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Archive 1Archive 2

Help desk

Just to let you know I have responded to your question on the Help Desk. Best wishes, Gonzonoir (talk) 09:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Al Jahiz and evolution

I share your concern about Dargan's interpretation, and I have responed in detail underneath your comment on my talk page. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:16, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

History of logic

Hello. I wrote most of the 'History of Logic' article. Unfortunately I have been banned from Wikipedia and the admins are now taking an extremely severe view of any contributions I make (my ban was a purely political one, and unconnected with any of my editorial activities).

The edits you made to that article were good, and took away many of the problems of a section which I had toned down, but did not entirely remove. However the problems have resurfaced in the introduction here. There were certainly Arabic logicians after Avicenna, just as there were logicians in the West after (say) Buridan or Ockham. But neither school had much historical importance, as the introduction itself concedes. The source is here but I don't see any support for a 'Post Avicennian' logic or school, such as suggested here. The SEP article simply refers to 'post Avicennian logicians', which is a different thing.

Perhaps you could help. I can't. The administration generally deletes even remarks such as this, if they expect they are coming from me. 86.182.170.127 (talk) 09:01, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

PS I have just noticed User:Syncategoremata/Ibn Sīnā and the invention of the thermometer which is very good. I use the Warburg also. 86.182.170.127 (talk) 09:04, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

PPS And I now see where the "risk factor analysis" idea came from [1]. That whole series of articles, and to be frank that editor, are a problem. 86.182.170.127 (talk) 09:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Post Avicennian logic

I have also had a look at Logic_in_Islamic_philosophy#Post-Avicennian_logic. This says "The Islamic theologian Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (b. 1149) criticised Aristotle's "first figure" and formulated an early system of inductive logic, foreshadowing the system of inductive logic developed by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)." I have run a site search on the source [2] and cannot find any reference to al-Razi 'formulating a system of inductive logic'. The only reference I can find is that statement that "Abë Bakr R«zâ was perhaps the first to criticize Aristotle’s first figure,13 and in our own times his objection, conceived in a thoroughly inductive spirit, has been reformulated by John Stuart Mill.". I am familiar with Mill's objection to the first figure. Mill was not the first person in the West to raise this objection, and al-Razi may certainly made similar comments about the first figure. But conceiving it 'in a throughly inductive spirit' is quite different from 'formulating a system of inductive logic', which the source does not support. 86.182.170.127 (talk) 09:44, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

That [3] was a helpful edit. But the sentence begins "Another systematic refutation of Greek logic ..." does the source support the claim of a systematic refutation? It seemed (like Reid and Mill) he was arguing against the usefulness, not the validity of the syllogism, and can therefore hardly be said to have 'refuted' Greek logic, let alone 'systematically refuted'. But thanks for the response to my comments, if that is what it was. 86.182.170.127 (talk) 17:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for your comments here. I'm in the slightly difficult position of agreeing with a good amount of what you have said here, yet obviously being constrained by the fact that you are (self-admittedly) a WP:Sockpuppet of a banned user, which has to make me a little cautious.
The inflation of claims from sources that are themselves somewhat unreliable, in various ways, is a characteristic of a lot of edits that have been made to articles in this area. I'm trying to go through the material where I have some understanding to, at least, trim the claims to match their sources, and to improve them from better sources if I can.
The "systematic refutation" claim may well be excessive, as you point out. It's a quote from Iqbal's book and I don't have the resources here to check up on that any further now. But claims about a "systematic refutation" by a renowned anti-rationalist have to seem implausible. As for the material on al-Razi, I have little grip on his work, so I will have to leave that one lying for the moment.
As for the issues with the notions of "Avicennian logic" or "Post-Avicennian logic", I have my doubts about both the claims and the importance given to them here. They are on my list to get back to at some point. I had been intending to concentrate more on articles on the history of physics and astronomy, but I am obviously weak of will and easily distracted. A lot of the history of logic pages are now on my (bloated) watch list, so I will be keeping half an eye on them
All the best and many thanks once more for your comments. –Syncategoremata (talk) 17:25, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Yes I am a sockpuppet of a banned user but, again, even the administration agrees there was never any problem with my content contributions. And in any case, the problems I have raised are ones that should be evident to anyone who is familiar with WP:RS. Thanks for putting some time into this. 86.182.170.127 (talk) 17:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

<--- Reading the Iqbal again I believe there may now be a conflation in the Wikipedia edits between the writer who attempted a systematic refutation, and the writer who criticised the first figure of the syllogism. The html is corrupt and hence very hard to read. 86.182.170.127 (talk) 18:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I had wondered about that. The transcription of Iqbal's book seems to be blighted by scanning errors and also contains some (unmarked) editorial content in the footnotes, if not elsewhere. I have access to printed copies of the work, but I think I will leave it for now until I get around to reading some more material on both figures (ibn Taymiyyah and al-Razi).
All the best once more. –Syncategoremata (talk) 18:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Islamic propaganda

Hello Syncategoremata,I´m new on wikipedia,but I´ve been a reader for a long time.In that time,I noticed that many articles adressing Islam are full of some preety strange and impossible claims,regarding islamic science,medcine and similar stuff.All connected with the hyped islamic "golden age".I think that NPOV is not respected on those articles.Even some contain blatant lies,like the invention of the thermometer by Avicenna,or the invention of the scalpel,curettes and other stuff.Even the invention of a nasal spray.

Everytime I found those bombastic claim,I see one user called Jagged 85.Checking his user page,I see his only interest are those articles related to islamic science and stuff.I think theres´s a political agenda behind his intentions.He has also been involved in a discussion on the talk page of the Battle of Hydaspes,helping some indian nationalists with their claims that Alexander the Great was defeated in that battle,or that the battlenever existed.

In conclusion,I find this guy very suspicious and I wonder if we can do anything to stop him. --Knight1993 (talk) 18:26, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia.
I too think that there is a problem with a lot of articles here. My interests are mostly in the history of science, mathematics and philosophy, and I see a lot of articles with some very strange material in them, particularly claims about Arabic/Islamic achievements (though not only in those areas). I have given up trying to work out who is reponsible for each and every dubious claim, though certainly Jagged 85 has been active on most if not all of the articles I have looked at.
I am quite new on Wikipedia myself so I'm still unclear what how to respond to this beyond the obvious one of editing the articles to better reflect WP:NPOV and WP:IRS. Luckily I have access to a good range of research libraries here and I have the time to check a lot of this material. So, I am simply going through those articles where I can contribute and correcting what I can, to the best of my ability.
If you do have any suggestions of some other way to go about solving such problems, please do let me know. And if you find any material that you think is a problem, again, please let me know and I will add it to my list of articles to check. In the meantime, please do contribute what you can in the areas you are interested in.
All best wishes. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, Jagged 85 has a definite agenda in his contributions to articles; he's trying to restore what he sees as imbalance in the treatment of Islamic science. Especially disturbing, however, is that he cites sources without reading them carefully. He ignores the qualifications in the texts he cites and pushes their claims beyond what they have written in a way that fits into his agenda to present Islamic achievements as more modern and original than they were. Simply stated, he's not a careful historian.
Since he is a prolific editor and tends to drop the same blocks of text into multiple articles, whether they fit or not, toning down his claims is a labor intensive (and thankless) task. I tend to focus on the history of astronomy and the other physical sciences; your contributions will be welcome. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:39, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Many thanks for your reply, Steve. I should make clear that I am extremely supportive of any attempt to redress the historic imbalance in Western understanding and acknowledgement of Islamic (and other non-European) contributions and achievements in many many fields (though I'm not clear I would go so far as to say that I have an "agenda").
As I mentioned in my reply to J8079s (talk · contribs) below, I have a particularly low tolerance for wrong and misleading material. And the presence of so much of that kind of claim in the Islamic history articles here, I believe, can only work against any appreciation of the actual contributions they have made over centuries. And, unfortunately, your analysis of Jagged 85's work matches my own experience of it so far, as does the apparently endless task of sorting out such claims, whoever has added them.
Just to note that my own areas of knowledge cover (unevenly) both philosophy and the history of science and mathematics from the ancient Greek through to (roughly) the early Modern period, including the European and Arabic/Islamic regions. I'll continue to roam around for the moment, but I seem to be working mostly on physics and evolution right now.
I hope your recent wikibreak has re-energised you. I'm impressed that you have yet to tire of the task. I'll continue to do what I can here. All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 17:17, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi, just stumbled across this debate. Needless to say that I agree with you. I will only add that the said user has definitely found a gap in the WP guideline system in that this system pays little attention to those cases where a reference does not (really) support the WP text. If some of you can spare some time to address the general matter at the discussion page on WP:Verify with a view to refine guidelines a bit, I am with you. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:05, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Geber

Hi, Geber has been moved as you requested. Please follow through by making the disambiguation page there. Thanks!--Aervanath (talk) 15:11, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Elliptical Orbits

Thanks for the note. I like what you've drawn together; I'd forgotten about Brian Stock's discussion in Lindberg's book (but as you point out, it doesn't really deal with elliptical orbits).

On related matters, despite the problems with "Islamic science" articles, they're better than they were three or four years ago when you often found the approach that there was a distinctly Islamic approach to science and that many modern scientific ideas were already found in the Quran and other religious writings. The current problem is more of attributing scientific discoveries to various Islamic writers without any proper documentation to support those attributions. It's a problem -- and could become a political battleground. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

 The reason I've ended up editing here is that the articles on the history of science, and particularly on Islamic aspects, are good enough that I started using them as a starting point for my own work. A lot of the material is fine, and the fact that it is here at all is marvellous. It's just that some of it is bad enough to make me apoplectic. It's good to think that things do improve here. As for it becoming a battleground of some form: yes, that has occurred to me, though without any idea of how one might work to avoid that, beyond the usual academic virtues (or are they unusual these days?).
 I'll continue checking the references used here on elliptical orbits and then perhaps some of the heliocentric material too (as they tend to overlap). I'll then add the relevant tags and wait a week or so before taking the red pen to this material.
 By the way, I realised today that I have on my shelves here what I assume is a book of yours, Astronomies and Cultures in Early Modern Europe. Whoever's it is, I have to admit to not having gotten around to reading it, just quite as yet.
 All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 18:56, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm responsible for that book; it was fun to write. Did you get it because you're interested in astronomy (as some of you edits suggest) or medieval thought (as your user name suggests)? In any event, glad to know the book's on your bookshelves. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 Just to say that I've replied by email. All the best. —Syncategoremata (talk) 15:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

citation needed

Hi Syncategoremata! I added the citation needed because I feel,that,although the claim has a citation,it´s dubious and preety debatable.I have come across many claims about arabic influences on Europe or arabic contributions that had citations,and nevertheless were absolutely false.And,oh surprise,they were done by the same problematic user(like this claim). Maybe the claim is in that book,but it still could be false.I wonder:if the book of optics was so important,why didn´t the arabs develop perspective?and why didn´t medieval europeans(who had access to the book)develop perspective? Maybe you could do some research and clear this up. ps:look at the "book of optics" article.it has the same bombastic and triunfalist claims,and has been tagged as inaccurate.--Knight1993 (talk) 13:39, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to discussion

Hello, you are invited to take part in the following discussion on this topic. The discussion is about general ways to improve Wikipedia in terms of verfifiability of contents. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:49, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

See here. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Many thanks for that GPM; I'll keep an eye on what you find. For now, as the editor has been warned several times recently (and as the majority of these edits are more than a year old), I will assume that there has been some improvement. Of course, if it turns out that I am only deluding myself, something more would have to be done.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 14:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for reverting the vandalism on my user page! —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 23:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Unreliable Sources, Citation Misuse

Thanks for your message. I am still formulating some thoughts on how best to approach editors with a pattern of misusing sources, and will send those along when I get them together. On unreliable sources, here is one that I already cleared out and another I am thinking about focusing on.

"The First Attempts of Flight, Automatic Machines, Submarines and Rocket Technology in Turkish History" by Arslan Terzioglu (2007), which I have a discussion of on my talk page, was being used in at least 10 articles having to do with military history. It had serious factual and citation errors, and I went through and removed it from the articles.

I haven't addressed this yet, but Zohor Idrisi (2005), The Muslim Agricultural Revolution and its influence on Europe, FSTC at first pass is likely unreliable. It also is being used in several articles, and for 8 citations in Muslim Agricultural Revolution. It has a clear bias, rambling non-scholarly structure, and uses footnotes primarily for tangential asides. I would be wary of anything coming from FSTC which is closely tied to muslimheritage.com. Dialectric (talk) 15:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Good suggestion about the Foundation for Science, Technology, and Civilisation and muslimheritage.com. Perhaps we should be addressing the problem of misuse of sources from the perspective that the from these sources are not reliable for two reasons:
  • They are not peer reviewed and
  • according to Wikipedia:Reliable source examples, "Websites and publications of political parties, religious groups, anti-religious groups, or any other partisan group, may exhibit bias and should be treated with caution."
--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Just found this discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_18#History_of_Science. The consensus seems to be that the Foundation for Science, Technology, and Civilisation and muslimheritage.com are not reliable sources. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I have been wondering about the www.FSTC.co.uk and the www.muslimheritage.com websites (the one is a redirect to the other and both are registered to FSTC Ltd, a UK private company; see [4] and [5]).
Some of that site's content is "re-publication" of (what appear to be) peer reviewed articles, but this seems to form the minority. Just to add to the unuease, there are references in Wikipedia to papers on that website which are not even part of the site proper. For example, another Zaimeche paper, "Merv", (used in Science in medieval Islam), is at http://www.muslimheritage.com/uploads/Merv.pdf, and is the source of some very dubious claims, such as the following bit of utter nonsense:
"Al-Khazini most particularly draws attention to the Greeks' failure to differentiate clearly between force, mass, and weight".
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah! edit conflict and I'm late to the party.
Many thanks for digging that up Steve. I'll apply that decision as appropriate.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Just did a quick check on the relation between FSTC and muslimheritage.com. Here's some material[6] about their relationship. I also checked the UK Charity Commission web page and found that it is not registered as a charity, which is what you would expect for such an organization. The chair of the foundation's board of trustees is Salim Al-Hassani, whose bio was created by an SPA, Drhbc (talk · contribs) and edited by Jagged 85. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:55, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

To avoid duplication of effort, you should probably keep an eye on this page.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 15:50, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks, David. I've added a link from my 'misuse' page to yours: I hope that is okay by you.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 18:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Syncat...
Thanks for your comments, I saw a slightly different issue with Jagged's comment about not going beyond the sources. In those cases where he cites presentist claims accurately, he actively chose to cite those claims because they suited his presentist agenda. Such selection is what editors do, and that's how Jagged pushes his POV.
I'm OK with a link to my sandbox, but eventually I plan to move some of that stuff into my Misuse of sources page (or something like it).
--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Very nice point, Steve. I hadn't thought that one through so far.
By the way, I've emailed you about something. Could you let me know whether you have received it? Many thanks.
All the best. -Syncategoremata (talk) 21:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
This talk page is a brief example related to Steve's point that in certain instances where an edit goes against a specific agenda, this user is quite willing to be precise about the wording of sources: Talk:Hezârfen_Ahmed_Çelebi#Legendary Dialectric (talk) 21:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Good catch: thanks for that, Dialectric.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

You're perfectly welcome to make a link to any part of my user space if you find it useful to do so.
Thanks also for tracking down the diffs relating to the Brethren of Purity. I hadn't noticed that the bogus claim had also been readded to the Heliocentrism article. I would, however, be inclined to change the description of the readded text from "the same claim" to "a similar, but still misleading, claim". One of the editor in question's tactics for diverting attention from the substance of any criticism appears to be to kick up a fuss over any minor ambiguity or inaccuracy in it. So I think it would be advisable to try and eliminate anything that might give him an opportunity to do so.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 05:33, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I have been worried about that sort of fuss being used against this but I wasn't being careful enough there. I'll reword it as you suggest.
Many thanks for looking at this and all the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 09:14, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Re the problem of source misuse described in User:Syncategoremata/Draft, I wanted to point out that I collected a number of examples of this some time ago in User:Spacepotato/Examples of original research in Wikipedia. Spacepotato (talk) 21:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for both collecting those examples and for bringing them to my attention. Would you mind if I copied some that material into my User:Syncategoremata/Draft/Evidence page?
Any comments on the drafts here (including User:Syncategoremata/Recent evidence) would be very welcome.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Feel free to copy it in. Spacepotato (talk) 22:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi, please see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Evidence. I don't think that is a good idea. Later perhaps, but not yet. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 08:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

History of gravitational theory

Unfortunately, I don´t have time to check this article.Could you please check the middle ages section (written by Jagged)? It practically says all Newtons´s work was done earlier by Islamic scientists. All the best--Knight1993 (talk) 17:37, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

That article wasn't on my list as yet, so thanks for pointing it out to me. I've put a note about some of this on the article's talk page and I'll see what I can put together soon. One claim there (that Al-Khazini "differentiated between force, mass, and weight") is nonsense; I've removed it from there and elsewhere, and I've left a note on that talk page about that too.
Thanks for finding the "Action and Reaction before Newton" paper by the way: that's a very useful source (even if it completely misses all the Islamic discussions).
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you Syncategoremata.The work you are doing is really wonderful.About the "Action and Reaction before Newton" paper,it´s a pity that I don´t have a full access to it.I could only read the first page about Aristotle.But at least it confirmed that Ibn Bajja was not the first to discover this principle(as I previously thought).Thank you once more,All the best --Knight1993 (talk) 17:54, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I dont know what to do

I am going on a wiki break. As a rule its better to add than delete but I think wider attention is need to "Islamopidia". People have tried but they get tired. Be Bold I'll try to help when I can. J8079s (talk) 16:11, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

The argument here appear to be that on the one hand it's better to add than to delete material, and that it's a good idea to alert people to issues that are too common with too many articles; on the other hand, I have to admit to a very low tolerance for wrong and misleading material being left on Wikipedia any longer than necessary (especially since we are starting to see more and more people depending on it as a trusted source). For the moment I'll continue deleting what falls into the category of the plainly wrong and unfounded, and flagging what is plausible but goes beyond the citation, as you have been doing.
In the longer term, I would love to see a solid coverage of Islamic (and other) contributions to the world. In the mean time, I would settle for simply some correctness.
All best wishes for your wiki break and I look forward to your return. –Syncategoremata (talk) 16:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Email's out. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Im back from a short break. You guys have been busy. Im trying to catch up.J8079s (talk) 22:03, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
It's good to see you back. I've put a link to the RfC/U at your talk page.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:07, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

12th century latin translations

When you write about history, you have to be honest about it. I can hardly imagine that the writer of this article really knows history since he does not even know the real origin of Razi. Please inform yourself before you try to inform others.

My apologies for not noticing the correction to al-Razi's nationality amongst all the unnecessary additions that were made at the same time to the Latin translations of the 12th century article.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 10:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar of Diplomacy

The Barnstar of Diplomacy
Syncategoremata is awarded this Barnstar for his level-headed work in achieving resolution at a recent RfC/U.

SteveMcCluskey (talk) 12:25, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement!

I may take you up on the offer for academic sources, I have to see what I can access at work without attracting too much attention, inshallah.Jayzames (talk) 15:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate that initiative to took at List of Arabic loanwords in English. By way of apology, I sincerely didn't know the books were illegal. I didn't know what sort of a site SCRIBD.COM is. The site has got a huge number of books available for free download. I thought the publishers were either turning a blind eye or actually supporting it. The site doesn't have an "About" page explaining who they are. Just now I read (at Wikipedia, hope it's reliable) that "a class action lawsuit has been filed against Scribd, accusing it of calculated copyright infringement for profit." Seanwal111111 (talk) 11:17, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I guessed you weren't aware of the problems with that source (which seems to function as nothing more than an exchange for pirated books these days) and that my edit summary would be enough to let you know about it (which seems to have worked). I occasionally use scribd.com if I want to check something in a book, which might be seen as fair use, but it's best not to go any further than that.
By the way, many thanks for your work at that article, which did need a little loving.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 11:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

!يا الله, Even the Al-farabi article has been jaggedalized

I was planning to put together a section in the sharia article on Islam and democracy and maybe try to show various opinions ranging from Al farabi to Maududi when I come up on this statement that Al farabi regarded democracy as "closest to the ideal state." This, from everything else I've read, is a pretty far cry from what Al farabi actually believed. How are we ever going to fix all this when it takes so long to clean up even one article? I can't believe one person can do so much damage to so much of Wikipedia. Jayzames (talk) 08:31, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

He was nothing if not enthusiastic and determined. And I still find the whole affair somewhat unbelievable, as you say. Even just deleting anything obviously bogus or that misrepresents its sources, which I and others have started doing, will take a long time. But several of the articles need more than this piecemeal approach and require a re-write to bring them up to a good standard.
I think what I find most bewildering is that he seems to believe that the only things of value in Islamic culture and civilisation are those that prefigure or ape so-called "Western" achievements. To start by accepting another culture as the yardstick of 'progress' and 'achievement' is to surrender the field before you begin.
I'm concentrating on philosophy and the history of science, where I have most knowledge and interest, but I'm happy to look at whatever else could do with the attention. As I'm not likely to have the time or ability to do any large scale work on articles outside my sphere of competence, I'm very happy to see that you, and others, are working so hard on other areas.
But it takes forever. And since people try to support problematic claims here from other sources that are themselves based on Wikipedia in the first place (and this includes non-scholarly and popular books), some of the material will just come back again and again. Oh happy happy, joy joy.
All my best wishes. –Syncategoremata (talk) 08:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
One procedure I used in dealing with a similar problem in the article Nicole Oresme, which had been extensively distorted by one editor, was to copy the version prior to those edits into a user page (see for example User:SteveMcCluskey/Nicole Oresme, and then begin copying positive material from the article into the userfied version. Once the userfied version (or a section of it) is in good form, it's easy to drop it in in place of the distorted material. It would be useful to put a link to the userfied version on the article talk page while the revisions take place. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:11, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

"veritic"

I would disagree with you in principal, though I admit that in practice you have the right of it. "Veridical" carries a positive connotation; that is to say, that X is truthful, factual, etc. Philosophers very often introduce neutral, new terms into the literature to avoid connotation (whether positive or pejorative). I.e., X is truth related. Meh, who am I kidding, it's just because they're pretentious ;). Needless to say, I'm certain you're aware of all this. While I agree wholeheartedly that the term doesn't belong on a wikipedia page, removing it in toto, without regard to meaning... is replacing a syntactical (diction, more like) sin with a semantic one.

Now, the real reason I'm pestering you =P. I too am only familiar with the term as it applies to epistemic luck (and a quick google search concurs), but that is not to say it isn't prominent. On the contrary, epistemic luck is hotly debated, and a route many authorities have taken in response to Gettier. Are you familiar with Zagzebski's "The Inescapability of Gettier Problems"? In my understanding, her opinion of epistemic luck is not that different from your own, and it is certainly a reasonable one. However, in the context of the cluster that follows Zagzebski, it begins to look like a viable choice.

I'll be sure to word my comments more carefully in the future so as not to inspire vitriol, but I think we've encapsulated the fundamental distinction between writers of philosophy and philosophical writers ;). I apologize if you're disinterested - insomnia is peaking, and I'm just plain bored. Best Regards, TheSearchForTelos (talk) 07:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry if my comment came across as vitriolic. I will admit though that it was intended to be somewhat snarky and even for that I do apologize.
As for your point about "semantic sin", I can only but agree. 'Blindly' editing articles on Wikipedia and deleting what isn't understood is a paradoxical stance for someone who has (presumably) come to discover something they didn't know.
As for 'lucky knowledge' and the bottomless pit of Gettier, I just (re-)read the Zagzebski article you mentioned, and as usual for such discussions, it seems extremely reasonable and well-thought out. My diagnosis of Gettier-style problems though is that they are due to an over-simplified and over-idealised model of cognition, one which allows for unbounded and free deductive steps and affords to the results of such deductions as much trust as was present in the starting material. Until some even slightly more plausible logic than this is used, analytic epistemology, and philosophy of mind too, will continue to circle the drain (in my obviously humble opinion). And it's not as if there aren't a good range of reasonably well-understood alternative logics to choose from now, such as a glorious range of sub-structural ones, for example.
I'll stop there before I begin ranting at full-bore, and I'll retreat back to working in pre-Modern philosophy instead.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 19:48, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
No need for an apology! I was the first to use a hot tone, mea culpa.
Something of a post-script: I didn't mean to suggest that Zagzebski sees 'luck' as a viable option. Actually, I often summarize her paper as a condemnation of JTB, which brings me to your next point...
You're absolutely correct that many epistemological problems (as well as those of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and philosophy in general) are the result of a flawed model of cognition. No doubt, many philosophers would do well to remember that before tilting at abstract windmills. That being said, there is something about epistemology that seems incredibly normative. As though, even if neuroscience could paint us a perfect picture, we would still have questions. Jaegwon Kim makes an interesting analogy with ethics (the exact paper eludes me at the moment) that you may or may not be interested in - no doubt Graham Priest et al would disagree.
You work on some cool projects, I'm enjoying checking them out!
Best Regards TheSearchForTelos (talk) 17:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding reporting vandals at AIV

Hi! I just wanted to mention to you that if you report a vandal at AIV without first warning him, then administrators are very unlikely to block the vandal. If you see something that is clearly vandalism, then you should revert it and then warn the vandal on his/her talk page using a vandalism warning template, such as those found here. Regards, • CinchBug • 15:01, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks and, yes, I should have done exactly that. At that point I was losing patience since the editor appeared to be the same person as had been editing from 116.71.75.255 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), who had continued to edit after my warnings on their talk page (and whom I had also reported at AIV). I hope the semi-protect on Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam will lead to an improvement in their behaviour.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 15:41, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The Makdisi problem

Hi, as you know, much of the jagged 85 spamming has been based on the claims of a single professor, John Makdisi. I've managed to get "The Islamic Origins of the Common Law," but the source for some exceptional claims is "Makdisi, John (1985-6)), "Formal Rationality in Islamic Law and the Common Law", Cleveland State Law Review 34: 97–112." Even Westlaw doesn't carry this, as they have full archives only up to 1993. The exceptional claim made is "Islamic jurists formulated early contract laws that introduced formal rationality, legal rationality, legal logic (see Logic in Islamic philosophy) and legal reasoning in the use of contracts." I'm not sure if it's worth the effort to look for a source that's not even on Westlaw, does it show up on any of your services? It almost seems like jagged 85 went out of his way to use the most obscure sources from the least circulated journals.Jayzames (talk) 09:22, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It looks like I can access that article via Hein-On-Line (what a horrible name): I'll check this afternoon when I'm in the relevant library. (If I can't get access to the electronic version, I know that the one of the law libraries here has a paper subscription back to the 60s, so I'll wangle access to that if necessary).
I have to say that, just from what little I know of Roman contract law for example, the claim to have "introduced formal rationality, legal rationality, legal logic and legal reasoning in the use of contracts" must be bogus, unless it rests on some very narrow and technical point, but I'll see what the article says.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 09:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
The claim made in that article is that by the 12th or 13th century, Islamic contract law was showing signs of "innovative logically formal rationality". This seems to be Makdisi's own term of art based on his own combination of the analyses of various legal systems by Max Weber (Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 2nd ed. 1925) and by Lawrence Friedman (The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective, 1975). The 'earlier' in the claim you quote appears to come from a comparison with English common law, which Weber takes to have become 'rational' (in some particular sense) only in the 19th century. Whether Islamic contract law is an early example of such rationality (in however a restricted and technical sense) is not discussed in this article. (The article also includes some discussion of 'legal logic' and what it entails, which is where that part of the quote comes from, I guess.)
That volume of the Cleveland State Law Review is a special issue on comparisons of Islamic law and English common law (or something along those lines), and I noticed that another article from it is used a few times on Wikipedia:
Hallaq, Wael B (1985). "Logic of Legal Reasoning in Religious and Non-Religious Cultures: The Case of Islamic Law and the Common Law, The". Cleveland State Law Review. 34: 79–96. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
I've got a copy of this too here just in case anyone should need to check it.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 21:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks so much, Makdisi's a remarkably turgid and obscure writer isn't he? I've tramped through a good chunk of the "Islamic origins of the common law," and I can't help but notice that Makdisi doesn't seem to mentions any exchange of personnel between the rulers of Sicily and England or any relationship between the ruling families of both kingdoms. The only connection between them is that they are both ethnic Normans.
I'll keep in mind Wael Hallaq, I have some article of his where he talks about the claim that ijtihad, or reinterpretation, had been ended in the 9th or 10th century, and that all major questions had been answered, freezing Islamic law. According to Hallaq the "closure of the gates of ijtihad" is a distortion propagated by Orientalists.Jayzames (talk)
Minor point: In his The Normans In European History, p. 229, Charles Homer Haskins mentions a Thomas Brown who served in the Norman court in Sicily and "later returned to his native land to fill an honored place in the exchequer of Henry II." --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Haskins has more to say about Thomas Brown, mentioning that he could sign his name in Arabic, in his The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, p. 61. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:34, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for this reference Steve: I hadn't read the Makdisi article to the end (for the sort of reasons Jayzames mentions amongst others) but it turns out that this figure is mentioned there (see pp.1724–5 580n.) where Makdisi quotes a large chunk from Matthew's The Norman Kingdom of Sicily (1992), pp. 219–23, about the legal document signed by Thomas Brown, and then goes on (see pp. 1729–30) to discuss Thomas Brown's important role in Sicily and his subsequent close connection to the King in England. Makdisi points out, for example:

Within eight short years after Thomas Brown appeared in England, the English assize of novel disseisin was decreed and the English jury in its modern form made its appearance. (p. 1730)

(Note that there is some doubt about the exact dating of the enactment of this assize.)
All this makes that period of history even more interesting (I hadn't been aware of the Islamic aspects of the Norman rule in Sicily, to which Makdisi draws our attention in that article). Yet more on my list of stuff to read up on.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks both of you, it's been difficult for me to find the important points in Makdisi's article.
One of the things that's been baffling to me is that Makdisi equates the lafif, a team of twelve witnesses, with the English jury. I can't figure out how the two are fundamentally similar as per Makdisi's explanation, and I wonder if I'm missing something or if there's really nothing there.Jayzames (talk) 01:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Speed of light

Hello Syncategoremata, long time no see! I´ve been quite busy in real life so I didn´t have time to work in wikipedia.

I want to know your opinion about a the speed of light article. In the History section, a paragraph says that in the 14th century, an indian scholar named Sayana mentioned that the speed of light was 186,40, almost the real value!! .The sources for this exceptional claim are two articles written by an indian scholar named Subhash Kak.I did a little of research on this guy, and I came across an article written by him regarding the Aryan invasion of India.This is an extremely delicate topic for the indians, as you may know. In that article, he says that the Aryan invasion of India has been disproved and that it rests on circular logic!! When we all know that 90% of linguists and other scholars support this theory.Denying this is a typical symptom of indian nationalism, or at least is associated with it.Here´s a link to the article.

So, my question is: can we trust this apparently biased indian scholar on an extraordinaty claim like this? Should we remove this claim? Thanks for your time--Knight1993 (talk) 16:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Good to see you here again.
As for Subhash Kak, some people clearly believe that some of his work is comparable to nonsense such as the Bible Code but I have to say that I have no expertise in this material. Having said that, Kak himself does not claim that the calculation is anything but a coincidence, and is more interested in the cosmology surrounding it; though he is obviously happy to find the number there.
A few qualifications could well be added to the claim given in the speed of light article though, such as: it is a matter of interpretation that this source refers to the speed of light; and, the exact value for the speed depends on the choice of values for the units involved (both of which points Kak admits).
So his paper at arXiv.org says, of one of the units of measurement, that "We cannot be absolutely certain what yojanas did he have in mind". The two possibilities differ, on Kak's reckoning by a factor of 36, so using the other possibility yields a speed nowhere near the correct speed, for example.
These sort of issues used to be mentioned in the article (see this revision) but seem to have been removed. It might be good to put them back in.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 21:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Seethis.This discussion preety much proved the nonsense of this theory, and the subjectiveness needed to accept such theory( which I think only Kak believes in it.I have only found this theory in Kak´s paper and Indian nationalistic sites).Furthermore, taking into account that this would be the greatest blind hit in History of science, and that Kak is decidedly biased against the west (he calls the IE invasion of India a MYTH created by western racism), I think we should remove this nonsense.--Knight1993 (talk) 17:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

sorry

my flatmate was hacking in to my account recently. i'm not sure where he's affected but i have changed password and hope it's now stopped.

enjoy your weekend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.56.99 (talk) 23:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for dropping by to explain. No damage appears to have been done: hope the same can be said for anything else your flatmate may have gained access to.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 23:44, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Syncategoremata. You have new messages at TreasuryTag's talk page.
Message added 14:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

╟─TreasuryTag►quaestor─╢ 14:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Your edits to Inoculation

This is a plea for clarification of "the usual breakage" on the "cite book" template. This wasn't working before, and your edit fixed it. My problem is that I can't see what was wrong with the first version; in fact, it's the version I always use. Is the problem documented anywhere? I couldn't find it on the template talk pages. Thanks. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:28, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been struggling with problems in the {{Cite}} template on and off for a while, and this evening I think I just realised that it involves the order of parameters if you use both the 'url' and 'authorlink' keys. Like you I just had a quick search for some previous report of this and failed to find anything. I'll put together a test case here and then report it (somewhere).
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 21:34, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
D'oh! Entirely my bad (tho' I'll blame my keyboard). I had inserted some non-breaking spaces (which is shift-space on my odd keyboard) and those caused random problems. I've just taken them out and all is well again. Presumably I've been doing it repeatedly, which has been causing my {{Cite}} stress. I'll see if I can edit that damn key combination out of my keyboard map.
Sorry for the noise.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:01, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
That's plain, thanks. The Unicode ASCII non-breaking space, as opposed to the Wiki markup version, didn't show up to the casual eye. --Old Moonraker (talk) 22:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Found this by accident

Found this discussion by accident on the Internet, and I wonder if it was written by the editor himself, or whether this is constitutes an actual example of Wikipedia being used to spread unreliable information, with such information then being used as if it was a reliable source. He even quotes one of the iffy sources formerly in the sharia article as if it is an authority (the author in question was actually a law student at the time of writing).Jayzames (talk) 04:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

One of the reasons I started editing here is that I found some of Jagged's more creative additions being quoted elsewhere on the internet. The one that triggered me into action was the following, about al-Jahiz, which I found being quoted by someone on www.reddit.com:

"Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring."

This is sourced from the flimsiest of sources (it's a quote from a panellist in a radio show) but in an attempt to shore it up it has had the following references added at various points (which I've deleted):
As far as I can tell, all of these are sourced from this reference on Wikipedia. Certainly the two newspaper articles are; the book is not so clear but I am pretty certain that the material in that section is taken from here. (To Jim al-Khalili's credit, he re-published his Telegraph article in the Guardian on the following day, but without this particular claim; my guess is that someone had contacted him in the meantime to point out the problems with it.)
So, yes: this sort of material is read in Wikipedia and is then repeated elsewhere as reliable information. And as these examples show, it is sometimes repeated by people or publishers who really should know better. The trouble is that if some "reliable" source picks it up from here, it tends to come back round and be used here to support the nonsense claim from which it was sourced in the first place. Once Wikipedia becomes a source for books published by reputable publishers (Springer), the chance of removing it from the body of "universally accepted facts" becomes ever smaller.
A classic example of this is the claim that Ibn Yunus was the first to use the pendulum for time-keeping. This started as a mistake in the 17th century, was picked up and popularised by Humboldt in the mid-19th century, was shown to be baseless in the early 20th century, and again in the later 20th century but is still being published in various popular science books and encyclopaedias, such as:
See the following reference for an eye-opening account of the way in which Humboldt's reference was repeated and exaggerated by a sequence of primarily Muslim authors through the 20th century:
  • King, David A. (1979). "Ibn Yunus and the Pendulum: A History of Errors". Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences. 29 (104): 35–52.
So, tl;dr, Wikipedia matters: it is real life now.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 09:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
I feel the same way. I wouldn't have bothered to invest what has now become a colossal amount of time into the sharia article if it hadn't been so insanely at odds with reality.
As far as Jagged goes, I do think "salafi burnout syndrome" sets in eventually, and this might all seem like youthful excess sooner rather than later. It is exceedingly laborious to clean up though, and I can't imagine how much trouble it's going to be to go through all the science related articles that have been repurposed for religious preaching. The worst thing for me about this is that I can now no longer consult Wikipedia for even somewhat reliable information on any medieval thinker who happened to be Muslim.Jayzames (talk) 13:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
And just as an example, I've been reading a book by Bassam Tibi about political Islam, where he urges the revival of a rationalist tradition in Islamic culture which died with Averroes (who I am only glancingly familiar with), and which, according to Tibi, Islamic orthodoxy has vehemently rejected ever since. Looked up Averroes on Wikipedia, and somehow he has become history's first existentialist.Jayzames (talk) 14:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

"Good Articles" post Jagged

Hi,

I just noticed on my watchlist that a number of articles that are in need of extensive revisions following edits by Jagged 85 recently had the Good Article symbol added to the article.[7][8] This wasn't a new decision, these articles were already rated as GAs and a recent discussion has led to a wholesale installation of the GA symbol on the article pages of existing GAs.

GAs are expected to be factually accurate, verifiable, neutral, and stable. This initiative raises the issue of whether we want to call for reassessments of such GAs, citing the RfC/U as a basis. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:11, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the woodshed, something nasty is still there. Thanks for the heads up on this Steve, I'll have a look through the reassessment process and the list of GAs to see what might be done about this.
First note: the last sweep by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force didn't seem to check the Astronomy in medieval Islam article, which is a little confusing as they seem to have intended to check all the GAs.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 12:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
!لا سامح اللهJayzames (talk) 01:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Transits of Venus

My pleasure. Thanks for your work on the situation surrounding these. Jonathan.kade (talk) 15:32, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Jagged85, Logic and philosophy articles

Hi - we have talked before - I am Peter Damian, still banned from Wikipedia. I wrote most of History of logic. There are some serious errors introduced into that article - I don't believe there is any such thing as Avicennian logic for example. What can be done? I did not realise the scale of what he had been doing. 86.185.142.233 (talk) 21:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello again and yes, I agree that there is no such thing as "Avicennian logic"; there may be an Avicennian school of logic, but no more than that and even that was still fundamentally Aristotelian (so far as I know). Unfortunately I don't have much grip on later Islamic logic: most of what I have done is based on al-Farabi or Ibn Sina, and even then, much of that is from a medieval Latin perspective.
I've just grabbed a copy of the relevant volume of the Handbook of the History of Logic, covering Greek, Indian, and Arabic logic, which contains a long survey paper by Tony Street, which complements Rescher's classic The Development of Arabic Logic (or whatever it's called). I'll see if I can find the time to read (skim?) through those in the next week or so and then have another look at the article. If you had any other suggestions for reference material, I'd be most glad to know of them.
As for the scale of Jagged's contributions, it is most impressive, tho' not in the most positive of senses.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 11:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
These points about Jagged 85 may be well taken, but you might want to look at these comments on Athenean's talk page and elsewhere. I'm not up on the details but I see a controversy as messy as Jagged's here, so I'm keeping my distance. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Many thanks for the note Steve, which is certainly good advice.
The first time Peter Damian posted on my talk page ([9]) I spent an eye-opening (and eye-watering) afternoon reading about some of his troubles here and the various administrator actions against him. At that point I deliberately stopped editing the History of logic article.
But, his worries about "Avicennian and post-Avicennian logic" chimes with my own and, as I have the resources to hand now (and an interest in that area), I will give the article a further prod as and when my current difficulties give me the opportunity.
All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 08:37, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
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