] The National Center for Science Education noted that the statement and headings were artfully phrased so that normal scientific questioning of the extent to which natural selection is involved in particular aspects of evolution could be confused with the Discovery Institute's anti-evolution position. [18]
The petition has been repeatedly used in Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns to promote intelligent design creationism. [19]
In February 2006, the New York Times reported that Picard had signed the list. [20] Picard's field of computer science is unrelated to evolutionary biology. It has been noted that many others on the list have no training or expertise in evolutionary biology. [21]
By stating the facts in sequence and noting the artful phrasing, there should be no further confusion. If there is any published statement by Picard dissociating herself from the list as presented by the DI, that should be noted with proper citation. .. dave souza, talk 16:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
For anyone who wants to check them:
Hi, there. I'm a Wikipedia editor with 7000 edits, and strong familiarity with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, especially WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. There was a request on the WP:BLP/N board for assistance in this matter. I would like to help, if the parties agree to letting me mediate. I work at a right-wing think-tank (in legal studies), and I am also a lifetime member of NCSE, so I am familiar with both the evolution/creation controversy and with the perception that the press sometimes treats religious arguments unfairly. I think this would permit me to have credibility with both sides, but perhaps someone would instead feel that this means I have a conflict of interest because I recognize the theory of evolution or because of my employer. Would mediation help matters? If so, we can set up a Talk:Rosalind Picard/mediation page. If one person disagrees, I'll walk away without hard feelings. THF 22:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
About half the article is taken up by this issue. There is already a (long) article about the petition itself. What is the reason for giving some much attention to it here? It almost seems like the intent is to punish Ms Picard for signing it. Steve Dufour 03:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Here is the version I proposed, which was reverted with a rather rude comment:
I don't see what the problem with it is? Steve Dufour 04:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest the the issue is not so much WP:UNDUE as notability ( WP:N).
Hrafn42 05:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
<undent> I invite you to try that sort of reasoning in a deposition. You might find yourself in hot water pretty quickly, I would venture. And it does not particularly carry any weight with me. I have heard these tedious and tendentious arguments 100 times or more now. And they are no more convincing now. It is all nonsense and OR. We are not here to engage in wild speculation and conjecture. And you cannot shove this nonsense on us. Thanks awfully though.-- Filll 14:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I am also leaning towards deletion. Has she really done anything that important? I could argue that she has not.
It is not a function of Wikipedia to do more than report what is in the RS and V sources. If there is "criticism" of an individual in RS and V sources, then it goes into Wikipedia. If we removed all "criticism" then Wikipedia would be of far less use.
Also, "criticism" is in the eye of the beholder. How do we know that Picard objects? We ONLY have Moulton's claims. These claims might be pure fantasy. We have not one word, not one breath, not one hint, from Picard herself over a 6 year period that there is any disagreement by Picard with this petition. Many people, in fact, I would venture that MOST people on the list, are proud to have signed and champion this cause. What evidence do we have that Picard is not one of them? Not one shred. Sorry Moulton. Your COI claims really count for very little. And every passing day when I do not hear back from my inquiries confirms this.
I do NOT believe for one second that over a 6 year period that biological or paleontological colleagues of Picard did not make her aware of the significance of signing and remaining on this petition and remaining on it. Her name has been on the web in this context for 6 years. It was in dozens of advertisements in major National publications when it was first announced in 2001. It was attached to press releases that came out once or twice a year for 6 years. It was in the New York Times article and possibly others. So Picard almost certainly knows what this means to biologists and geologists and other scientists. In fact, the Discovery Institute with their war on "materialism" wants to smash other disciplines like physics and chemistry, eventually, according to their oft-repeated statements and plans. And yet Picard stays on the list and never even whispers that she disagrees even though her name is used to champion this agenda over and over and over and over.
So if I was going to speculate, like Moulton likes to do, I would say it is quite plausible that: (1) Picard wants to stay on the list and meant to sign it, and only complained to Moulton to tell him what he wanted to hear (2) Mentioning this is not harmful at all to Picard, but beneficial. A pro-intelligent design position might easily help with fund-raising for example, or with personal relations. (3) Picard does not really care one way or the other, or even enjoys issuing a big "F-U" to the science community. Picard is an engineer, not a scientist, remember. -- Filll 12:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Since the question was raised of notability established by secondary sources, I'd a quick look and found a few. These could form the basis of some expansion of the biography, and doubtless there are other secondary sources which can be cited. BBC News, The future of affection, PBS Org., Rosalind Picard bio, FM interviews Rosalind Picard, ZDNet MIT's PC breakthrough ... dave souza, talk 12:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I would have to agree with Hrafn42 here. I have begged and pleaded with Moulton for one week to assist in a constructive way. I presented several options he could help with. More web information and documentation of the petition and campaign would help. Less plagiaristic pasting of POV biographical material. More prodding of the machinery to produce more RS and V sources that could be incorporated. Instead, he has chosen to fight instead here in a pointless exercise, wasting time and energy, and even being the subject of a temporary block and coming close a few more times. Moulton, work with us, not against us. It will go much easier that way.-- Filll 17:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I really do think that in defending science it would be better to make it more about, well, science and less about individuals. For instance in an article about Joe Creationist you could say he wrote a book saying that the universe was made in 6 days and that mainstream science says it took about 15 billion years. That is really all the readers need to know about him. You don't have to tell them that he has warts on his nose and hired an illegal alien to mow his lawn. Steve Dufour 13:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Well only partially true, and obviously due to incomplete knowledge. But ok...-- Filll 17:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The scientists here do not, and the WP articles they have written on this subject do not, as can easily be verified. However, WP must report on what is in the public sphere, not what we would wish it to be. We can write lots of articles and include lots of paragraphs explaining this, over and over and over (and we have), but this does not change the discourse in the public sphere or the public mind or in the media. And so we report what is out there. Not what we wish was out there. But reality, instead. -- Filll 18:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks guys. My problem with WP's coverage of creationism, etc. is really more the tone of hostility towards individuals which is sometimes seen on the talk pages and even sometimes leaks out into the articles. I think that distracts from the debate about the facts, which of course (IMO) the evolutionists would win. Steve Dufour 22:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Has there been some consensus that I failed to notice that we should not even mention "evolution" in connection with the 'Dissent'? I find it more than a little odd that it is mentioned solely as a "controversial petition". It would seem to me that it is:
I would thus consider it to be reasonable to characterise it as an "anti-evolution petition" or a "controversial anti-evolution petition" but not merely a "controversial petition". However, if the consensus is against me, I must needs bow to it.
Additionally, I am concerned to note that the appeal to authority aspect of the petition (which would seem to be directly relevant, given Picard's lack of any competence in evolutionary biology) has been completely pared out. Likewise I would inquire if there is consensus for this. Hrafn42 16:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The reason she got in New York Times was because her field had nothing to do with evolution. Otherwise, it would not have been much of an issue probably. It supported Chang's thesis.-- Filll 21:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I note that Moulton has restarted making controversial edits to the article in violation of WP:COI guidelines ("Compliance with this guideline requires discussion of proposed edits on talk pages and avoiding controversial edits in mainspace."). Hrafn42 09:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
(I had put a section title in here because Moulton appeared to want a section "continu[ing the] dialogue on negative reframing" - but as he keeps changing the section title, and moving stuff out of this section, I presume he doesn't, so I'll remove it.) Hrafn42 15:35, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Moulton: you are a disruptive editor, who apparently cannot contain yourself from repeatedly violating WP:COI. I have nothing whatsoever further to say to you. Hrafn42 10:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see the participants here craft a more functional social contract for establishing a more congenial climate for achieving and maintaining consensus on the issues which divide us. The present architecture, which operates more like a high-intensity chess game than an orderly and sober process of civil negotiation, is proving to be needlessly aggravating and contentious. I believe we need a more suitable framework, along the lines of a functional social contract, including some more functional protocols for conflict management and conflict resolution. Moulton 10:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Unlike Moulton, I have no desire to violate WP:3RR (compounding his violations of WP:COI), so rather than reverting his latest piece of unsourced partisanship on behalf of Picard, I will submit it for the consensus consideration:
Picard's field of affective computing is a field of scientific research which establishes her credentials as a practitioner and advocate of the protocols of the scientific method as they apply to all branches of science. The controversy arises from confusion over whether the statement is an expression of the technical protocols of the scientific method or an expression favoring a political agenda regarding the teaching of scientific subjects related to evolution.
Does anybody think that such a statement has any place in wikipedia? Hrafn42 11:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
It does not strike me as particularly enlightening for a biography like this. One could put such boilerplate in ALL engineering and scientific biographies. If this sort of standard was employed, biographies would quickly be filled with meaningless phrases of a similar nature.
Most of the edits I have seen here over the last week have been pointless. There were edits, which were instantly reverted. There was heated debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I think the best for all concerned would be if we just slow down and let things settle out here a bit.
And it appears to me, looking in, that Moulton is a big change agent here. So Moulton, please try not to engage in such pitched battles here. These are not helpful.-- Filll 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I took off Moulton's opinion. As I said before, this article is about Picard. It would be just as wrong to use it as a coatrack to attack evolution as to defend it. I also added the word "later" because I understand that the title of the petition was added after she signed it. If I got this wrong please take it out. I also took the word "Controversial" out of the section title. Too often that word is used to mean "bad" or at least "politically incorrect". That might be true, but it's bad style to give away too much in the title. Steve Dufour 12:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I understand the confusion about the word "promoting". Perhaps the phrase should be reworded to remove ambiguity. However, one of Moulton's main points is that we have no source that these people actually signed the petition aside from the Discovery Institute. I personally think that is a fairly reasonable source in this instance, particularly if the "signatories" did not object for 5 or 6 years after the petition came out and they were able to see what uses it was put to. However, clearly the people who purportedly signed were not promoting the ideas, but the website was promoting the ideas. -- Filll 12:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I have no strong objection to calling the petition an anti-evolution petition in the title, although some others seem to. I would like to point out that it might be a little confusing to some people. Maybe they will think the purpose of the petition is to do away with evolution and turn us back into chimpanzees. :-) Steve Dufour 07:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
There is dissent, and there is dissent.-- Filll 13:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Many engineers pretentiously call themselves scientists. And this comment is quite telling. Thanks.-- Filll 14:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Now I understand. Clearly from the evidence presented here, and the fact that Rosalind Picard signed the petition and has remained on the petition for 6+ years, in spite of assorted encouragement of Picard to get off it over the years and Picard's uncomfortableness with the media coverage, I have been mislead severely by Moulton. Picard's endorsement of the petition is obviously noteworthy and merited and not at ALL misrepresented by this article. In fact, it probably does not go far enough. I no longer believe any fraud was involved in Picard's signing of the petition. I no longer believe that Picard did not know who the Discovery Institute was before she signed. I no longer believe almost anything that Moulton has claimed. Moulton has revealed his true nature. Thank you Moulton for your honesty, however belated. -- Filll 16:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Enough is enough.-- Filll 16:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
It is over, and time for the RfC I believe.-- Filll 21:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe anti-evolution is a poor unreferenced POV (though, concedingly accurate) description for th petition. The easiest way I can see, is by simply referring to the title by name. User:Moulton has left a rather cryptic message on my talk page which suggests he objects to the use of the word "dissent". As this is the actual title of the petition, I see no way this argument can hold up for exclusion of the term. I think Discovery Institute petition would be fine (DI is synonymous with anti-evolution anyway), as long as that is an accurate portrayal of the petition.-- ZayZayEM 05:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
It's an interesting question what purposes are served by the petition, whether they are planned and intentional purposes or surprising and unexpected purposes of an opportunistic nature.
One purpose (albeit one not particularly respected or celebrated) is to raise awareness of the need to employ the critical thinking skills that honor and reify the protocols of the scientific method when reckoning one's beliefs ranging from fanciful idle speculation to comforting cultural myths to useful scientific theories to demonstrably provable mathematical theorems.
Another purpose (almost surely unintentional) is to provide an interesting sociological case study in the phenomenon of reframing. That would be an example of an opportunistic purpose.
In both biological evolution and cultural evolution, we find that an emergent happenstantial feature which originally serves one purpose may end up serving multiple purposes. That is to say, let us not thumb our nose at the Panda's Thumb.
Moulton 12:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Let's look what critic Ed Brayton says:
[This appears just after quoting the two lines of A Scientific Dissent] [The statement] has nothing to do with dissent from Darwinism. or support for ID. I would go even further than this statement goes. I'm not only skeptical of the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life we see around us, I flatly deny that those two things alone account for it. Random mutation is not the only source of genetic variation and natural selection is not the only means by which a trait can become fixed in a population. No evolutionary biologist would disagree with the statement above; even Richard Dawkins could honestly sign that statement. It is completely meaningless. [19]
Seriously guys, read your sources and you might understand the incredibly political nature of this debate and how important it is tread on eggshells so that we portray it accurately and properly without utilising the nasty brutish tactics of the creationist throng.-- ZayZayEM 04:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
According to the article on
fields of science,
computer sciences are a subset of
Mathematics and Computer sciences and
evolutionary biology is a subset of
life sciences, which is in turn a subset of
natural sciences. This would seem to me to be
prima facie evidence that the two fields are completely unrelated.
Hrafn42
08:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
In case anybody is interested, Picard's field is
affective computing within the field of
artificial intelligence. The closest that computer science and evolutionary biology come to meet is in the field of
evolutionary algorithms (an unrelated subfield of AI), which "uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, natural selection and survival of the fittest." You would be hard pressed to make the claim that because another sub-field of your field is "inspired by" an otherwise-unrelated field, that your sub-field is in any way related to this field. At best, this would be an argument for more narrowly characterising Picard's field as
affective computing.
Hrafn42
08:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Computer science is related to evolutionary biology. Oh, HELLO Bioinformatics Particular in running simulations and AI development. Not to mention the usefulness in providing algorithms for things like BLAST.
I really am going to require a citation to allow such an inflammatory anti-cross-disciplinary statement to stand (almost all fields of science overlap somewhat these days). Linking to another wiki-article is not the same as requiring a RS.
Additional the comments by Bryant are not directed towards Picard (Nathan Bradfield and Egnor are mentioned). They are directed towards all the signatories without any "training or expertise" in evo-bio. Not only have you not shown (and refused to show) that this is true for Picard; but its inclusion here will require its inclusion on all the relevant signatories' pages. Better to put it at the A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism main page if it is such a noteworthy comment.
In order to use Bryant's commentary it will have to be shown that Picard is one of those untrained non-experts he was referring to. Otherwise it is contentious synthetic OR on a very special sort of bio
-- ZayZayEM 10:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh HELLO -- tenuously thin argument:
This argument is about as compelling as claiming that stress-testing nuts and bolts is related to medicine because both the workings of nuts and bolts and of artificial implants can both be considered to be part of materials science.
The statement is not "inflammatory", it is simple common sense. Individual sub-fields of scientific fields (or more commonly sub-fields of sub-fields of fields) quite frequently overlap with sub-fields of other fields, but that does not mean that the entire fields are "related". Affective computing is in no way related to evolutionary biology. This can be seen from (1) the prima facie evidence I cited above, and (2) the lack of any evidence of any specific sub-field overlap.
The comments were directed towards a class of people that clearly includes Picard, who, as an Engineering graduate (a subject that is highly unlikely to include electives in even general biology,let alone evolutionary biology), has a vanishingly small probability of having had any academic contact with evolutionary biology. I rather doubt if Brayton demanded Bradfield's or Egnor's full academic transcripts before making his comment either. His point was that neither work in fields that have any contact or overlap with evolutionary biology -- a point perfectly mirroring Picard's own speciality.
Hrafn42 11:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
If anybody is interested here is GIT's 'prerequisite diagram and typical schedule' for a BS in electrical engineering Hrafn42 11:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
If the fact that, in my argument in the section above, I linked to a mere wiki-article is the problem, then NSF Fields of Science Codes and this explanatory information on them add up to much the same thing. Hrafn42 12:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
One of the cornerstones of Darwin's model is the principle that is typically captioned "Survival of the Fittest." One of the faculties that figures into one's fitness to survive is intelligence. Among Howard Gardner's celebrated list of multiple intelligences, author Daniel Goleman singles out Emotional Intelligence as arguably the most important variety of intelligence for overall success in life. Goleman tends to focus on emotional intelligence in humans, but studies of bonobos and chimpanzees by primate researchers suggest that social and emotional intelligence appears to have achieved strikingly different levels of sophistication in otherwise closely related species. Emotional intelligence depends, in part, on the ability to recognize subtle cues in posture, gesture, and facial expression that signal emotional state, and to rapidly process such non-verbal and sub-verbal data streams to identify, assess, reckon, and adaptively respond to affective states. Are these faculties of social-emotional intelligence heritable characteristics? Are they learned skills? How do they arise, evolve, and become impaired in different lineages? Autism research, for example speaks to these questions. So does research in pattern recognition. Moulton 13:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
It is ludicrous in the extreme to suggest that computer science, or computer engineering are the same as evolutionary biology, or have any substantial overlap with evolutionary biology, and that someone who is basically an engineer has any authority to make pronouncments about evolutionary biology. No journal in evolutionary biology would ever choose an engineer like Picard to review a paper on natural selection. No reputable university would hire Picard to do research and teach evolutionary biology. Why is Picard working in one of the engineering departments at MIT and not the Whitehead Institute or the MIT biology department? Why did Picard work in area 54 at Bell Labs? I did not notice any evolutionary biologists in that department. How many evolutionary biologists are members, let alone fellows of the IEEE? How many semester hours of coursework and laboratory work and field work in evolutionary biology and paleontology does Picard have at the undergraduate and graduate levels? Any scholarly peer-reviewed publications in this area? This is nuts. And the more people make these kinds of arguments, the more they discredit themselves and make it clear they are POV warriors.-- Filll 14:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
If and when Picard makes seminal contributions in evolutionary biology, this will be noted. Otherwise, my opinion stands. -- Filll 15:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
And we can summarise our findings with a quote from Benjamin Franklin: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Hrafn42 16:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The issue here really is that one or more of the signatories and/or their close supporters are attempting to do some public-relations-type ideological damage control -- in a word, propaganda. That's an inherently WP:POV position, and it may involve WP:COI considerations too. There are two basic possiblities w.r.t. the deniability that Moulton appears to seek. 1) The statement was presented to the signatories without a title, with the title folded over, or otherwse not visible, at the time of signing, to one or more of the signatories. Or, (2) the title was clearly visible and someone's lying. There are other possibilities, but those are the two main ones in the present setting. Problem is, none of this has any reliable sourcing thus far.
W.r.t. other apparent possibilies: Why haven't some of the signatories called or written one another? and said, for instance: "Hey, this title is a misrepresentation of the language of the statement I signed, for the followng reasons [enter reasons in the space provided or on an attached page ________________, _________________, __________________]. Send it off to the newspapers and other appropriate periodicals and make clear the nature of any assertions of misrepresentative language, lack of title at the time of signing, and/or other claims by one or more of the signatories and make sure it's published in a reliable source. Then it can be considered for use in Wikipedia.
In the meantime, Moulton hints at, and also explicitly threatens in several instances, allegations of libel, slander, public mockery of Wikipedia procedure, practice and substance in various as yet unnamed public fora. Gimme a break already. The threats ring hollow, quite frankly, and this lengthy discussion pretty much speaks for itself. Moulton attempts to break the rules and guidelines of WP, and get others to break them, in order to achieve her (or his) POV objectives. Moulton, this effort of yours is way out of bounds for awhile now. Seriously. ... Kenosis 16:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Moulton, much as you like to pride yourself on your intellectual superiority and presume to lecture the editors here and talk down to them, you have sadly and embarassingly failed in your efforts to understand Wikipedia and its internal culture, rules and checks and balances. All you have amply revealed is your own set of personal biases and inability to engage in reasoned debate and argumentation and collaborate with others in a productive fashion. I for one believe you have done over the edge long ago, and I believe the situation is irretrievable. -- Filll 17:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Filll, I must disagree, in part at least. My review of the statements of Moulton thus far indicates that this has not been, and is not now, about comparative assessments of innate competence. A significant number of the statements by Moulton are demonstrably manipulative, and/or threatening, and demonstrably seek to persuade the WP users to submit to Moulton's preferred, unsubstantiated version of events, under threat of legal action and/or informal sanctions such as publishing pieces in other publications about Wikipedia's alleged flaws in methodology and alleged flaws in its practice. I not only find the threats hollow, but indicative of very arguable hints of intellectual dishonesty by Moulton. All this is quite demonstrable based upon Moulton's submissions to date. If we need to spend the time going over it point by point, we will proceed to do so. Let's not mince words about this at this point in time. The evidence here is such that a random sample of reasonable, objective observers would likely conclude that what I've asserted here is a reasonable way of describing Moulton's approach. ... Kenosis 18:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Moulton, of course it is true that users who tend to be attracted to certain articles quite frequently have POV agendas for those articles. At this point in time, it appears you are not an exception to this all-too-frequent occurrence. The agenda you have asserted for this article is beyond POV, and has gone into (a) criticisms of Wikipedia rules and practice with threats of using other media to get your way here, (b) veiled and/or explicit legal threats, (c) other obvious attempts to manipulate users to accompany you in breaking Wikipedia policy and practice in order to include your unsubstantiated allegations, and (d) lengthy tendentious argumentation in an attempt to get this article to read the way you want it to read. The evidence of your comments thus far indicates that your prime objective is to insert your preferred POV, and that your assertions of a quest for improved quality of journalistic reporting are quite secondary to that objective. Time to cut it out. What's needed now is verification of your as yet unsubstantiated assertions. ... Kenosis 01:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
What the heck? Nothing like injecting pure nonsense in here at random intervals is there? Is this a profitable hobby for you? Of course, everything is connected to everything. And I can do brain surgery because I visited a doctor's office once. -- Filll 01:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
In a paper with T. F. Smith, Myron Stein, and William Beyer, Ulam carries out an investigation of the reconstruction of evolutionary trees based on 33 species of the protein complex known as Cytochrome-C from 33 extant plants or animals. A distance metric between these similar proteins is calculated by a mathematical theory (discussed elsewhere). Hypothetical evolutionary trees are then constructed by use of linear programming methods. Agreement of the trees with generally accepted evolutionary trees was reasonably good.
You need to establish Picard has "no training or expertise" in evo-bio to use Brayton's comments. Simply saying her field is unrelated (which I'm still not satisfied is exactly true) It's overkill. It's synthesis. And it cannot remain on a BLP.
Please wait till discussion is over, and dispute is resolved before restoring contentious material to a BLP.-- ZayZayEM 04:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
No one can deny the subject's expertise in digital signal processing and pattern recognition, which are computational tools that have wide applications in many diverse fields. No one can deny that there are people like Stanislaw Ulam whose primary field is applied mathematics and who have notably applied their mathematical expertise to brilliantly solve important problems in evolutionary biology. Participants here also cannot deny (because they could not have known) that the reason Ulam was on my mind this morning was because I was recalling his memorable talk, many years ago, at the General Research Colloquium at Bell Laboratories, where Picard and I were both employed back in the 1980s. She was in the Digital Signal Processing Group there and I was in the Network Planning Division. It was in that talk where Ulam described his mathematical model linking his metric on the differences in Cytochrome-C to the distances between species on the evolutionary tree. It was an enlightening and inspiring talk, especially for those of us who were trained in the use of similar mathematical tools as those employed so brilliantly by Ulam. Moulton 04:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This is the full context of Brayton's opinion:
Last week I had a post fisking Nathan Bradfield's ignorance about evolution and his trumpeting of the DI's famous list of dissenting scientists. One of the names mentioned in his article was that of Michael Egnor, one of the folks who has signed the DI's list, but is not a scientist but a professor of surgery. I pointed out that, in fact, the majority of the people on that list have no training or expertise in evolutionary biology at all. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know what they're talking about, but it does mean that putting them on a list that is used solely as an appeal to authority is ridiculous, since they have no authority in the field.
The post he linked to states:
If you thought Nathan Bradfield's take on church and state was absurd and overly simplistic, wait till you see what he has to say about evolution. To begin with, he's getting his information from the Worldnutdaily, which is a bit like learning about physics by reading Highlights. He's parroting this article about the Discovery Institute's famous list of "dissenting scientists" that has the gall to refer to it as a list of "top scientists." The very first paragraph:
The list truly is a "Who's Who" of prominent scientists in the world today, and now another 100 ranking leaders have added their signatures to a challenge to Darwin's theory of evolution.
Now that's just funny. A "Who's Who" of prominent scientists? In what alternate universe? How many of the names on that list do you suppose Nathan has ever heard of outside of lists like this? I suppose they think Richard Sternberg is a "prominent scientist", but if not for the Smithsonian controversy even those of us who keep up with this issue had no idea who he was. He was so obscure, in fact, that the head of the department at the NMNH where Sternberg was a Research Associate had never even heard of him and didn't know he existed and had an office in his own department until that controversy broke. Golly, that's sure "prominent."
The only names on the list with any prominence at all, even within their own narrow fields, are Phillip Skell, Henry Schaefer and Frank Tipler. And guess what? None of them are in fields that deal with evolutionary biology at all. Their opinion on evolutionary theory is no more authoritative than anyone else who has no knowledge of the issue. If you want a measure of just how obscure most of them are and how much effort the DI has to go through to make them appear more credible than they are, look no further than the list of credentials they give for each of them and the fact that they switch back and forth between citing where they got their degrees from and what organization they are affiliated with now, picking whichever one sounds more impressive.
And consider the fact that the majority of people on the list are in fields that have no relevance to evolutionary biology at all. A chemist or a physicist or a doctor has no more specialized knowledge of biology than a sociologist or a mechanic for that matter. This is not only an appeal to authority, it is an appeal to non-existent authority. Of course, the last thing the ID advocates should be engaging in is such appeals to authority, especially in light of the fact that well over 99% of scientists in the relevant fields accept evolution. If you're going to appeal to the authority of a tiny percentage of scientists, most of them obscure names in fields with no connection to evolution, it seems rather silly to reject an appeal to the overwhelming opinion of those scientists who actually work in the field. ...
I challenge anybody to show how applying the quote to Picard is taking it out of its original context, that of "the majority of people on the list are in fields that have no relevance to evolutionary biology at all." Hrafn42 05:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Material from self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs should never be used as a source about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article ( see below).
I accepted the elimination of the Brayton quote immediately that ZayZayEM raised the issue of inadmissibility of blogs under WP:BLP (edit summary of "Final WP:BLP warning" not withstanding), and have now replaced it. I wish that they had raised this matter several sections ago, as I could have avoided the trouble of debating, and providing evidence on, issues that this renders moot. While accepting wikipedia policy, I think I am not being unreasonable in feeling a considerable degree of frustration with perpetually moving target I have been presented on this issue.
On the subject of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, I would ask what the standard is for establishing a prima facie case (i.e. one that "denotes evidence that (unless rebutted) would be sufficient to prove a particular proposition or fact") for the unrelatedness of the two fields, that I would have to make without violating WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. At that point, I would be reasonable in demanding that any rebuttal would likewise need to meet the standards of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. As it is, it seems that I must counter a whole string of WP:OR/ WP:SYNTH arguments, without violating either rule myself. This would seem to me to be unreasonable. Hrafn42 08:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm over it. this is getting listed at
WP:AN/I and I am requesting protection. Citing various criteria to formulate and argumentative/convincing tone. (X says B is A, N did B, therefore A) is the exact formula used in the
WP:SYNTH example.--
ZayZayEM
08:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Neutral statement Concerns have been expressed over the inclusion of a disclaimer stating that Picard's field of expertise is unrelated to evo-bio; making A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism a failed appeal to authority.
Diff [23]
Concerns state that the section is in violation of WP:OR (bringing in previously unpublished arguments) and WP:BLP. A previous version of the material was referenced to a blog [24].-- ZayZayEM 09:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This RFC aims to address:
It does not concern:
-- ZayZayEM 09:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I have made a prima facie case that the fields are not related without resorting to WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. However I cannot rebut the host of WP:OR/ WP:SYNTH counter-claims that have been presented without resorting to WP:OR or WP:SYNTH myself. I do not think it is reasonable to expect that I should. Hrafn42 10:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Based on that, I think the statement is entirely reasonable. Guettarda 23:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I have protected this page for 48 hours, until the current disputes and issues with OR etc. are resolved. I hope that the problem will be all fixed by the time the protection expires. -- Anonymous Dissident Talk 09:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Wow. Please leave the attitude at the door.-- Filll 11:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well. I don't think it is productive to even attempt to try to add informative material any more. Given the harsh and unreasonable rigidity with which some editors are expecting WP:BLP to be applied, and the complete lack of any iron-clad, belt-'n'-braces WP:RSed articles that are squarely about the subject of the article (there are just a few WP:RS articles that mention her in passing, or have her venture a comment, but there has been some contention even here), the most logical course would appear to be:
Hrafn42 10:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
An alternative to simple deletion would be to have the article merged/redirected to affective computing. Hrafn42 10:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This article is more trouble than it is worth, for a very minor engineer who makes machines with smiling faces. As for her expertise in DSP, or computer science, or evo. bio. do not make me laugh.-- Filll 11:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The most contentious aspects of this episode, in my estimation, started with Moulton becoming a participant and asserting that there were "behind the scenes" elements related to the signing of the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, which has led to further arguments over how to present that short paragraph about the petition circulated by the Discovery Institute, which later bacame a central feature of the intelligent design controversy. Moulton's assertions were WP:original research, and IMO so are these other arguments about how precisely her area of expertise might relate or not relate to evolutionary biology. Same with other proposed additions -- in my observation it's unfortunately become a debate about a debate, with two opposing POVs drawing farther apart. Please stick to the readily verifiable facts here. The originally contested material in the article is quite adequate as it presently reads here. ... Kenosis 14:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I would note that only half of the MIT Media Lab#Media Lab Research Groups directors have wikipedia articles. Hrafn42 14:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This is nonsense in multiple ways. For example, more than 2 of the original 103/105 have articles I believe. And signing of course adds to notability, particularly if it leads to publicity in the mainstream media. So what? And also, there is NO proof about what the petition that was circulated said, and if it did or did not have a title. All we know so far is what was published, and republished probably a good 10 times and reported in the mainstream media. And we know there has been no evidence of retraction presented in this case, after 6 years. And lots of RS and V evidence of agreement with the intent of the petition and the Discovery Institute agenda by the subject. That is what we know.-- Filll 15:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Enough is enough with the disruptions; this discussion is going in repetitive circles with no additional substance to discuss at this point. The subject of this article is a minor player in the scheme of Things In The World. Perhaps the best claim to notability in WP is Picard's association with Ray Kurzweil. The book Affective Computing presently is ranked over 800,000 in sales rank on Amazon. If one copy sells today, it'll probably move up to the 700,000s -- in other words, it's way out at the thin edges of notability at most. Next thing you know, we'll have a Category:Published Tenured Professors at MIT, which would be ridiculous at this stage of Wikipedia's growth. The consensus is quite clear as to at least brief mention of the NY Times article and being a signatory of the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. Time to drop the issue, or alternately, if people don't feel the topic of this article is adequately notable, to put the article up for deletion. ... Kenosis 15:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
<OutDent>You'd probably find another book a better read. HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality came out in 1997, to coincide with the date that HAL "became operational" in Arthur C. Clarke's futuristic SciFi novel. Edited by David G. Stork, and with a forward by Arthur C. Clarke, the book examines how well Clarke's imagination matched up with the actual state of the art in 1997. Thirteen authors (including Kurzweil and Picard) contributed the 16 chapters. Kurzweil's chapter was entitled, "When Will HAL Understand What We Are Saying? Computer Speech Recognition and Understanding." Picard's chapter was entitled, "Does HAL Cry Digital Tears? Emotions and Computers." You can read the entire book online at the above link. Moulton 12:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
There is a clear consensus to have the information. It is well-sourced. That two editors continue to have issues with does not mean we should leave it out. JoshuaZ 00:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
If we keep it, we should keep the well documented and sourced information. She clearly is a creationist and ID supporter and always has been and is in fact proud of it. There is no problem with Do No Harm here. It is true, we can demonstrate it is true with our evidence (and we have a lot more now). So this fight was basically pointless, except it gave us more ammunition to discuss Picard's creationist beliefs.--
Filll
01:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
No we do not have that consensus. I am sorry you seem to be mistaken.-- Filll 01:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Neither Picard's original field of electrical engineering nor her current field of affective computing is related to evolutionary biology.
- See fields of science (or alternately NSF Fields of Science Codes and associated explanatory information) for an exposition of the general, hierarchical, relationship of scientific fields. For a non-hierarchical representation, see the map of science, which has featured in both Nature and Seed. [27]
- It should be noted that all scientific fields are related to other fields that are themselves related to further fields and so on. However, the degree of relatedness between two fields quickly becomes negligible with each intervening field.
- The following has been commented out as it might be considered OR, but is OR only to the extent that the argument it is intended to rebut (that evolutionary algorithms & Bioinformatics create a relationship to Evo Bio) is also OR. I.e. it is a (potentially) OR plug to an (equally) OR perceived hole in the above, non-OR prima facie evidence that affective computing and evolutionary biology are unrelated. If defence of this point is considered necessary, then this text can be introduced.
- Certain specific sub-fields within computer science,e.g. evolutionary algorithms (which uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution), and interdisciplinary fields involving computer science, e.g. Bioinformatics (which has applications in the modelling of evolution, among a wide range of other applications) have a closer relationship with evolutionary biology than this hierarchy would indicate. However, no claim has been made that these sub-fields have significant overlap with affective computing.
The statement attempts to base its claim to truth on the credentials of its signatories, a logical fallacy known as an ' appeal to authority.' Where the 'authority' in question is venturing an opinion outside their field of expertise (as is the case with Picard), it is known as an 'appeal to false authority.' A List Of Fallacious Arguments
I would seek a consensus from all editors on this article (not simply my two most vocal critics) on the following issues:
In asking this question, I would note:
What level of citation does the statement "Neither Picard's original field of electrical engineering nor her current field of affective computing is related to evolutionary biology." require?
Assuming that this statement can be established, is it sufficiently self-evident that the 'Dissent' is an 'appeal to authority' & Picard's involvement an 'appeal to false authority' from the definitions of these, or is a statement to this effect WP:OR? Hrafn42 05:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
[Update] I've managed to find a reference on the 'appeal to authority' bit: [31] Russell D. Renka, Professor of Political Science, Southeast Missouri State University. Can this be considered a WP:RS? Hrafn42 05:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
See Ohio Scientists' Intelligent Design Poll. The sample of 460 had a response rate of 31% and a sampling error of +/-4.5%.
The Discovery Institute would have to counter this poll's appeal-to-authority value, and in early 2006 they attempted that. The result is profiled in CSC - A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, released 20 February 2006, and is reviewed in Kenneth Chang, Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition - New York Times, February 21, 2006. The 514 credentialed signatories are short of biologists and long on overtly religious Christians whose dissent on Darwinism extends further to questioning of ancient earth and ancient universe propositions. In other words, these are largely creationists. The dissenters' list is at filesDB-download.
Many of the dissenters evade the overwhelming evidence for evolution by accepting micro-level evidence of emergent variation within species while rejecting macro-level emergence in nature of new species. But evolutionists do not separate these. Arguments among evolutionists occur not on whether speciation occurs, but only on the necessary conditions for that process. See Carl Zimmer, Palm Trees and Lake Fish Dispel Doubts About a Theory of Evolution - New York Times, February 21, 2006; this summation demonstrates evidence for sympatric speciation instead of the normal (and accepted) allopatric speciation. [33]
I know we've discussed this before, but I wish to crystallise my thoughts on this. I apologise if you are becoming sick of the question.
Picard's notability would appear to come from three sources:
My suspicion is that the former description would be the most frequently applicable and that Picard's contribution (although significant) is insufficiently differentiable from the field as a whole for her to be notable due to this in her own right rather than to simply be mentioned in the Affective Computing article. Hrafn42 05:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be prudent just to resolve one issue at a time. After unprotection, perhaps a test VFD would satisfy concerns of notability. -- ZayZayEM 05:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
In this essay I will submit for discussion a set of ideas on what I call “affective computing,” computing that relates to, arises from, or influences emotions.
I trust that any residual assertions that this article exists merely to criticize Picard's involvement in the intelligent design controversy are now put to rest. Thanks for the citation -- this would appear to deserve note in the article. Where was it published? ... Kenosis 13:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Picard's "notability" extends to her efforts to provide the insightful perspective of a computer scientist when considering questions in far-flung disciplines. The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in cooperation with the Harvard Divinity School, organized a new course in 1997 provocatively titled, " God and Computers," inviting the general public to attend the guest lectures. Among the invited guest lecturers, Donald Knuth may have been the most notable. Picard was also a guest lecturer one year, and part of her presentation is preserved as a one-act play, " Machines That Can Deny Their Maker." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moulton ( talk • contribs) 10:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
A concern has been raised on my talkpage about the IPs identified as belonging to Picard on top of this page. Do we know this for certain? If not, I would prefer that they be removed. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 12:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
You are not just wrong, but incredibly wrong. And apparently suffering from WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Let's try this again, shall we?
No that is not the main purpose of OTRS. You might want to check on the history of OTRS and what stimulated its creation and what is goals and purpose are. Nice appeal to authority there, but effectively spurious.
Please point me to the place in policy where you get to summarily remove talk page content especially important cautions like those notices.
So what does the notice really say? An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Rosalind Picard, has edited Wikipedia. So this article is called Rosalind Picard, right? And we have a few IP addresses from the MIT Media Laboratory where Picard works editing Picard's article, right? And yet you claim that these IP addresses have nothing to do with Rosalind Picard, right?
Do you claim that people at the Media Laboratory who happen to be editing the Rosalind Picard article are not related to Rosalind Picard? Do you claim that someone who is editing the Wikipedia article on Rosland Picard from the MIT Media Laboratory has no relation to Rosalind Picard and in fact does not even know who Rosalind Picard is? Sounds like a bit difficult of an argument to make, but nevertheless, you are making it. Do you think it is a very compelling argument? How many do you think would buy it? Does it seem very likely to you? Well, you might want to think about that before pressing that claim very hard.-- Filll ( talk) 14:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
So do you contend that Picard's students are not related at all to Picard, if these IP addresses belonged to Picard's students (an unfounded assertion or suggestion)? Picard is perfectly within her rights to file an OTRS request. In fact, I have invited her to do so for months now, over and over and over. In fact, I went even farther and instead of Picard contacting us, I contacted her directly to try to resolve this. I have bent over backwards over and over and over in this situation. So I do not need to be lectured by you, thank you very much. Or your students. -- Filll ( talk) 15:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Well show me the statement in policy that demonstrates we should not have these statements. Pretend I am from Missouri.
We are not assuming it is Picard by the way. Have you even read the templates?
And why do you claim Picard has not spoken to me or communicated to me? Again I see someone who is having trouble following the conversation. That is unfortunate. And how do you think she was warned not to? If she was warned not to, why did she?-- Filll ( talk) 15:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes and I gather you interpret them to mean that they state that Picard herself edited this article, and cover no other case. And I think that is the wrong interpretation. However, why not ask others how they read them? Also, in the case of many WP:COI violation cases, you think that only in the case where the subject of the COI violation confesses and we have solid evidence that these templates are applied? In that case, how do you even know that the subject of the OTRS ticket is who they purport to be? You have someone fingerprinted by the local law enforcement people or FBI perhaps? You have them swear an affadavit in court, under penalty of perjury?-- Filll ( talk) 16:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I've been asked to weigh in on this. Briefly considered starting a thread to similar effect last night, but it hardly seemed worthwhile because the matter was something that hardly any non-Wikipedian would recognize if he or she noticed it. Our site processes are often so dense that people's heads explode trying to make sense of them (I have a few exploded skull fragments right here at my desk as proof). Basically it breaks down like this:
Periodically, pages become drama central for mysterious reasons comprehensible only to the most experienced Wikipedians who reside in the inner sanctum of the secret crypt beneath Wall Street where the Nefarious Wikipedia CabalTM meets. Note to passing checkusers: I am disguising my actual location now. I appear to be editing from San Diego, but no...and actually I'm not in the secret crypt either; I'm atop the Great Mount of Wiki Wisdom in Tibet, praying beneath a thangka, and meditations have thus far revealed that this thread goes against the Tao/ force/ karma/will of the deity of your choice (forgive me if this offends your chosen religion; I'm trying to be lighthearted). Please archive without action, wait a month for things to cool down, and reopen if you still think it really matters. I doubt the underlying issue will make waves outside the Wiki, but this discussion itself is somewhat more noticeable. Durova Charge! 00:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Progress... User_talk:Hrafn42#Forget_I_said_anything
Okay. Given it is a connection highlighted by the NYT article, it seems a comment pointing out that Picard is not a biologist, or that here field does not directly relate to evo-bio will not constitute OR.
However, it is still perceivably WP:SYNTH (IMHO, a textbook case) to relate this back to the failed appeal-to-authority value of A Scientific Dissent. Is consensus for or against the inclusion of this?
Previous text, which may or may not reflect final content:
A Scientific Dissent] attempts to base its claim to truth on the credentials of its signatories, a logical fallacy known as an ' appeal to authority.' Where the 'authority' in question is venturing an opinion outside their field of expertise (as is the case with Picard), it is known as an 'appeal to false authority.' °context
I will be deleting any off-topic banter or trolling by any party, arguments have been presented numerous times by all parties involved, I don't think it really serves any purpose to continue.
For
Against
Looking at the source [34] carefully, it seems to me that a sentence added after the first sentence in the existing paragraph could summarise the statement in a neutral way:
In February 2006, the New York Times reported that Picard was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers, out of five hundred scientists and engineers, whose names appeared on the Discovery Institute's controversial petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". According to the Discovery Institute 254 of the signers held degrees in the biological sciences or biochemistry, leaving more than 350 nonbiologists including Dr. Picard. The two-sentence statement has been widely used by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and some of their supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
I did try "The Times noted that more than 350 of the signers, including Dr. Picard, were nonbiologists.", but that seemed to be going a bit beyond the source. ... dave souza, talk 08:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
On June 29, 2006, Picard [IP 18.85.10.17] proposed this version...
Controversial Petition Signer
Recently, The New York Times reported that Dr. Picard signed the Dissent From Darwin Petition (see page 6 of the petition for her signature). This petition has received criticism since although all of the signers hold doctorates in science and engineering disciplines, only 154 of the 514 signers have biological science backgrounds.
On February 4, 2007, Picard [IP 18.85.10.10] proposed this version...
Controversial Petition Signer
Recently, The New York Times reported that Dr. Picard signed the Discovery Institute's Petition, " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" (see page 6 of the petition for her signature, which names the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as her affiliation).
-- Moulton 10:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I think there is no problem with drawing the conclusions that Chang did in the NYT, but in a brief abbreviated fashion. I have no problem with the blog as a reference, as long as we have a couple of other more RS sources if there are problems. I think she is not particularly notable, although she obviously gained notability from appearing in Chang's article.-- Filll 01:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Given that we appear to be at an impasse on gaining a consensus on disputed content in this article, and given that the non-disputed content is quite minimal, I would like to nominate that this article be merged into Affective computing. I make this nomination on the basis of WP:MERGE and specifically these two "good reasons":
2. Overlap - There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe. For example, "Flammable" and "Non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on Flammability.
3. Text - If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic. For instance, parents or children of a celebrity that are otherwise unremarkable are generally covered in a section of the article on the celebrity, and can be merged there.
Picard is notable for little beyond the field of Affective Computing, so overlap should be obvious. Additionally, there seems little likelihood of much expansion of this article (none at all as long as it remains protected, but much debate for little or no gain even if it is unprotected again). There is quite frankly little further to be said about Picard that could not be better said on the article on Affective Computing.
This proposal will require getting the template {{mergeto|Affective computing|Talk:Affective computing#Merger proposal|{{subst:DATE}}}} inserted into this (protected) article. Unless anybody wishes to object to me making this proposal (as opposed to objecting to the merger itself), I will seek a {{editprotected}}
to get it inserted (alternatively, if an admin wanders in & decides that this proposal is a reasonable one to make, they might insert the template without me having to go through channels). Once we get the template onto this article, I'll place the complementary template on
Affective computing .
Hrafn42
14:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Picard is notable for more than affective computing. Namely for being a signatory of Dissent. This information would have no relation to the affective computing page. That this article is not a stub (but still small) shows that two articles are favourable.-- ZayZayEM 14:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I also think she is barely notable. I would favor summarizing the New York Times article that mentions her, in the least offensive manner possible, to avoid upsetting anyone. However, we should still include the material that lead to her being mentioned in that Chang article. Otherwise, why did Chang single her out? If she was an MIT biologist, I suspect Chang might have mentioned her still, but maybe in a very different context. The context in which she was mentioned is important, and merits inclusion. By us excluding this information, or trying to spin it in another way, we are engaging in OR. However, if we just use the same context Chang did, we are not violating WP:OR.-- Filll 16:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I support a merge/redirect, but for a different reason: this is not a proper biography by a long shot. But note that mentioning the ID poll will probably not satisfy Due Weight concerns in the Affective Computing article.
Nevertheless, it may be possible to find sufficient published information on Picard to expand this into a true bio; those in favor of keeping a separate biography may want to spend some time digging it up. Topics e.g. early life, pop. science publications/(media) appearances/talks given on Affective Computing, her religious beliefs. Avb 13:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Hrafn42 06:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
If I am not mistaken, some of those are biochemists, which are not the same as biologists. Certainly they are not experts in evolution. They just need classes in organic chemistry, and not biology or genetics etc.--
Filll
23:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm really not caring too much anymore. I inserted the material about Picard being a non-biologist because consensus appeared to favour inclusion, and a source did actually point it out (if only someone had actually used this argument at the start). I am not accusing Hrafn of WP:DISRUPT, though it does seem that it seems certain parties seem to be having a "my way or the highway/all or nothing" attitude towards Picard's article. I'm quite happy to leave "emerging" out of the article if people feel it is overstepping the mark (noone actually commented as to why it was unreasonable to suggest). List of signatories to "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" is a relevant link, even if it doesn't actually list all 500 signatories (yet), perhaps it could be worded differently.-- ZayZayEM 08:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I've reverted an edit by IP# 18.85.44.145, location: United States [City: Boston, Massachusetts], owner: MIT
Apart from the fact that I feel such a change requires a consensus first, if only for WP:BLP reasons, this could be a sock or meat puppet trying to continue disrupting this article. Avb 14:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Not only is it MIT, it's
MIT Media Lab -- dhcp-44-145.media.mit.edu, so most likely Picard or an associate.
Hrafn42
Talk
Stalk
14:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Interestingly, this edit in the opposite direction of the Moulton edits and the purported Picard anon edits. So it might be just someone trying to create controversy, or more material for Moulton and his blogs and/or experiments with the "journalism" culture and standards of WP, or it might be an associate of Picard and Moulton's who really secretly feels that Moulton and Picard are wrong, and resents their views and activities. It is too coincidental.-- Filll 15:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The edit created a situation that, if handled incorrectly, would reflect badly on Wikipedia. The assumption that the change might stick without a consensus seems based on an incorrect understanding of (and plain disbelief in) WP style consensus - both hallmarks of moulton's type of editing. By the way, has Picard herself ever contacted editors, or the Foundation directly? It beats anonymous IP editing and proxy editing by a friend who does not want to go with the flow and attacks the system. Avb 17:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
True. Well, we'll simply go on editing as usual. If Picard ever follows up on that promise, we may be able to do something for her, or once again explain why we can't. Avb 18:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
NYT does make a point of her being a non-biologist:
The Discovery Institute says 128 signers hold degrees in the biological sciences and 26 in biochemistry. That leaves more than 350 nonbiologists, including Dr. Tour, Dr. Picard and Dr. Skell.
350> vs 128 is majority, so I don't think it is too bad to say that Picard is one amongst the majority of nonbiologists who signed the petition.-- ZayZayEM 00:07, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the section, Rosalind Picard#"A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", is a violation of the undue weight policy. It is clearly only a minor point, deserving one sentence maximum, not a section heading. As far as I can tell, there is no further information relevant to her other than that she signed it.
I'm removing all but the first sentence, and the rest of the information can be covered over at A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism. Sχeptomaniac χαιρετε 23:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
This is a big part of her notability. It should stay, maybe abbreviated, but it should stay. Without it, she is really just a professor who put smiling faces on computers. So what?--
Filll (
talk)
01:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
[Picard] tries to meet the criticisms of a sceptical audience by emphasising practical benefits and avoiding science-fiction rhetoric
I think at the very least we should summarize what is in the NYT article. I do not believe this can adequately be covered in one sentence.-- Filll ( talk) 21:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I concur 100% with Filll here - she's notable mostly for being a semi-respectable academic who signed a petition propagated by and fueling the conspiracy theories of cranks. Raul654 ( talk) 01:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It looks to me that Picard would pass WP:ACADEMIC without the ID info at all, as she is a full professor at MIT, a director of a lab, and has won several awards. The extended discussion of ID seems very out of place here, as it is certainly only a very insignificant part of her academic career. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 03:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Since this seems to have blown up spectacularly in my face, I might as well explain my edit. :/
I came across this BLP, which hadn't been edited since last year, and noticed that the paragraph about her signing that creationism petition seemed a disjointed and tangential - her signing the petition is unquestionably notable, but it seemed jarring to go straight from discussion of her research to "In February 2006, the New York Times reported... The petition, a two-sentence statement," without stating why she signed the petition or anything. We have an essay about these sorts of articles and the problems with them - WP:COATRACK. I checked out her personal webpage, noticed she was quite open about her religion, googled "Rosalind Picard christian" and found an Atlantic Monthly article that discussed at length why she was a creationist. So I added a sentence about that, making the article flow more smoothly into the signing of the petition. I also removed the second sentence explaining the petition, as I thought it was straying too off-topic.
I discussed this with Raul and can now see the merits of leaving that last sentence in - I think the article as it now stands is acceptable. What's greatly troubling to me is that instead of discussing this and working out a compromise, certain folks refused my invitation to discuss it and instantly jumped on me and started canvassing for a revert war when a few minutes of discussion would have cheerfully resolved the situation instead. (I'm personally as agnostic and anti-creationist as it gets... the only god I'm working in the name of here is WP:BLP.) This really isn't the way Wikipedia should work - assuming everyone is a POV pusher by default is not how we do things around here. krimpet ✽ 04:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely atrocious. And it is still not true that a negatyive book review constitutes a violation of WP:BLP for the author. Sorry, but that is...well you can imagine I am sure.-- Filll ( talk) 05:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
If you claim these are irrelevant, you just reveal your lack of knowledge of the situation. Better educate yourself before you commit another faux pas like claiming that a negative book review is a violation of BLP.-- Filll ( talk) 06:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm also not sure why the article is giving so much weight to this issue. It's the last sentence that is clearly undue weight here. Yes, she was in a NYT article, but please read it more closely - her name was mentioned in passing, she is in no way discussed in the article. To hang this sentence about the Discovery Institute's misdeeds off the end of this short article is simply not appropriate. And after clicking on a few names from
[40], it seems even less appropriate, since other articles - like
Philip Skell - contain either no or only a short mention. If the reason is we're afraid of handing Moulton and his fellow haters at WPR a victory, then that's stupid. They stand victorious whenever we make a decision based on criteria other than what's best for the encyclopedia. -
Merzbow (
talk)
07:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Let's look at the situation with some rationality here shall we ?
-- Filll ( talk) 14:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
With that sort of reasoning, I suspect you will have trouble. Sorry, but the only reason she is on Wikipedia is she signed the petition. She is not particularly notable as an academic. If you believe she is, spend a week or two writing a proper biography for her in a sandbox and let others look at it. And yes lots and lots of people have tried to claim she did not sign and wanted us to write that she did not sign and the New York Times writer is a stupid #$%^&* for writing that she signed. And just trying to hide the fact that she signed and the NYT wrote an article about it probably is not going to fly. If this is so all-fired important to you, why are you afraid of doing any real work? Stop complaining and do some real writing.--
Filll (
talk)
15:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I am not going to continue to fight with you about nonsense. Do some work if you want to improve this biography. -- Filll ( talk) 15:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The "why it is significant part" should be directly associated with the person whose biography we are writing and remains a matter of editorial interpretation (see Fill's investigative essay above) unless it has been notably commented on and can be cited as such. There doesn't seem to be any such notability or at lest no one here seems to be offering any evidence of it. As such why can't we just say she signed it with a link to the full entry where there is ample discussion about petition itself? Some minor discriptor could be added as well. Something like this for instance: "In February 2006, the New York Times reported that Picard was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers whose names appeared on the controversial ' A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism,' petition in support of intelligent design." In this example there we say it is controversial and that it relates to intelligent design. I'm still struggling to understand how a sentence about what the Discovery Institute has done with the petition belongs here and am still in hope that someone can explain that. Thanks. PelleSmith ( talk) 16:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Over the months, many many compromises have been attempted. I am telling you from experience, the compromises that involve whitewashing the endorsement of this petition will not work. The way to improve this biography is to IMPROVE THIS BIOGRAPHY. Is that so hard to understand? DO SOME WORK and add some material about her career in your own words if she is so notable and has had such a stellar important notable career putting smiling faces on computers. I will not continue to fight about this nonsense. If you want to have a better biography with more details here, then you have to write one. No one will write one for you or allow you to steal one from someone else. Also, we have plenty of other evidence that Picard supports the Discovery Institute and intelligent design and has an anti-evolution position. But in the interests of fairness and
WP:BLP, I do not suggest we smear this woman any more than necessary. Leave sleeping dogs lie. If she is prominent for other things, then go ahead and write about them. Let's not make this article a huge long discussion about how antiscience this woman is with all kinds of references to this activity of hers. Good lord...be reasonable. You want a better biography? Write one.--
Filll (
talk)
16:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
If and when you feel like doing some real work, you are welcome to do so. Otherwise, who can be bothered with this kind of nonsense?-- Filll ( talk) 16:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Can we start with a version of PelleSmith's sentence:
"In February 2006, the New York Times reported that Picard was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers whose names appeared on the Discovery Institute's controversial petition " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," which supports intelligent design."
and possibly expand it somewhat to find a consensus version? Or perhaps,
Picard has expressed support for intelligent design theory, and was one of a small number of nationally prominent researchers whose names appeared on the Discovery Institute's controversial petition " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism."
I'm sure we can find a wording everyone agrees with. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 17:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
The current wording is clear, and it doesn't go beyond the references. She signed the DI petition. We explain what the petition is. We don't assert that Picard is a supporter of ID; it seems likely that she is (read this history of this page), but we don't know.
At present the article states a notable fact about her, and adds context. Why is that a bad thing? Guettarda ( talk) 17:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
The second sentence tells the reader about the petition, rather than stating uninformatively that she's signed some petition. The NYT describes her signing it in the context that "In the recent skirmishes over evolution, advocates who have pushed to dilute its teaching have regularly pointed to a petition signed by 514 scientists and engineers. The petition, they say, is proof that scientific doubt over evolution persists." That's what the second sentence explains. .. dave souza, talk 18:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
This is the source mentioned above, in case anyone is confused: http://news.therecord.com/article/264978. In this source she says she's not happy with Intelligent Design though her own perspective is certainly similar. Regards. PelleSmith ( talk) 18:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Be clear. The report says what the petition was, she had opportunity to distance herself from the petition and chose to give it tacit support. What her reasoning was is unknown, we can only report the facts. Note well that the petition does not oppose modern evolutionary theory, but it was used to oppose evolution. .. dave souza, talk 20:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/Hal/chap13/thirteen1.html
Something about this chapter might be useful in the article. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 19:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
“ | Imagine your robot entering the kitchen as you prepare breakfast for guests. The robot looks happy to see you and greets you with a cheery "Good morning." You mumble something it does not understand. It notices your face, vocal tone, smoke above the stove, and your slamming of a pot into the sink, and infers that you do not appear to be having a good morning. Immediately, it adjusts its internal state to "subdued," which has the effect of lowering its vocal pitch and amplitude settings, eliminating cheery behavioral displays, and suppressing unnecessary conversation. Suppose you exclaim, "Ow!!" yanking your hand from the hot stove, rushing to run your fingers under cold water, adding "I can't believe I ruined the sauce." While the robot's speech recognition may not have high confidence that it accurately recognized all of your words, its assessment of your affect and actions indicates a high probability that you are upset and maybe hurt. | ” |
Seems to be from Scholarpedia by R. Picard herself, and doesn't seem to be in the book at all. (I can see how you might get that wrong-ish). Can someone check where else it might occur? -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 19:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It is complained that for this biography, there are two parts:
and that B is too large compared to A. The only reason that there is an article here is because of B. Others claim that A justifies the article, even if B was not true.
To make A larger than B, either B can be reduced, or A can be increased. For those who claim that there is plenty of A to justify an article, they should be able to expand A. Stop complaining about it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over for months on end and just do it. Just do it. Is that so hard? Do it.
And so instead of attacking the two sentences of B, add to A. The reasonable way to increase the ratio of A/B is to increase A, not decrease B. If you claim there is not enough A to use to increase A/B, then lets just get rid of this waste of time. And set the size of A and B equal to zero.
This is not rocket science here. Just stop whining and work.-- Filll ( talk) 20:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I am not even going to justify that with a response. Just be aware that the last person who tried to claim such nonsense was banned for their trouble. And I already warned you in detail about it. So...--
Filll (
talk)
20:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Please feel free to be productive instead of violating
WP:CIVIL,
WP:NPA,
WP:AGF and a number of other principles. Cheers!--
Filll (
talk)
21:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:BAIT again huh? As I said, actually being helpful would be nice.--
Filll (
talk)
21:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Dave's version
She is one of the signatories of the Discovery Institute's controversial petition "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism which has been used in campaigns to discredit evolution and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.[19][20] In a 2007 interview she raised the idea of a "greater mind" making some intervention beyond random processes in the complexity of DNA, but expressed reservations about intelligent design, saying that people of faith should challenge it and be more skeptical.[21]
Current wording
Picard is one of 514 signatories of the Discovery Institute's "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," a controversial petition which has been used to promote intelligent design by questioning modern evolutionary theory.[21][22] In a 2007 interview she raised the idea of a "greater mind" making some intervention beyond random processes in the complexity of DNA, but expressed reservations about intelligent design, saying that people of faith should challenge it and be more skeptical.[23]
I think Dave's version is superior for a number of reasons
I'm still not sure why one sentence is better than the original wording (The petition, a two-sentence statement, has been widely used by its sponsor, the Discovery Institute, and some of its supporters in a national campaign to discredit evolution and to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools), since that avoids the problem of having to characterise the situation at all. In addition, of course, the whole issue of notability is lost - Picard's being a signatory of the petition is notable because (a) she's relatively prominent, and (b) she's a non-biologist.
So, um, why is this wording better again...? Guettarda ( talk) 21:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Dave's wording is better and makes sense. The other is incoherent and bad grammar. And the hair splitting and nonsense is just serving to obfuscate the issues.-- Filll ( talk) 22:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Um, I hate to point this out to you Travis, but you're arguing for a passage that promotes a particular point of view. That the petition questions evolution is happening to used to promote intelligent design is itself a view. One which plays the Discovery Institute's hide the ID in the appearance of a legitimate but ultimately contrived dispute, read Teach the Controversy. Reliable sources and the facts show that the the ID/creationist text book Of Pandas and People came up with the notion and term of ID which was then picked up by the Discovery Institute which then founded the ID movement. The Discovery Institute's Wedge strategy set forth the aims and governing principles of the movement, and A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism is simply one the invidual Discovery Institute campaigns which seek to misrepresnt evolution as "a theory in crisis" subject to sweep doubt in the scientific community: [43] [44] Portraying A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism as anything other than what it is -a part of a campaign promoting ID- is to purpetuate the Discovery Institute's own PR rhetoric. Protraying it petition that questions evolution and just happens to be used by the DI (the source of both Dissent From Darwinism and the ID movement I remind you) demonstably violates NPOV's Undue Weight clause.
I've provided 2 sources above showing the Discovery Institute runs a cynical campaign of misinformation. I have literally dozens of sources showing the Dissent From Darwinism petition is an integral part of that campaign, and I'm more than happy to provide them all here over time and make it stick. Now we can spend a few days or weeks arguing over this or we can all acknowledge the verifiable fact that A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism promotes intelligent design by discounting evolution and move on to something more productive. It's your call Travis. FeloniousMonk ( talk) 02:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
PS, you are missing the point. This person signed a petition in 2000 or so. Maybe she was duped into it. Maybe she was confused. Maybe she was just really really stupid. Maybe she was delusional. It does not matter. She signed. Now, for the last 8 years or so, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over this petition has been used again and again and again and again and again in a massive multimillion dollar campaign to declare that science is nonsense and scientists are evil and on and on and on and on and on and on. On radio and on television and in state legislatures and in congress and in books and in newspapers and in magazines and in movies and on the internet and in court rooms. This has been an immense attack with public relations firms involved. Did you miss it somehow? Well no one who has not been in a coma in the United States could have missed this. Several people who signed the petition and realized that they had been lied to had themselves removed from the list. Several people who had signed the petition and realized that the petition was being used in ways they disagreed with made public announcements when questioned about it that they thought the uses the petition was being put to were wrong and it was deceitful. Picard was questioned, repeatedly by the New York Times. Her answer? Nothing. We asked her over and over and over. Her answer? Nothing. Several others have asked her over the last few years. Her answer? Nothing. Finally last fall, in November, she has issued a statement half distancing herself from the goals of the petition. Ok, so we report that. And what exactly is your problem? We have things partly clarified now. What is wrong with that exactly?--
Filll (
talk)
04:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
One of the biggest mistakes that writers of hyperlinked documents make is assuming too much of the readers and letting them just click for clarification of all the unfamiliar terms and all the details. This is extremely poor writing. A reader who has to constantly click to understand a piece of text will quickly get lost in a series of links, and not be able to read the original document and absorb the material. Just because hyperlinks exist on Wikipedia does not excuse us from writing clearly and accurately in a self-contained, self-explanatory manner.
We do a terrible disservice to readers to demand that they have to look everything up. For one thing, many people's internet connections are not able to cope with these sorts of demands. Also, many people's attention spans are not able to deal with this sort of sloppy writing. Our articles should be readable and accessible.
This idea that we can bury all the material in links 2 or 3 or 4 levels deep, and to heck with the needs of the reader is just outrageous and abusive. And the impression I get here is that people want to adopt this incredibly sloppy bad style of writing on purpose, to obscure the nature of this petition. Perhaps they believe it is embarassing to Picard. Perhaps they have bought into the intelligent design movement's strategy of obfuscation, to obscure the fact that Intelligent Design is just a form of creationism, and is essentially an anti-science religious movement that aims to roll back science to its position before the scientific revolution.
It does not really matter why people want to write vague sloppy inaccessible documents with no explanation of the details, demanding that readers have to click and click and click and click over and over and over on all kinds of wikilinked terms to understand an article. The bottom line is, we should not be asking anyone to do this. It is lousy writing. It stinks. And we should not stand for it.-- Filll ( talk) 04:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
So I guess you are in favor of lousy writing then and incomprehensibility and illiteracy? Ah ok fair enough. Well dont let the door hit you...-- Filll ( talk) 04:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
<ri>So, apart from (a) good writing style, and (b) not requiring people on slow connections to click through every time they come across an unfamiliar concept...apart from, you know, trying to write something that someone could actually read and understand, yes, there's the added point that if someone printed off the article they'd have no clue what was going on...apart from trying to write something that's useful to the reader, I can't see any reason to include that sentence. Nor can I, of course, see any reason to produce an encyclopaedia at all. So after you discard "usefulness" from the list of reasons for producing an encyclopaedia, what's left? The MMORPG aspect of Wikipedia? I'll pass on that one, and stick to the idea of trying to produce articles that are useful to readers. Since without readers, we really do have no reason to be here. Guettarda ( talk) 07:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Our job here is to provide information in a succinct and accessible form. The sources say a woman signed a petition. The reason she appeared in the NYT is she signed a very unusual petition for someone in her position. A singularly unusual petition. What makes it so interesting that the NYT would even write about it? Well that is what makes it newsworthy. And that is what makes it notable for Wikipedia, isnt it?
Look on the front page there are lists of awards she has won. About 90 percent of those are meaningless and should probably be removed, because they are not interesting and not notable and we have no context for understanding them in the article. It reads like a CV, and that is not what Wikipedia is supposed to be.
You would have us state that this woman appeared in the NYT for something that she did that was surprising given who she is, but we cannot tell you why it was surprising and why the NYT wrote about her and what it was that she did, aside from putting her name on a list. We cannot tell you more about the list or why the list is interesting to the NYT.
People who wanted to make your sorts of arguments months ago tried to argue that the NYT was not a good source, or that we should include a paragraph or two about what a piece of incompetent disreputable $#%^& the NYT is. They wanted to call this "good online journalistic ethics". You want to call what we are doing "twisting the sources". Amounts to about the same. Nonsense.-- Filll ( talk) 12:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I am totally mystified about why people want to continue to fight about this. About 10 months ago, we removed a copyright violation. People claimed we had an
WP:UNDUE problem. Ok now that is fixed. People claimed Picard did not mean to sign the petition so we had a
WP:BLP problem. So we asked for clarification and we now have it. So what is the problem? Why are people so frantic to continue to fight unless there really is something else driving this? --
Filll (
talk)
15:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Maybe link the top Affective Computing to the relevant article? Although Fill, Jim and OrangeMarlin seem to have done what is best described as "revenge editing" there...
/sigh 195.216.82.210 ( talk) 11:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
What on earth is your problem? Have you seen what a lousy article that is?--
Filll (
talk)
11:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
So get yourself an account and fix it. Make sure you include a more accurate history about how the Japanese were doing affective computing years and years and years before Picard.-- Filll ( talk) 14:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Being WP:BOLD with perhaps a touch of WP:IAR, I've archived this thread speedily with no action.
Let's give this a month's breather and reopen if anyone still sees a need. Durova Charge! 00:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Every time there is some complaint about this article, and it finally gets answered, then some new complaint "magically" appears. Makes me think that we have some who are being disingenuous, or who are only here to fight. For example:
Right, does any of that impact the article? Otherwise this isn't a forum, so perhaps you could just remove it, unless its meant to be light comic relief. (I don't get paid by the Discovery Institute unless I get results both on the article page and on the talkpage.)--
Relata refero (
disp.)
13:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Filll past arguments are not apropos to the current discussion. Please attribute the accusations that so unattributed only function to erect a straw man.
Who are your interlocutors here Filll? A phantom army of the ghosts of editors past? I see none of these arguments made by any of the editors arguing here. Please attribute these accusations, or admit that they are not actually directed towards anyone presently arguing against you. Thanks. PelleSmith ( talk) 13:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, there have undoubtedly been problems in the past. However, there have been great improvements to the article generally in the last couple of days. I think everyone's agreed that the petition issue has to be covered properly, and at least there's no longer any question of it taking up a dispropotionately large part of the article. .. dave souza, talk 13:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Why are you calling it a "whitewash" was the signing a bad thing? I just see an article about a LIVING human being that centered around ONE EVENT in her life and practicly ridiculed that, changed into an article that shows the accomplishments of this LIVING human being and highlights her achievements (the article on which you have shredded but hey alls fair it seems) and mentions the part about her signing (which seems oh so important to you) in passing, where it should be. The Wikipedia BLP's would be a WHOLE LOT better off if people remembered that they are writing about LIVING PEOPLE. Just because you disagree with someones statements doesn't mean you have to go to war against them o.O 195.216.82.210 ( talk) 14:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
All in good time. There is no rush, is there? And perhaps by this simple friendly caution, people will come to their senses and start to act sensibly instead.--
Filll (
talk)
14:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
You believe that is following
WP:AGF? Well I can see where your heads are at. Go ahead, you are characterizing yourself in a very interesting light. Don't let me stop you.--
Filll (
talk)
14:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
KTC, don't think you are anonymous. And you should be ashamed of yourself.-- Filll ( talk) 14:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
And what threat is that? KTC parades himself around making outrageous statements on the internet. It is pretty much public knowledge. And yes the statements he makes are about this article and relevant to this article. A little investigation reveals a lot.-- Filll ( talk) 14:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
All in good time. I just believe that we should give people plenty of warning and lots of second and third and fourth chances, but if they continue, then we give them the rope to hang themselves. Do you not think we should try very hard to keep our fellow editors out of trouble?-- Filll ( talk) 14:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
With all due respect, I reserve the right to defend myself from repeated personal attacks. If it escalates further, I will move it to their talk pages, and to assorted noticeboards etc.-- Filll ( talk) 15:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Filll am I to understand this statement to mean that the mounting evidence of proxy editing that you will deal with in due time refers to me personally? Please put up or shut up. You've accused everyone who doesn't agree with you of violating basic policy directed towards etiquette and now you're insinuating left and right that these people may in fact be violating some more serious policies by editing for banned editors. Please do consider this a personal attack, the one that took you over the line, and bring this to AN/I already. We will all benefit from some administrative scrutiny of your edits here. Cheers. PelleSmith ( talk) 16:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
In case you have not noticed, there is already plenty of administrative scrutiny of this situation. And guess what? They do not appear to agree with your arguments. Oh well. And in addition, I will decline to accept the WP:BAIT.-- Filll ( talk) 16:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Whatever.-- Filll ( talk) 16:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The article lead says:
Picard is the author of Affective Computing, a text-book that describes the importance of recognizing human emotions to the relationships between people and the possible effects this recognition would have on robots
First we make a statement
Picard is the author of Affective Computing
Then we explain what it is
a text-book that describes the importance of recognizing human emotions to the relationships between people and the possible effects this recognition would have on robots
We would do that even if we had an article about the book. That's because we explain statements after we make them. According to Relato, we should delete this because people don't know about it. According to Travis, we should delete this because is isn't it based on third-party sources and it's attributing all sorts of crazy beliefs to the poor woman. Oh, and Travis and Relato would see this as a coatrack upon which we are using to try to create and attack on the woman's beliefs about robots.
Yes, this is all ridiculous. As is the venom with which a hundred new editors have descended on this article to fight for this person that they keep making horrible statements about. If you hate Picard with the fury you keep expressing, maybe you're too personally invested in this article. Guettarda ( talk) 15:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Guettarda appears to make a very compelling argument. Ok Relata refero, since no one knows about Picard, lets just AfD this mess. Seems like the same sort of reasoning. --
Filll (
talk)
16:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Another key difference is that there is another article on the petition, but not another article on the textbook. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 16:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Picard is the author of Affective Computing
Strikes me as a singularly poor writing style. Nevertheless, that is what is being argued for.-- Filll ( talk) 16:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I do congratulate those who have expanded the article greatly using reliable sources. Kudos to all. At least something positive is happening here. spryde | talk 15:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Things have been very heated for a few days at this article. Google does index talk pages, unfortunately, and I'm concerned that some of the commentary here is indecorous. Let's remember that this is a living person's biography. Suggest a judicious early archiving of some of these threads, and/or implementing expandable box format. Durova Charge! 17:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not trying to assign blame, just pointing out the effect of Google indexing. We're all human and when things get heated few of us are at our best. Suggest the editors at this talk page prioritize the early archving of threads by this metric: put yourselves in Professor Picard's shoes, and if you suppose she would be unsettled by a thread - and the thread isn't contributing to encyclopedic progress - then move toward swift archiving by mutual agreement. Durova Charge! 18:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think most of this should be archived. It is essentially pointless and I do not know what people are still arguing about, given that the WP:BLP problem has been addressed by including her statement and the WP:UNDUE problem has been addressed by including more material on her career. In other words, the main sources of complaint for 10 months or so have been resolved. This is over people. Nothing to see here.-- Filll ( talk) 18:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
In response to Durova: as I have said recently on wp-en-l, I am an aggressive courtesy blanker, and will like to do so here unless someone views that as whitewashing something. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 19:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Trying to stay on track, there are two issues here as I see it
There are other issues, but these are the two main ones. So - does anyone still maintain that we should include a bald statement that she signed the petition with no explanation of what the petition says? Guettarda ( talk) 18:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
My impression is that there is general agreement on the following points:
Areas of disagreement include the amount of depth and detail in the discussion of the petition, and how the petition is characterized. I agree it's better to start with areas of agreement and work from there. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 18:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, this is very encouraging. Now we can starting thinking about actual phrasing. Guettarda ( talk) 19:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Next question - does anyone have a problem with my renaming the section "Religion and science"? I thought "Faith" was too nebulous, and missed the point that this was about the interaction between her religious beliefs (I don't like "faith", it's too ambiguous), her research and her views of science. "Religion and science"? "Faith"? "Hair colour"? Guettarda ( talk) 19:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
We could just link or add a box that says "signed Dissent from Darwinism", and then have a mile long article there. Oh, we already do. Right. So to save duplication of effort, link once and leave it at that. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 20:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
KC's point stands as valid: we must explain, not simply connect. •Jim62sch• dissera! 20:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
As I stated above, it is good writing style to make our articles self-contained, so something like what KC is suggesting is probably better.-- Filll ( talk) 21:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The current wording, as suggested by Travis, is in fact the most faithful to the entry A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, which states:
This entry also makes the nuanced distinction which is essential, between what the petition states and what the Discovery institute is doing with the signed petition. Those who think the other wording stating that the petition "promotes ID" is more faithful please have a look at the full entry. PelleSmith ( talk) 21:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The issue I am concerned with is that, if we say the petition supports ID, we imply that Picard supports ID, something that is contradicted by Picard's own words quotes lower in the paragraph. Her quotes imply to me that she is skeptical of both evolution and ID. On the other hand, saying she signed a petition which someone else uses to promote ID doesn't imply she supports that use of it. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 21:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Can we please have a source that verifies the "fact" that the petition itself "promotes ID?" It seems that the only hitch here now is between two propositions: 1) That the language should say that the petition itself promotes ID and 2) that the language should clarify that the DI uses the petition to promote ID. The factuality of the second proposition is not disputed, so I think those who support the first as more accurate or otherwise preferable to the undisputed fact that the DI does so use the petition should come up with some verification. PelleSmith ( talk) 22:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
No, the people who created the petition and promote the petition and maintain the petition are doing so. And they have created an instrument to try to confuse and mislead the unwary into signing, even if they disagree. And this is covered in depth at A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, including some interesting links in which it is explored even further. Interestingly, we have had a variety of intelligent design supporters and other creationists who have edit warred to try to remove that part of the article, since they do not like the insinuation that the petition is vague on purpose and many people have been tricked into signing it, or when surveyed later renounced intelligent design. They want to believe that there are secretly huge numbers of scientists that secretly agree with THEM. Maybe a majority...yeah right...-- Filll ( talk) 23:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Just relax. We have them. They will be presented when we are good and ready. There is no rush here. The article is locked. And you have any doubt that such sources exist? Please....-- Filll ( talk) 23:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope lots of sources exist of course. You can easily find them yourself if you want. I will not present any until it is time however.--
Filll (
talk)
23:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Of course they exist. How many times do I have to say this? Do you doubt this is true? Do you not think you could find sources yourself? There is no rush.-- Filll ( talk) 23:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think this argument may be over a misunderstanding. Filll, didn't you just comment that the petition is vague, possibly intentionally so? Wouldn't that make us all in agreement, that the petition itself does not support ID, even if it has been used to do so by DI? That would mean that the argument isn't over what the facts support, but what is the best wording. Sχeptomaniac χαιρετε 00:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's your source, straight from the horse's mouth, Bruce Chapman President of the Discovery Institute writing to the New York Times:}}
"Contrary to "Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker", more scientists than ever support intelligent design and criticize Darwinism. ... the number of scientists who have signed Discovery Institute's "Dissent From Darwin" list has now passed 470."
Here we have the president of the Discovery Institute stating using the petition to promote ID in the New York Times. Time to move along now folks. FeloniousMonk ( talk) 03:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Doing something like KC proposes would look roughly like this:
Placard is one of the signatories of the Discovery Institute's "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", a controversial petition which promotes intelligent design by attempting to cast doubt on evolution. More recently, Picard has expressed reservations about the intelligent design movement, saying that it deserves "much more" skepticism, and hasn't been adequately challenged by Christians and other people of faith. She argues that the media has created a false dilemma by dividing everyone into two groups, supporters of intelligent design or evolution. "To simply put most of us in one camp or the other does the whole state of knowledge a huge disservice," she said. Picard sees DNA as too complex to have originated through "purely random processes" and believes that it shows "the mark of intervention," and "a much greater mind, a much greater scientist, a much greater engineer behind who we are."
I think this is fair enough. Putting it all in context, we can honestly say what the petition is about, but still provide proper balance about her position. PS et al, please consider now the entire paragraph again, is it really that unfair? I think it's balanced and accurate wrt most reliable sources on this topic. Merzul ( talk) 23:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
What are you panicking about? This article might stay locked for weeks, or months, the way things look. Why are you in such a rush?--
Filll (
talk)
15:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to FeloniusMonk we have a new source from the Discovery Institute which explicitly differentiates between "challenges to Darwinian evolution" and "proposed solutions, such as the scientific theory of intelligent design." Here is what the Discovery Institute has to say in answer to the question, "What is the difference between a scientific challenge to Darwinian evolution and the theory of intelligent design?":
The institute then goes on to answer the question "What is the 'Dissent from Darwin' list?"
Now whatever their usage of this list may be in other campaigns, this source makes a pretty incontrovertible point that the list itself does not "promote intelligent design," but instead promotes "challenges to Darwinian evolution." Right from the horses mouth. Can it get any clearer? Can we drop this language now and stick with the current version? PelleSmith ( talk) 05:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
This entire discussion has veered into irrelevancy. We all agree that the DI is using the petition to promote intelligent design. As FM said, "I've already provided here two primary sources showing the institute using the list to promote ID". If that's agreed upon, then why the objection to saying in the article "petition is used by the DI to promote ID" instead of "petition promotes ID"? In almost any context but that of a BLP, this semantic difference would not really be that important. But the BLP issue is that "she signed a petition which promotes ID" very strongly implies that Picard knew she was promoting ID when she signed it. From her future, sourced, statements, we know she is skeptical of ID. If we can just agree on "petition is used to promote" instead of "petition promotes", then the issue goes away. - Merzbow ( talk) 07:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Nothing like dishonestly cherry picking sources is there? Well what else would you expect from those who like to quote mine?-- Filll ( talk) 11:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
"In most cases" means in all cases where this list is linked in the text of a BLP ... Go to Category:Signatories of "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" and start clicking. I will copy here the wording used for the BLPs in which the petition is mentioned in the entry itself so you get an idea (Note that a vast majority only provide a category at the bottom and make no mention in the main entry):
As you can see in no other BLP do we claim that the "petition promotes intelligent design." The closest to this entry is that of James Tour, and even there it says that the petition "has been used to promote intelligent design." So where exactly do I have to run around changing things? PelleSmith ( talk) 12:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Duh of course we can source it. And we can source it in an honest NPOV way. And if we do as PS suggests, we will take all the creationism and intelligent design articles in Wikipedia, about 500 of them, and turn them into religious tracts. Somehow I think that does not serve our readers or NPOV well. However, there is this place called Conservapedia I have heard about that you might be interested in... -- Filll ( talk) 12:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
And we are talking about a petition produced by an institute. And that petition and its associated programs are viewed and characterized in a certain way by well over 99 percent of the experts in the relevant field. And you would prefer to present the institute's version, not the mainstream version. And we think that NPOV is the way to go, and the mainstream description is more reasonable, not the institute's version. You are the one arguing frantically to present the view of this institute.-- Filll ( talk) 12:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you in some kind of rush? Did you not notice the page is locked? Is this a matter of life and death? You think that such sources do not exist? Well if you believe that, you do not know this field very well I would say. By the way did you realize that " agenda pushers" probably violates WP:CIVIL, an offense for which you can be summarily sanctioned? Possibly blocked or banned? So just a word to the wise to clean up your language. -- Filll ( talk) 13:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
From what I have read about this petition and the users who signed it, it was not presented to them as it currently is to the public. I t was presented in a straight forward manner saying "Do you agree with this statement?" and either sign it or not. The way it has been used after the fact is the problem for many of the people who signed it (or they are backpedaling, who knows...). This is the crux of the current debate. Do we present the petition to the readers as it was presented to the person who signed it or as it is currently being presented? I would support the former. I know I have done things in the past that have been twisted to support someone else's agenda/cause even though the intent was not to be that. spryde | talk 11:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
You know, the Discovery Institute is founded on the idea that they can redefine what science is, redefine what biology is, redefine what religion is, redefine a huge range of things. To them, ID is science, and evolution is not. To them, magic must be included as a cause in science. To them, ID is not creationism. And so on.
If we blindly and slavishly just take the Discovery Institute's word for it, we would be producing religious tracts here. But we are Wikipedia, and we do not do that. If you want religious tracts, you can go to Conservapedia or any number of other wikis with that orientation. We are different. Deal with it.-- Filll ( talk) 12:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
What are you so desperate for? Is this some crisis that needs to resolved to save the world right this instant? What is your problem? Do you have ants in your pants?-- Filll ( talk) 13:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
We have no way of knowing what it was that people signed or why they signed it. That's very true. In Chang's article he mentions someone who signed it but says "a pox on both your houses" to both evolution and ID. (I don't understand what he really means, but that's beside the point). Anyone who signed it after it was published in 2001 should be assumed to know that what they were signing, although even there, some people did not understand the DI and it's mission until the Dover trial.
That said, if you read Picard's comments in The Record interview, she endorses what Sober called "mini-ID" (the idea that some aspects of the natural world are too complicated to have originated through natural processes). Despite this, she is distancing herself from ID and calling on Christians to offer more scrutiny. Since this was November 2007, it should be taken as a direct response to what went on here. She never mentioned the petition, she made no attempt to distance herself from the DI, never said "I don't approve of the way my signature was used", never said "I didn't know what I was signing". Of course this was an interview, not a press release, so there's the added filter of Petricevic, but in general we trust journalists not to screw things up too badly.
So - the way the original petition was presented to the first signers is unknowable. The language has some red flags that should have jumped out at anyone with a solid background in biology, but a lot of the people who signed it aren't biologists. So for most signatories it could not have been seen as a petition aimed at their peers - it was a political statement aimed at an "other". If I signed a petition about the problems I have with string theory, it would be as a lay person, my PhD in biology notwithstanding. It would be a political statement, not a statement from a peer or to a peer.
The NCSE approached signers for clarification. So did Chang and others. After the fact, when it was clear how the DI intended to use the petition (initially to attack the PBS series on Evolution, later to argue for Teach the Controversy, etc.), some people distanced themselves from what they had signed. Picard did not. She was approached by several people during and after Moulton's disruption here. Her only response appears to be what she said to The Record.
We have the facts. Picard signed an obviously political petition. The petition has been used by the DI in its campaigns. Picard has been asked to respond to the use of her name in that way, and her response was "we need to be more skeptical about ID". She has said she belongs to neither camp. But she did not say anything about the way her name is being used by the DI. The fact that she said nothing about the petition despite being asked about it strongly suggests that she has no problem with it. So regardless of what she knew beforehand, Picard has made no attempt to distance herself from the way the petition is being used. Guettarda ( talk) 16:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I have said this over and over and over on this page. But somehow, no one listens. Interesting. 10 months ago, there were two major complaints about this page. WP:UNDUE because a large volume of copyright-violating material had been removed. This has now been corrected. WP:BLP because we did not have a direct statement from Picard to include, although the New York Times had asked for one over and over and over, and we had asked for one over and over and over. This has now been corrected. So the two major complaints have been answered. However, the fighting continues. And why? Well as I said before, obviously something else is going on here. People have what they wanted, supposedly, but they still want to fight. Hmm...-- Filll ( talk) 18:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
The only "them" I am agreeing with are those who want to have an NPOV article that follows the sources and does not violate copyright. I have been involved since I volunteered to fix this article at Moulton's request back in August and told him exactly what we needed (1) more content on her career that is not plagiarized and (2) a statement from Picard on her position. We have (1) and (2) now, and we also have a huge volume of people who have appeared out of noplace (I wonder why?...hmmm....) and for who (1) and (2) are not enough and in fact there is plenty of sabre rattling for far far far more. Well I will just try to make sure this article follows Wikipedia principles, following up on the task I have been doing since last August. Is that a problem?--
Filll (
talk)
19:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Nothing like making negative insinuations and taking a few liberties with the facts, is there? Let me try to address this latest unfounded attack:
Is that so? Well Moulton first edited this talk page [54] 3:07 August 23, 2007. Filll first edited this talk page [55] 4:08 August 23, 2007, 1 hour 1 minute later.
I called Moulton and spoke to him for several hours on the phone because of his pleading for assistance on that day. I still have the phone records for this. You should know this from reviewing the materials associated with the RfC, if you were being at all diligent before making such outrageous accusations.
I did clean up the main page considerably on August 8, 2007 [56]. But I have generally paid very little attention to this article's mainpage, and have edited it 7 times to date. Four of those edits were on August 8, 2007.
Moulton first edited the main page on August 22 at 00:52 [57].
I would never have paid more attention to this article except that Moulton asked for assistance. Even still, I have hardly edited the main page of the article at all. I have put huge efforts into trying to teach Moulton how to operate on Wikipedia, which he steadfastly rejected over and over and over.
Who knows why they were brought in? There is evidence of all kinds of canvassing offwiki, but who knows?
As I said before, is there some sort of world crisis going on that depends on me acting faster? Please give it a rest. What is it to you?
That is a vile offensive crock of nonsense. I am trying to get people to stop fighting frantically to engage in OR and make all kinds of assumptions that are at odds with our sources. I also have been bending over backwards to keep my fellow editors out of trouble. Is that a problem for you? Is it against policy? Then if I have violated policy, why not file an Arbcomm case against me?
Mind your own.
I see the tendentious twisting of logic. Yeah, real simple.
We have a few facts and a few sources. And that is what we propose to base the article on. What is wrong with that? Does that offend you somehow? It must I guess.
I do not understand what you hope to gain by continually gaming the system like this.
Have a nice day.-- Filll ( talk) 21:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Wow. A lot of activity on this page in a brief span of time. I'll add just one comment to the mix right now: we cannot use the DI, or any highly partisan source, for anything other than what they say. Guettarda stated it clearly: "Like any political organisation, the DI is an unreliable source, but they are a useful corroborating source. Primary sources are useful for corroboration, but they shouldn't be taken as reliable, especially when the contradict reliable sources.". We have tons of sourcing which makes it clear the document was created and used for promotion of ID. No one is arguing that Picard did not sign it. Are we all in agreement on those points? If not, please provide your (concise) reasoning below, thanks much. KillerChihuahua ?!? 12:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Incorrectly framed, in my opinion. Perhaps a response to Merzbow's of 07:14, 7 May 2008 might be more helpful. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 12:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I've created this subheading for transparency. PelleSmith ( talk) 13:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
It might be nice for you to actually review and understand WP:PSTS instead of just blindly repeating errors and misrepresentations. This is Wikipedia, and we follow certain policies. If you do not like those policies, there are many places that have different policies that you can consider. For example, have you considered:
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None of these have pesky problems like WP:NPOV and WP:NOR and they have different standards for WP:RS and so on. Not every wiki is going to be to everyone's taste.-- Filll ( talk) 13:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I think you should learn our policies first. I am not going to spoon feed you. And I think rather than removing links meant to suggest some helpful alternative to those of you that do not want to follow Wikipedia policies, the time is quickly approaching when we will have to userfy these repetitive WP:TE and WP:DE objections.-- Filll ( talk) 13:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
So you did not know that WP:PSTS is part of WP:NOR policy? Well now you do.-- Filll ( talk) 13:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
So why abuse Wikipedia procedures on a "whim"? You know that violates WP:POINT, a sanctionable offense.-- Filll ( talk) 13:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Whatever. I think the policy is clear. We just have some people that want to ignore policy or invent their own.--
Filll (
talk)
14:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
We favor secondary and tertiary sources over primary sources. Primary sources are used, but sparingly and we use secondary and tertiary sources to interpret them.--
Filll (
talk)
15:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Relata I think I know what he's referring to. Please allow me to try my best to interpret PSTS since he is not willing to do so publicly. Here are some possibly relevant passages from PSTS with suggestions as to what they probably mean in this context:
Relata that is the best I can do. I hope this helps. Cheers. PelleSmith ( talk) 17:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Well then it should be obvious if you just read the talk page. Obviously we have some arguing that we should go with "plain reading" of primary sources. And it should be obvious what that means in terms of policy.--
Filll (
talk)
16:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
What conclusions are evident from the source? That depends on your underlying knowledge base. To a child starting school it would probably be evident that there are two sentences, thirty-two words. To someone who had something less than an high school-level understanding of evolution (assuming that evolution was actually covered in their class) it would seem to be saying "we are skeptical of claims that {evolution, Darwinism, Darwinian evolution} can account for the complexity of life, and that the evidence for {evolution, Darwinism, Darwinian evolution} should be carefully examined".
To someone with a slightly more complete understanding of evolution, it would be evident that the petition is saying "we are skeptical that two elements of evolutionary theory can explain the diversity of life, and that the evidence for evolution should be carefully examined". Someone familiar with the creationist movement would read it as "we are skeptical of claims that [a common creationist caricature of evolution] can account for the complexity of life (duh), and that the evidence for [a common creationist caricature of evolution] should be carefully examined (standard creationist talking points which are meant to sow disinformation)".
All conclusions beyond the first are "not evident". This is a case where secondary and tertiary sources are especially important.
With an intentionally ambiguous document like this, there isn't a single standard for what an "educated person without specialist knowledge" would make of it...It is designed to feed off of misunderstandings. Someone with a basic understanding of biology would see through this document, someone with major misconceptions would fall for its disinformation. So the question is - did their education help the "educated person", or did their prior misconceptions prevent them from learning? From the studies I have read, a substantial proportion of American students emerge from intro biology courses with their misconceptions firmly in place (and I'm not just talking about creationist ideas, but a broader misunderstanding of what evolution is.) I haven't seen comparable data for Europeans, Canadians or Australians (where creationist ideas are held by a much smaller minority), let alone data for people elsewhere in the world.
The problem we have had here is that several editors (Travis most notably) want to replace secondary sources with their own interpretation of this primary source material. The document is intentionally ambiguous - there is no such thing as a "plain reading". There is an informed reading, an uninformed reading and a misinformed reading. All of these are interpretations of the text. The misinformed reading (which Travis called a "plain reading") is, in fact, the most problematic.
The fact that the petition is part of the DI's campaign to undermine evolution and promote ID is well established. The fact that the petition has been used as part of the DI's campaigns to undermine the teaching of science in schools is well supported. (Chang, for example, opens with that statement.) Guettarda ( talk) 18:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Its all a matter of interpretation, as Guettarda points out. And different sources interpret it differently. The DI interprets things differently than the NCSE for example. And the NAS and the AAAS interpret this differently than Focus on the Family. And what is your rush? No one yet has told me what their rush is.-- Filll ( talk) 19:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
To dance a dance, one must follow in turn
Iambic form, or will their partner go;
Stay with the beat or be you forced to yearn,
And crave after meaning! Will you say no?
Your form is brute, your words do only burn
Paltry readers, whose delicate minds so
Desiring beauty and all they will get
Is unpolished words saying only
- :)
Ottava Rima (
talk)
01:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)