User talk:SciMedKnowledge

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Again, welcome! David Ruben ^Talk 23:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Origins

With respect to the changes made to the HIV Origins entry, there are a few problems here:

1) The goal of Wikipedia is to provide objective information, not to disseminate popular opinion.
2) Although none were conclusively verified, many of Edward Hooper's claims are in fact plausible and compelling.
3) The most logical thing to do then is to either provide a full discussion of both sides, *or* simply supply a brief, non-accusative summary of the theory, allowing people to do further research of the theory, if they so wish (as I have done).

Sebastian Garth (talk) 01:25, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

April 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Origin of AIDS, did not appear to be constructive and has been automatically reverted by ClueBot. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you believe there has been a mistake and would like to report a false positive, please report it here and then remove this warning from your talk page. If your edit was not vandalism, please feel free to make your edit again after reporting it. The following is the log entry regarding this warning: Origin of AIDS was changed by SciMedKnowledge (u) (t) deleting 24482 characters on 2009-04-10T19:27:17+00:00 . Thank you. ClueBot (talk) 19:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone explain what this is? What did I do wrong? SciMedKnowledge (talk) 19:30, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that you didn't do anything wrong, and that ClueBot did, "he" says "he" reverted your edit because you were deleting too many characters. I think (not sure), but I think if you revert it back "he" should leave it. Cheers - Kingpin13 (talk) 19:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So Cluebot is some sort automated tool? So this "warning" was kind of impersonal? The stuff I reverted was a massive violation of NPOV (but I'm not an expert). The editor wants to propose that the article Origin of AIDS discuss all fringe theories equally. That sounds like a slipper slope to me! :) SciMedKnowledge (talk) 19:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Correct on the first one! :). Can't say about the second one as I haven't read the article, but if it does violate WP:NPOV and is unsourced you're probably safe removing it (so long as you explain in the edit summary). - Kingpin13 (talk) 19:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SciMedKnowledge, the reason I edited the section was not to "discuss all fringe theories equally", as you put it. Rather, it was to to ensure a NPOV tone. I can assure you that the "slippery slope" is in publishing strictly one-sided viewpoints on Wikipedia. Furthermore, by reverting my edit, without discussion nor making any thoughtful revisions to the material, indicates to me that you have little interest in seriously debating the matter. Please give others the respect due to them by engaging in constructive dialogue, rather than just overturning there actions. - Sebastian Garth (talk) 21:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've been cluebot-ed, welcome to the club! Here at wiki we love automated tools that offer vague warnings despite their inherent imprecision :) ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 02:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that I'm enjoying this process. I appreciate your helping out on the Origin of AIDS article. As you can see Sebastian Garth continues to push his point of view, which is far outside of what published science articles are saying. SciMedKnowledge (talk) 06:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oxidative stress

Hi there, thanks for looking this over, I've found a reference for that point you raised. Is there anything else that you think needs more referencing? All the best Tim Vickers (talk) 23:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that I'm doubting you or anything, but do you not think it's a bit odd that the Alzheimer's disease article, considered one of the better ones around Wikipedia, doesn't mention oxidative stress at all? I have to say that the woomeisters out in the blogosphere are using oxidative stress as an underlying cause for nearly every disease. For example, the anti-vaccine crowd is making some specious claims that it is the chain between vaccines and autism. I'm a bit confused by it. SciMedKnowledge (talk) 00:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oxidative stress isn't the "cause" of anything, it is a pretty non-specific symptom of cellular damage. It is therefore an event on many different pathways that all lead to cell damage or cell death. That is why you see it mentioned so often. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah hah. Typical of the woomeisters, who tend to latch onto a small amount of science to make their case. I tend to be very skeptical of those who try to use one scientific idea, in this case oxidative stress, as the overarching cause of everything. I agree it's not a cause for anything. Thanks for improving my knowledge in this area. SciMedKnowledge (talk) 05:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Email

I had occasion to observe recently how stressful it can be to new users if they are publicly suspected of being sockpuppets or reincarnations of problematic users. A certain retired user got email from me on 25 May 2009. Per the duck test I assume you are well aware of this. If not, or if you want to keep up appearances, you might want to configure an email address so that I can send the email to your account as well. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:13, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]