Statedclearly
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February 2016 edit
Your recent editing history at Specified complexity 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 are 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. — Jess· Δ♥ 18:29, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- Hi Statedclearly. I don't want to deter you from editing; I get where you're coming from... but we have policies on wikipedia we need to follow. Right now it's important that you read WP:EW, which discusses a behavior known as "edit warring" that you're currently engaging in. I'm happy to talk about this with you, but you need to use the article talk page (Talk:Specified complexity), not keep making the same change to the article over and over. Thanks. — Jess· Δ♥ 18:32, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Jess, I have tried several times now to explain why your edits of my edits are not appropriate. Please re-read what I have written in the talk page. The current wording in the article on SC is inappropriate. You have labeled a concept as "pseudoscience" not because it actually is pseodoscience, but because it is used by people who teach pseudoscience. This is the wrong way to go about educating the public. --Statedclearly (talk) 18:54, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- I've read what you've written and understand it very well, but you're unfortunately not following the conversation. I'm not opposed to covering Orgel's ideas; I think it's great you're trying to expand on an area we don't cover much right now. Really, that's terrific! The problem is you're going about it the wrong way. You are treating wikipedia like it's a dictionary, which would suggest our article on "specified complexity" would treat it like a term that's been used in different ways to mean different things. But wikipedia is not a dictionary, it's an encyclopedia. Our article on specified complexity is not about the term, it's about the pseudoscientific topic. If the term "specified complexity" can also refer to a different topic, then we would create a different article to discuss that topic. The policy I've linked you to, WP:NOTDICT, discusses this in some detail. — Jess· Δ♥ 19:12, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- Maybe an example would help. We have three articles for "Mercury": Mercury (element), Mercury (planet) and Mercury (mythology). Each share the same term "Mercury", but they are all different topics. We don't have one article which discusses how the term "Mercury" has been used in three different ways; we have three different articles to cover each topic on its own. Again... WP:NOTDICT is a wikipedia policy that discusses this in some detail. Does that make sense? — Jess· Δ♥ 19:23, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
I am new to this and I appreciate your help. If you are willing to skype with me on the subject I'd love to set up a time next week to do that.
Let me be clear: I am not, in any way, intending for you to re-write the article as a dictionary with multiple definitions. I am asking you to let the article actually describe the concept of SC. It is not pseudoscience. It is a legitimate scientific term.
I spent the morning looking into how the ID movement uses the term and they are actually using it correctly. Demski's description of SC is true to the real concept put forth by Orgel. The thing Dembski does wrong is that he's jumping to a false conclusion. His reasoning goes like something this: Specified Complexity is real, I'm even beginning to find ways to measure it; therefore, Jesus!
The concept of SC is not pseudoscience. The conclusion Dembski is making with the concept is pseudoscience, or better yet, just bad reasoning.
Again, we would not start an article on fossils by saying that fossils are pseudoscience because some creationists like to interpret them within the global flood paradigm. Why then, are you insisting we do this with SC? Please explain your reasoning. The dictionary argument is not a reason. Orgel's concept is not a separate concept from that being taught by the ID movement. It is the same as Dembski's. It is the conclusions they draw using the concept that are different, just like the conclusions creationsts draw from fossils are different from the conclusions that real scientists make.
SC is an important scientific concept and should be treated as such. I will gladly do a proper re-write of the intro on that page, I admit that my current edit is simply a band-aid. For now though, I would very much appreciate you putting that band-aid back up. --Statedclearly (talk) 19:59, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- Okay, but the point is that Specified complexity is about the pseudoscience. That article is not about any kind of scientific idea. You're saying "
we shouldn't write that specified complexity is pseudoscience because another use of the word isn't pseudoscience
". Alright, then that other use of the word is a different idea, and it belongs in its own space. Anything that is not "a pseudoscientific concept proposed by William Dembski to promote intelligent design
" does not belong in that article. Look at your edit again. You changed the article to say "Specified complexity is a term [that means X. It has been changed to mean Y]
." Again, since we are not a dictionary, we are not writing about "terms". That "X" and "Y" are different things shows perfectly that they are different ideas, and need to be treated separately in an encyclopedia. — Jess· Δ♥ 08:01, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
After looking into Dembski's work in depth yesterday, I see that he has not changed the definition, he has expanded upon the concept by giving various new examples and he has tried to describe it mathematically (It seems he's failed but the attempt was worthwhile). The only thing pseudoscientific he is doing is using the concept to promote ID. He's jumping to a conclusion that is not supported by the evidence.
It's tempting to want to label everything the ID people do as "pseudoscience" but this label is often not justified.--Statedclearly (talk) 20:16, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Well, about the pseudoscience, we only follow the sources. If the reliable academic sources say that it's pseudoscience, that's what we're compelled to represent, and vice-versa. Our best sources label ID (and specified complexity) a pseudoscience, so we can't use our own editorial judgement to dispute that. But as far as I'm aware, those sources are talking about Demski's work, not Orgel's, and honestly I'm not too familiar with the latter. You were saying earlier that they are actually different things, but now you appear to be suggesting they might be the same thing, just proposed at different times and applied in different ways. If that's true, we have a few options:
- We can discuss the origin of the idea in the current Specified complexity article. It probably would not belong in the very first sentence, because most of our sources don't discuss it (I can explain this more in depth if we get here, but it's a policy called "due weight"). It would probably be best suited to its own section on "History" or "Origin".
- We could still include it in Orgel's bio, if it is significant enough to his biography. We could then include a hatnote at the top of the Specified complexity article linking to it.
- We could still make a new page to cover it in detail, and we could link to that page within the current Specified complexity article. This would be appropriate if Orgel's ideas were notable in their own right.
- I don't know which of these options is most appropriate; only investigating the sourcing will bear that out. But those are the options we're pointing to right now. Can you give me a strong academic source that discusses Orgel's idea, with or without mention of Demski? Thanks StatedClearly! — Jess· Δ♥ 20:32, 26 February 2016 (UTC)