This is where I put lessons I've learned about how to contribute to Wikipedia.
12/4/01 My contribution style is still undergoing overhaul. Today, fewer of my changes were instantly erased, as compared with the first 2 or 3 days I contributed. I wonder what I'm doing right?
Say, I hope people don't mind the fact that I "save" often. When editing an article, I will typically hit the save button a half dozen times or more. If you want to get my final word on a subject, you might try waiting an hour.
Welcome to Wikipedia!
Another way to ask questions is to put them right on this page, then put a summary in the Summary field. Within minutes usually someone will respond.
You can add a Talk page if you have a question on an article, and ask your question there. Someone will answer. You can ask on your own page (this one) if it's not related to a specific article. You can also add a Talk page to your own personal page when conversations here get too long or annoying, or if you just don't like others adding stuff like this statement for instance. :-) --User:Dmerrill
It's been good working with you today, Ed. While we apparently disagree on a lot, we both want to see accurate and npov representations of all beliefs, not just our own. So we actually clashed rather little, and wound up educating each other instead of arguing. That's in the best of the Wikipedia spirit!
However, I still think you do not understand natural selection. It means exactly what it says -- it attempts to explain the process of selection of survivors in nature. That's all. It has nothing to do with what causes the variations in organisms.
It does accept as a premise that those variations happen, but only as a premise upon which the theory is built. The cause of the variations is not a part of the theory. You are reading into it things that are not part of it, but part of a separate phenomenon usually called individuation. What ID proposes is a different cause, and a different characterization, of individuation.
Natural selection does not explain the appearance of new forms, only the mechanism by which one survives and another does not.
The two, taken together (individuation + natural selection) are called evolution. By interpreting "natural selection" to mean "individuation + selection", you are making "natural selection" == "evolution" which is wrong.
I believe this is only a misunderstanding. It is quite common to not really understand views with which you do not agree, as part of not taking them seriously. I do that myself. But if you're going to write an encyclopedia article it is important that you reflect other people's views accurately, and I don't think you're doing that. --User:Dmerrill
By the way, I'm waiting to see what you write about Pizza. :-)
Well all, it was a fun two days. I contributed a bit to the Creationism/Evolution debate, mostly constructive -- although I couldn't resist twitting Greg over falsifiability. No doubt all traces of my tampering will be removed over the weekend. We are probably all too close to the subject, to attain NPOV. Maybe an expert on 15th Century French Lyric Poetry should do the editing. Anyway, it was fun. Gnight. -- Ed
I'd like to thank Ed for making what I believe is a sincere attempt to remain npov. If these articles on controversial topics have any chance of a truly sympathetic portrayal, while remaining npov, we need people like Ed who can explain their belief without attempting to state it as fact. It's possible I missed something Ed did, but all my interactions with him on Friday were as smooth as you could expect when two diametrically opposing worldviews are working together. We had a few clashes, but worked them out. I certainly don't feel my time was wasted. --User:Dmerrill