User talk:Sam T.

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Sam T. (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

Is this block an administrative error? I do have another old account, SAT85, but have only used it once in the past six years, and certainly haven't used either for "abusive sock puppetry", as a quick history check will confirm. I created Sam T. as a "fresh start", since I am intending to get back into editing again and, among other things, prefer the real name. My new account was investigated as a sock puppet of Apollo the Logician during a discussion over the neutrality of the ID page (kicked off by WP co-founder Larry Sanger's criticisms of bias). It was found to be unrelated, but the admin who performed the check-user discovered the old account (allowed by WP policy, anyway) and opted to block both of them indefinitely, alleging "abusive sock puppetry". Cheers. Sam T. (talk) 02:11, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Decline reason:

This is not an error. Having a "clean start" account return to previous topics is avoiding scrutiny. I also checked your contributions, and you're engaged in POV-pushing and wasting other editors' time with pointless discussions. Did you notice the "with reliable sources" part in the quote from WP:NOTHERE you posted below? No, the Discovery Institute is not a reliable source. Huon (talk) 17:47, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

This is not a valid clean start. You failed to disclose your previous account, and you're editing the same topic area as before: pages related to intelligent design. You were disruptive with your previous account. You were deceptive with your previous account by editing as SAT85 and editing as an IP on the same discussion as if you were two different people. And you continue your disruption with the current account, including edit-warring and contentiously spouting fringe or pseudo science.--Bbb23 (talk) 03:31, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need an impartial admin here - "spouting pseudo science"? My background is in science and the history and philosophy of science, including evolutionary biology - perhaps Bbb23 could provide a quote where I "spouted pseudoscience", explaining why it constitutes such.

What I have done, without endorsing ID, is simply register my agreement with what almost everyone seems to be saying now: that the entry for ID is, in the words of WP co-founder Larry Sanger, "appallingly biased". I invite Bbb23 to offer a pointer to the specific WP policy that I've breached in doing so - one that justifies an indefinite ban from Wikipedia.

Nor was I disruptive with my previous account. I was investigated for sock puppetry some seven years ago during a heated debate on another Talk page, but cleared (indeed, one of the users who initiated the investigation afterwards apologised, and expressed his wish that I continue to edit, saying that Wikipedia "needs more good people..."). Regarding Bbb23's claim that I edited both as an IP and as SAT85, the fact is that I joined the "Gunter Bechly" AfD discussion as a raw IP when my SAT85 account had lain dormant for years (signing each edit with my full name, however). It was only after it became clear that votes (and comments) from such IPs would be ignored by the closing admin that I dusted off SAT85 and added a single keep from that account. Anyone can check the activity of SAT85 to confirm that this is the sole contribution it has made since about 2011. As to Bbb23's assertion that I'm contributing to the same subject area, (1) this is incorrect except for the single keep vote from SAT85, and (2) there is nothing, at least that I'm aware of, in WP policy to say that fresh accounts can't make edits in the same area as disused accounts.

In any case, the claim that Sam T. and SAT85 were being used simultaneously [edit: or otherwise] for "abusive sock puppetry" - the basis for the indefinite block of both - is obviously untrue. There is a reason why nobody ever suspected these accounts of engaging in sock puppetry, and why the old account was discovered through an unrelated check-user, and that's that they weren't. Sam T. (talk) 11:59, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you read WP:CLEANSTART and WP:SOCK as your ideas as to what constitutes a clean or fresh start and what constitutes sock puppetry are both way off the mark. First, based on what you said about why you created the Sam T. account, which was to use your real name, that's not a fresh start. All you had to do was edit from SAT85 and request a simple name change. That would have achieved your purpose but also kept your entire edit history as a registered account on Wikipedia. Second, nowhere in WP:SOCK does it say that two or more accounts operated by a single person have to edit "simultaneously". Many times accounts that have never overlapped in time are blocked as socks.

You had fewer than 200 edits as SAT85. I agree that only a few related to ID. Otherwise, you spent an inordinate amount of time arguing with others about the suitability of an image in the Man article. Essentially, since you created SAT85 back in 2009, you haven't done much editing of Wikipedia, and what you have done has been sporadic. Based on the first stint, the short second stint in October 2017, and your third attempt in the present, I see very little, if anything, constructive in your editing or your approach to this project. I know you like to argue but don't expect me to continue to respond to your false claims. I don't have the patience.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:09, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bbb23, I think you've made your colours clear, and you're still failing to follow proper procedure. This is an appeal regarding an indefinite block for "abusive sock puppetry". Your assessment of opinions you dislike as "not constructive" or "disruptive" - despite the fact that, as noted, even WP's founder Larry Sanger shares those opinions, and despite the fact that it's you, and similar ideologues, who insist on arguing over what to everyone else is obvious - is irrelevant to this case. The only relevant evidence is evidence that Sam T. and SAT85 have been used for abusive sock puppetry, as outlined in WP:SOCK. We all know that they haven't. The indefinite block was at best an administrative error and at worst an attempt to censor a dissenting view. It's time to stop the farce and lift it. Sam T. (talk) 05:24, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My background is in science and the history and philosophy of science, including evolutionary biology - perhaps Bbb23 could provide a quote where I "spouted pseudoscience", explaining why it constitutes such. I can do that.

...take your comment about falsifiability. Guess what? You can't have your cake and eat it. Is ID known to be false or not? - You, on December 20, 2017.

Explanation of why this is a pseudoscientific statement.

This is pseudoscience because it grossly ignores the difference between "false" and "falsified". This is high-school level phil-sci stuff, to be honest. I can come up with a theory that invisible, intagible fairies are responsible for all forces observed in nature, and then push this theory hard in an attempt to sell textbooks that cover it. This "theory" would then be false in two senses. First that it is completely unsupported by any evidence whatsoever*, and second that it is a falsehood in that my formulation of it was a smokescreen for my actual motivations; to sell textbooks. However, this theory would remain unfalsifiable because it is formulated such that it is impossible to perform an experiment which would invalidate a prediction it makes. Indeed; it doesn't actually make any predictions. Interestingly, this lack of falsifiability adds another level of falsity to my "theory" in that it purports to be a theory, but is not actually a theory (in the scientific sense, the only one that matters for this discussion). So this theory is simultaneously unfalsifiable, unfalsified, false, and a falsehood on two different levels. There is no inherent contradiction in that, because the root word "false" is used to represent multiple meanings. The concept of falsifiability is one of the first things taught in serious science education; it's fundamental to any understanding of science, even though it doesn't always apply to the "soft" sciences. To misrepresent it in the way you did is to misrepresent science. It is to push pseudoscience. In addition, it was done for the admitted purpose of advocating for the relaxation of language condemning a branch of pseudoscience as pseudoscience.

*There is a presumed statistical syllogism in there; that with there being no evidence whatsoever and its formulation emerging from the mind of a human -an animal known to be quite imaginative at times- it is almost certainly untrue, absent any compelling reason to believe otherwise. You may recognize this argument as the basis of modern skepticism. This is not a coincidence.

I don't believe that you actually have a background in the history and philosophy of science. You may have a related degree, but I don't believe you have any experience in that field, based on this statement and your fervent support for what amounts to the ur-example of pseudoscience.

~~That being said, for what it's worth, I wouldn't object if you were unblocked.~~(see below) Even though I curse like a sailor and can be quite blunt, I really do believe sanctions should always be used on a "bare-minimum" basis, and that more editors is a good thing. Of course, I would expect you to refrain from the behaviors Bbb23 outlined above, as would the rest of the community. You may need to agree to some sort of editing restrictions for a bit to convince an admin. If you really want to get unblocked, re-write your unblock request to something like the following:

My previous account is one I had not used in so long that it did not occur to me to make any disclosures. If I am unblocked, I will accept whatever editing restrictions the unblocking admin feels would be appropriate to ensure that I will not disrupt the project further. My only desire is to contribute productively, and while I understand that I may have become overzealous in the past, I will exercise more restraint in the future.

(You should probably not include formatting like mine.)

If you do that, you may be unblocked. I can't promise anything, because it's not up to me. ~~I, personally, would not object.~~(see below) I thought it quite possible that you were Apollo, and that was my reason for filing. It turns out that you're not, even though you had a previous account and an (admittedly quite short) history of IP socking. But I can see where that could be chalked up to a couple of mistakes on your part, and not bad faith, so I'm okay with giving you another chance. I would further suggest on a more personal note that you not go on about your credentials in a discussion; most people will instantly assume you are lying, which can make civil discourse less possible, and less productive when it occurs. Especially if you follow it up by making arguments such as the one I quoted above, which belie your claimed expertise. In the end; it doesn't matter if you're an expert or not. Either you can provide good sources and craft compelling arguments, or you cannot. Expertise may help with that, but the proof is in the pudding.

ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it.

03:50, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the sentiments [edit: thanks - if that wasn't clear] but the basis of this case is a claim of "abusive sock puppetry" - nothing more. And in any case, registering an opinion regarding the neutrality of the ID page - which is frankly laughable as it stands - does not constitute "disrupting the project" simply because the gaggle of editors who've watchlisted the page happen to disagree with it. Wikipedia is an open encyclopaedia. Hard as it might be to swallow, those in favour of ID - or simply in favour of academic fairness, which is all I've advocated - have the same right to edit as everyone else. If you disagree, you discuss, and seek consensus. You don't ban. That's WP policy. Sam T. (talk) 17:24, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"This is pseudoscience because it grossly ignores the difference between "false" and "falsified". This is high-school level phil-sci stuff, to be honest [...]"

A lot of confusion here. First, while falsificationism may well be taught at high-school level, serious philosophers of science have been pointing out for decades that it offers a highly inadequate model of science, for reasons that include the Duhem problem, the fact that some bona fide scientific theories are unfalsifiable, and the fact that it fails to capture the true, inductive nature of the scientific method pioneered by Bacon in his Novum Organum of 1620 and used by practicing scientists (or natural philosophers, until the 19th c.) ever since.

Second, the premise of your argument here is flawed: a falsifiable idea is just one that can be shown to be false (in principle) by some fact or argument. As it applies to, say, the emergence of biological complexity, ID would be falsified by proof beyond reasonable doubt that such complexity arose via the Darwinian mutation-selection mechanism, and not through intelligent agency. Proof of the Modern Synthesis is therefore disproof of ID. You can't claim both that the Modern Synthesis is a known fact and that ID is unfalsifiable - the two are mutually exclusive. You can't have your cake and eat it.

Third, the whole idea that dissenting views can be dismissed with the pejorative label of "pseudoscience" - used mostly as a lazy alternative to reasoned argument - is not only anti-intellectual, but ignores the fact that, as philosophers of science have also been noting for years, to talk confidently about "pseudoscience" we need to know exactly what "science" is in the first place. And there's the rub. Science is complex and multifaceted, and "the" scientific method differs enormously between different fields of science, like physics, where experimentation is key, and paleontology, where abductive inference is key. There's just no easy way to demarcate science from its counterfeits. See Larry Laudan's famous paper The Demise of the Demarcation Problem: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-7055-7_6. Nor does this matter. The popular obsession with whether views are "scientific" is a product of the scientism of the 20th century, and philosophers of science have increasingly come to see that the real question should be just "is it reasonable?", "is it true?".

Fourth, despite the semantic nature of this issue, labeling ID as pseudoscience is especially foolish given that ID is just a 21st-century incarnation of the teleological argument, which was pivotal to the rise of modern science. Indeed, for all of the founders of modern science - Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, Newton - the notion of transcendent design formed a - perhaps the - grounding principle of scientific inquiry. Belief that nature was rationally intelligible, and hence worth studying, stemmed from the idea that nature was the product of a rational creator, and that man's mind was in some sense an "image" of this creator's. Man was thus capable of "unlocking the secrets of nature", or as Kepler expressed it, "thinking the thoughts of God over again". Indeed, this view is reflected in perhaps the most famous scientific document of all time, Newton's Principia Mathematica, the General Scholium of which contains an explicit argument for ID. These are historical facts, agreed on by serious historians of science on both sides of the ID question. To suggest that an idea essential to the development of modern science constitutes pseudoscience is absurd.

Finally, the objection that ID is a wedge for creationism or some other nefarious project is an obvious ad hom: as I said on the ID Talk page, the motivations of a theory's proponents are irrelevant to its status vis-a-vis the evidence. Sam T. (talk) 16:42, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I offered you some good advice. You could have responded with "Thanks for the advice, I'll take it!" or maybe "Thanks for the advice, but I don't think I'll be taking it." There was really no need to respond with "No thanks for the advice, and here's some more evidence that I don't have the slightest grasp of the philosophy of science, or even basic epistemology, and that I furthermore plan to continue to make crappy arguments in support of a laughably fringe POV on one of the more visible articles on this project!" though to be fair, I'm sure the admin who comes along to review your unblock will appreciate it. For your reference, I haven't watchlisted this page, and I would prefer it if you did not ping me again.

ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it.

19:02, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not an especially mature response, but I see that Mjolner is hamstrung by Bbb23's remarkable instruction on his Talk page not to discuss this further - presumably because Mjolner questioned whether a permanent ban was called for - so I'll leave him with the last word. Cheers. Sam T. (talk) 01:59, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, I forgot to unwatch your page on my main account. But since I'm here, to any admins reading this: I've changed my mind, on the basis of Sam's response to my advice above. I would object to any unblock because I find it very implausible that Sam would not continue to disrupt articles or talk pages that deal with creationism.

ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it.

02:11, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, you forgot? Well, as the header at the top of the Sam T. page shows, I've been blocked for sock puppetry, not "disruption" - whatever that is supposed to mean.

On that point, however, it might be worth noting that, while my contribution to the ID Talk page for the past few years consists of a single link to the Citizendium entry on ID - and subsequent response to claims that it's "nonsense" - Mjolner has made dozens of posts there over a few weeks. He and a handful of others seem to have watchlisted the page to ambush anyone with concerns regarding neutrality, and his offerings show ongoing issues with WP:CIVIL, such as calling WP founder Larry Sanger "f***ing immature", responding to criticisms of bias with "bullsh**", and suggesting that I should take my arguments "and shove them...". Add to this Mjolner's penchant for checking through the recent WP contributions of those he disagrees with and summarily reverting them, and I think it's clear who's being disruptive. Sam T. (talk) 03:32, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(Non-administrator comment)This will be my only comment here, unless an unblock occurs. From the various discussions on this talk page, reasons that I perceive for the extended block: sock/inappropriate-cleanstart, and WP:NOTHERE. A topic ban and a cleanstart may perhaps eventually be in order. In any case, further discussions here may only eventually cause access to this talk page to also be revoked; I recommend to patiently formulate a proper unblock request (or wait for its review) and to as necessary ignore further comments, instead of getting lured and blaming other editors. —Paleo Neonate – 07:47, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

... sock/inappropriate-cleanstart ...

Addressed above.

and WP:NOTHERE.

See the numerous (so far minor) edits I've already made outside ID-related pages in the couple of days that Sam T. was active, including expanding an article on Aristotelian biology to cite Aristotle's views on vertebrate homologies. I'd also intended to add to the entry on Naturphilosophie, a movement within German Romanticism, and expand the related entry on Transcendental Anatomy, which is more or less a stub. In any case, see WP:NOTNOTHERE, including the allowance for focusing on niche topic areas, and especially the following - noting that I haven't once violated the 3RR and haven't attempted to "implement changes" to the ID page at all, despite its obvious and amateurish violations of WP:NPOV and WP:IMPARTIAL:

Expressing unpopular opinions – even extremely unpopular opinions in a non-disruptive manner

Merely advocating and implementing changes to Wikipedia articles or policies with reliable sources is allowed and even if these changes made are incompatible with certain Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, it is not the same as not being here to build an encyclopedia. The disagreeing editor should take care to not violate Wikipedia policies and guidelines such as not reverting due to a lack of consenus (sic), getting the point, and civility in the course of challenging unpopular (sic) opinions.

Cheers, Sam T. (talk) 11:22, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]