Welcome!
Hello, Brian Josephson, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a
Wikipedian! Please
sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out
Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}}
on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --
ALoan
(Talk) 17:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Hello, if you are 'the' Brian Josephson, I'd like to personally welcome you to Wikipedia, your insights on parapsychology and psi are really needed here. Very dogmatic sceptics often hijack Wikipedia, so the community here would benefit greatly from an eminent scientist adding solid support for psi. I have just been engaged with a discussion on psi and Dean Radin on my talk page, take a look if you are interested in commenting. Best wishes - Solar 19:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC) PS - I have also been discussing neuroscience and OBE, which might also be of interest.
Brian,
Thank you for your participation in
my RFA, which closed successfully with 55 supports, 15 oppose, and 1 neutral. No matter if you !voted support, oppose, neutral, I thank you for taking the time to vote in my nomination. I'm a new admin, so if you have any suggestions feel free to let me know. I would like to give a special shout out to
Fang Aili,
Phaedriel, and
Anonymous Dissident, for their co-nominations. Thank you all!
This RFA thanks was inspired by The Random Editor's modification of Phaedriel's RFA thanks.
Thanks for your support! I took the easy way out of thanking everyone by stealing borrowing someone else's card design...but know that I sincerely appreciate your support and confidence in me! It is such an honor to have earned your vote, I thank you from the bottom of my heart..it's wonderful to have your support, Professor...!
Dreadstar
† 09:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you are not put off by the somewhat less than warm welcome or are shocked by the very hard uncompromising positions of some. This place is not so bad compared with my early experience in the work-place where I was seated between one man on my left who was a holocaust denier while on my right sat a man who had fought his way across Europe and was among the first to enter a newly discovered death camp. It made for interesting times.
The truth will out eventually. But in the meantime I must say it is a shame that people with real insights are pushed to one side. We can always hope that reasonable words will win out eventually. In the meantime there is a small cadre of those who have learned to quote the rules, spout invective, and generally poison the waters until the more moderate editors leave, then they can rule the roost. They have learned to game the system and the system really is not too interested in pulling them into line or throwing them out for fear of being labeled tyrants.
One rotten apple can in fact spoil the whole barrel or in the parlance of a manufacturing engineer: the 0.01% of miss-manufactured parts if allowed to enter the assembly cause 99.99% of the trouble. I suspect much the same is true of human populations, large and small. Only a small percentage of career criminals commit the majority of crimes and only a small number of irritating people can spoil the atmosphere on Wikipedia.
I wait each day for the next shoe to drop W.R.T. the E-Cat. It’s invention may be a harbinger of truly dramatic changes. We live in interesting and hopefully better times. Zedshort ( talk) 04:24, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I have created a “We The People Petition” for the review of the E-Cat by the White House that you can sign by going here: http://wh.gov/j3P
I suppose only U.S. citizens can sign the petition but maybe you can spread the word. Zedshort ( talk) 02:51, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Professor Josephson, given that Talk:Energy_Catalyzer#UK_Department_of_Energy_and_Climate_Change.2C_Josephson.27s_open_letter_to_Rossi. relates to you, I wondered if you would have any comments? Thanks. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 18:13, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi Brian, sorry to be so slow to respond to your note on my talk page. Just to say you're welcome (re: getting rid of the non-notable template). Glad to be of help. SlimVirgin TALK| CONTRIBS 22:47, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
The E-Cat event and the seemingly interminable waiting drove me near to madness and so I was compelled to seek for humour and condense it into a play: Waiting for E-Cat. http://deadstickarizona-zedshort.blogspot.com/2012/03/waiting-for-e-cat.html
I hope it gives you a laugh. Everyone is skewered but no one dies. There is time enough until the end of the year and no doubt more events to come so I have no doubt I will have material for a third act. Zedshort ( talk) 16:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 08:34, 3 March 2014 (UTC)These Wikipedia trolls don't actually do anything of consequence in the real world. They are internet trolls. That is what they do. They have plenty of time, and work in teams. It's like having one's house attacked by black mold.
Hello Prof Josephson!
Do you happen to know if there are some achievements in this field?-- 82.137.11.181 ( talk) 14:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps the question implied an interface between a superconductor and an electrolyte.-- 188.26.22.131 ( talk) 17:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
This context raises a question concerning the existence of superconducting electrolyte.-- 188.26.22.131 ( talk) 17:36, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Hello Professor Josephson!
Could you add more details concerning the derivation of the equations at Josephson effect?-- 188.27.247.229 ( talk) 08:04, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Stalking talk pages to make apparently unsubstantiated attacks and then fleeing when they're challenged shouldn't be a standard strategy in the skeptic playbook. The attack in question is so unsubstantiated (in particular, non-specific) that an outside observer (me) has no way to evaluate the reasonableness of the attack, which means that it is unreasonable. In particular the attacker makes no effort to identify what he sees as out of line with the current scientific consensus, or what assertions are being challenged as not facts. It's behavior other skeptics should call out - as I do. I'm stunned that others imply this attack on work that led to a Nobel prize by an admin is somehow OK.-- Elvey( t• c) 07:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Cold fusion generally (not the E-cat) has suffered from a vicious circle where a false account of CF is endlessly recycled and never corrected since the real situation is blocked from view by editors unduly influenced by the false account. The Guardian has bucked the trend by publishing my obituary of Martin Fleischmann based on a wider perspective; contrast this with the presumptive review in Nature by Philip Ball. Ball's full text is available only to subscribers but his conclusion will indicate his misguided main theme: "... once you have been proved right against the odds, it becomes harder to accept the possibility of error. To make a mistake or a premature claim, even to fall prey to self-deception, is a risk any scientist runs. The test is how one deals with it."
The Obituaries Editor Robert White is to be congratulated on this: when I sent him some text first he said they were already planning an obituary and suggested I send in my piece as a comment. But he began to recognise that there was an important story here and suggested I send in modified text based on their traditional format. The final result was a collaborative effort by the two of us (plus some advisers who supplied additional detail). -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:50, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I can add to this account the fact that Nature published a letter from me correcting the aforementioned typically misleading obituary by Philip Ball.-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 17:19, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
There could well have been a time when it was thus. But that was yesterday, and yesterday's gone (with thanks to whoever it was who wrote that originally!) -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:23, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Prof Josephson! On talk:Cold fusion I expressed the view that your quote to Nature must be included in the article. I'd insert it myself but it seems that unregistered users are prohibited to edit the article thus creating discrimination towards unregistered users.-- 5.15.205.101 ( talk) 19:56, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Hello! As there is a Wikipedia article about you, you are cordially invited to contribute a short audio recoding of your spoken voice, so that our readers may know what you sound like and how you pronounce your name. Details of how to do so, and examples, are at Wikipedia:Voice intro project. Please feel free to ask for help or clarification on the project talk page, or my talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:01, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard (the validity of) Huizenga's reasoning against cold fusion by appeal to a supposed Nernst equation missinterpretation by F&P?-- 5.15.200.238 ( talk) 17:41, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, given the context of the most recent discussions you've been part of, to what extent (if any) do you consider that wikiconsiderations like mainstream and fringe positions apply in the case of cold fusion article?-- 5.15.194.246 ( talk) 17:59, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for uploading File:Defkalion demo display of power info.png. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the " my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Werieth ( talk) 15:58, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Hello. Wikipedia's policies do not permit novel synthesis (or original research). Your recent edits to cold fusion include such material. Please also be advised that this article is under general sanctions due to past whitewashing and other problematic activities by advocates. If you are the Brian Josephson then you may well be considered as having a material conflict of interest; either way I recommend you discuss proposed edits on the article's discussion page as most of your edits are being rapidly reverted as violating policies and guidelines. Guy ( Help!) 20:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Evaluations by the reviewers ranged from: 1) evidence for excess power is compelling, to 2) there is no convincing evidence that excess power is produced when integrated over the life of an experiment. The reviewers were split approximately evenly on this topic. Those reviewers who accepted the production of excess power typically suggest that the effect seen often, and under some understood conditions, is compelling.
Hi Dr. Josephson, I think I may have forgotten to reply to a message you left me a few weeks ago. I think what happened was a non-free image was only being used on a talk page, and copyrighted images have to be used in an article by policy. I used a script to bulk delete all the non-free images that hadn't been in an article for one week, and part of the script's function is to add the "commented out" notice around images. It doesn't make as much sense to hide the link in this case, but I'm glad to see you were able to replace it with an external link. Thanks for your contributions, Mark Arsten ( talk) 23:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Interesting article here from MIT Technology Review, on The Decline of Wikipedia. The main thrust of the article itself is that the decline in number of editors is leading to a loss in quality. But it is the comments that really get to the point; here for example is a contribution by one Le_comment:
If there were a movie of Wikipedia editing, it would look something like "The Road Warrior". Since no one was in charge, roving gangs formed to impose their edits and bully anyone who got in their way - with a focus on suppressing women. The rules became so arcane that they could only be used (selectively) to win a "wiki war": the winner would always be who knew the minutia of wiki rules and where the hidden dust bins were, not who had made the right edit. The NPOV tag was horribly abused by self-aggrandizing (male) wiki-weenies who scored ego points by imposing their own point of view as transcendentally neutral. ...
And again from ZimbaZumba:
Wikipedia is Orwell's Animal Farm in real life. Wikipedia started as an optimistic, open and free entity. With time some animals became more equal than others and it spiraled into a hierarchical and dictatorial dystopia, just as Orwell would have predicted.
The comments as a whole really make it clear to readers the way some very dubious editing practices by fanatics are impinging on the value of the encyclopedia.
And now from indio007:
The administration of wikipedia is replete with double standards, arbitrary rules enforcement and little men. Politically sensitive topics , usually involving the government and any facet of criminal justice, are manipulated with a fervor reminiscent of OCD.
While again mkschreder has said:
The last two times that I have tried contributing to wikipedia, I was met with a dick admin that deleted my articles with an attitude as though my articles were against his own opinion on things. HELLO! wikipedia was supposed to be free. Where is the voting system where 1000 votes would be needed to say that some piece of information is false? Where is the system where each paragraph can be voted by the users to be as true or false? It's this arbitrary reversion and deletion of people's content that they have spent their time contributing without getting any pay is what conditions people around the world to never contribute anything to wikipedia ever again.
... just to let the editors who manipulate pages such as that for Cold Fusion see how their efforts are seen by the outside world. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 15:55, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
A new one just in:
BarryG said:
kww Bahnfrend I'm sure there are political and science denier nutters out there who need a ton of editing, but there's also guardians over various topics that keep out changes they don't like and they win by being more anal/have more time to waste. I've contributed mostly to technical topics, often trying to give an additional alternative, easier explanation or a "gist" to an area or at least how something is actually computed in practice (and discrete computers often technically violate a theory done in terms of continuous space). Anyhow, I've had these edited away as technically mathematically incorrect or mostly it's just erased w/o comment. I've given up and so a lot of arcane technical stuff remains correct but unreadable to most even though I left the rigor and just provide an intuitive understanding below.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 11:03, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
They just keep coming, these comments from people who have seen what is happening:
kroyall said:
Wikipedia is a product of the true believers who have the time and patience to see to it the site reflects their version of events ... etc.
gustnado responded:
kroyall You are absolutely right about areas of controversy. I learned that the hard way trying to correct a history of an event I was present at. ... etc.
and then Smink:
bowlweevils You are typical of the type of person who should be motivated to voluntarily share knowledge in some non-profit broad-based project. People like you who manage to overcome the wikimarkup barrier quickly encounter a group of immature (mostly teen-age) admins who will torture and abuse you until you flee. The other type of contributor is the paid editor/PR agent, who puts up with the admin abuse, for money. The end result of the wikitext barrier, the immature admin corps and the paid editors is a conversion of what was once an interesting collaboration into a mess with a lot of point of view bias and highly unreliable information.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 11:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
The point is that the Wiki-pros play their little game to win. One of their popular techniques is to "ban" people who disagree with them or who call them out. So, we have a group of admins (many of whom are teenagers) who have adopted the goal of "banning" editors who question their tactics (many of whom are subject-matter experts.) The result is a long-term trend away from building a valuable reference work toward a site where wiki-warfare predominates.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 22:16, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 17:49, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
A colleague admires the skills of the Wikipedia cabal in finding excuses for biasing articles to fit their PoV:
I just read the site [ the article concerning Eileen Garrett ] for the first time. These people are thorough. There is hardly a line that is wasted as a tool for hammering away at the validity of psi. Consider the distortions of the observations of Jan Ehrenwald. He thought it was interesting that Garrett, like many high performers, had a tough childhood and made a dissociative adjustment to the bad situation ... [but he] hardly saw it as a way of writing off the phenomena.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:31, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
The illuminating website wikipediawehaveaproblem.com asks the question:
What happens when the largest repository of knowledge becomes run amok with bands of activist editors who have bullied their way to the top of the food chain?
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 15:23, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
There are several good short essay's by User:Piotrus, including: User:Piotrus/Morsels of wikiwisdom#Why edit warriors can win, and User:Piotrus/Morsels of wikiwisdom#Why good users leave the project, or why civility is the key policy, and other sections of User:Piotrus/Morsels of wikiwisdom. I happen to think the key terminology is bullying, and that obviously bullies thrive and are attracted, or not-originally-bullies find their way to the joys of it, and that the institution is silent on the issue. While many schools, corporations, other institutions have decent programs. Related are empirical works on organizational injustice, where (obviously?) employees in injust situations consider their options to fight, to leave, to adopt the prevailing attitude, or to undermine/sabotage (there are 4 options named prominently in the literature, i am mistating them here). In general, there is extreme perverse delight in bullying anyone who asserts expertise, or who gradually reveals expertise. To a certain degree, skepticism of asserted experts is good, but... In the past i did try to interest some colleagues in contributing to Wikipedia, but now I would not ever recommend it to anyone who is a friend. -- do ncr am 22:01, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
you are a notable defender of Radin. His article has recently become rather antagonistic to him. There is a section of the talk page that concerns your arguments - it would be ideal for you to contribute to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dean_Radin#Brian_Josephson
There is also an interesting article that has some statistics and corroborating examples that you might like to use - you might also find it of interest for philosophical reasons: http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2812%2900219-4/fulltext
I have done what I could in this case, and contributed what I am willing to contribute - the ball is in your court. For obvious reasons, you may want to extend the defense you made many years ago to a defense in talk section of, and corresponding edits to the wikipedia page, lest it be unnecessarily antagonistic. 98.210.147.182 ( talk) 00:09, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I've noticed your posts at Talk:Cold fusion. I was wondering in the context of this topic what is known concerning the possible triggering of the conventional fission of uranium by other factors than neutron flux, perhaps a flux of protons, deuterons or alpha particles? Could the flux of protons and deuterons act not only in gas phase from accelerators, but also in electrolytic environments of say uranium salts subjected to a perturbation like an alternating electric field like that required by, for instance, Wien effect and Debye-Falkenhagen effect?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 13:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
One could remark also the existence of the wikiarticle aneutronic fusion, but not aneutronic fission.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 13:28, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, you have mentioned somewhere having visited some labs with experimental CF results reported. Could you specify some of the labs?-- 5.15.62.129 ( talk) 11:00, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
About Francesco Celani, is it possible he might be somehow also connected to the E-Cat tests? I remember some comments posted on E-Cat talk page 2 years ago by an IP who said : ″It′s me, Francesco″. Or perhaps other Francesco (Scaramuzzi?) was involved?-- 5.15.203.84 ( talk) 18:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, are you interested in visiting more (other) labs?-- 5.15.28.220 ( talk) 20:53, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you consider, based on your experience, the state of awareness (or its insufficiency) to the subtleties of the scientific method among average scientists?-- 5.15.177.124 ( talk) 15:05, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
I have just noticed the groupthink article which I have linked above. Is there some case study available regarding the groupthink in the scientific community to include in the article to Case studies section?-- 5.15.37.249 ( talk) 18:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
I′ve noticed recently a book by F. Woodbridge Constant ″Fundamental Principles of Physics″ which is one of the fewest to unique from what I′ve encountered to contain an explicit reference to the scientific method (approximate quotation from memory): It would be better to say that there is not a scientific method but (4) key ingredients that account for the success of the scientific procedure: experiments, unbiased judgements, the noticing of surprising events that occur fortuitously and ability to correlate various facts from different subfields of science.-- 5.15.0.43 ( talk) 11:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, from the diversity of proposed models regarding CF how do you consider the status/plausibility of models involving neutron role in CF, like Widom Larsen or Kozima′s Trapped Neutron Catalyzed Fusion which assume the existence of trapped neutrons in certain solids originating from background neutrons?-- 5.15.37.249 ( talk) 21:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC) ...in regard to their predictive or explanatory power?-- 5.15.51.242 ( talk) 12:27, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
When I read this article: 'The supreme court is hearing arguments that Obamacare violates company owners' religious freedom. It's a bogus claim' from today's paper, describing how fundmentalists in the US are trying to control how employees can use their healthcare benefit, the thought that ran through my mind was how similar this is to what is liable to happen on wikipedia. Should one infer that belief in the nonexistence of the paranormal, water memory, etc. can be of a religious character, and that some edits on w'pedia get reverted or disputed because they are experienced in a similar way to the way an attack on a person's religion would (that's a change from the 'teenage gang' theory that some have espoused)? -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:12, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Here seems an appropriate place considering the context for continuing a discussion from cold fusion involving tangentially cosmic harmony and its (religious) ideatic background. The following excerpts are useful pointers:
continued discussion:
Concerning Newton′s laws and trajectories/orbits involved it seems curious that Roger Cotes contributions regarding spiral trajectories and their connection to an inverse cube term in force law expression seem to overlooked in some textbooks.
This discussion about force laws could also be relevant for cold fusion considering the usual objection to the fusion of deuterons in CF different from the thermonuclear standard version namely that usual forces assumed to be involved are not enough to bring the deuterons close enough to fuse in condensed matter fusion.-- 5.15.34.105 ( talk) 13:36, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Concerning the persistent tendentious editings due (partially) to the lack of WP:Competence, what reaction do you anticipate that Jim Wales would have if you notify him on his talk page about the situation where technical understanding is required in assessing RS status for some wikiarticles, understanding that seems to be lacking to some editors who persistently interfere by denying RS status to some sources?-- 5.15.177.249 ( talk) 14:41, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Professor Josephson, what are latest news/info that you are aware about the (trial/commercial) status of Defkalion devices?-- 5.15.177.249 ( talk) 14:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Another bringing to your attention of a conference: The 14th Meeting of Japan CF-Research Society JCF14 ABSTRACTS, December 7-8, 2013, Tokyo Institute of Technology. (Perhaps you were aware of this conference). At this conference the previous mentioned Kozima will present some papers. It has been brought to my attention by the co-author of Yiannis at PIM. I′ll exchange some emails with H. Kozima in the following days on his hypothesis concerning the trapped neutron in solids and possible generation mechanisms.-- 5.15.30.52 ( talk) 21:14, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
I open here a new thread/section regarding the very important issue described in the title. I notice a POV that disconsider facts due to lack of explanatory theory. This brings up very important epistemologic issues connected to the scientific method. Please share your thoughts.-- 5.15.54.28 ( talk) 12:00, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
This POV that disregards facts has some similarity to Huizenga-like reasoning style.-- 5.15.54.28 ( talk) 12:05, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
A quote from Edmund Storms very relevant to the perception of cold fusion and denial of experimental facts:
″People reach conclusions about cold fusion without any knowledge of what is known about the subject or even what is accepted in conventional science. I can understand why conventional scientists think the people who believe CF is real are deluded. If I had not studied what is known and seen the effect myself, I would be one of them″ (from CMNS group).
Perhaps this could be posted on CF talk page.-- 5.15.41.17 ( talk) 13:59, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
A quote by Gell-Mann on the alleged theoretical impossibility of CF occurrence and criteria_of_acceptance_for_a_cold_fusion_theory - lecture in the Portland State University in 1998: (from PowerPedia)
“It's a bunch of baloney. Cold Fusion is theoretically impossible, and there are no experimental findings that indicate it exists?(ref7) .-- 5.15.41.17 ( talk) 14:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
4. 1 Barrier Circumvention (Avoidance) 4.2 Barrier Reduction 4.3 Barrier Ascent 4.4 Narrow Nuclear Resonances (NNR) 4.5 Multibody Fusion 4.6 Exotic Chemistry-- 5.15.191.239 ( talk) 08:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
I have posted a text received in a new section on CF talk regarding the ′′′Quality of experiments′′′.-- 5.15.41.17 ( talk) 21:55, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Editing can run wild when it starts to put views as to what content there should be ( PoV as WP calls it) ahead of considered discussion of that content, as really seems to be happening on some pages I have been involved with recently. Such editing may be done in good faith, but the outcome can be disastrous if an editor's order of priorities is wrong. One editor has been making statements that are clearly incorrect in order to support particular content ( Procrustes would have been proud of this!) -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 22:41, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Brian Josephson editing on Water Memory. Thank you. — Jess· Δ ♥ 22:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Professor Josephson, I just wanted to say that it's an honor for Wikipedia to have you around.
By the way, as regards water memory, here is a quote from Abraham Lincoln: "Has it not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?" ---Sixth Lincoln-Douglas Debate (October 13, 1858); reported in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (1953), vol. 3, p. 279. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 04:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi,
Looking at the WP:AN post on you, there were a few things that I believed I should be explaining to you about some of Wikipedia's core policies.
First, while we would like experts to come on Wikipedia, and it's a great privilege to have someone of your status working here, Wikipedia policies dictate that all editors are treated equally. I understand it may be a counter-intuitive concept, but that is the way it works. We treat all editors based on their edits made, not on who or how esteemed they are. That directly implies that the Wikipedia policies apply equally to everyone. So please do not question others' qualifications when they are trying to edit Wikipedia.
Now there are two policies in particular I would like you to know. First, WP:COI strongly suggests that editors do not edit articles related to themselves, and therefore edits that cite to your own publications are not accepted. I understand that someone who is an expert in a topic will know much more about it, but even then, there are other possibilities, like suggesting on talk page, or citing someone else's work, which wouldn't be COI.
The second policy in concern is WP:RS. That policy unequivocally states that Wikipedia takes whatever is the majority view of the scientific community on a topic, while mentioning any significant minorities, even if the view is incorrect. While I understand you have a strong viewpoint on articles that you have been researching on, we cannot add that on Wikipedia unless it is backed up by strong, reliable sources. So if there are two differing sources, we default to the one widely accepted by other academics, and therefore, the one that is more reliable for Wikipedia's purposes.
Lastly, no editor owns an article and therefore, they cannot decide what goes into it, without their edits backed up by relevant Wikipedia policies.
I hope you understand the spirit behind these two core principles of Wikipedia, and would continue to follow them to work collaboratively with other editors here. Please feel free to ping me if you have any questions.
Regards, TheOriginalSoni ( talk) 10:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Brian, why are you wasting your time with this project. Other academics tried to edit it, and left in disgust. For example please read the post made by an award winning physicist http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=205868902#Conclusions
“ | The case is now over. The evidence is in, the closing arguments have been made, and the judgment is clear.
The modern notion of Encyclopaedia was a product of the Enlightenment and intended as an educational vehicle to raise the level of the masses. The Encyclopaedists included some of the greatest thinkers of their time. They valued, above all: knowledge, understanding, truth. The "scientific method" was based upon the same foundations: empirical knowledge, verifiability and careful reasoning. These were the ideals of the Enlightenment , together with a belief in justice in society. Wikipedia is an embodiment of the opposite. It is a return to the Dark Ages, with an element of chaos that is greatly enhanced by the mass communications tools available in the internet. It involves a reduction of all genuine achievements to parity with the very basest, most primitive notions of the ignorant and undereducated. The encyclopaedists would never have proposed that their work was to be an equal collaboration of the ignorant and the educated. It was to be a vehicle for raising the former from their ignorance by making the most valuable achievements of human endeavor available to all. Wikipedia, on the contrary, is the enshrinement of contempt for learning, knowledge and expertise. It is, for many, a diversionary hobby to which they are prepared to devote a great portion of their time, as others do to computer based video games. Unfortunately, it has led also to an inner cult, shrouded in anonymity, with structures and processes of self-regulation that are woefully inadequate. Many of these tools and procedures are reminiscent, in parody, of those of the Inquisition: secret courts, an inner "elite" arbitrarily empowered to censor and exclude all those perceived as a threat to the adopted conventions of the cult; denunciations, character assassination, excommunication. An arbitrarily concocted "rulebook" and language rife with self-referential sanctimoniousness give a superficial illusion of order and good sense, but no such thing exists in practice. It is truly a "Tyranny of the Ignorant" |
” |
Also please read this article, and feel free to let me know, if you'd like to see more examples. Regards. 67.169.11.210 ( talk) 01:50, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
“ | I mean, they're so ridiculously self-important, when they aren't acting like trolls, and show no sense of grace, humanity, or even style. Admins and even rank-and-file contributors go around making high-sounding declarations and announcements, as if they were government officials dispensing court orders." | ” |
The following imaginary episode illustrates well the problems with Wikipedia, and argues that particular editors are more to blame than the rules.
It begins when editor P finds a relevant quote A in a 'reliable source', and includes it in an article. An expert E is unhappy with A as he knows it doesn't properly represent what is known, and may mislead. He therefore replaces it by B, which is quite similar but not problematic in the same way, explaining his reasoning on the talk page. P objects on the grounds that there is a RS for A, while there is none for version B, OR being involved in A's argument for B. Furthermore E has published in this area so there is a conflict of interest (CoI), and anything he says is suspect.
After telling us this, Socrates continues by saying that in this situation there seem to be two approaches editors can take, the first being P's approach that he characterises as perverse, involving ignoring E's analysis (E's CoI is cited as justification for this, as well as the fact that 'E appears not to be self-critical'). Certain otther editors Socrates classes similarly: they do study the analysis but bend the all-purpose RS rules in very dubious ways so as to be able to claim that E is using unacceptable sources in his argument.
Socrates then tells of an editor that he characterises as reasonable. A reasonable editor, he suggests, studies E's analysis, and agrees, on the basis of it, that statement A can mislead so should not be there as it stands. He sees that B does represent the situation better, and is not at all convinced by the arguments that P and his allies produce against using the sources cited by E. He thinks it reasonable to trust these sources given E's expertise (which he sees as a benefit rather than a reason to dismiss anything he says), and considers B to be the version to use. He thinks that, rather than slavishly following the rules, it is more reasonable, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, to assume the expert knows what he is talking about.
In the intellectually challenged world of wikipedia, 'putting in what appears to be correct' is an alien concept. Anyone who suggests it is reasonable to put in text that appears to be correct, rather than something demonstrably misleading, is abruptly told 'that is not how we do things here; take a break and come back when you are better informed'. End of story. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 18:07, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Work around it? How could 'working around that feature' possibly turn the 'memory of water' article into a credible one, with the wreckers, be they ignorant or disruptive, in full force (with ignorant editors, perhaps, but with some at least disruption is clearly the aim). The idea that you can educate such people is fantasy. I don't think your diagnosis helps very much as it can at best deal with a component of the problem. I think you are too entranced with Wikipedia's good side; tt is at best a 'potentially wonderful project'. It was not set up following good design practice, and such systems generally run into problems that are hard to fix. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:13, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 11:37, 8 August 2014 (UTC)Some editors' ability to willfully misread policy pages is essentially infinite.
The Purple Barnstar | ||
for your exemplary behavior under sustained wp:hounding. pearls before swine. Duckduckstop ( talk) 19:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC) |
I am afraid that Mr. Benveniste's definition is a bit narrow, and it's not shared by other researchers. Double-blind is applied to animal trials, for example. This definition applies also to Benveniste's experiment, since the researcher handling the water could treat tubes differently depending on whether they are control or not. See Aviva Petrie; Paul Watson (28 February 2013). Statistics for Veterinary and Animal Science. Wiley. pp. 130–131. ISBN 978-1-118-56740-1. (emphasis in the original):
"Chapter 5.7 Avoidance of bias in the assessment procedure (...) We ensure that our trial is free from assessment bias by making the trial blind or masked. There are two levels of 'blindness' - double-blind and single-blind."
The authors is expert on medical statistics [2]..
I suppose that further searches would find definitions that apply explicitly to experiments where the subject is inorganic. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 08:34, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) "A double-blind study in which radiologists tried to find lesions from images produced by two different algorithms concluded (...) "so perhaps you should tell them they've got it wrong.used to describe an experiment that is done so that neither the people who are doing the experiment nor the people who are the subjects of the experiments know which of the groups being studied is the control group and which is the test group
This article points out to signs of massive groupthink.-- 5.15.178.60 ( talk) 12:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Interesting to notice the assertion mentioned in the title of this subsection by this astrophysicist!-- 82.137.8.43 ( talk) 20:00, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard from a probabilistic POV the perspective on CF 2014 stated here?: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2013/12/lenr-outlook-2014.html -- 5.15.200.152 ( talk) 15:11, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
Are there some scheduled events for the 25th anniversary of CF?-- 5.15.36.186 ( talk) 18:56, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, are you aware of some studies concerning the isotopic effects (like the memory of heavy water) on the memory of water?-- 5.15.4.233 ( talk) 13:15, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
I bring to your attention another repository of CF papers and particularly one titled The physics of cold fusion phenomena (paper no 29, January 2011) from here.-- 5.15.55.216 ( talk) 00:57, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I have noticed this paper on Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. How do you view the effectiveness of the hypothesis presented there, based on the action of gravitation at nuclear level in CF, knowing that there some additional terms to the law of gravitation have been proposed over time, starting with Newton himself?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 12:31, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
I bring to your attention a rather more ″mainstream″ approach/support from Physical Review [5] to the issue mentioned above about extensions to Newtonian gravitation in a non-controversial frame.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 09:28, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Like yourself, I sought to edit at wikipedia under my real name, even though only a fraction of people here do this. For this, we are penalized with repeated conflict of interest issues, even though so many editors here are hiding behind their COI, making their attacks on us a classic example of projection. And typical of the many contradictions at this site, they allow medical doctors to edit on health and medical subjects, though they do not allow a homeopath to edit on homeopathic subjects or they harass you when you edit on a subject such as the memory of water for which you are an expert. Rather than use your (or my) expertise, they conveniently fabricate and enforce rules that disable certain experts to help make this website more accurate and truthful. It is particularly remarkable and unfair when editors here claim you have a COI just because you've gone on record as an EXPERT about the memory of water issue, even when there is no financial interest involved. I admire you, your brilliance, and your courage. DanaUllman Talk 02:01, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Professor Josephson have you read the following book by David Marks? I recently read the book and he mentions you on one page. David Marks writes:
In his book The Link, Manning presented his own story about poltergeists and other strange happenings that took place at home and at school from the age of eleven. Like Geller's My Story, The Link is an autobiographical account and, although it makes fascinating reading is of minimal evidential value. Manning described how, after watching Geller perform on television, he discovered that he too could bend cutlery and other metal objects. Physicists, like Nobel laureate Professor Brian Josephson, F.R.S., and mathematicians, like Dr. A. R. G Owen, flocked to study Manning's miracles. Josephson is reported by the Daily Mail of London to have concluded: "We are on the verge of discoveries which may be extremely important for physics. We are dealing here with a new kind of energy." The introduction to The Link promises a series of learned papers "following research on Manning's powers by twenty-one giants of science" in Toronto during June and July 1974. Twenty-five years later we are still awaiting these publications with great interest. Paraphysicists seem to be perpetually "on the verge of discoveries" and no closer to actually making any.
From his book The Psychology of the Psychic. p. 100.
I would be interested in knowing do you still believe Matthew Manning is a genuine psychic? Even when magicians have replicated his feats by trickery, and James Randi caught him in fraud? And what happened to your claims about discovering the "new kind of energy" (psychic energy?) thirty or so years ago? Goblin Face ( talk) 15:50, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Ostensibly, one Matthew Manning executes art work while in a trance. Drawings and paintings in the style of Bewick, Rowlandson, Beardsley, Klee, Matisse, Picasso, and other great names began to appear over the walls of his rooms and then all over the ceilings. He was visited by the spirits of these greats — according to Manning.
In an article in the San Francisco Examiner, Manning claimed that an art expert with Sotheby's gallery in London had said that one of the Picasso's he had drawn looked like an original, and that Sotheby's would have vouched for that if they hadn’t been told that Manning had done it. Fellow skeptic and psychic investigator James Randi decided to follow up on this story. He wrote to Sotheby’s. A reply by a Sothby’s official declared the claim "absolutely not true." He wrote that the various drawings done by the "spirits of various artists" had all been rendered by the same hand, and that they were very clever but not very convincing forgeries of existing works.
Manning made another claim in the London Daily Mirror. He had made a drawing of a monkey "while in a trance," and published it in his book, The Link. It had caused great excitement at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, he said. It was similar to a Savery original that was in their vaults and had never been published. Randi sent another letter. A reply from the museum cleared up the matter. The drawing had been published, first in 1905 and again in 1965. It was still available. And the original was on display to the public, not locked up in a vault.
These are only two items that were investigated. How many people will take the time and the trouble to check upon the myriad claims made by phony psychics? It is so much easier to sit back and say, "Hey, isn't that fantastic? This guy works miracles." It's more exciting, more out of the ordinary — makes for more stimulating conversation. It's also a lot of hokum.
From Henry Gordon's book Extrasensory Deception.
So basically Manning was a deliberate liar, a fraud. He had obviously seen the drawing and then lied by claiming it was in the vault. As for John Taylor I communicated with him before his death. He originally endorsed spoon bending but later came to realize it was nothing more than trickery. He also wrote an anti-paranormal book which I consider a classic. Regarding the bent key and a "dozen people watching" you can read how it's done in the book Gellerism Revealed by the magician Ben Harris, it contains photographs and shows the reader how to do it. Anyway the point in raising all this is not a personal chat on the subject. I am fixing the Matthew Manning article. Any references would be useful. As you knew Manning perhaps you can help cite some on the talk-page if you know anything. Thanks. Goblin Face ( talk) 17:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I've removed the duplicated quote (I don't claim to have found it first -- if you look carefully you'll see that I gave your ref a name so I could reuse it) and corrected the spelling of Uvani. The ref. I added is the last one in 'further reading'. It is very well known in the parapsychological community that people bent spoons by hand when they thought they were not being watched.-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 19:01, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi there, just a friendly reminder to adhere to WP:3RR you're currently getting a bit close to the limit on that at Eileen J. Garrett and I'd strongly recommend you taking the discussion to talk before trying to reinsert this edit. Simonm223 ( talk) 22:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I think concerning the disputed Cowan reference can be used non-controversially in relation to hydrogen bond article where its whole content (not just abstract as some people who can't acces do) could be cited more extensively and thus the abusive use of it can be diminished. I'd do it myself, but unfortunately from this IP I can't access the full text from Nature.
What means are there for a more extensive citation of its full text that could be used to this end for users who can't access its full text in order to prevent a misquoting? Please share your thoughts.
I have also noticed a wikirule who forbids the citing of sources that haven't been read entirely by those who wish to cite them.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 13:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
I've send you an email from the registered acount.-- U18827144sqr ( talk) 12:20, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
I've put the link to the article misquoted by Huizenga mentioned in the email in a section from Nernst equation and also here [6]. If you don't mind, please also send it me to be perused in appropriate articles.-- U18827144sqr ( talk) 12:48, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
As (preliminary) remark(s) on full text of Cowan, the source is rather qualitative, no formula being included (unlike the other paper by Huot) and some vague concept are not (enough) detailed like the memory of persistent correlations. Some experimental spectroscopic data are presented and no sign of the memory of dissolved substances.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 14:41, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
In this context of dismantling misconceived objections I think it is also useful to attack the alleged (by Taubes) heat generation in CF only due to difference in ionic conductivities of deuterated salts solutions compared to protiated/standard aqueous solutions. Are you aware of a such misquotation of an article by Gary Taubes in his (magnus) opus, made similarly to Huizenga?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 14:12, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Hello Prof Josephson! I have made some edit proposals (and source quoting) on talk:cold fusion. Please share your thought there.-- 5.15.29.151 ( talk) 21:17, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
It seems to me that implausibility is in the eye of the beholder. CF is commonly thought to be an effect associated with nanostructures, and if a nanoparticle could act as a single quantum system it would have roughly the right number of atoms. The problem. of course, would be fleshing out the 'somehow'. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 10:09, 31 March 2014 (UTC)While we have not been able rigorously to rule out such an exotic long-range effect operative only at finite temperature, it seems extraordinarily implausible.
I've had a response from Leggett and Baym now, which I've added to the cold fusion talk page.-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:05, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, re the paper by Huot cited by Huizenga that you sended to me, I haven't figure out how to access the discussed quote in order to properly deal and adjust the cold fusion article because as I can see there is no Amazon preview of the book. Could you send it to me by the email where you have send the Huot paper or even post it here in order to fix the matter of the quote and its usability once and for all. Thanks-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 16:00, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
There is another theoretical article which refers to CF (tangentially?) and it would be useful to be analyzed to see what it has to say. The article is authored by Setsuo Ichimaru, Nuclear Fusion in Dense Plasmas, Reviews of Modern Physics, 65 (1993), p 255-299. (I'm bringing this article to your attention.)-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 09:36, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
Hello Prof Josephson! The article neutron lacks some info re neutron radius and methods of determining it. Please share your thoughts on this topic at Talk:Neutron#Radius.-- 188.26.22.131 ( talk) 10:59, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view the circumstances of fraud allegations against Rusi Taleyarkhan's results in sonofusion in relation to the so-called scientific consensus?-- 5.15.186.102 ( talk) 11:49, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I notice interesting new ( intermediary) developments on talk pages (and even in article) of water memory and E-Cat that I thought useful to bring to your attention.-- 5.15.186.74 ( talk) 20:39, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
I think it must said that TOAT has put a question about the utility of request for quotes (Huizenga etc) which he semi-humorously calls them scavenger hunt. His question is answered with many details in sections that have been problematically (or conveniently?) archived. The situation seems tragicomical.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 13:54, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
This comment on wikipedia by Dean Radin is worth quoting here:
If Wikipedia honestly advertised that its goal was to reflect interpretations of the status quo by people who have no expertise, then I'd have no problem with it.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 08:54, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 09:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
If people really want to know about this sordid attempt to stop me editing, they can read all about it here.
The BLP Barnstar | ||
Your efforts to improve the biography of Russell Targ have not gone unnoticed! If you decide to go to the media over this, rest assured you have my full support. One day, hard science will triumph over pseudoskepticism. Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! A1candidate ( talk) 12:14, 11 May 2014 (UTC) |
The BLP Barnstar | ||
Your efforts to improve the biography of Russell Targ have not gone unnoticed! One day, hard science will triumph over pseudoskepticism. Also ---Thanks again - for your efforts - -- George1935 ( talk) 16:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC) |
Hi, the discussion at the Administrator Noticeboard gave a clear majority for immediate unblocking, and I have accordingly unblocked your account.
Two bits of advice. First, it is always a good idea to avoid anything that might be perceived as a legal threat. In most cases referring to the internal policy on biographies of living people and what in the article is violating it will get the point across adequately. Also suggestions that you will go to the media and so on are usually frowned upon because it may be viewed as trying to intimidate other users. In the vast majority of cases, disputes on Wikipedia can be settled internally on Wikipedia. Sjakkalle (Check!) 18:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Do I detect a closet Molesworth fan? Guy ( Help!) 21:03, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
{{ uw-coi}} Murry1975 ( talk) 15:27, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
I might also draw attention to a remark made by a very experienced editor on the talk page for Talk:Russell Targ: Lighten up! Targ can edit his own biography as long as he does not violate the COI guideline. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 16:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Your recent editing history at Russell Targ shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.
To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. See BRD for how this is done. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. Theroadislong ( talk) 11:47, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. The thread is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Brian_Josephson reported by User:MrBill3 (Result: ). Thank you. MrBill3 ( talk) 11:58, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi Brian - Please don't act as a conduit/ meatpuppet for Russell Targ, who is currently blocked. You're welcome to express your own views in your own words, but directly copying and pasting a statement from someone who is calling for assistance with his Wikipedia page offsite is problematic. Best. Kevin Gorman ( talk) 21:01, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Sure, but the best editors manage to combine both perspectives, and on most pages this works: there need be no incompatibility. There is absolutely no need to shut down ordinary thinking while editing. Have you considered the possibility that there may be something to the comments I have gathered in my 'world is watching' section? (this station is now closing down for the night, BTW).-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 22:33, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
You said elsewhere, "there is reason to believe that some people watch over my edits and mindlessly revert these edits automatically". This is called WP:WIKIHOUNDING and is not acceptable behavior on WP. You have every right to edit WP (within guidelines and policy). The WP community benefits from a variety of viewpoints and the opinions of even small minorities should be thoughtfully and courteously considered. Activities that disrupt another editor's enjoyment of editing are strongly frowned upon (policies and guidelines can be burdensome enough). If you feel that an editor is hounding you please take the time to ask them to stop on their talk page. If you feel this behavior continues or is being practiced by a group of editors acting indistinguishably and in apparent concert you can bring your concerns to the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. While I have issues with your behavior or editing from time to time, I do not condone behavior that is against policy, disruptive or rude. There are a variety of things which may create the impression you are being wikihounded when that is not the case (WikiProject Skepticism, the Fringe Theories Noticeboard, user watchlists may frequently overlap your areas of interest for instance). Best wishes and happy editing. - - MrBill3 ( talk) 11:37, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles.
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Legal threats from Brian Josephson (again). Thank you. Ian.thomson ( talk) 16:22, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 16:24, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
Do you have an ORCID identifier that can be added to Wikidata and thus to the {{ Authority control}} template on the article about you? If not, I encourage you to sign up for one. Also, please would you record your voice for our article about you, as described at WP:WikiVIP? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:02, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
Some further points:
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:56, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard the profile of this author, Steven Novella, whose work from Skeptical Inquirer has been inserted recently (as secondary source) in water memory article by Enric Naval in support of keeping the (misquoted) Cowan reference?-- 82.137.11.52 ( talk) 15:09, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your contributions to WP. I appreciate your active engagement and strongly encourage you to provide suggested content based on good sources. I hope you are interested in improving WP and willing to devote some personal effort. As you have access to some of the possible references on Russell Targ I would greatly appreciate some paragraph length quotes that I could paraphrase and add or at least become comfortable using these sources as references to support existing content. Feel free to post them to my talk page. While we may disagree on the significance and prominence due Targ's laser research, I am willing to consider your position if more support from reliable secondary sources is available. I believe WP is improved by having the positions of a variety of editors presented and evaluated. As you are intelligent and have some familiarity with a variety of topics in a scholarly context I urge you to consider contributing across multiple subjects on WP. I am somewhat puzzled by the way you present information. If I might be so bold I suggest an attempt at suggested encyclopedic content on talk pages. With your notable experience in academia I am confident you are skilled at concise, factual, cited writing. I again temper my allegations of POV pushing with an appreciation for your thoughtful engagement. I think everyone has a POV and that is fine, on WP what counts is policy and source support for assertions. Again thank you for the time and effort you contribute to WP. - - MrBill3 ( talk) 22:10, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi Brian, in case you didn't get the ping about this, please see Template:Did you know nominations/Brian Josephson. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:17, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view the labeling as fringe of some w'topics by people who don't show enough technical understanding of the topics involved?-- 82.137.9.40 ( talk) 20:55, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
It seems that a rather interesting poll to determine the level of support for CF as fringe or non fringe is taking place on talk:cold fusion#Going Forward - RFC or in the wording from there whether cold fusion is considered by most of the academic community to be pathological science. Your feedback could be useful.-- 82.137.9.172 ( talk) 20:05, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
The initiator of the poll has emphasized somewhere the importance of technical understanding.-- 82.137.9.172 ( talk) 20:33, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view the utility and benefit for wikicontent of the guideline WP:FRNG? Please share your thought!-- 82.137.13.98 ( talk) 17:19, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
What are its weak points?-- 82.137.13.98 ( talk) 17:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Would it not be great if it there were some procedure for adding to articles (where appropriate) a tag providing the information many scientists consider this article to be totally biased? Then people would know not to trust the article. Just a thought! Dream on -- the same people that biased the article in the first place would never permit such a tag. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 17:44, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding pseudoscience and fringe science, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.
This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard the aspects pointed out by Kirk Shanahan in the present talk from CF? He seems a person quite reasonable with whom it can be talked unlike the other editors like Andy theG, Johnunig, JJ, Roches, Enric Naval who have low argumentative value interventions due to repetition of cliches/ buzzwords? (As it has been underlined, RFC is not by counting votes)-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 11:52, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, are you aware of any inside info re a possible interest in CF by, say, Cambridge University Electrochemistry Department?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 10:58, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard the hydrotron model proposed by Storms for CF as a theoretical construction in regards to its validity?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 08:26, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
It is interesting to see that someone has brought a lawsuit against specific wikipedia editors for information added to his article that he considers erroneous and “defamatory.” See http://www.dailydot.com/news/wikipedia-lawsuit-yank-barry-10-million/ for details. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 20:17, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Psychologist Julia Mossbridge, when asked how her academic interest in parapsychology began, said:
I started out as a staunch materialist, until I met a very bright student who asked me why I was so sure of my position. I was a neuroscience student at Oberlin, and she was a religion major. I balked at her question, mocking the idea of God and/or anything outside of the materialist point of view. As I did it, I remembered feeling superiority as well as embarrassment for her that she should be so ill-informed.
She simply told me I was being arrogant and using that arrogance as a shield against any information that might counter my bias. I was taken aback, but I knew she was right. I could feel the arrogance, and I could feel the fear underneath...the fear that I was wrong. That science could have it wrong.
I had felt that before about various scientific dogmas, and on the occasions when I had, my feeling that science had it wrong turned out to be correct.
Sceptical editors might do well to reflect on that comment. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 20:16, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
You say you want to improve the Dean Radin article. The problem is that this can not be done any further due to lack of reliable references. I have spent a long time looking in books, magazines and science journals that mention Radin. All of these contain negative comments about his paranormal beliefs or only mention him in passing detail. I have not come across any reliable sources i.e. mainstream science publications that are favorable for Radin or his beliefs about psi. As you are in contact with Radin, get him to compile a list of reliable references (not parapsychology journals) that mention his work in a "positive" light and send it to me here. The problem is that you will find that none exist. Feel free to prove me wrong though. You say you want to improve the article so I would like to know what sources you actually were thinking of. Goblin Face ( talk) 16:33, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
But Nature wouldn't follow that ethical principle. There's real suppression of parapsychology there. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:26, 20 July 2014 (UTC)Any time a reputable news organisation gives its readers or viewers details that later turn out not to be true, they are obligated to tell the truth.
Positive reviews for Radin (self published):
1. Remote viewer Courtney Brown [7] [8]. (Not reliable sources, I already asked about this).
2. New age website "Enlightenment" [9] - fringe source not reliable.
3. Spirituality and Practice [10] - fringe source not reliable.
4. Publishers weekly [11] - Already cited on the article.
5. The Monroe Institute [12] - fringe source not reliable.
6. Conspiracy theorist Kevin Barrett [13] - Fringe source not reliable.
7. MindFutures remote viewing [14] - Fringe source not reliable.
8. Journal of Scientific Exploration [15], [16] - Considered a fringe/pseudoscience journal. Not reliable by Wikipedia standards.
Other links
Encyclopedia of American Loons [17] - Not a reliable source, but funny.
Goblin Face ( talk) 17:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you consider the most recent situation from talk:cold fusion where a rather unfortunate insistent intervention from the IP 84.106... has lead to semi-protection of that talk page?
It seems rather concerning this incident has provided a convenient pretext to discriminate legitimate comments from IPs on a talk page in favour of registered users this being against wikirule against the discrimination of IPs. ( User:Callanecc has semi-protected considering hastily also against wikirule that it has been persistent disruption beside the most recent rather unfortunate intervention from the mentioned IP.)-- 5.15.23.182 ( talk) 21:30, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
The mentioned IP has also initiated a request at Arbcom that has been perceived as an attempt to by-pass consensus formation by RFC. In this volatile situation, how long do you consider that RFC duration on that talk page should be compared to the default duration (30 d) and what uninvolved editor is entitled to appreciate (close RFC) whether or not some consensus (or lack of) has emerged?-- 5.15.23.182 ( talk) 21:43, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Before I get on to Radin's comments, let me just say that it was interesting to hear
Jimmy Wales on the
Radio 4 Today programme this morning. He was there as a representative of Google, commenting on the topical issue of deletion of links from Google search. It is a pity that
John Humphrys didn't also quiz him about the way sources on Wikipedia get removed!
That's a good preliminary to Radin's comment. As you can imagine, there has been much discussion about the unbalanced nature of his Wikipedia article, and he has recently made this comment:
In the world before Wikipedia, when books and articles were usually published by and vetted by experts, [...]'s work would never have passed peer review. In today's world, anyone can publish anything.
In fact, the situation is worse, as Wikipedia can pick up such unreviewed publications and treat them as authority, then Google will place such articles high on its search list, and the possibly uninformed content will be seen by people who may treat such content as seriously as they would the contents of an ordinary encyclopedia compiled by experts. This is built in to w'pedia's revered
secondary sources mechanism. The idea is that somehow, if somebody has written about something, that in itself makes that thing appropriate to be in the encyclopedia. The idea is absurd, of course, and it leads to editors being able to pick and choose sources that will support their own point of view (not to mention the various tricks that editors use to remove references they don't like).
Wikipedia seems not to know of the existence of the peer review process as adopted in the world of learning to check the quality of work that has been submitted; if you look at
peer review you'll find that the only kind of peer review w'pedia knows about officially is its own process for resolving disputes. Failure to acknowledge peer review as a some guarantor of credibility, preferring instead the indiscriminate mechanism of 'secondary source', is a serious failing on wikipedia's part. --
Brian Josephson (
talk) 19:22, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
I see from this discussion that skeptics associations are trying in general to establish scientific consensus instead of scientists. Am I right in this impression?-- 213.233.84.16 ( talk) 14:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
Dear Professor Brian Josephson, I admire your works and contributions to various fields. From my point of view it´s a pity that so many engineers want to be scientists and so many scientists want to be engineers. Maybe thats a key to what you call pathological disbelieve. This is hopefully a social triggered temporary constellation - but I think there will be a paradigma change some day. It´s encouraging to see someone "old school" (dont mind) participating in this modern challenge of social interaction. Originary interested into physics, I think that "cabal research" has something challenging. Best Wishes, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fritz194 ( talk • contribs) 23:19, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
I would also like to add my gratitude for your efforts here on wikipedia, thank you for the continued annoyance and frustration you cause these ideological wikignomes of no particular historical significance. 76.216.227.107 ( talk) 00:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)Anonymous Fan
Professor Josephson, how do you view the (knowledge) status of hybrid disciplines (both consolidated and emergent) in re to the status of more base disciplines from which a hybrid discipline emerges? Can a hybrid discipline appropriate the methods of a base discipline? This request for comment from you is especially interesting in the context of condensed matter nuclear science.-- 5.15.34.57 ( talk) 20:42, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Given your recent activity on the talk page of Verifiable, I am inviting you to participate in the discussion I started in regard to establishing a prima facia case for verifiable sources if it is has met and maintained the standards for inclusion in Google News.– GodBlessYou2 ( talk) 20:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I've noticed the bio-related context of your recent edits at talk:autopoesis. Given this, I bring to your attention a topic encountered today while browsing and editing w'pedia, association induction hypothesis (by Gilbert Ling) which has been recently labeled at reference desk:Science as fringe instead of alternative hypothesis. I sense that this topic may be related to water memory, a topic where I know you have intervened (and I see it has been fixed in the main aspect concerning the contentious source CWN). I ask therefore how do you view the situation of this hypothesis from the point of view of alternativity? Please comment also at the request for deletion of this mentioned w'page Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Association_induction_hypothesis.-- 94.53.199.249 ( talk) 20:06, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello, Prof Josephson! To your knowledge, is it possible that may be multiple meanings to the term cold fusion? This physicist Robert Smolanczuk has a paper with cold fusion in title in a mainstream journal: Smolanczuk, R. (1999). "Production a mechanism of superheavy nuclei in cold fusion reactions". Physical Review C. 59 (5): 2634–2639. Bibcode: 1999PhRvC..59.2634S. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevC.59.2634.. Is the cold fusion mentioned here the same with the subject of w'article cold fusion?-- 86.125.182.23 ( talk) 15:17, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello Prof Josephson! What is your overall impression on the results presented at the most recent ICCF, namely ICCF-19 in Padua? Please share your thoughts!-- 5.15.15.255 ( talk) 12:00, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view/estimate the influence of the recently launched research program in CMNS at University of Tohoku as a pressure factor in launching and funding other research programs in the field, especially, but not only, in Europe?-- 86.125.172.58 ( talk) 20:09, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
An article that you have been involved in editing— Upper tangent arc —has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Pierre cb ( talk) 04:01, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Your recent editing history at Energy Catalyzer shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you get reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.
Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. VQuakr ( talk) 17:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Things have moved on quite a bit on that talk page. Clearly these people have purely and simply the aim of ensuring by any means whatever that no reference to Lewan's comment about the connection with the e-cat should be included. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 16:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
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This page is getting a bit big so I'm engaged in moving outdated stuff to https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:Brian_Josephson/Archive_1. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 11:38, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
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Prof Josephson, do you know how this system of blocking external links works on w'pedia? Is there some non-automatic proposal needed to be done by some editors to block certain links (like that from the Japanese government)? Does it appear in the list of those editors' contributions? Who might be involved? JzG, ToAT, etc?-- 5.15.5.245 ( talk) 18:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Dear Brian,
How are you lately? Hope you're well.
In case you're interested, I've updated the picture on its article.
Best wishes,
cmɢʟee⎆
τaʟκ 12:05, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view the use of the Journal of Visualized Experiments as citable source for CF article in the situation that some papers appear in it?-- 79.119.208.208 ( talk) 17:41, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I notice this discussion and it be must be said that the people who accept only 100% reproducibility in materials are not aware of the non-deterministic nature of the phenomena which may occur in materials, in other words they expect only deterministic phenomena to occur which would be 100% reproducible, isn't it? (I have also noticed your comments on talk:Reproducibility from August-September 2013 where you pointed out that purely statistical factors cannot be excluded!)-- 82.79.115.12 ( talk) 17:40, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
So, by the above reasoning, I'm wondering whether in these conditions, scientific articles re CF in this Journal are more useful in regards to a better control of the experimental setup than articles published in more conventional journals without video files attached and omitted details in the text?!?-- 82.79.115.12 ( talk) 17:50, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you, as a theoretical physicist, view the relation between theoretical physics and mathematical physics? Can mathematical physics be seen as serving as bridge between theoretical physics and mathematics? Thanks for your perspective.-- 82.137.11.73 ( talk) 14:10, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you think about the presence of of this article Free-fall atomic model as alternative theoretical formulation on W'pedia? (I've just come across some comments by Enric Naval at talk page Talk:Free-fall_atomic_model#Merge_author_here and a PROD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Free-fall_atomic_model on grounds of not belonging to mainstream. It seems that status as an alternative theoretical formulation has not crossed the minds of the editors at prod discussion.) Your input there is very valuable. Thanks.-- 82.137.11.206 ( talk) 04:21, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Dear Professor Josephson,
There is this big disagreement between quantum and diffusion predictions, especially around the Anderson localization for a semiconductor: standard diffusion would lead to nearly uniform probability density of electrons, making it a conductor. In contrast, QM predicts that electrons should be localized, preventing the conductance - what agrees with experiment.
There is a recent Wikipedia article ( /info/en/?search=Maximal_Entropy_Random_Walk ) claiming that this disagreement is caused by the fact that standard diffusion models only approximate the principle of maximum entropy - that choosing diffusion model which really maximizes entropy is no longer in disagreement with quantum predictions - leads to exactly the same probability distribution as QM with its strong localization properties (the original 2009 paper: http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.160602 ).
Could you maybe comment on this topic - is it the right way to repair this disagreement? 188.146.4.255 ( talk) 06:45, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
Dear Brian,
In case you're interested, Trinity College's Singing on the River and Singing from the Towers are on today (12/6) at 8:45 p.m. and 12 noon, respectively.
Best wishes,
cmɢʟee⎆
τaʟκ 23:33, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
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I have just updated the w'pedia page of my recently deceased friend and colleague Alan Baker with a better photo of him that appeared in an article about him on the college web site, a representative of the firm that took the photo having gone through the process of notifying w'pedia of its agreement to there being a CC licence. In accord with the terms of that licence I wanted to include mention of the firm concerned, JET Photographic, so changed the caption from the previous 'Alan Baker' to 'photo by ...', by changing what followed 'caption = ...' in the Infobox, as you'll see if you go into edit mode on that page. The new caption mysteriously doesn't appear, though the identical process worked before, and 'caption' is one of the items listed in Template:Infobox scientist. Can anyone figure out how to fix the problem?-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:24, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
For what it's worth I think you are entirely correct in trying to add this material. Yes, there are wiki policies that can be used to justify not including it - but the most important wiki rule of all is WP:IAR (ignore all rules that prevent you from improving wikipedia). However there it seems there is a majority of editors at that article who insist (for whatever reasons) that it not be included, and on wikipedia, majority tends to rule. Still, there are other avenues available - for instance, you or someone else could start a Request for Comment (RfC). Those tend to get a wider variety of editors involved and might reverse the consensus. Waleswatcher (talk) 13:05, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
— Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 10:37, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.
You have shown interest in pseudoscience and fringe science. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.
For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.
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Not that it is difficult to do. :) I just realized you edited Trinity College, Cambridge while logged out then left a message on my talk page while logged in. I wondered why I templated "a regular" but then realized it was IP 82.26.152.165. Anyway, it's probably best to always edit logged in (see WP:LOGOUT if you are not already familiar). S0091 ( talk) 20:40, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
As you have similarly appeared on Closer to Truth, wondering if you have any insight into Varadaraja V. Raman, as his article is up for deletion. Trying to demonstrate his notability. Thanks. Hyperbolick ( talk) 16:45, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Saw your objection in the deletion discussion. The closer originally closed it as a keep, but then the one who nominated it for deletion in the first place left some comment on the closer’s talk to persuade him to make it a “no consensus.” I think they do that so they can try to delete it again at some point in the future. Just need to keep an eye out for that sort of thing. Thank you! Hyperbolick ( talk) 23:24, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Please do not attack other editors. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:52, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi Brian: we had a brief discussion about Charles Tart, and you've obviously been involved in a certain amount of Wikpedia, uh, "discussion", so perhaps you'd find the attached article I wrote on editing Wikipedia to be interesting. Feel free to distribute it if you think it might be useful (it's intended for intelligent people who know little about how Wikipedia works: so, not you :-) ). Finney1234 ( talk) 19:27, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
http://sfinney.com/images/mwp01.pdf
Brian Josephson: if you get into more "discussions" (or if there's something recent) where you genuinely think that something valid that you wrote (with a reference) is being removed for no good reason (by "guerilla skeptics"), give me a pointer to it. I dug seriously into WP:MOS in a "discussion" about a year ago, and would be glad to add some backup if I agree with you. Numbers, and verbosity, and tenacity, unfortunately, do matter in those "discussions").
Hi there Brian Josephson, I noted your edit on Autopoiesis and comment the talk page of Robert Rosen (theoretical biologist). I want to merge his theory Complex systems biology and his book Anticipatory Systems to the article on him. The article on the book fails to establish notability in my mind, it contains a single independent review and the other two sources are to himself or a student of his. The theory complex systems biology, if I understand it correctly, is a philosophical rejection of empirical science and an attempt to holistically understand life and consciousness, i.e. a gestalt theory, emergence... religion. I understand he wanted to mix in quantum theory with biology to state that "old-fashioned" empirical biology cannot provide a mathematical model of life and consciousness because of uncertainty principal, etc. If I am getting this straight, it was primarily popular in the 1990s among bloggers/chat boards who were interested in cybernetics and artificial intelligence. The Wikipedia article about it was/is still barely readable. It needn't have a article, considering that the relevant sources were all written by Rosen, and it hasn't seemed to inspire many people. But perhaps I'm being too much of snide sceptic. Also, this is totally not my field -I'm a simple botanist. I guess I was triggered by the bad writing... So shall I merge, or leave it at this? Leo Breman ( talk) 17:05, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
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Please stop your disruptive editing.
If you continue to disrupt Wikipedia, as you did at Parapsychology, you may be blocked from editing. Ixocactus ( talk) 22:12, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to blank out or remove portions of page content, templates, or other materials from Wikipedia without adequate explanation, as you did at Brian Josephson, you may be blocked from editing. Ixocactus ( talk) 22:18, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Weighing in here, my experience is that Brian is wise and reasonable and would be wise tonlisten to. Hyperbolick ( talk) 09:14, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you insert a spam link, as you did at Parapsychology. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted, preventing anyone from linking to them from all Wikimedia sites as well as potentially being penalized by search engines. Ixocactus ( talk) 00:33, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
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Welcome!
Hello, Brian Josephson, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a
Wikipedian! Please
sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out
Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}}
on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --
ALoan
(Talk) 17:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Hello, if you are 'the' Brian Josephson, I'd like to personally welcome you to Wikipedia, your insights on parapsychology and psi are really needed here. Very dogmatic sceptics often hijack Wikipedia, so the community here would benefit greatly from an eminent scientist adding solid support for psi. I have just been engaged with a discussion on psi and Dean Radin on my talk page, take a look if you are interested in commenting. Best wishes - Solar 19:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC) PS - I have also been discussing neuroscience and OBE, which might also be of interest.
Brian,
Thank you for your participation in
my RFA, which closed successfully with 55 supports, 15 oppose, and 1 neutral. No matter if you !voted support, oppose, neutral, I thank you for taking the time to vote in my nomination. I'm a new admin, so if you have any suggestions feel free to let me know. I would like to give a special shout out to
Fang Aili,
Phaedriel, and
Anonymous Dissident, for their co-nominations. Thank you all!
This RFA thanks was inspired by The Random Editor's modification of Phaedriel's RFA thanks.
Thanks for your support! I took the easy way out of thanking everyone by stealing borrowing someone else's card design...but know that I sincerely appreciate your support and confidence in me! It is such an honor to have earned your vote, I thank you from the bottom of my heart..it's wonderful to have your support, Professor...!
Dreadstar
† 09:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you are not put off by the somewhat less than warm welcome or are shocked by the very hard uncompromising positions of some. This place is not so bad compared with my early experience in the work-place where I was seated between one man on my left who was a holocaust denier while on my right sat a man who had fought his way across Europe and was among the first to enter a newly discovered death camp. It made for interesting times.
The truth will out eventually. But in the meantime I must say it is a shame that people with real insights are pushed to one side. We can always hope that reasonable words will win out eventually. In the meantime there is a small cadre of those who have learned to quote the rules, spout invective, and generally poison the waters until the more moderate editors leave, then they can rule the roost. They have learned to game the system and the system really is not too interested in pulling them into line or throwing them out for fear of being labeled tyrants.
One rotten apple can in fact spoil the whole barrel or in the parlance of a manufacturing engineer: the 0.01% of miss-manufactured parts if allowed to enter the assembly cause 99.99% of the trouble. I suspect much the same is true of human populations, large and small. Only a small percentage of career criminals commit the majority of crimes and only a small number of irritating people can spoil the atmosphere on Wikipedia.
I wait each day for the next shoe to drop W.R.T. the E-Cat. It’s invention may be a harbinger of truly dramatic changes. We live in interesting and hopefully better times. Zedshort ( talk) 04:24, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I have created a “We The People Petition” for the review of the E-Cat by the White House that you can sign by going here: http://wh.gov/j3P
I suppose only U.S. citizens can sign the petition but maybe you can spread the word. Zedshort ( talk) 02:51, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Professor Josephson, given that Talk:Energy_Catalyzer#UK_Department_of_Energy_and_Climate_Change.2C_Josephson.27s_open_letter_to_Rossi. relates to you, I wondered if you would have any comments? Thanks. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 18:13, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi Brian, sorry to be so slow to respond to your note on my talk page. Just to say you're welcome (re: getting rid of the non-notable template). Glad to be of help. SlimVirgin TALK| CONTRIBS 22:47, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
The E-Cat event and the seemingly interminable waiting drove me near to madness and so I was compelled to seek for humour and condense it into a play: Waiting for E-Cat. http://deadstickarizona-zedshort.blogspot.com/2012/03/waiting-for-e-cat.html
I hope it gives you a laugh. Everyone is skewered but no one dies. There is time enough until the end of the year and no doubt more events to come so I have no doubt I will have material for a third act. Zedshort ( talk) 16:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 08:34, 3 March 2014 (UTC)These Wikipedia trolls don't actually do anything of consequence in the real world. They are internet trolls. That is what they do. They have plenty of time, and work in teams. It's like having one's house attacked by black mold.
Hello Prof Josephson!
Do you happen to know if there are some achievements in this field?-- 82.137.11.181 ( talk) 14:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps the question implied an interface between a superconductor and an electrolyte.-- 188.26.22.131 ( talk) 17:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
This context raises a question concerning the existence of superconducting electrolyte.-- 188.26.22.131 ( talk) 17:36, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Hello Professor Josephson!
Could you add more details concerning the derivation of the equations at Josephson effect?-- 188.27.247.229 ( talk) 08:04, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Stalking talk pages to make apparently unsubstantiated attacks and then fleeing when they're challenged shouldn't be a standard strategy in the skeptic playbook. The attack in question is so unsubstantiated (in particular, non-specific) that an outside observer (me) has no way to evaluate the reasonableness of the attack, which means that it is unreasonable. In particular the attacker makes no effort to identify what he sees as out of line with the current scientific consensus, or what assertions are being challenged as not facts. It's behavior other skeptics should call out - as I do. I'm stunned that others imply this attack on work that led to a Nobel prize by an admin is somehow OK.-- Elvey( t• c) 07:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Cold fusion generally (not the E-cat) has suffered from a vicious circle where a false account of CF is endlessly recycled and never corrected since the real situation is blocked from view by editors unduly influenced by the false account. The Guardian has bucked the trend by publishing my obituary of Martin Fleischmann based on a wider perspective; contrast this with the presumptive review in Nature by Philip Ball. Ball's full text is available only to subscribers but his conclusion will indicate his misguided main theme: "... once you have been proved right against the odds, it becomes harder to accept the possibility of error. To make a mistake or a premature claim, even to fall prey to self-deception, is a risk any scientist runs. The test is how one deals with it."
The Obituaries Editor Robert White is to be congratulated on this: when I sent him some text first he said they were already planning an obituary and suggested I send in my piece as a comment. But he began to recognise that there was an important story here and suggested I send in modified text based on their traditional format. The final result was a collaborative effort by the two of us (plus some advisers who supplied additional detail). -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:50, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I can add to this account the fact that Nature published a letter from me correcting the aforementioned typically misleading obituary by Philip Ball.-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 17:19, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
There could well have been a time when it was thus. But that was yesterday, and yesterday's gone (with thanks to whoever it was who wrote that originally!) -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:23, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Prof Josephson! On talk:Cold fusion I expressed the view that your quote to Nature must be included in the article. I'd insert it myself but it seems that unregistered users are prohibited to edit the article thus creating discrimination towards unregistered users.-- 5.15.205.101 ( talk) 19:56, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Hello! As there is a Wikipedia article about you, you are cordially invited to contribute a short audio recoding of your spoken voice, so that our readers may know what you sound like and how you pronounce your name. Details of how to do so, and examples, are at Wikipedia:Voice intro project. Please feel free to ask for help or clarification on the project talk page, or my talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:01, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard (the validity of) Huizenga's reasoning against cold fusion by appeal to a supposed Nernst equation missinterpretation by F&P?-- 5.15.200.238 ( talk) 17:41, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, given the context of the most recent discussions you've been part of, to what extent (if any) do you consider that wikiconsiderations like mainstream and fringe positions apply in the case of cold fusion article?-- 5.15.194.246 ( talk) 17:59, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for uploading File:Defkalion demo display of power info.png. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the " my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Werieth ( talk) 15:58, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Hello. Wikipedia's policies do not permit novel synthesis (or original research). Your recent edits to cold fusion include such material. Please also be advised that this article is under general sanctions due to past whitewashing and other problematic activities by advocates. If you are the Brian Josephson then you may well be considered as having a material conflict of interest; either way I recommend you discuss proposed edits on the article's discussion page as most of your edits are being rapidly reverted as violating policies and guidelines. Guy ( Help!) 20:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Evaluations by the reviewers ranged from: 1) evidence for excess power is compelling, to 2) there is no convincing evidence that excess power is produced when integrated over the life of an experiment. The reviewers were split approximately evenly on this topic. Those reviewers who accepted the production of excess power typically suggest that the effect seen often, and under some understood conditions, is compelling.
Hi Dr. Josephson, I think I may have forgotten to reply to a message you left me a few weeks ago. I think what happened was a non-free image was only being used on a talk page, and copyrighted images have to be used in an article by policy. I used a script to bulk delete all the non-free images that hadn't been in an article for one week, and part of the script's function is to add the "commented out" notice around images. It doesn't make as much sense to hide the link in this case, but I'm glad to see you were able to replace it with an external link. Thanks for your contributions, Mark Arsten ( talk) 23:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Interesting article here from MIT Technology Review, on The Decline of Wikipedia. The main thrust of the article itself is that the decline in number of editors is leading to a loss in quality. But it is the comments that really get to the point; here for example is a contribution by one Le_comment:
If there were a movie of Wikipedia editing, it would look something like "The Road Warrior". Since no one was in charge, roving gangs formed to impose their edits and bully anyone who got in their way - with a focus on suppressing women. The rules became so arcane that they could only be used (selectively) to win a "wiki war": the winner would always be who knew the minutia of wiki rules and where the hidden dust bins were, not who had made the right edit. The NPOV tag was horribly abused by self-aggrandizing (male) wiki-weenies who scored ego points by imposing their own point of view as transcendentally neutral. ...
And again from ZimbaZumba:
Wikipedia is Orwell's Animal Farm in real life. Wikipedia started as an optimistic, open and free entity. With time some animals became more equal than others and it spiraled into a hierarchical and dictatorial dystopia, just as Orwell would have predicted.
The comments as a whole really make it clear to readers the way some very dubious editing practices by fanatics are impinging on the value of the encyclopedia.
And now from indio007:
The administration of wikipedia is replete with double standards, arbitrary rules enforcement and little men. Politically sensitive topics , usually involving the government and any facet of criminal justice, are manipulated with a fervor reminiscent of OCD.
While again mkschreder has said:
The last two times that I have tried contributing to wikipedia, I was met with a dick admin that deleted my articles with an attitude as though my articles were against his own opinion on things. HELLO! wikipedia was supposed to be free. Where is the voting system where 1000 votes would be needed to say that some piece of information is false? Where is the system where each paragraph can be voted by the users to be as true or false? It's this arbitrary reversion and deletion of people's content that they have spent their time contributing without getting any pay is what conditions people around the world to never contribute anything to wikipedia ever again.
... just to let the editors who manipulate pages such as that for Cold Fusion see how their efforts are seen by the outside world. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 15:55, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
A new one just in:
BarryG said:
kww Bahnfrend I'm sure there are political and science denier nutters out there who need a ton of editing, but there's also guardians over various topics that keep out changes they don't like and they win by being more anal/have more time to waste. I've contributed mostly to technical topics, often trying to give an additional alternative, easier explanation or a "gist" to an area or at least how something is actually computed in practice (and discrete computers often technically violate a theory done in terms of continuous space). Anyhow, I've had these edited away as technically mathematically incorrect or mostly it's just erased w/o comment. I've given up and so a lot of arcane technical stuff remains correct but unreadable to most even though I left the rigor and just provide an intuitive understanding below.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 11:03, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
They just keep coming, these comments from people who have seen what is happening:
kroyall said:
Wikipedia is a product of the true believers who have the time and patience to see to it the site reflects their version of events ... etc.
gustnado responded:
kroyall You are absolutely right about areas of controversy. I learned that the hard way trying to correct a history of an event I was present at. ... etc.
and then Smink:
bowlweevils You are typical of the type of person who should be motivated to voluntarily share knowledge in some non-profit broad-based project. People like you who manage to overcome the wikimarkup barrier quickly encounter a group of immature (mostly teen-age) admins who will torture and abuse you until you flee. The other type of contributor is the paid editor/PR agent, who puts up with the admin abuse, for money. The end result of the wikitext barrier, the immature admin corps and the paid editors is a conversion of what was once an interesting collaboration into a mess with a lot of point of view bias and highly unreliable information.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 11:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
The point is that the Wiki-pros play their little game to win. One of their popular techniques is to "ban" people who disagree with them or who call them out. So, we have a group of admins (many of whom are teenagers) who have adopted the goal of "banning" editors who question their tactics (many of whom are subject-matter experts.) The result is a long-term trend away from building a valuable reference work toward a site where wiki-warfare predominates.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 22:16, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 17:49, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
A colleague admires the skills of the Wikipedia cabal in finding excuses for biasing articles to fit their PoV:
I just read the site [ the article concerning Eileen Garrett ] for the first time. These people are thorough. There is hardly a line that is wasted as a tool for hammering away at the validity of psi. Consider the distortions of the observations of Jan Ehrenwald. He thought it was interesting that Garrett, like many high performers, had a tough childhood and made a dissociative adjustment to the bad situation ... [but he] hardly saw it as a way of writing off the phenomena.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:31, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
The illuminating website wikipediawehaveaproblem.com asks the question:
What happens when the largest repository of knowledge becomes run amok with bands of activist editors who have bullied their way to the top of the food chain?
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 15:23, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
There are several good short essay's by User:Piotrus, including: User:Piotrus/Morsels of wikiwisdom#Why edit warriors can win, and User:Piotrus/Morsels of wikiwisdom#Why good users leave the project, or why civility is the key policy, and other sections of User:Piotrus/Morsels of wikiwisdom. I happen to think the key terminology is bullying, and that obviously bullies thrive and are attracted, or not-originally-bullies find their way to the joys of it, and that the institution is silent on the issue. While many schools, corporations, other institutions have decent programs. Related are empirical works on organizational injustice, where (obviously?) employees in injust situations consider their options to fight, to leave, to adopt the prevailing attitude, or to undermine/sabotage (there are 4 options named prominently in the literature, i am mistating them here). In general, there is extreme perverse delight in bullying anyone who asserts expertise, or who gradually reveals expertise. To a certain degree, skepticism of asserted experts is good, but... In the past i did try to interest some colleagues in contributing to Wikipedia, but now I would not ever recommend it to anyone who is a friend. -- do ncr am 22:01, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
you are a notable defender of Radin. His article has recently become rather antagonistic to him. There is a section of the talk page that concerns your arguments - it would be ideal for you to contribute to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dean_Radin#Brian_Josephson
There is also an interesting article that has some statistics and corroborating examples that you might like to use - you might also find it of interest for philosophical reasons: http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2812%2900219-4/fulltext
I have done what I could in this case, and contributed what I am willing to contribute - the ball is in your court. For obvious reasons, you may want to extend the defense you made many years ago to a defense in talk section of, and corresponding edits to the wikipedia page, lest it be unnecessarily antagonistic. 98.210.147.182 ( talk) 00:09, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I've noticed your posts at Talk:Cold fusion. I was wondering in the context of this topic what is known concerning the possible triggering of the conventional fission of uranium by other factors than neutron flux, perhaps a flux of protons, deuterons or alpha particles? Could the flux of protons and deuterons act not only in gas phase from accelerators, but also in electrolytic environments of say uranium salts subjected to a perturbation like an alternating electric field like that required by, for instance, Wien effect and Debye-Falkenhagen effect?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 13:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
One could remark also the existence of the wikiarticle aneutronic fusion, but not aneutronic fission.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 13:28, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, you have mentioned somewhere having visited some labs with experimental CF results reported. Could you specify some of the labs?-- 5.15.62.129 ( talk) 11:00, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
About Francesco Celani, is it possible he might be somehow also connected to the E-Cat tests? I remember some comments posted on E-Cat talk page 2 years ago by an IP who said : ″It′s me, Francesco″. Or perhaps other Francesco (Scaramuzzi?) was involved?-- 5.15.203.84 ( talk) 18:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, are you interested in visiting more (other) labs?-- 5.15.28.220 ( talk) 20:53, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you consider, based on your experience, the state of awareness (or its insufficiency) to the subtleties of the scientific method among average scientists?-- 5.15.177.124 ( talk) 15:05, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
I have just noticed the groupthink article which I have linked above. Is there some case study available regarding the groupthink in the scientific community to include in the article to Case studies section?-- 5.15.37.249 ( talk) 18:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
I′ve noticed recently a book by F. Woodbridge Constant ″Fundamental Principles of Physics″ which is one of the fewest to unique from what I′ve encountered to contain an explicit reference to the scientific method (approximate quotation from memory): It would be better to say that there is not a scientific method but (4) key ingredients that account for the success of the scientific procedure: experiments, unbiased judgements, the noticing of surprising events that occur fortuitously and ability to correlate various facts from different subfields of science.-- 5.15.0.43 ( talk) 11:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, from the diversity of proposed models regarding CF how do you consider the status/plausibility of models involving neutron role in CF, like Widom Larsen or Kozima′s Trapped Neutron Catalyzed Fusion which assume the existence of trapped neutrons in certain solids originating from background neutrons?-- 5.15.37.249 ( talk) 21:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC) ...in regard to their predictive or explanatory power?-- 5.15.51.242 ( talk) 12:27, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
When I read this article: 'The supreme court is hearing arguments that Obamacare violates company owners' religious freedom. It's a bogus claim' from today's paper, describing how fundmentalists in the US are trying to control how employees can use their healthcare benefit, the thought that ran through my mind was how similar this is to what is liable to happen on wikipedia. Should one infer that belief in the nonexistence of the paranormal, water memory, etc. can be of a religious character, and that some edits on w'pedia get reverted or disputed because they are experienced in a similar way to the way an attack on a person's religion would (that's a change from the 'teenage gang' theory that some have espoused)? -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:12, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Here seems an appropriate place considering the context for continuing a discussion from cold fusion involving tangentially cosmic harmony and its (religious) ideatic background. The following excerpts are useful pointers:
continued discussion:
Concerning Newton′s laws and trajectories/orbits involved it seems curious that Roger Cotes contributions regarding spiral trajectories and their connection to an inverse cube term in force law expression seem to overlooked in some textbooks.
This discussion about force laws could also be relevant for cold fusion considering the usual objection to the fusion of deuterons in CF different from the thermonuclear standard version namely that usual forces assumed to be involved are not enough to bring the deuterons close enough to fuse in condensed matter fusion.-- 5.15.34.105 ( talk) 13:36, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Concerning the persistent tendentious editings due (partially) to the lack of WP:Competence, what reaction do you anticipate that Jim Wales would have if you notify him on his talk page about the situation where technical understanding is required in assessing RS status for some wikiarticles, understanding that seems to be lacking to some editors who persistently interfere by denying RS status to some sources?-- 5.15.177.249 ( talk) 14:41, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Professor Josephson, what are latest news/info that you are aware about the (trial/commercial) status of Defkalion devices?-- 5.15.177.249 ( talk) 14:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Another bringing to your attention of a conference: The 14th Meeting of Japan CF-Research Society JCF14 ABSTRACTS, December 7-8, 2013, Tokyo Institute of Technology. (Perhaps you were aware of this conference). At this conference the previous mentioned Kozima will present some papers. It has been brought to my attention by the co-author of Yiannis at PIM. I′ll exchange some emails with H. Kozima in the following days on his hypothesis concerning the trapped neutron in solids and possible generation mechanisms.-- 5.15.30.52 ( talk) 21:14, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
I open here a new thread/section regarding the very important issue described in the title. I notice a POV that disconsider facts due to lack of explanatory theory. This brings up very important epistemologic issues connected to the scientific method. Please share your thoughts.-- 5.15.54.28 ( talk) 12:00, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
This POV that disregards facts has some similarity to Huizenga-like reasoning style.-- 5.15.54.28 ( talk) 12:05, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
A quote from Edmund Storms very relevant to the perception of cold fusion and denial of experimental facts:
″People reach conclusions about cold fusion without any knowledge of what is known about the subject or even what is accepted in conventional science. I can understand why conventional scientists think the people who believe CF is real are deluded. If I had not studied what is known and seen the effect myself, I would be one of them″ (from CMNS group).
Perhaps this could be posted on CF talk page.-- 5.15.41.17 ( talk) 13:59, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
A quote by Gell-Mann on the alleged theoretical impossibility of CF occurrence and criteria_of_acceptance_for_a_cold_fusion_theory - lecture in the Portland State University in 1998: (from PowerPedia)
“It's a bunch of baloney. Cold Fusion is theoretically impossible, and there are no experimental findings that indicate it exists?(ref7) .-- 5.15.41.17 ( talk) 14:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
4. 1 Barrier Circumvention (Avoidance) 4.2 Barrier Reduction 4.3 Barrier Ascent 4.4 Narrow Nuclear Resonances (NNR) 4.5 Multibody Fusion 4.6 Exotic Chemistry-- 5.15.191.239 ( talk) 08:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
I have posted a text received in a new section on CF talk regarding the ′′′Quality of experiments′′′.-- 5.15.41.17 ( talk) 21:55, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Editing can run wild when it starts to put views as to what content there should be ( PoV as WP calls it) ahead of considered discussion of that content, as really seems to be happening on some pages I have been involved with recently. Such editing may be done in good faith, but the outcome can be disastrous if an editor's order of priorities is wrong. One editor has been making statements that are clearly incorrect in order to support particular content ( Procrustes would have been proud of this!) -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 22:41, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Brian Josephson editing on Water Memory. Thank you. — Jess· Δ ♥ 22:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Professor Josephson, I just wanted to say that it's an honor for Wikipedia to have you around.
By the way, as regards water memory, here is a quote from Abraham Lincoln: "Has it not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?" ---Sixth Lincoln-Douglas Debate (October 13, 1858); reported in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (1953), vol. 3, p. 279. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 04:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi,
Looking at the WP:AN post on you, there were a few things that I believed I should be explaining to you about some of Wikipedia's core policies.
First, while we would like experts to come on Wikipedia, and it's a great privilege to have someone of your status working here, Wikipedia policies dictate that all editors are treated equally. I understand it may be a counter-intuitive concept, but that is the way it works. We treat all editors based on their edits made, not on who or how esteemed they are. That directly implies that the Wikipedia policies apply equally to everyone. So please do not question others' qualifications when they are trying to edit Wikipedia.
Now there are two policies in particular I would like you to know. First, WP:COI strongly suggests that editors do not edit articles related to themselves, and therefore edits that cite to your own publications are not accepted. I understand that someone who is an expert in a topic will know much more about it, but even then, there are other possibilities, like suggesting on talk page, or citing someone else's work, which wouldn't be COI.
The second policy in concern is WP:RS. That policy unequivocally states that Wikipedia takes whatever is the majority view of the scientific community on a topic, while mentioning any significant minorities, even if the view is incorrect. While I understand you have a strong viewpoint on articles that you have been researching on, we cannot add that on Wikipedia unless it is backed up by strong, reliable sources. So if there are two differing sources, we default to the one widely accepted by other academics, and therefore, the one that is more reliable for Wikipedia's purposes.
Lastly, no editor owns an article and therefore, they cannot decide what goes into it, without their edits backed up by relevant Wikipedia policies.
I hope you understand the spirit behind these two core principles of Wikipedia, and would continue to follow them to work collaboratively with other editors here. Please feel free to ping me if you have any questions.
Regards, TheOriginalSoni ( talk) 10:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Brian, why are you wasting your time with this project. Other academics tried to edit it, and left in disgust. For example please read the post made by an award winning physicist http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=205868902#Conclusions
“ | The case is now over. The evidence is in, the closing arguments have been made, and the judgment is clear.
The modern notion of Encyclopaedia was a product of the Enlightenment and intended as an educational vehicle to raise the level of the masses. The Encyclopaedists included some of the greatest thinkers of their time. They valued, above all: knowledge, understanding, truth. The "scientific method" was based upon the same foundations: empirical knowledge, verifiability and careful reasoning. These were the ideals of the Enlightenment , together with a belief in justice in society. Wikipedia is an embodiment of the opposite. It is a return to the Dark Ages, with an element of chaos that is greatly enhanced by the mass communications tools available in the internet. It involves a reduction of all genuine achievements to parity with the very basest, most primitive notions of the ignorant and undereducated. The encyclopaedists would never have proposed that their work was to be an equal collaboration of the ignorant and the educated. It was to be a vehicle for raising the former from their ignorance by making the most valuable achievements of human endeavor available to all. Wikipedia, on the contrary, is the enshrinement of contempt for learning, knowledge and expertise. It is, for many, a diversionary hobby to which they are prepared to devote a great portion of their time, as others do to computer based video games. Unfortunately, it has led also to an inner cult, shrouded in anonymity, with structures and processes of self-regulation that are woefully inadequate. Many of these tools and procedures are reminiscent, in parody, of those of the Inquisition: secret courts, an inner "elite" arbitrarily empowered to censor and exclude all those perceived as a threat to the adopted conventions of the cult; denunciations, character assassination, excommunication. An arbitrarily concocted "rulebook" and language rife with self-referential sanctimoniousness give a superficial illusion of order and good sense, but no such thing exists in practice. It is truly a "Tyranny of the Ignorant" |
” |
Also please read this article, and feel free to let me know, if you'd like to see more examples. Regards. 67.169.11.210 ( talk) 01:50, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
“ | I mean, they're so ridiculously self-important, when they aren't acting like trolls, and show no sense of grace, humanity, or even style. Admins and even rank-and-file contributors go around making high-sounding declarations and announcements, as if they were government officials dispensing court orders." | ” |
The following imaginary episode illustrates well the problems with Wikipedia, and argues that particular editors are more to blame than the rules.
It begins when editor P finds a relevant quote A in a 'reliable source', and includes it in an article. An expert E is unhappy with A as he knows it doesn't properly represent what is known, and may mislead. He therefore replaces it by B, which is quite similar but not problematic in the same way, explaining his reasoning on the talk page. P objects on the grounds that there is a RS for A, while there is none for version B, OR being involved in A's argument for B. Furthermore E has published in this area so there is a conflict of interest (CoI), and anything he says is suspect.
After telling us this, Socrates continues by saying that in this situation there seem to be two approaches editors can take, the first being P's approach that he characterises as perverse, involving ignoring E's analysis (E's CoI is cited as justification for this, as well as the fact that 'E appears not to be self-critical'). Certain otther editors Socrates classes similarly: they do study the analysis but bend the all-purpose RS rules in very dubious ways so as to be able to claim that E is using unacceptable sources in his argument.
Socrates then tells of an editor that he characterises as reasonable. A reasonable editor, he suggests, studies E's analysis, and agrees, on the basis of it, that statement A can mislead so should not be there as it stands. He sees that B does represent the situation better, and is not at all convinced by the arguments that P and his allies produce against using the sources cited by E. He thinks it reasonable to trust these sources given E's expertise (which he sees as a benefit rather than a reason to dismiss anything he says), and considers B to be the version to use. He thinks that, rather than slavishly following the rules, it is more reasonable, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, to assume the expert knows what he is talking about.
In the intellectually challenged world of wikipedia, 'putting in what appears to be correct' is an alien concept. Anyone who suggests it is reasonable to put in text that appears to be correct, rather than something demonstrably misleading, is abruptly told 'that is not how we do things here; take a break and come back when you are better informed'. End of story. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 18:07, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Work around it? How could 'working around that feature' possibly turn the 'memory of water' article into a credible one, with the wreckers, be they ignorant or disruptive, in full force (with ignorant editors, perhaps, but with some at least disruption is clearly the aim). The idea that you can educate such people is fantasy. I don't think your diagnosis helps very much as it can at best deal with a component of the problem. I think you are too entranced with Wikipedia's good side; tt is at best a 'potentially wonderful project'. It was not set up following good design practice, and such systems generally run into problems that are hard to fix. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:13, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 11:37, 8 August 2014 (UTC)Some editors' ability to willfully misread policy pages is essentially infinite.
The Purple Barnstar | ||
for your exemplary behavior under sustained wp:hounding. pearls before swine. Duckduckstop ( talk) 19:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC) |
I am afraid that Mr. Benveniste's definition is a bit narrow, and it's not shared by other researchers. Double-blind is applied to animal trials, for example. This definition applies also to Benveniste's experiment, since the researcher handling the water could treat tubes differently depending on whether they are control or not. See Aviva Petrie; Paul Watson (28 February 2013). Statistics for Veterinary and Animal Science. Wiley. pp. 130–131. ISBN 978-1-118-56740-1. (emphasis in the original):
"Chapter 5.7 Avoidance of bias in the assessment procedure (...) We ensure that our trial is free from assessment bias by making the trial blind or masked. There are two levels of 'blindness' - double-blind and single-blind."
The authors is expert on medical statistics [2]..
I suppose that further searches would find definitions that apply explicitly to experiments where the subject is inorganic. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 08:34, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) "A double-blind study in which radiologists tried to find lesions from images produced by two different algorithms concluded (...) "so perhaps you should tell them they've got it wrong.used to describe an experiment that is done so that neither the people who are doing the experiment nor the people who are the subjects of the experiments know which of the groups being studied is the control group and which is the test group
This article points out to signs of massive groupthink.-- 5.15.178.60 ( talk) 12:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Interesting to notice the assertion mentioned in the title of this subsection by this astrophysicist!-- 82.137.8.43 ( talk) 20:00, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard from a probabilistic POV the perspective on CF 2014 stated here?: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2013/12/lenr-outlook-2014.html -- 5.15.200.152 ( talk) 15:11, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
Are there some scheduled events for the 25th anniversary of CF?-- 5.15.36.186 ( talk) 18:56, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, are you aware of some studies concerning the isotopic effects (like the memory of heavy water) on the memory of water?-- 5.15.4.233 ( talk) 13:15, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
I bring to your attention another repository of CF papers and particularly one titled The physics of cold fusion phenomena (paper no 29, January 2011) from here.-- 5.15.55.216 ( talk) 00:57, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I have noticed this paper on Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. How do you view the effectiveness of the hypothesis presented there, based on the action of gravitation at nuclear level in CF, knowing that there some additional terms to the law of gravitation have been proposed over time, starting with Newton himself?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 12:31, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
I bring to your attention a rather more ″mainstream″ approach/support from Physical Review [5] to the issue mentioned above about extensions to Newtonian gravitation in a non-controversial frame.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 09:28, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Like yourself, I sought to edit at wikipedia under my real name, even though only a fraction of people here do this. For this, we are penalized with repeated conflict of interest issues, even though so many editors here are hiding behind their COI, making their attacks on us a classic example of projection. And typical of the many contradictions at this site, they allow medical doctors to edit on health and medical subjects, though they do not allow a homeopath to edit on homeopathic subjects or they harass you when you edit on a subject such as the memory of water for which you are an expert. Rather than use your (or my) expertise, they conveniently fabricate and enforce rules that disable certain experts to help make this website more accurate and truthful. It is particularly remarkable and unfair when editors here claim you have a COI just because you've gone on record as an EXPERT about the memory of water issue, even when there is no financial interest involved. I admire you, your brilliance, and your courage. DanaUllman Talk 02:01, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Professor Josephson have you read the following book by David Marks? I recently read the book and he mentions you on one page. David Marks writes:
In his book The Link, Manning presented his own story about poltergeists and other strange happenings that took place at home and at school from the age of eleven. Like Geller's My Story, The Link is an autobiographical account and, although it makes fascinating reading is of minimal evidential value. Manning described how, after watching Geller perform on television, he discovered that he too could bend cutlery and other metal objects. Physicists, like Nobel laureate Professor Brian Josephson, F.R.S., and mathematicians, like Dr. A. R. G Owen, flocked to study Manning's miracles. Josephson is reported by the Daily Mail of London to have concluded: "We are on the verge of discoveries which may be extremely important for physics. We are dealing here with a new kind of energy." The introduction to The Link promises a series of learned papers "following research on Manning's powers by twenty-one giants of science" in Toronto during June and July 1974. Twenty-five years later we are still awaiting these publications with great interest. Paraphysicists seem to be perpetually "on the verge of discoveries" and no closer to actually making any.
From his book The Psychology of the Psychic. p. 100.
I would be interested in knowing do you still believe Matthew Manning is a genuine psychic? Even when magicians have replicated his feats by trickery, and James Randi caught him in fraud? And what happened to your claims about discovering the "new kind of energy" (psychic energy?) thirty or so years ago? Goblin Face ( talk) 15:50, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Ostensibly, one Matthew Manning executes art work while in a trance. Drawings and paintings in the style of Bewick, Rowlandson, Beardsley, Klee, Matisse, Picasso, and other great names began to appear over the walls of his rooms and then all over the ceilings. He was visited by the spirits of these greats — according to Manning.
In an article in the San Francisco Examiner, Manning claimed that an art expert with Sotheby's gallery in London had said that one of the Picasso's he had drawn looked like an original, and that Sotheby's would have vouched for that if they hadn’t been told that Manning had done it. Fellow skeptic and psychic investigator James Randi decided to follow up on this story. He wrote to Sotheby’s. A reply by a Sothby’s official declared the claim "absolutely not true." He wrote that the various drawings done by the "spirits of various artists" had all been rendered by the same hand, and that they were very clever but not very convincing forgeries of existing works.
Manning made another claim in the London Daily Mirror. He had made a drawing of a monkey "while in a trance," and published it in his book, The Link. It had caused great excitement at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, he said. It was similar to a Savery original that was in their vaults and had never been published. Randi sent another letter. A reply from the museum cleared up the matter. The drawing had been published, first in 1905 and again in 1965. It was still available. And the original was on display to the public, not locked up in a vault.
These are only two items that were investigated. How many people will take the time and the trouble to check upon the myriad claims made by phony psychics? It is so much easier to sit back and say, "Hey, isn't that fantastic? This guy works miracles." It's more exciting, more out of the ordinary — makes for more stimulating conversation. It's also a lot of hokum.
From Henry Gordon's book Extrasensory Deception.
So basically Manning was a deliberate liar, a fraud. He had obviously seen the drawing and then lied by claiming it was in the vault. As for John Taylor I communicated with him before his death. He originally endorsed spoon bending but later came to realize it was nothing more than trickery. He also wrote an anti-paranormal book which I consider a classic. Regarding the bent key and a "dozen people watching" you can read how it's done in the book Gellerism Revealed by the magician Ben Harris, it contains photographs and shows the reader how to do it. Anyway the point in raising all this is not a personal chat on the subject. I am fixing the Matthew Manning article. Any references would be useful. As you knew Manning perhaps you can help cite some on the talk-page if you know anything. Thanks. Goblin Face ( talk) 17:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I've removed the duplicated quote (I don't claim to have found it first -- if you look carefully you'll see that I gave your ref a name so I could reuse it) and corrected the spelling of Uvani. The ref. I added is the last one in 'further reading'. It is very well known in the parapsychological community that people bent spoons by hand when they thought they were not being watched.-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 19:01, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi there, just a friendly reminder to adhere to WP:3RR you're currently getting a bit close to the limit on that at Eileen J. Garrett and I'd strongly recommend you taking the discussion to talk before trying to reinsert this edit. Simonm223 ( talk) 22:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I think concerning the disputed Cowan reference can be used non-controversially in relation to hydrogen bond article where its whole content (not just abstract as some people who can't acces do) could be cited more extensively and thus the abusive use of it can be diminished. I'd do it myself, but unfortunately from this IP I can't access the full text from Nature.
What means are there for a more extensive citation of its full text that could be used to this end for users who can't access its full text in order to prevent a misquoting? Please share your thoughts.
I have also noticed a wikirule who forbids the citing of sources that haven't been read entirely by those who wish to cite them.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 13:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
I've send you an email from the registered acount.-- U18827144sqr ( talk) 12:20, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
I've put the link to the article misquoted by Huizenga mentioned in the email in a section from Nernst equation and also here [6]. If you don't mind, please also send it me to be perused in appropriate articles.-- U18827144sqr ( talk) 12:48, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
As (preliminary) remark(s) on full text of Cowan, the source is rather qualitative, no formula being included (unlike the other paper by Huot) and some vague concept are not (enough) detailed like the memory of persistent correlations. Some experimental spectroscopic data are presented and no sign of the memory of dissolved substances.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 14:41, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
In this context of dismantling misconceived objections I think it is also useful to attack the alleged (by Taubes) heat generation in CF only due to difference in ionic conductivities of deuterated salts solutions compared to protiated/standard aqueous solutions. Are you aware of a such misquotation of an article by Gary Taubes in his (magnus) opus, made similarly to Huizenga?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 14:12, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Hello Prof Josephson! I have made some edit proposals (and source quoting) on talk:cold fusion. Please share your thought there.-- 5.15.29.151 ( talk) 21:17, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
It seems to me that implausibility is in the eye of the beholder. CF is commonly thought to be an effect associated with nanostructures, and if a nanoparticle could act as a single quantum system it would have roughly the right number of atoms. The problem. of course, would be fleshing out the 'somehow'. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 10:09, 31 March 2014 (UTC)While we have not been able rigorously to rule out such an exotic long-range effect operative only at finite temperature, it seems extraordinarily implausible.
I've had a response from Leggett and Baym now, which I've added to the cold fusion talk page.-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:05, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, re the paper by Huot cited by Huizenga that you sended to me, I haven't figure out how to access the discussed quote in order to properly deal and adjust the cold fusion article because as I can see there is no Amazon preview of the book. Could you send it to me by the email where you have send the Huot paper or even post it here in order to fix the matter of the quote and its usability once and for all. Thanks-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 16:00, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
There is another theoretical article which refers to CF (tangentially?) and it would be useful to be analyzed to see what it has to say. The article is authored by Setsuo Ichimaru, Nuclear Fusion in Dense Plasmas, Reviews of Modern Physics, 65 (1993), p 255-299. (I'm bringing this article to your attention.)-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 09:36, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
Hello Prof Josephson! The article neutron lacks some info re neutron radius and methods of determining it. Please share your thoughts on this topic at Talk:Neutron#Radius.-- 188.26.22.131 ( talk) 10:59, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view the circumstances of fraud allegations against Rusi Taleyarkhan's results in sonofusion in relation to the so-called scientific consensus?-- 5.15.186.102 ( talk) 11:49, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I notice interesting new ( intermediary) developments on talk pages (and even in article) of water memory and E-Cat that I thought useful to bring to your attention.-- 5.15.186.74 ( talk) 20:39, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
I think it must said that TOAT has put a question about the utility of request for quotes (Huizenga etc) which he semi-humorously calls them scavenger hunt. His question is answered with many details in sections that have been problematically (or conveniently?) archived. The situation seems tragicomical.-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 13:54, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
This comment on wikipedia by Dean Radin is worth quoting here:
If Wikipedia honestly advertised that its goal was to reflect interpretations of the status quo by people who have no expertise, then I'd have no problem with it.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 08:54, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 09:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
If people really want to know about this sordid attempt to stop me editing, they can read all about it here.
The BLP Barnstar | ||
Your efforts to improve the biography of Russell Targ have not gone unnoticed! If you decide to go to the media over this, rest assured you have my full support. One day, hard science will triumph over pseudoskepticism. Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! A1candidate ( talk) 12:14, 11 May 2014 (UTC) |
The BLP Barnstar | ||
Your efforts to improve the biography of Russell Targ have not gone unnoticed! One day, hard science will triumph over pseudoskepticism. Also ---Thanks again - for your efforts - -- George1935 ( talk) 16:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC) |
Hi, the discussion at the Administrator Noticeboard gave a clear majority for immediate unblocking, and I have accordingly unblocked your account.
Two bits of advice. First, it is always a good idea to avoid anything that might be perceived as a legal threat. In most cases referring to the internal policy on biographies of living people and what in the article is violating it will get the point across adequately. Also suggestions that you will go to the media and so on are usually frowned upon because it may be viewed as trying to intimidate other users. In the vast majority of cases, disputes on Wikipedia can be settled internally on Wikipedia. Sjakkalle (Check!) 18:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Do I detect a closet Molesworth fan? Guy ( Help!) 21:03, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
{{ uw-coi}} Murry1975 ( talk) 15:27, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
I might also draw attention to a remark made by a very experienced editor on the talk page for Talk:Russell Targ: Lighten up! Targ can edit his own biography as long as he does not violate the COI guideline. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 16:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Your recent editing history at Russell Targ shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.
To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. See BRD for how this is done. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. Theroadislong ( talk) 11:47, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. The thread is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Brian_Josephson reported by User:MrBill3 (Result: ). Thank you. MrBill3 ( talk) 11:58, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi Brian - Please don't act as a conduit/ meatpuppet for Russell Targ, who is currently blocked. You're welcome to express your own views in your own words, but directly copying and pasting a statement from someone who is calling for assistance with his Wikipedia page offsite is problematic. Best. Kevin Gorman ( talk) 21:01, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Sure, but the best editors manage to combine both perspectives, and on most pages this works: there need be no incompatibility. There is absolutely no need to shut down ordinary thinking while editing. Have you considered the possibility that there may be something to the comments I have gathered in my 'world is watching' section? (this station is now closing down for the night, BTW).-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 22:33, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
You said elsewhere, "there is reason to believe that some people watch over my edits and mindlessly revert these edits automatically". This is called WP:WIKIHOUNDING and is not acceptable behavior on WP. You have every right to edit WP (within guidelines and policy). The WP community benefits from a variety of viewpoints and the opinions of even small minorities should be thoughtfully and courteously considered. Activities that disrupt another editor's enjoyment of editing are strongly frowned upon (policies and guidelines can be burdensome enough). If you feel that an editor is hounding you please take the time to ask them to stop on their talk page. If you feel this behavior continues or is being practiced by a group of editors acting indistinguishably and in apparent concert you can bring your concerns to the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. While I have issues with your behavior or editing from time to time, I do not condone behavior that is against policy, disruptive or rude. There are a variety of things which may create the impression you are being wikihounded when that is not the case (WikiProject Skepticism, the Fringe Theories Noticeboard, user watchlists may frequently overlap your areas of interest for instance). Best wishes and happy editing. - - MrBill3 ( talk) 11:37, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles.
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Legal threats from Brian Josephson (again). Thank you. Ian.thomson ( talk) 16:22, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 16:24, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
Do you have an ORCID identifier that can be added to Wikidata and thus to the {{ Authority control}} template on the article about you? If not, I encourage you to sign up for one. Also, please would you record your voice for our article about you, as described at WP:WikiVIP? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:02, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
Some further points:
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:56, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard the profile of this author, Steven Novella, whose work from Skeptical Inquirer has been inserted recently (as secondary source) in water memory article by Enric Naval in support of keeping the (misquoted) Cowan reference?-- 82.137.11.52 ( talk) 15:09, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your contributions to WP. I appreciate your active engagement and strongly encourage you to provide suggested content based on good sources. I hope you are interested in improving WP and willing to devote some personal effort. As you have access to some of the possible references on Russell Targ I would greatly appreciate some paragraph length quotes that I could paraphrase and add or at least become comfortable using these sources as references to support existing content. Feel free to post them to my talk page. While we may disagree on the significance and prominence due Targ's laser research, I am willing to consider your position if more support from reliable secondary sources is available. I believe WP is improved by having the positions of a variety of editors presented and evaluated. As you are intelligent and have some familiarity with a variety of topics in a scholarly context I urge you to consider contributing across multiple subjects on WP. I am somewhat puzzled by the way you present information. If I might be so bold I suggest an attempt at suggested encyclopedic content on talk pages. With your notable experience in academia I am confident you are skilled at concise, factual, cited writing. I again temper my allegations of POV pushing with an appreciation for your thoughtful engagement. I think everyone has a POV and that is fine, on WP what counts is policy and source support for assertions. Again thank you for the time and effort you contribute to WP. - - MrBill3 ( talk) 22:10, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi Brian, in case you didn't get the ping about this, please see Template:Did you know nominations/Brian Josephson. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:17, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view the labeling as fringe of some w'topics by people who don't show enough technical understanding of the topics involved?-- 82.137.9.40 ( talk) 20:55, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
It seems that a rather interesting poll to determine the level of support for CF as fringe or non fringe is taking place on talk:cold fusion#Going Forward - RFC or in the wording from there whether cold fusion is considered by most of the academic community to be pathological science. Your feedback could be useful.-- 82.137.9.172 ( talk) 20:05, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
The initiator of the poll has emphasized somewhere the importance of technical understanding.-- 82.137.9.172 ( talk) 20:33, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view the utility and benefit for wikicontent of the guideline WP:FRNG? Please share your thought!-- 82.137.13.98 ( talk) 17:19, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
What are its weak points?-- 82.137.13.98 ( talk) 17:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Would it not be great if it there were some procedure for adding to articles (where appropriate) a tag providing the information many scientists consider this article to be totally biased? Then people would know not to trust the article. Just a thought! Dream on -- the same people that biased the article in the first place would never permit such a tag. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 17:44, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding pseudoscience and fringe science, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.
This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard the aspects pointed out by Kirk Shanahan in the present talk from CF? He seems a person quite reasonable with whom it can be talked unlike the other editors like Andy theG, Johnunig, JJ, Roches, Enric Naval who have low argumentative value interventions due to repetition of cliches/ buzzwords? (As it has been underlined, RFC is not by counting votes)-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 11:52, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, are you aware of any inside info re a possible interest in CF by, say, Cambridge University Electrochemistry Department?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 10:58, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you regard the hydrotron model proposed by Storms for CF as a theoretical construction in regards to its validity?-- 188.27.144.144 ( talk) 08:26, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
It is interesting to see that someone has brought a lawsuit against specific wikipedia editors for information added to his article that he considers erroneous and “defamatory.” See http://www.dailydot.com/news/wikipedia-lawsuit-yank-barry-10-million/ for details. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 20:17, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Psychologist Julia Mossbridge, when asked how her academic interest in parapsychology began, said:
I started out as a staunch materialist, until I met a very bright student who asked me why I was so sure of my position. I was a neuroscience student at Oberlin, and she was a religion major. I balked at her question, mocking the idea of God and/or anything outside of the materialist point of view. As I did it, I remembered feeling superiority as well as embarrassment for her that she should be so ill-informed.
She simply told me I was being arrogant and using that arrogance as a shield against any information that might counter my bias. I was taken aback, but I knew she was right. I could feel the arrogance, and I could feel the fear underneath...the fear that I was wrong. That science could have it wrong.
I had felt that before about various scientific dogmas, and on the occasions when I had, my feeling that science had it wrong turned out to be correct.
Sceptical editors might do well to reflect on that comment. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 20:16, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
You say you want to improve the Dean Radin article. The problem is that this can not be done any further due to lack of reliable references. I have spent a long time looking in books, magazines and science journals that mention Radin. All of these contain negative comments about his paranormal beliefs or only mention him in passing detail. I have not come across any reliable sources i.e. mainstream science publications that are favorable for Radin or his beliefs about psi. As you are in contact with Radin, get him to compile a list of reliable references (not parapsychology journals) that mention his work in a "positive" light and send it to me here. The problem is that you will find that none exist. Feel free to prove me wrong though. You say you want to improve the article so I would like to know what sources you actually were thinking of. Goblin Face ( talk) 16:33, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
But Nature wouldn't follow that ethical principle. There's real suppression of parapsychology there. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:26, 20 July 2014 (UTC)Any time a reputable news organisation gives its readers or viewers details that later turn out not to be true, they are obligated to tell the truth.
Positive reviews for Radin (self published):
1. Remote viewer Courtney Brown [7] [8]. (Not reliable sources, I already asked about this).
2. New age website "Enlightenment" [9] - fringe source not reliable.
3. Spirituality and Practice [10] - fringe source not reliable.
4. Publishers weekly [11] - Already cited on the article.
5. The Monroe Institute [12] - fringe source not reliable.
6. Conspiracy theorist Kevin Barrett [13] - Fringe source not reliable.
7. MindFutures remote viewing [14] - Fringe source not reliable.
8. Journal of Scientific Exploration [15], [16] - Considered a fringe/pseudoscience journal. Not reliable by Wikipedia standards.
Other links
Encyclopedia of American Loons [17] - Not a reliable source, but funny.
Goblin Face ( talk) 17:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you consider the most recent situation from talk:cold fusion where a rather unfortunate insistent intervention from the IP 84.106... has lead to semi-protection of that talk page?
It seems rather concerning this incident has provided a convenient pretext to discriminate legitimate comments from IPs on a talk page in favour of registered users this being against wikirule against the discrimination of IPs. ( User:Callanecc has semi-protected considering hastily also against wikirule that it has been persistent disruption beside the most recent rather unfortunate intervention from the mentioned IP.)-- 5.15.23.182 ( talk) 21:30, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
The mentioned IP has also initiated a request at Arbcom that has been perceived as an attempt to by-pass consensus formation by RFC. In this volatile situation, how long do you consider that RFC duration on that talk page should be compared to the default duration (30 d) and what uninvolved editor is entitled to appreciate (close RFC) whether or not some consensus (or lack of) has emerged?-- 5.15.23.182 ( talk) 21:43, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Before I get on to Radin's comments, let me just say that it was interesting to hear
Jimmy Wales on the
Radio 4 Today programme this morning. He was there as a representative of Google, commenting on the topical issue of deletion of links from Google search. It is a pity that
John Humphrys didn't also quiz him about the way sources on Wikipedia get removed!
That's a good preliminary to Radin's comment. As you can imagine, there has been much discussion about the unbalanced nature of his Wikipedia article, and he has recently made this comment:
In the world before Wikipedia, when books and articles were usually published by and vetted by experts, [...]'s work would never have passed peer review. In today's world, anyone can publish anything.
In fact, the situation is worse, as Wikipedia can pick up such unreviewed publications and treat them as authority, then Google will place such articles high on its search list, and the possibly uninformed content will be seen by people who may treat such content as seriously as they would the contents of an ordinary encyclopedia compiled by experts. This is built in to w'pedia's revered
secondary sources mechanism. The idea is that somehow, if somebody has written about something, that in itself makes that thing appropriate to be in the encyclopedia. The idea is absurd, of course, and it leads to editors being able to pick and choose sources that will support their own point of view (not to mention the various tricks that editors use to remove references they don't like).
Wikipedia seems not to know of the existence of the peer review process as adopted in the world of learning to check the quality of work that has been submitted; if you look at
peer review you'll find that the only kind of peer review w'pedia knows about officially is its own process for resolving disputes. Failure to acknowledge peer review as a some guarantor of credibility, preferring instead the indiscriminate mechanism of 'secondary source', is a serious failing on wikipedia's part. --
Brian Josephson (
talk) 19:22, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
I see from this discussion that skeptics associations are trying in general to establish scientific consensus instead of scientists. Am I right in this impression?-- 213.233.84.16 ( talk) 14:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
Dear Professor Brian Josephson, I admire your works and contributions to various fields. From my point of view it´s a pity that so many engineers want to be scientists and so many scientists want to be engineers. Maybe thats a key to what you call pathological disbelieve. This is hopefully a social triggered temporary constellation - but I think there will be a paradigma change some day. It´s encouraging to see someone "old school" (dont mind) participating in this modern challenge of social interaction. Originary interested into physics, I think that "cabal research" has something challenging. Best Wishes, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fritz194 ( talk • contribs) 23:19, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
I would also like to add my gratitude for your efforts here on wikipedia, thank you for the continued annoyance and frustration you cause these ideological wikignomes of no particular historical significance. 76.216.227.107 ( talk) 00:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)Anonymous Fan
Professor Josephson, how do you view the (knowledge) status of hybrid disciplines (both consolidated and emergent) in re to the status of more base disciplines from which a hybrid discipline emerges? Can a hybrid discipline appropriate the methods of a base discipline? This request for comment from you is especially interesting in the context of condensed matter nuclear science.-- 5.15.34.57 ( talk) 20:42, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Given your recent activity on the talk page of Verifiable, I am inviting you to participate in the discussion I started in regard to establishing a prima facia case for verifiable sources if it is has met and maintained the standards for inclusion in Google News.– GodBlessYou2 ( talk) 20:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I've noticed the bio-related context of your recent edits at talk:autopoesis. Given this, I bring to your attention a topic encountered today while browsing and editing w'pedia, association induction hypothesis (by Gilbert Ling) which has been recently labeled at reference desk:Science as fringe instead of alternative hypothesis. I sense that this topic may be related to water memory, a topic where I know you have intervened (and I see it has been fixed in the main aspect concerning the contentious source CWN). I ask therefore how do you view the situation of this hypothesis from the point of view of alternativity? Please comment also at the request for deletion of this mentioned w'page Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Association_induction_hypothesis.-- 94.53.199.249 ( talk) 20:06, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello, Prof Josephson! To your knowledge, is it possible that may be multiple meanings to the term cold fusion? This physicist Robert Smolanczuk has a paper with cold fusion in title in a mainstream journal: Smolanczuk, R. (1999). "Production a mechanism of superheavy nuclei in cold fusion reactions". Physical Review C. 59 (5): 2634–2639. Bibcode: 1999PhRvC..59.2634S. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevC.59.2634.. Is the cold fusion mentioned here the same with the subject of w'article cold fusion?-- 86.125.182.23 ( talk) 15:17, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello Prof Josephson! What is your overall impression on the results presented at the most recent ICCF, namely ICCF-19 in Padua? Please share your thoughts!-- 5.15.15.255 ( talk) 12:00, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view/estimate the influence of the recently launched research program in CMNS at University of Tohoku as a pressure factor in launching and funding other research programs in the field, especially, but not only, in Europe?-- 86.125.172.58 ( talk) 20:09, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
An article that you have been involved in editing— Upper tangent arc —has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Pierre cb ( talk) 04:01, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Your recent editing history at Energy Catalyzer shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you get reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.
Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. VQuakr ( talk) 17:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Things have moved on quite a bit on that talk page. Clearly these people have purely and simply the aim of ensuring by any means whatever that no reference to Lewan's comment about the connection with the e-cat should be included. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 16:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The discussion is at DRN:Energy Catalyzer. Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! -- Guy Macon ( talk) 20:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Interference with DRN case, possible violation of topic ban. Thank you. Guy Macon ( talk) 00:21, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
This page is getting a bit big so I'm engaged in moving outdated stuff to https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:Brian_Josephson/Archive_1. -- Brian Josephson ( talk) 11:38, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current
Arbitration Committee election. The
Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia
arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose
site bans,
topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The
arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to
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MediaWiki message delivery (
talk) 13:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, do you know how this system of blocking external links works on w'pedia? Is there some non-automatic proposal needed to be done by some editors to block certain links (like that from the Japanese government)? Does it appear in the list of those editors' contributions? Who might be involved? JzG, ToAT, etc?-- 5.15.5.245 ( talk) 18:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Dear Brian,
How are you lately? Hope you're well.
In case you're interested, I've updated the picture on its article.
Best wishes,
cmɢʟee⎆
τaʟκ 12:05, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you view the use of the Journal of Visualized Experiments as citable source for CF article in the situation that some papers appear in it?-- 79.119.208.208 ( talk) 17:41, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, I notice this discussion and it be must be said that the people who accept only 100% reproducibility in materials are not aware of the non-deterministic nature of the phenomena which may occur in materials, in other words they expect only deterministic phenomena to occur which would be 100% reproducible, isn't it? (I have also noticed your comments on talk:Reproducibility from August-September 2013 where you pointed out that purely statistical factors cannot be excluded!)-- 82.79.115.12 ( talk) 17:40, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
So, by the above reasoning, I'm wondering whether in these conditions, scientific articles re CF in this Journal are more useful in regards to a better control of the experimental setup than articles published in more conventional journals without video files attached and omitted details in the text?!?-- 82.79.115.12 ( talk) 17:50, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you, as a theoretical physicist, view the relation between theoretical physics and mathematical physics? Can mathematical physics be seen as serving as bridge between theoretical physics and mathematics? Thanks for your perspective.-- 82.137.11.73 ( talk) 14:10, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Prof Josephson, how do you think about the presence of of this article Free-fall atomic model as alternative theoretical formulation on W'pedia? (I've just come across some comments by Enric Naval at talk page Talk:Free-fall_atomic_model#Merge_author_here and a PROD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Free-fall_atomic_model on grounds of not belonging to mainstream. It seems that status as an alternative theoretical formulation has not crossed the minds of the editors at prod discussion.) Your input there is very valuable. Thanks.-- 82.137.11.206 ( talk) 04:21, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Dear Professor Josephson,
There is this big disagreement between quantum and diffusion predictions, especially around the Anderson localization for a semiconductor: standard diffusion would lead to nearly uniform probability density of electrons, making it a conductor. In contrast, QM predicts that electrons should be localized, preventing the conductance - what agrees with experiment.
There is a recent Wikipedia article ( /info/en/?search=Maximal_Entropy_Random_Walk ) claiming that this disagreement is caused by the fact that standard diffusion models only approximate the principle of maximum entropy - that choosing diffusion model which really maximizes entropy is no longer in disagreement with quantum predictions - leads to exactly the same probability distribution as QM with its strong localization properties (the original 2009 paper: http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.160602 ).
Could you maybe comment on this topic - is it the right way to repair this disagreement? 188.146.4.255 ( talk) 06:45, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
Dear Brian,
In case you're interested, Trinity College's Singing on the River and Singing from the Towers are on today (12/6) at 8:45 p.m. and 12 noon, respectively.
Best wishes,
cmɢʟee⎆
τaʟκ 23:33, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
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I have just updated the w'pedia page of my recently deceased friend and colleague Alan Baker with a better photo of him that appeared in an article about him on the college web site, a representative of the firm that took the photo having gone through the process of notifying w'pedia of its agreement to there being a CC licence. In accord with the terms of that licence I wanted to include mention of the firm concerned, JET Photographic, so changed the caption from the previous 'Alan Baker' to 'photo by ...', by changing what followed 'caption = ...' in the Infobox, as you'll see if you go into edit mode on that page. The new caption mysteriously doesn't appear, though the identical process worked before, and 'caption' is one of the items listed in Template:Infobox scientist. Can anyone figure out how to fix the problem?-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 09:24, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
For what it's worth I think you are entirely correct in trying to add this material. Yes, there are wiki policies that can be used to justify not including it - but the most important wiki rule of all is WP:IAR (ignore all rules that prevent you from improving wikipedia). However there it seems there is a majority of editors at that article who insist (for whatever reasons) that it not be included, and on wikipedia, majority tends to rule. Still, there are other avenues available - for instance, you or someone else could start a Request for Comment (RfC). Those tend to get a wider variety of editors involved and might reverse the consensus. Waleswatcher (talk) 13:05, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
— Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 10:37, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.
You have shown interest in pseudoscience and fringe science. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.
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Doug Weller talk 07:19, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
Not that it is difficult to do. :) I just realized you edited Trinity College, Cambridge while logged out then left a message on my talk page while logged in. I wondered why I templated "a regular" but then realized it was IP 82.26.152.165. Anyway, it's probably best to always edit logged in (see WP:LOGOUT if you are not already familiar). S0091 ( talk) 20:40, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
As you have similarly appeared on Closer to Truth, wondering if you have any insight into Varadaraja V. Raman, as his article is up for deletion. Trying to demonstrate his notability. Thanks. Hyperbolick ( talk) 16:45, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Saw your objection in the deletion discussion. The closer originally closed it as a keep, but then the one who nominated it for deletion in the first place left some comment on the closer’s talk to persuade him to make it a “no consensus.” I think they do that so they can try to delete it again at some point in the future. Just need to keep an eye out for that sort of thing. Thank you! Hyperbolick ( talk) 23:24, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Please do not attack other editors. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:52, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi Brian: we had a brief discussion about Charles Tart, and you've obviously been involved in a certain amount of Wikpedia, uh, "discussion", so perhaps you'd find the attached article I wrote on editing Wikipedia to be interesting. Feel free to distribute it if you think it might be useful (it's intended for intelligent people who know little about how Wikipedia works: so, not you :-) ). Finney1234 ( talk) 19:27, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
http://sfinney.com/images/mwp01.pdf
Brian Josephson: if you get into more "discussions" (or if there's something recent) where you genuinely think that something valid that you wrote (with a reference) is being removed for no good reason (by "guerilla skeptics"), give me a pointer to it. I dug seriously into WP:MOS in a "discussion" about a year ago, and would be glad to add some backup if I agree with you. Numbers, and verbosity, and tenacity, unfortunately, do matter in those "discussions").
Hi there Brian Josephson, I noted your edit on Autopoiesis and comment the talk page of Robert Rosen (theoretical biologist). I want to merge his theory Complex systems biology and his book Anticipatory Systems to the article on him. The article on the book fails to establish notability in my mind, it contains a single independent review and the other two sources are to himself or a student of his. The theory complex systems biology, if I understand it correctly, is a philosophical rejection of empirical science and an attempt to holistically understand life and consciousness, i.e. a gestalt theory, emergence... religion. I understand he wanted to mix in quantum theory with biology to state that "old-fashioned" empirical biology cannot provide a mathematical model of life and consciousness because of uncertainty principal, etc. If I am getting this straight, it was primarily popular in the 1990s among bloggers/chat boards who were interested in cybernetics and artificial intelligence. The Wikipedia article about it was/is still barely readable. It needn't have a article, considering that the relevant sources were all written by Rosen, and it hasn't seemed to inspire many people. But perhaps I'm being too much of snide sceptic. Also, this is totally not my field -I'm a simple botanist. I guess I was triggered by the bad writing... So shall I merge, or leave it at this? Leo Breman ( talk) 17:05, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
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Please stop your disruptive editing.
If you continue to disrupt Wikipedia, as you did at Parapsychology, you may be blocked from editing. Ixocactus ( talk) 22:12, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to blank out or remove portions of page content, templates, or other materials from Wikipedia without adequate explanation, as you did at Brian Josephson, you may be blocked from editing. Ixocactus ( talk) 22:18, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Weighing in here, my experience is that Brian is wise and reasonable and would be wise tonlisten to. Hyperbolick ( talk) 09:14, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you insert a spam link, as you did at Parapsychology. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted, preventing anyone from linking to them from all Wikimedia sites as well as potentially being penalized by search engines. Ixocactus ( talk) 00:33, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
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