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Pirate edits

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Thanks for your edits on Moody and Noland! I fixed the Noland page (changed date, added reference, reworded), and I like the way you worded the Moody edit. I hadn't had time to find the reference in Johnson, but you beat me to it, so it's all good! I've never used the Quote tag but I'll try to do so more often in the future.

TheLastBrunnenG (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the immediate fix to Richard Noland! In a similar vein, Richard Worley's page states that Moody may have been active "well after 1718", citing Charles Grey; however, I don't see references to dates other than "November 1718" in text near "Moody". Do you know whether the statement is backed up by Grey, and if so, on what page[s]? AlphaMikeOmega (talk) 00:35, 6 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

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Kherson

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Added a new source (published as of 15 minutes ago) by the BBC regarding the Ukrainian flag being hung in Kherson by protesters, and the report clearly refers to the city as "occupied". The earlier second source you added was clearly referring to Kherson as a province since the sentence that talks about Ukrainian attempts to regain territory is right bellow a map showing Kherson in Russian-controlled territory, while the areas north of Kherson city are contested. The map in that news post could itself be considered a source confirming Russian control. If there is actually fighting in Kherson city itself, we would need sources that more clearly establish that. EkoGraf (talk) 15:51, 24 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Re: Velykyi Burluk

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Hi, I've added a CNN extra source for Velykyi Burluk.--HCPUNXKID 19:32, 24 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Control of cities during the Russo-Ukrainian War

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All of the mentioned towns also fall within territories confirmed under Russian control by the Institute for the Study of War, which bases almost all of its information on announcements by the Ukrainian General Staff. For reference, see the latest version of their control map [1] which has been republished and reused by dozens of reliable sources since the start of the conflict. Also, no problem with adding the info you mentioned to the "More information" column. Best regards and thank you as well for keeping all of it up-to-date! EkoGraf (talk) 02:30, 27 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

@EkoGraf Indeed, I had not considered the map. That said, the map does not show territories "confirmed" to be under Russian control, but only "assessed" so. In addition, as I am sure you are aware, the Control of cities during the Russo-Ukrainian War page is used to inform changes to the detailed map, for which "copying from maps is strictly prohibited" (even for reliable sources, because these maps are "approximate"). Either of these is, I believe, sufficient reason to not use the ISW map as a source. Therefore, I still consider the edits in question too close to WP:OR. (Related to this, I was unable to verify the previous source for Krolevets, so I would suggest not restoring that but classing the city as having "Unknown" control.) AlphaMikeOmega (talk) 21:12, 27 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Bamboula Village moved to draftspace

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Concern regarding Draft:Piracy in the Indian Ocean

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All about LUCA and Lucy

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Mike,

MichaelTheGamer responding (finally) to your deletion of my comments. It upset me that you could write something mean, unconstructive, and as I had then, and I am now forming complete sentences, your This person can't write words clearly were wrong. How do you expect to be convincing as someone who is just trying to make Wikipedia a better place with publicly humiliating statements? Did it ever occur to you that you could be wrong? If I asked you to look—really look—at a website like icr.org or genesisapologetics.com or even answersingenesis.org, would you? Because when it comes down to it, Mike, if you really know the human body and its staggering complexity, what would you say is more intricately formed (for lack of a more neutral-sounding verb—which is not meant to seem like a jab or anything malicious, just had to let you know that I struggled between made, designed, created, and constructed and I had to pick something), a human being or a Boeing 747 Jet Aircraft? Granted, it is not an immediately-decided, hands down win. But I do hope that you said that a human being is the more intricate of the two. That being said, how easily do think it would be to show you a brand new 747, up close and personal and then convince you that this here beautiful machine was not built by man (or God). No, it just...happened. Or, if I tried to sell you on the idea that it evolved from a B-29 (the same model as the one that dropped the first atom bomb), and say, a B-52? And they evolved...and if I go any further, there would be no chance of convincing you that I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I am not. This is why it took this long. I was that upset. But as a Christian, how can I possibly do as I am supposed to do? To show love, even in the face of adversity, insult, or humiliation. So, please understand that this took a lot of practice writing and rewriting and editing. But I had to make the point that I believe as I do because it is stunning how much real, tangible proof there is for creation; for intelligent design. There is far too much in this beautiful world, and universe to think that it is all a product of chance, with no in-betweens, no transitional forms. I just can't swallow a lie that big. Please, look for yourself. Read beyond the façade: truth is never introduced with, "it is thought to be," or "there is possibility of." It just is. You are. Period. True? Do you ever have to convince someone that you are real? Sounds absurd, doesn't it? Go find out just how much stays hidden or fabrication by scientists over the years. I dare you to. If you refuse to check my statements, to at least try to prove me wrong instead of saying that I can't write. Can't I? If I couldn't, then what? You can't have imagined it. Especially out of the blue, after this long

MichaelTheGamer responding (finally) to your deletion of my comments. It upset me that you could write something mean, unconstructive, and as I had then, and I am now forming complete sentences, your This person can't write words clearly were wrong. How do you expect to be convincing as someone who is just trying to make Wikipedia a better place with publicly humiliating statements? Did it ever occur to you that you could be wrong? If I asked you to look—really look—at a website like icr.org or genesisapologetics.com or even answersingenesis.org, would you? Because when it comes down to it, Mike, if you really know the human body and its staggering complexity, what would you say is more intricately formed (for lack of a more neutral-sounding verb—which is not meant to seem like a jab or anything malicious, just had to let you know that I struggled between made, designed, created, and constructed and I had to pick something), a human being or a Boeing 747 Jet Aircraft? Granted, it is not an immediately-decided, hands down win. But I do hope that you said that a human being is the more intricate of the two. That being said, how easily do think it would be to show you a brand new 747, up close and personal and then convince you that this here beautiful machine was not built by man (or God). No, it just...happened. Or, if I tried to sell you on the idea that it evolved from a B-29 (the same model as the one that dropped the first atom bomb), and say, a B-52? And they evolved...and if I go any further, there would be no chance of convincing you that I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I am not. This is why it took this long. I was that upset. But as a Christian, how can I possibly do as I am supposed to do? To show love, even in the face of adversity, insult, or humiliation. So, please understand that this took a lot of practice writing and rewriting and editing. But I had to make the point that I believe as I do because it is stunning how much real, tangible proof there is for creation; for intelligent design. There is far too much in this beautiful world, and universe to think that it is all a product of chance, with no in-betweens, no transitional forms. I just can't swallow a lie that big. Please, look for yourself. Read beyond the façade: truth is never introduced with, "it is thought to be," or "there is possibility of." It just is. You are. Period. True? Do you ever have to convince someone that you are real? Sounds absurd, doesn't it? Go find out just how much stays hidden or fabrication by scientists over the years. I dare you to. If you refuse to check my statements, to at least try to prove me wrong instead of saying that I can't write. Can't I? If I couldn't, then what? You can't have imagined it. Especially out of the blue, after this long. Please. Just pull the thread. For once, take a second look. But once you know, there is no unknowing. Take it from a skeptic far bigger than you at one time.

Respectfully,

MichaelTheGamer (talk) 23:14, 11 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

@MichaelTheGamer
Here are quotes from the sources in question.

"LUCA lived

— The physiology and habitat of the last universal common ancestor"

"All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as Luca (the Last universal common ancestor)."

— Luca : À la recherche du plus proche ancêtre commun universel

"[T]he model selection tests are found to overwhelmingly support UCA"

— A formal test of the theory of universal common ancestry

"[B]iologists accept the theory that all extant life traces back to a common ancestor. ... Theobald... concludes that the accepted view holds."

— Common ancestry put to the test
Four reliable sources assert that LUCA existed, which is all that's needed to meet WP:RS. Your edit was to contradict these sources with your own unsourced assertions, which is WP:OR.
Re your theological argument, I've heard of the watchmaker analogy before, thanks. There are a few issues with that argument; here are two:
  • A watchmaker/god is more complex than a watch/universe, else the former would not be able to design the latter. So, if the universe is so complex that it needs a designer, then so is god.
  • Evolution is not random, and species don't "just appear". Rather, as time passes, organisms that are better at reproducing become more common than organisms that are bad at reproducing. Thus, organisms evolve to be good at reproducing.
    • Aeroplanes (and watches) don't reproduce, which is where your analogy fails.
AlphaMikeOmega (talk) 03:00, 12 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
Aww, Mike! Come on, you are smarter than that! Of course God is more complex. Think about that for a second, Mike: would you really want a God who could be figured out? God is eternal, both directions: (i.e. has always been, will always be). And really? You are attacking the part about planes not being able to reproduce? Did you not understand the analogy? Mike, if you are coming at it like that, then you either have to concede you have no rebuttal, which is fine, it is not an arena PvP win-or-lose, or you missed the analogy's point. If you did, fine. I can use another. But more importantly, apparently, even Charles Darwin wondered, "...as by evolution theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" (Origin of Species, 1859). And he also asked, "Why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory?" (Origin of Species, 1872). Plus, Dr. Colin Patterson, who is the Director of the British Museum of Natural History and curator of the world's largest collection of fossils, 7000 +, had written a book about evolution, was questioned by an aerospace engineer and creationist named Luther Sutherland as to why he didn't include any pictures of transitional fossils in his book, Dr. Patterson's answering reply was amazing: "I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossils or living, I certainly would have included it.... I will lay it on the line. There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument." (Included in a presentation titled, "Four Power Questions to Ask an Evolutionist, in which this is part of Question 3: The Fossil Record, which may be found on YouTube or the source I used was from the Genesis Apologetics App, that when opened, it may be found upon scrolling nearly to the bottom, under 25 Questions for Evolutionists)
And according to the fossil record, many, many species do, in fact 'just appear' and it is very sudden, with no gradations of simple to complex. To use a very well known creature, the Trilobite, which has some of the most complex and highly developed eyes ever found in any creatures from any time. So how would you explain the transitions necessary to go back and forth throughout evolution of a lesser degree of complexity and a greater degree of complexity? Or, that some eyes have fewer 'cones' that distinguish colors, as in a cat's eyes who are not able to distinguish reddish colors, but do fine with yellow and blue, even if only muted or washed out looking, but the extra rods, far more than we have, is why cats are able to distinguish movements in low light levels, on top of having the tapetum lucidum or the mirrors in the back of their eyes. Well, some would say that they have superior overall vision and some would say we do. But evolution cannot do trial and error in such cases. In fact, most changes that take place are not advantageous evolution, but are called mutations and they are, 99.99% of the time, a degradation of sorts. The ONLY way that a virus is able to mutate into something else as in Covid variants or strains is because of the fact that a hundred million failures, you are bound to eventually hit on a new variation. But the difference between a new variation or new strain is the difference between a person's skin color, or hair color and texture. But no matter how many strains of the COVID-19 virus comes and goes, it will never, ever evolve into a pneumonia virus or the HIV/AIDS virus, and that's just between viruses. It is laughably absurd to even entertain the notion that it or any other virus can ever turn into a bacteria. No evolution on such a scale has ever been proven, witnessed, or even caused anyone in their right mind to come to the conclusion that, though not actively witnessed, that such a jump from one thing to another has ever happened. You would not dare to come out with any postulated theory that this became that, Mike. You can't! Why? Because you can't explain why or how there are no transitions from this to that thing, and though I am quite sure that you are very intelligent, not even you, or I could explain such a thing. Nobody could. What you are believing is the idea of evolution because you certainly don't believe that even something as similar two kinds of bacteria like bacillus (basically rod-shaped) like Lactobacillus, E. coli, and several types of antibiotics, oddly enough, and coccus (spherically-shaped) like Staphylococcus and Streptococcus. And while many have been found to be able to change their shapes from bacillus to coccus or vice versa, they are not and will never be able change from say, a bacillus on the level of one of the antibiotics into a particularly virulent strain of Staph aureus that is resistant to said -cillins (Penicillin, Amoxicillin, etc) because it would be quite comical to change into that exact thing (as a MRSA bacterium) to which you were resistant. And, how could anyone be a witness to any LUCA? What next? You saw the Big Bang happen? What was it that went bang? Who put it there? We can solve this right now: take a ball point pen, the clicky retractable kind. Take it apart. Now put all of the pieces into a glass jar and glue the lid shut. The glass will give you a front row seat into watching something as simple as a pen, and you gave it a head start by already having the building blocks (metaphorically, Mike, don't pick it apart), it is 5 to 10 pieces that you already know fit and work together with random chance at work! How did, and for that matter when did life come from non-life? You still won't go check out one of the sites mentioned
They are not going to brainwash you. I would say that if you have any avoidance issues with any of the sites, I would honestly question whether your faith is as strong as you think it is. If you were not afraid of being convinced then you would never have reservations about checking out icr.org or genesisapologetics.com. If anything, Mike, it would prove very funny to you, if you are that secure in your faith. I kind of think that you do know that there are glaring holes in the evolution arguments and that you checking out the sites I mentioned are going to tip the balance too far. You are a smart guy. You are either blind (metaphor) or willingly ignorant. Hmm. The Apostle Peter wrote about this 2000 years ago, about scoffers coming in the last days, who are willfully ignorant." Mike, think about it. No, seriously think about it. Don't just spit out the same thing that someone else said that you just memorized. I dare you to objectively check out the facts for yourself. Stop taking their word for it and make sure that what they are saying is true. There. That way you don't have to check out the sites. Look at the data in front of you.
In Christ's love
MichaelTheGamer (talk) 22:56, 15 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
@MichaelTheGamer
  1. You believe that your god is complex – presumably more complex than a Boeing 747, which you say is too complex not to have been designed. Therefore, your god is too complex not to have been designed. Who, or what, designed your god?
  2. I understand the aeroplane analogy well enough to understand its flaw. Aeroplanes are not subject to natural selection in the same way that entities that reproduce are: there are no aeroplanes that are good at reproducing, so they cannot become more common than other aeroplanes; therefore, there is no natural selection of aeroplanes. In contrast, organisms that are better at reproducing do become more common, almost by tautology.
    1. As an aside, aeroplane design does evolve. A modern fighter or passenger jet is very different to the Wright Flyer, and could not have been designed without precedent (and even the Wright Flyer needed many redesigns, and used an internal combustion engine, which the Wright brothers didn't invent). If you consider the analogy that those aircraft which have features which humans find useful do, effectively, reproduce as we build more of them, then aircraft design becomes a lot like selective breeding, as people select the features we like and build more aircraft with those features. And the only difference between selective breeding and natural selection is that in the former, humans do the selecting.
  3. Why are creationists obsessed with Darwin? He was one guy, who lived over a century ago, who didn't know about genetics and whose main contribution to mankind wasn't to suppose that species evolve (since scientists already reckoned this was the case), but to realise that organisms that are better at reproducing become more common. Worded like that, it's an obvious concept.
  4. Here are three possible explanations for why we haven't seen fossils for trilobites' ancestors, ordered from sensible to magical:
    1. Their ancestors existed, but didn't become fossils;
    2. Some other natural explanation;
    3. Supernatural magic which might involve a god.
Since species without a mineralised skeleton are very rarely fossilised, the most straightforward explanation is that trilobites' ancestors didn't have a mineralised skeleton. Indeed, this is exactly what the article on trilobites says.
5. Cats are selectively bred, so that's a bad example. Cats eat prey, so their eyes are good in the dark. Humans' ancestors ate ripe fruit, so it was useful to be able to see red, so most humans (but not all) have red and green cones even though plenty of mammals have only one of the two. Humans' ancestors without this extra cone found it harder to find food, so they died more (or struggled more to feed their kids) and became rarer. Similarly, cats' ancestors with poor night vision were more likely to starve, and only those with good night vision were left.
6. Yes, mutations are, on average, detrimental (per regression to the mean). However, organisms with mutations which make it harder to reproduce have fewer kids, and so remain rare.
7. Nobody alive today witnessed the Roman Empire either, but we can be absolutely sure it existed, because of archaeological and linguistic evidence. Similarly, we have direct evidence of evolution through the fossil record and the amazing similarity of DNA across organisms. Moreover, it's self-evident that organisms which are better at reproducing become more common. This has been going on for three billion years: evolution inevitably happened in that ample time.
8. You use the analogy of randomly arranging the parts of a pen. Tell me, do you believe that everything non-random in the universe must be the product of a conscious agent? If I let go of a ball, it won't go in a random direction: it wall always fall down. Is a god intervening and forcing the ball to go down, or is it just gravity?
9. I try to avoid having any faith. Faith is not a series of beliefs, but a flawed approach to epistemology. There are only two ways to actually know what's true: empiricism and rationalism. If someone believes something despite neither being able to prove it empirically nor (for conditional statements) through deduction, then that person can be said to take their belief on faith. In short, it does not take faith to believe that the sky is blue.
10.It's ironic that you assert that I "just spit out the same thing that someone else said that you just memorized". You can try looking up what I've written, and you'll find no exact matches because it is original. In contrast, you copy misquotes from Genesis Apologetics:
The actual Darwin quote about the fossil record in fact begins,

"But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed"

(which, naturally, returns far more search-engine results than the misquote). If you continue reading the next few sentences, you discover that Darwin addressed this by an entire chapter "on the Imperfection of the Geological Record" ("imperfection" meaning "incompleteness" at the time).
At any rate, Wikipedia (even userspace talk pages) is not the place for long discussions unrelated to editing. Wikipedia has its own approach to epistemology: to outsource it to reliable sources. The most reliable sources on scientific matters are review papers in respected scientific journals with a high barrier for entry; this is followed by non-review papers in such journals. The reason we don't cite Genesis Apologetics on scientific matters – aside from that it's better to cite scientific papers directly – is that it misrepresents scientific papers. For instance, I had a look at their page which contained the misquote, and looking for an example of its citing a good source, I found that it cited a article about a scientific paper by M. Schweitzer. Here's what the three said:
  • Scientific article: "Molecular preservation in non-avian dinosaurs is controversial. We present multiple lines of evidence that endogenous proteinaceous material is preserved in bone fragments and soft tissues from an 80-million-year-old Campanian hadrosaur"
    • Paraphrased: "preservation of soft tissue is exceptionally rare, but we think we've found one example of it."
  • News article: "Schweitzer says she anticipates a repeat of the controversy that surrounded her 2007 report on T. rex... “what really bothers people is: Why the heck is this stuff there?” Schweitzer says. “A lot of people aren’t willing to accept the data until we come up with a mechanism for preservation … We’re not there yet...” ... She says she welcomes the criticism... “… My colleagues, when they hammer this paper, they’re doing their job. We’re paying them to be skeptics.”"
    • Paraphrased: "There are two examples of what might be preserved soft tissue, one example being less convincing than the other. We don't yet [as of 2009] know how this happened, if it happened. We should be skeptical."
  • Genesis Apologetics: "But [preserved collagen etc.] don’t fit the 65 million-year timeline without severe academic torture. In the words of paleontologist Dr. Mary Schweitzer: “What really bothers people is: Why the heck is this stuff there…A lot of people aren’t willing to accept the data until we come up with a mechanism for preservation…We’re not there yet.” ... Evidence abounds showing the extreme resistance of secular institutions accepting the implications of dinosaur soft tissue."
    • Paraphrased: "The scientists don't yet understand this, so they must be wrong about the things they do understand. And they're unreasonable because they don't agree that one or two exceptional examples of preserved soft tissue in a matrix of mineralised tissue is proof that very different organisms made of 100% soft tissue would have left behind fossils."
If you're interested, the same Genesis Apologetics webpage quotes Schweitzer as saying that "This crosslinking... causes proteins to precipitate out of solution, drying them out in a way that helps preserve them". If you search Google Scholar for recent scientific papers on "dinosaur soft tissue", you quickly find scientific paper supporting the same mechanism, and indeed saying,

"Furthermore, we provide data to support a two-step mechanism that stabilises biomolecules and vessel structures shortly after organismal death, promoting their persistence within densely mineralised skeletal elements."

Of course, this mechanism isn't possible in organisms without mineralised tissue, so it's not surprising that trilobites' ancestors didn't leave behind fossils.
You're welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, but please cite scientific papers when editing content about science. AlphaMikeOmega (talk) 20:48, 8 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oh, Mike. You still have missed the airplane (or aeroplane if you prefer, but I like to think we have EVOLVED to a better way of saying it as airplane) analogy. More than half of your points are self-defeating, self-destructing, or just circular logic. You say that this is not the place to argue such things. That is wonderful advice, Mike. Now, your job is to take the higher ground and NOT HAVE THE LAST WORD. And you have to have faith to believe what you believe. You cannot prove what you believe, and only state that there's documentation that prove a point that has nothing to do with evolution, or creation. I also see by your comments that you still have not gone to check out icr.org, Mike. But have faith, Mike. You still have not apologized for the outright insult that I called you out on in my first reply to you. By the rules of Wiki that you conveniently hide behind when it suits you, you still have not taken the higher ground and publicly apologized for accusing me of not knowing how to write, which, I might point out, IF I can't write, then what? Are you arguing with yourself? Is it a figment of your imagination? No, Mike. You keep using a bait and switch and still are not arguing with the real, actual points. And I can back my points. Because I can promise you, to use your Roman Empire point, there are more documents proving the New Testament than for any other historic event, and by a huge margin. God Bless You, Mike. Now, take the high ground and stop responding. Stop. Take your own advice. Stop.
MichaelTheGamer (talk) 12:16, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Bitten Newcomer Buries Hatchet

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{{subst:The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar| Okay, Mike. You have your opinion and I choose to respect that, and love you all the more, regardless. Initially, I was unsure of which barnstar to give, but when perusing the different types of Barnstars, this one seemed to fit best. You are not expecting it which is the random act and the kindness is the loving you in spite of any differences between us. And that is what Jesus did for us: it certainly wasn't anything we could earn, but He loves us in spite of our fallen natures. To be honest, I know I could never give up my Son to die like God did. Really, I mean who would ever be like, "I know how to make this all better and absolve you of any wrongdoing! We will kill my Son!" I am not saying God is crazy, but it is a bit radical. But I think it was supposed to be. Anyway, Mike... God bless you and no worries, no hard feelings, just wanted to hopefully remove one pain in the rear, that would be me, and all is cool. MichaelTheGamer (talk) 16:29, 14 May 2023 (UTC)|2=alt}}Reply


I do hope that I have done that correctly. MichaelTheGamer (talk) 16:29, 14 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Nomination for deletion of Template:Brexit polling summary

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Proposed deletion of Dubliany (disambiguation)

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"Gamma Squeeze" listed at Redirects for discussion

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