User talk:Patrick0Moran

Assertions

For what they are worth, hereinunder begins a collection of assertions:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_4_public_health.html

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Ram-Man&action=edit&section=new)| talk)

It is not true that your contributions to articles are public domain, unless you specifically state so as follows:

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my text contributions, in the English Wikipedia '''main''' namespace only, as described below:

This version is restricted to articles only, and excludes user and talk pages. You can copy and paste that into your user page or a page such as User:Patrick0Moran/Copyrights. – Ram-Man ^{(comment (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Ram-Man&action=edit&section=new)) (talk)}[[]] 21:11, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images

Hey! Thanks for uploading Image:Achae tepid.JPG

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) Thanks so much. --[[User:Ricky81682|Ricky81682 (talk)]] 08:53, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Same with Image:Agelenopsis.jpg. Thanks. BrokenSegue 18:52, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I know just what you mean. Thanks for making the contribution. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:28, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Shih Tzu link

Hi; there was some background to the Shih Tzu external link that you restored. It's a link to a user group that only registered users can access. I think that generally that's discouraged from encyclopedic articles here--links that allow people to get information freely are more appropriate to WP. An anon user added it, I removed it 3 times & they readded it, then they finally got a log-in and we were able to have a discussion about it and she agreed to remove it herself--and then you readded it! :-) So I took it out again; hope this makes sense. Elf | Talk 00:21, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Race article

sorry, late response -- problem with internet connection -- I concur with your assessment that we're talking about the same thing but using different language. It's been a while since my college metaphysics class, but I suspect our major differences are in that field, not biology.

I think the main body of the article is almost satisfactory. I would like to add some population genetics detail to the anthropology and genetics section. Stuff like: any 2 random humans vary at 1 in 1000 nucleotides, whereas 2 random chimps vary at 1 in 500; and material that links to population bottleneck and founder effect so that people can get more info on that. The other thing that needs improvement in the main article body is NPOV phrasing in some sections.

The validity section has been moved to a new article. This needs more work. I think we might be able to all agree that there is a consensus among at least 99% of people that the 3 older biological definitions are flawed -- and then explain why. Then we can try to present some of the current debate about the linage definition, which has been written about a lot lately, so we should find current material. (Notice the new APA issue linked in the race talk section.)

Finally, would it help if we wrote up a roadmap for the article and try to ask back previous editors to contribute material that are missing? --Rikurzhen 18:07, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Race article

Finally, would it help if we wrote up a roadmap for the article and try to ask back previous editors to contribute material that are missing? --Rikurzhen 18:09, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

race

I appreciate your comments. About that earlier sentence, all I can say is I did and probably still think it is a good sentence, although probably for very different reasons than JDG. That said, I have no problem with the current introduction (meaning, including what I added), even if that former sentence that I liked is gone.

As to your point about races: in principle I agree, because I know exactly what you mean. This is of course what I have tried to accomplish by conceiving of the intro as laying out three distinct widely held views of race (biologists who use it, biologists who don't, social scientists who see it purely as a social construct). I also believe that Rikurzhen has been trying to do the same thing with his table of different "theories" of race proposed by biologists/evolutionary scientists. (I understand your point about different concepts of race to be isomorphic with Rikurzhen's notion of different theories of race, and very similar to my notion of different scholarly communities, each of which has a different attitude towards the concept).

For what it is worth, I favored the older opening line (taxonomic principle) precisely for the same reason you are now suggesting defining races as aggregates that different people have come up with etc. I still prefer "taxonomic principle" over "aggregates" but my point is I think we differ in semantics, not substance. But to be clear, I am not trying to revive an old argument, I am not demanding that we put that sentence back in. I am just trying to explain my reasoning.

As to your suggestion about "races." As I said, I understand what you mean and agree absolutely. Nevertheless, I do not think your proposal will work because when people read "races" they do not, as I think you are suggesting, understand it to mean "a plurality of conceptions of race." Rather, they take it to mean "a plurality of races, races being real 'things', all races reflecting a unified conception of race." In other words, to use the word "races" will not be understood by most readers to refer to "socially constructed race"+"essentialist race"+"taxonomic race"+"lineage race" etc. They will undertand it to mean "negroid"+"caucasian"+"mongoloid." I think this is inevitable.

As I said, I think we agree in substance. My difference with you is semantic -- I do not think your proposal will have the effect you intend. I hope that you and Rikurzhen and I and others can work out an effective way of communicating this good point you are making., Slrubenstein 16:21, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

geographically disjunct subspecies usually can be demonstrated to actually be species

I can only guess he might mean something like this: suppose there are wolves in Asia and wolves in North America and someone thinks they are different subspecies of the same wolf species. And your criteria for species is that they can produce fertile offspring and would normally do so in the wild. Then someone accidently releases some Asian wolves in a American wolf sanctuary, and it turns out they fail to interbreed, and so concludes they are actually different species. That's what I'm guessing he means. --Rikurzhen 21:34, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

social construction

my understanding of social construction is that it is primarily a counterfactual claim. to say that X is socially constructed means that X would have been otherwise if society had been otherwise. thus, to extrapolate a biological construct is one that would have been otherwise if biology had been otherwise. in my opinion some definitions of race are mostly social construction, and some definitions of race are mostly biological construction -- in the context of that phrase. note: i would dislike a definition of construction under which electrons could be said to be constructed. --Rikurzhen 09:25, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

no, that's fine. i just wanted to give you an answer before I went to sleep. --Rikurzhen 17:51, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

I think the above is a plausible description of social construction, but I disagree. Preliminary note: scholars use the term in a variety of ways and it may not be possible to come up with one definition that works in every major published use of the term.

Ian Hacking provides a somewhat pragmatic explanation in The SOcial Construction of What? Basically, he sees all talk about "social construction" as a means of identifying something people take for granted, and getting them to stop taking it for granted.

He claims that "social construction" inovles three propositions, one which is always necessary and the other two which may or may not be necessary, depending on the object of analysis.

(1) X need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. X, or X as it is at present, is not determined by the nature of things; it is not inevitable.

(2) X is quite bad as it is.

(3) We would be much better off if X were done away with, or at least radically transformed.

I happen to disagree vehemently with Hacking, but his is one of the most widely cited accounts by a philsopher.

I however believe that the notion of "social construction" starts with Kantian metaphysics. He claimed that we can never know a "thing in itself;" that all our perceptions of the real world are mediated through human senses, which necessarily structure our experience of the world. I think social constructionists go one or two steps further. The first step is to add that besides the human mind (which is by definition the same for all human beings), language (especially involving the grammar and lexicon of a given language) too structures our experience of the world. The second step is that discourse (meaning, rules governing (or if you prefer, habits or patterns) conversation -- rules of which people are unconscious, except of course in the breach) further structures our experiences (the case studies in the social construction of race, in the race article, exemplify this). From this view, "socially constructed" most definitely does not mean that something lacks physical reality. That something is socially constructed through language and discourse does not mean it is not constructed out of physically reall raw materials, and does not mean that it what is constructed has no physical reality. Nuclear bombs are socially constructed -- they do not exist "in" nature, but we humans, organized socially, came up with the idea to make one, and then worked together to make one, turning naturally found materials and turning them into something quite new. One could even argue that atoms are socially constructed (in fact, I think there is a book on the social construction of quarks). I don't think Stephen Hawking ever used the term "social construction" but when he explained what a scientific theory is in A Brief History of Time he is describing a social construction. He does not claim that theories are physically real or identical with reality, he explains that they are models we humans come up with to comprehend in some predictable way certain phenomena. In any event, I think social construction hinges on making a distinction between things and ideas. As soon as you admit to that difference, then you either become an idealist in the sense of Plato, or you pretty much have to acknowledge that our ideas are socially constructed. They are socially constructed out of experiences with the phenomenal world, and they may be used to make sense of or even control the phenomenal world (and to do so, we must have very rigorous procedures for socially constructing something). Of course, because they are often used to control the phenomenal world, they can and sometimes are used against other people. This gets to Hacking's point, which really has to do with the political uses to which "social constructionism" is put (and not what is "social construction" per se). I think anyone interested in this concept should read Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar's Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific facts. They show how the Salk Laboratory socially constructed TRF (Thyrotropin Releasing Factor). At one point they explain "...to say that TRF is constructed is not to deny its solidity as a fact. Rather, it is to emphasize how, where, and why it was created." Again, I think here one can productively go back to Hacking. The importance of "social construction" is to get people to recognize that what they take for granted is not, in popular naive ways of saying it, a "fact" or "natural." We all know just how much real, physical damage a nuclear bomb can do. But woe to us if people start thinking that "there have always been nuclear bombs" or "well of course making nuclear bombs is natural." If I haven't explained social construction well here, I am not sure I can do better -- but I think after reading this book anyone would have a crystal clear idea of what it means. Slrubenstein 21:39, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Chinese classical music

Just wanted to drop you a note that I just discovered your page on Chinese classical music on your personal website and found it to be very interesting reading. Great job compiling that information! —Lowellian (talk) 09:31, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

John Money

Hello, I am a new user and stumbled across this page in the most unlikely way, when I found a verbal linkage to Dr. Money and Graham crackers (you are what you eat?). Isn't that peculiar? I read the article biography and noticed that there were no external links; so I found some. Thought it would be proper to discuss this with you first, prior to making any changes to this extraordinarily well-researched article. Please see the John Money talk page, if you are inclined. Sincerely, Otto 00:40, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks very much for responding; I have been busy with (real life) and haven't had much time to follow-through with this until now. I believe that there were two links: The case of John/Joan (http://infocirc.org/rollston.htm) written by a reporter who then published the article in Rolling Stone, and then an AMA link that I found...and lost...more work to do! I do know that the AMA link has strong policy guidelines for copyright, and will require a letter of authorization. They are quite explicit on that point. The link that I found on the AMA doesn't even have the full text of the article; merely an abstract by the two doctors who originally criticized Money for witholding information for so long re: Reimer case. I questioned whether or not to even bother with it, based on the fact that it's a pay retrieval to access the original article, and listing it requires copyright permission from the AMA. Let me know if it's worth the effort of tracking down the article again. --Otto 19:39, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tarantula

Sorry! I made the inexcusable mistake of not copying down the name which the exhibit (I took the photo in a museum) had. --Fir0002 03:55, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Race

The article begins this way: 'This article is about race as an intraspecies classification. A race is a distinct population of humans distinguished in some way from other humans. The most widely observed races are those based on skin color, facial features, ancestry, and genetics'

So let's talk about ANCESTRY. Shall you leave that opening statement alone? Yes, you have, you've left it there. Read it again, especially the part about "widely observed races are intraspecies classifications based on ANCESTRY. Now, who can think of an EXAMPLE of a race that is based on ANCESTRY? The question is - shall it be OK to MENTION an example? Either it is, or it isn't. If it isn't, then let's not even talk about race. So it HAS to be OK to mention examples if the generalizations are to make ANY SENSE AT ALL. Now the question is, WHO CLAIMS to be a race based on ancestry? Well, JEWS do. It's a FACT. It's NOT a BROADSIDE.

I had written the following - 'They cite as an example the self-assertion by Jews that they are a distinct race from 'Arabs'. This claim is based upon a religious belief of lineal descent from someone who lived nearly 4,000 years ago named Abraham and his son, Issac. The counterweight supposition is that all Arabs are descended from Abraham's other son, Ishmael. Scientifically, it is nonsensical, but it is the foundation of the Jewish religion, nation and 'race'. Welcome to a new dimension of discussion of the very old human perception of race.'

Instead of just removing my work, why don't you point out what is factually incorrect, or what is not rationally implied? There are topics in Wikipedia which are just a bunch of sterilized, neutered words which enlighten very little, if at all. Race is one of those topics, thanks to removal activity such as yours. If RACE is a valid concept, then let's talk about it in a way that's meaningful. If talking about it reveals that it's a social construct only, then so be it. If talking about it reveals that it is a biological reality that means nothing, then so be it. But let's TALK about it. If it's a social construct that is used to divide people and cause war, then let's talk about it, for crying out loud.

I want you to tell me what you mean by describing the above as a BROADSIDE. I want you to specifically say what is wrong about it.

If you insist that race will not be discussed throughly within Wikipedia then so be it - the discussion with regard to specific EXAMPLES of how some people use a claim of ANCESTRY to justifiy the concept of a racially distinct population, for instance, and what the implications of that are, good and bad, will have to take place with Wikipedia sitting irrelevant on the sidelines.Bill Cannon 15:51, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Can you provide a citation for your assertion that Jews claim to be a different "race" from Arabs? Jayjg ^(talk) 20:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Orange (color)

I see many of your contributions are substantive, and several "rv vandalism"s are just that. But I'm not sure what you intended with "orange". I rv the article, and avoided labeling your edit as anything but "damage" -- inadvertant, I'm sure.

I don't mean to embarass you and, if you like, you may immediately delete my comment. — Xiong 熊 talk 05:30, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know what happened. I was trying to follow up on an unregistered user who had been making, or trying to make, funny comments in the middle of articles. I wouldn't have gotten to Orange otherwise. Now I don't see his entry, and it appears that I reverted in a way that removed legitimate edits. It looks like the time records may have gone awry somehow. Anyway, thanks for catching my mistake. P0M 08:08, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NP. — Xiong 熊 talk 17:01, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

Mao badge

I see you are very active on Cultural Revolution. It is a contentious topic and all are to be commended on an article which is anything other than a bloody battleground.

Mao badges are -- I should hope -- a relatively neutral footnote, a curiosity if you will, although they did have great significance. Perhaps the Mao badge deserves its own article; surely it should be mentioned in the context of the Cultural Revolution. As it happens, I've done a small bit of research on the item in question; I also have a small collection of indifferent quality, which I may photograph for use as illustration.

As an outsider to China, I have a rather jaundiced view of Chinese political battles and I do not want to be drawn into one over this. Suggestions? — Xiong 熊 talk 05:36, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

Uploading to the Commons

Hi, As you probably saw on my talk page I have already been approached to upload to the Commons, and I've decided to take up on the idea and have uploaded all my photos from a-c so far. Amongst them is my tarantula picture. Unfortunately I uploaded it on its old name. If you thinks this is a problem tell me and I'll upload it again. --Fir0002 06:48, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Appreciation

Hi,

Thank you for your kind words from October 2004. I think we had a great discussion, too. I think it was fun and we produced a good outcome - and that's what I am here for. An I'd like to return the compliment about accepting other opinions - I also had the impression that even if we had a disagreement, we were both working towards the common goal of improving the article.

You also contacted me about an image from an Italian author for the race article in January - I assume that's already solved. If not, I can help with Italian. --Fenice 09:26, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Re:Spider picture

You posted about my spider picture. None of the pictures I could find on google images searching for either Tetragnatha (http://images.google.com/images?q=Tetragnatha) or Leucauge (http://images.google.com/images?q=Leucauge) looked quite like my spider. But then again, I don't know anything about spiders really. I'd certainly believe you if that's what you think it was. Thanks for looking at it though. If you or anyone else can identify the spider, I'd be glad to hear about it. And of course feel free to use the image on any article. --jacobolus (t) 21:57, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Spider categorization

I was curious with the new spider categorization you are using, it looks like now spiders get the category of their species not genus, such as the hobo spider being of the category agrestis? It does make the categorizing spiders very logical from a scientist point of view, but will it be harder for average joe to find? Just browing the spider category now doesn't show that there is an article about hobo spiders, I'd have to know the order, family etc... then dig down a few subcategories to find the hobo article.

Ultimately it seems like the spiders category would be mostly unbrowsable, but eminently searchable. Is this the route other sections, perhaps snakes or birds, have chosen to take with organizing their articles? Would putting each spider into it's species category but also putting it in the overlord spider category be useful for searching as well as browsing?

Again, thanks for helping me out with my foray into working on spider articles, and all your awesome work in general on wikipedia!

--Fxer 17:05, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Hobo spider image

Thanks for the heads up on the image being deleted soon, I changed the licence on it to reflect what his website states, and additionally emailed Dr. Ostrom to make sure it would be okay to use his image on Wikipedia, just to be doubly sure, and he was more than happy to have the image disseminated :)

Additionally, would you mind taking a look at Talk:Phoneutria? I made a little comment there to try and get some more info about the genus, perhaps you can shed some light on it! Thanks again for all your help

--Fxer 16:09, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

More spider categorizing

Also about categorizing the spiders, on the lowest species level such as the Hobo spider it is classified as agrestis for its binomial name, eventually could this cause a problem with other spieces (spider or not) sharing the same half of a binomial name? The Domestic house spider would share a category with the housefly (binomial name Musca domestica) if we categorize according to the half-binomial name...should this be of concern?

--Fxer 17:29, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

If we categorize based on partial binomial, such as P. fera we could end up running into the same problem eventually, with species like the housefly (Musca domestica) and the Apple (Malus domestica) both being in the category M. domestica, why can't we catch a break? :)

--Fxer 17:40, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

To your second question, on the Tree of Life taxobox page the complete classification has an entry for every subrank if needed. That link also states:

This taxobox contains a complete list of taxobox templates. Do not use this complete list: instead cut out all ranks except for the seven major ranks (regnum, phylum, classis, ordo, familia, genus, species) and the particular other ranks that are important to the taxon being described.

I've just been using the 7 major ranks, as I thought all the subranks for a particular species would just clutter the taxobox, and the subranks of spiders can still be found if needed. Like on the main spiders page the families divided amung their suborders to make them easier to find and organize, as there are so many of them.

Perhaps we should just use the 7 major ranks for the taxoboxes, and have just a single page for each subrank that shows its members? Example being the Araneomorphae suborder page that lists its member families?

As to how to categorize the species of spiders, your idea to recapitulate the higher-order names to an acronym is interesting, I don't suppose there is some sort of council that this question could be posed to and we could get some community discussion on the best long term solution?

--Fxer 19:33, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Suborders, subfamiles and common names

For families such as the tarantula that has quite a number of genera, would you add another line to the taxobox that for subgenus in addition to the suborder line? It'd probably be easy to find a species that would have a suborder, subfamily, subgenus in the taxobox because there are just so many members of each rank.

Also that's a good point about the common names, perhaps with the brazilian wandering spider, we should change that to the article title for Phoneutria, then just redirect Phoneutria to brazilian wandering spider. Then change the Phoneutria nigriventer article to its binomial name for now, unless a more accurate common name for it is known.

--Fxer 20:59, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Image:Races of Bees.png

I tagged Image:Races of Bees.png as "GFDL-presumed." Please confirm by changing to GFDL or some other license. Thanks Nv8200p 12:35, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

button spider

The reason i did that was because "button spider" was a missing topic (see Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics), and according to [1] (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9018359&query=button%20spider&ct=) it is just another name for the black widow. I'm sure you know more than myself about the matter though, so change it as you see fit, but remember that Button Spider currently redirects to black widow spider. thanks Bluemoose 09:42, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Standard Chinese"

An anon has suggested at Talk:Standard Mandarin that the term should be changed to "Standard Chinese". However, given the popularity of the term "Mandarin" and the number of pages that link to Standard Mandarin, I'm not sure if I want to move the page. What do you think should be done? -- ran (talk) 00:50, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

our friend

i think he's a troll and i hope that ignoring him from now on will make him go away --Rikurzhen 21:48, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

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User talk:Patrick0Moran

Assertions

Article Licensing

Unverified images

Shih Tzu link

Race article

Race article

race

geographically disjunct subspecies usually can be demonstrated to actually be species

social construction

Chinese classical music

John Money

Tarantula

Race

Orange (color)

Mao badge

Uploading to the Commons

Appreciation

Re:Spider picture

Spider categorization

Hobo spider image

More spider categorizing

Suborders, subfamiles and common names

Image:Races of Bees.png

button spider

"Standard Chinese"

our friend

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