Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Fred Thompson

2007-05-31T12:24:38Z

Third Day:

[[Image:FredThompson.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Fred Thompson]]
'''Fred Dalton Thompson''' (born August 19, 1942 in Sheffield, [[Alabama]]) is an [[United States of America|American]] lawyer, actor and former [[Republican Party|Republican]] [[U.S. Senate|senator]] from [[Tennessee]].

He attended public school in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee and graduated from [[Memphis State University]] in 1964. He received a J. D. degree from [[Vanderbilt University]] in 1967 and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1967.

He was appointed assistant U.S. attorney 1969-1972; minority counsel, then to the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities ("Watergate Committee") 1973-1974. He became special counsel to Tennessee Governor [[Lamar Alexander]] in 1980, special counsel, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 1980-1981, Special counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee 1982. He became a member of the Tennessee Appellate Court Nominating Commission 1985-1987.

From 1975 to 1992 Thompson worked as a corporate lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He represented firms such as General Electric, Westinghouse and the Tennessee Savings and Loan League. In 1982, Thompson lobbyed the U.S. Congress for passage of the Savings and Loan deregulation legislation. Thompson contributed to the the Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. In 1991, he worked with the Washington, D.C. firm of Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, & Kahn, representing overseas business entities as a registered foreign agent.

Thompson was elected as a Republican to the [[United States Senate]] in the November 8, 1994, special election to fill the unexpired portion of the term ending January 3, 1997, left vacant by the resignation of [[Al Gore|Albert Gore, Jr.]] and was re-elected in 1996 for the term ending January 3, 2003. Not a candidate for reelection in 2002 resumed acting career.
He is currently considering a run for [[President]] in 2008. <ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/30/AR2007053000583.html</ref>

He is also an actor of note with more than 30 roles according to the International Movie Database including "The Hunt for Red October" and "Die Hard 2". He is currently a co-star of the popular television series "''Law and Order''"

Thompson announced April 11, 2007 that he's in remission from [[lymphoma]] (a type of cancer).

"I have had no illness from it, or even any symptoms. My life expectancy should not be affected. I am in remission, and it is very treatable with drugs if treatment is needed in the future—and with no debilitating side effects,". <ref>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,265271,00.html</ref>

{{cquote|"We must push back and push back hard"... "Remember how we won in the 1980. We stuck to our conservative principles."}}<ref>[http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/5/25/73456.shtml?s=ic Fred Thompson: Stick to 'Conservative Principles'] </ref>

== See also ==

*[[2008 Presidential Election]]
*[[President of the United States of America]]
*[[Democratic Party]]

== External links ==

*[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=t000457 FRED THOMPSON] U. S. Congress.
*[http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/fred-thompson/ Fred Thompson] The Washington Post.

==References==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT: Thompson, Fred}}
[[category:political people]]

Fred Thompson

2007-05-31T12:24:01Z

Third Day:

[[Image:FredThompson.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Fred Thompson]]
'''Fred Dalton Thompson''' (born August 19, 1942 in Sheffield, [[Alabama]]) is an [[United States of America|American]] lawyer, actor and former [[Republican Party|Republican]] [[U.S. Senate|senator]] from [[Tennessee]].

He attended public school in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee and graduated from [[Memphis State University]] in 1964. He received a J. D. degree from [[Vanderbilt University]] in 1967 and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1967.

He was appointed assistant U.S. attorney 1969-1972; minority counsel, then to the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities ("Watergate Committee") 1973-1974. He became special counsel to Tennessee Governor [[Lamar Alexander]] in 1980, special counsel, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 1980-1981, Special counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee 1982. He became a member of the Tennessee Appellate Court Nominating Commission 1985-1987.

From 1975 to 1992 Thompson worked as a corporate lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He represented firms such as General Electric, Westinghouse and the Tennessee Savings and Loan League. In 1982, Thompson lobbyed the U.S. Congress for passage of the Savings and Loan deregulation legislation. Thompsonhelped contribute to the the Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. In 1991, he worked with the Washington, D.C. firm of Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, & Kahn, representing overseas business entities as a registered foreign agent.

Thompson was elected as a Republican to the [[United States Senate]] in the November 8, 1994, special election to fill the unexpired portion of the term ending January 3, 1997, left vacant by the resignation of [[Al Gore|Albert Gore, Jr.]] and was re-elected in 1996 for the term ending January 3, 2003. Not a candidate for reelection in 2002 resumed acting career.
He is currently considering a run for [[President]] in 2008. <ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/30/AR2007053000583.html</ref>

He is also an actor of note with more than 30 roles according to the International Movie Database including "The Hunt for Red October" and "Die Hard 2". He is currently a co-star of the popular television series "''Law and Order''"

Thompson announced April 11, 2007 that he's in remission from [[lymphoma]] (a type of cancer).

"I have had no illness from it, or even any symptoms. My life expectancy should not be affected. I am in remission, and it is very treatable with drugs if treatment is needed in the future—and with no debilitating side effects,". <ref>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,265271,00.html</ref>

{{cquote|"We must push back and push back hard"... "Remember how we won in the 1980. We stuck to our conservative principles."}}<ref>[http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/5/25/73456.shtml?s=ic Fred Thompson: Stick to 'Conservative Principles'] </ref>

== See also ==

*[[2008 Presidential Election]]
*[[President of the United States of America]]
*[[Democratic Party]]

== External links ==

*[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=t000457 FRED THOMPSON] U. S. Congress.
*[http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/fred-thompson/ Fred Thompson] The Washington Post.

==References==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT: Thompson, Fred}}
[[category:political people]]

Debate:Was the European colonization of the Americas good for the native people?

2007-05-23T13:58:27Z

Third Day: /* YES */

{{debate}}

==YES==

The European colonists brought Christianity to the Americas and ended the Central American practice of [[human sacrifice]]. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 05:22, 21 May 2007 (EDT)
:I wonder how many people were killed to achieve this (latter) laudable aim? [[User:BrianCo|BrianCo]] 05:32, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

They sensibly replaced it with the human sacrifice to the concept of justice (capital punishment). The improvement here is that efforts are often made to avoid sacrificing innocent individuals. Thus the blood-lust of the population could be nurtured without arbitary victimisation of innocents. [[User:Auld Nick|Auld Nick]] 05:28, 21 May 2007 (EDT)
: North American Indians did not practice human sacrifice. [[User:Poblano|Poblano]] 10:45, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

Yes, it was definitely good for the natives. Look at how they lived before Europeans came to America. They lived in tepees and were practically naked all the time. Wouldn't you want help if you were in that situation? Thanks to our colonial ancestors, native people now have a much higher quality of life due to casinos, yet are still able to maintain some of their old ways on their reservations. It is the duty of civilized peoples to raise their inferiors up from savagery. Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" comes to mind:

:Take up the White Man’s burden—
:Send forth the best ye breed—
:Go bind your sons to exile
:To serve your captives’ need;
:To wait in heavy harness,
:On fluttered folk and wild—
:Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
:Half-devil and half-child.

--[[User:Conservateur|Conservateur]] 14:12, 21 May 2007 (EDT)
::I sincerly hope that the above opinion is not serious, and if it is, that it is not the opinion of the majority of contributors on this site. What a shame.[[User:Jnl001|Jnl001]] 19:49, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

I'm hopeing this is a Devils advocate posting or one based on sheerignorance of history and contemporary life in Indian Country, because it is one of the most racist, bigotted things I've read in a long time. Maybe this is what the next round of media articles about Conservapedia will focus on. I can see the headlies now. "New Wiki becomes bastion of skinheads and American Nazis"--[[User:Third Day|Third Day]] 09:58, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

==NO==

Am I allowed to argue on both sides? I don't think this is a black and white issue.

If the reports of "smallpox blankets" and Caribbean slavery are true, then Columbus took advantage of several thousand native Americans. Also, I've heard that the native population was reduced 90% by European colonists - presumably through conquest and starvation. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 05:37, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

I'm not sure what the point of this debate is, the question seems bit of a Trojan Horse, but I would imagine that those who survived would say no. Bringing disease, alcohol and superior firepower to wipe many of them out, then settling their land out can hardly be a good thing from their point of view. Hopefully a few of them will respond here. Of course from the colonists' point of view everything has turned out pretty good. Also European colonization of the Americas covers a very wide range of incomers and indigenous peoples so there can be no simple answer. [[User:BrianCo|BrianCo]] 05:45, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

No. Just look at the [[Trail of Tears]] and the [[Wounded Knee Massacre]]. I don't think after the North American Indians (who did NOT practice human sacrifice) who surivived mass slaughter, deportation, the rape of their women, the capture of their land, the deliberate and inadvertant spread of disease were thinking: and they brought us Christianity! What benevolent people! [[User:Poblano|Poblano]] 10:45, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

My God. I cannot believe that anyone is so historically ignorant that they even could ask such a question. Let’s put it this way: If invaders raped your women, forced their religion on you, stole your land, and exposed your people to diseases that resulted in population loss of 90%, would you be OK with that? I did not think so. White man’s burden? Who asked for your help? We were just fine until you jackasses showed up.--[[User:Davyjones|Davyjones]] 14:30, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

:I hate to ruin your liberal-taught preconceived ideas of how America was colonized, but you have been grossly misinformed. There was not nearly as much raping going on as is claimed by anti-European groups. And for the most part, at least in North America, land was not stolen. It was bought by the British/US governments from tribal leaders, but some of the tribe members refused to leave and had to be evicted or killed. And don't pretend like native tribes were having one big peacefest prior to the arrival of Europeans. The fact is that tribes had been at war with each other for centuries, committing atrocities that rivaled or even surpassed those of the colonials. Even when uniting against the so-called "invaders" would have been in their best interests, they didn't do so.
:If it wasn't for European colonization, there would still be wars between tribes going on today. You're welcome.--[[User:Conservateur|Conservateur]] 14:42, 21 May 2007 (EDT)
DO you have any sources to back that up?--[[User:Davyjones|Davyjones]] 14:54, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

::I thought "scalping" was common knowledge. Do you really need me to give a source for the practice? Torture was so common among some tribes that it is became a mark of courage to endure it with no outcry. Maybe the 'courage' thing needs a reference, but *sheesh* can't you just go to Google when someone makes a point in a debate?

::Are we airing our different points of view to find out how others think, or do we imagine a huge audience is watching to see who wins? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 19:55, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Good to know that that rape and murder is something to be thankful for. So remember, the next time someone breaks into your home, kills you, rapes your wife, and carries your children off and sells them into slavery, you are supposed to thank them! No wonder people think conservatives are stupid and racist! They never miss a chance to prove they are!--[[User:Davyjones|Davyjones]] 15:04, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

Conservateur, moral equivocation doesn't make what colonists did either helpful, good, or justified in any way. Just because some of the tribes were at war with each other, or that they commited atrocities that "rivaled or even surpassed" those of the colonists, doesn't make it alright that we devastated them with disease, took any of their lands whatsoever, and commited any acts of violence for the goal of westward conquest. The fact is, colonists were the result of their decimated population, and the loss of their tribal lands, whether through sale or force, and that has to be recognized. And even if it was our intervention that stopped their warring (though clearly, that was not the goal when we set out to expand "our" country), it cost them more than any of their tribal conflics ever did. The natives got the short end of the bargain.--[[User:Stereophile|Stereophile]] 20:45, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

Homeschooling

2007-05-09T14:10:57Z

Third Day:

'''Homeschooling''' students get some or all of their education outside of traditional schools. The general term "homeschooling" includes a wide range of educational options and philosophies.

Homeschooling parents oversee their children’s education, usually providing some of the instruction themselves. In addition, they can mix-and-match other instructional approaches, including hiring a tutor; using a correspondence school (or the modern video- or computer-based equivalent); taking classes at local museums or nature centers; joining with other families to share teaching responsibilities in a co-op; and encouraging the student to self-instruct using library books, traditional textbooks or workbooks, knowledgeable mentors and/or hands-on experiences. Some homeschoolers also include local "after school" enrichment programs like scouts, [[4-H]], sports, music lessons, karate or dance classes, public library programs, and summer camps as part of their educational program.

In the United States, as of 2003, an estimated 1.1 million students - about 2.2% of children in grades K-12 - were homeschooled. <ref>[http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/homeschool/estimated.asp] Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 Statistical Analysis Report, National Center for Educational Statistics, NCES 2006-042, Feb 2006</ref>

Families who homeschool do so for a number of reasons. The single largest reason that parents homeschool is that they feel they can give thier children a better education at home. This accounts for 50% of the homeschool families. Religious reasons came in second at 33%<ref>.[http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0053.html]</ref> Other frequently mentioned reasons include concern about safety, drugs, and peer pressure at other schools, dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools, the ability to provide religious or [[moral instruction]] along with academics, the ability to control what the child is being taught, flexibility in meeting the needs of a child with special needs (such as a physical or mental health problem, a temporary illness, or giftedness), and flexibility in scheduling family life. <ref>[http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/homeschool/TableDisplay.asp?TablePath=TablesHTML/table_4.asp ] Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 Statistical Analysis Report, National Center for Educational Statistics, NCES 2006-042, Feb 2006</ref>

In the United States, opting out of [[public school]]s is not new. When Thomas Edison's public school teacher said he was "addled," Edison's mother took him out of public school and taught him at home.

Education at public school year-round from about ages 6 to 18 only became common in the 20th century due to [[compulsory education]] laws. The first law requiring attendance at public school passed in Massachusetts in 1852; the second such law passed in Washington D.C. in 1864; and most states did not pass mandatory schooling laws until between 1870 and 1917.<ref>[http://www.ncsl.org/programs/educ/CompulsoryEd.htm Compulsory Education], National Conference of State Legislatures: "More than 150 years have passed since Horace Mann helped Massachusetts establish a statewide system of education that eventually led to the requirement that all children attend public school. In 1852, Massachusetts became the first state to pass compulsory school attendance laws, and by 1918, all states required children to receive an education."</ref><ref>http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kellmeyer/050428</ref>

But even under compulsory education laws in the late 1800s, the school year was only twelve to twenty weeks long. Very few stayed in school from ages 6 to 18. For example, by 1900, only 6% of Americans had graduated from a formal high school. Moreover, these students did not learn basic skills like reading in school; they learned them at home.<ref>''id.''</ref>

An early call for homeschooling in the U.S. was by [[John Holt]] and his 1964 book ''[[How Children Fail]].'' Holt was "a left-winger who regarded schools as instruments of the bureaucratic-industrial complex."<ref>Micklethwait, John and Adrian Wooldridge, ''The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America.'' Penguin, 2004. pp. 190-1</ref> However, the movement was also catalyzed when [[social conservative]]s became alarmed at the 1962 U. S. Supreme Court ruling which banned [[school-sponsored prayer]] in public schools.

[[Truancy]] laws brought pioneering homeschoolers into conflict with local officials. The first New York Times story on "home schooling" appeared in 1974, and concerned two parents charged with "[[educational neglect]]" by the Westchester County Department of Social Services. Tests showed that they performed at or about grade level "except for one who is a little slow in reading," and the parents received strong support from a state senator.<ref>"Parents Accused in Home Schooling," ''The New York Times,'' July 28, 1974, p. 45</ref> By the mid-1980s the ''Times'' was running articles with titles like "Schooling in the Home: A Growing Alternative" and "There Are Benefits In Homeschooling," and states were legalizing homeschooling<ref>Belluck, Pam (1998), "Life After Home Schooling," ''The New York Times,'' November 1, 1998, p. ED26: "Some 15 years after states began legalizing home schooling in earnest, these early graduates are starting to make their way in the world."</ref> A 1997 article said "It's not only [[Christian fundamentalists]] any more" and a 2003 article noted "Unhappy in Class, More Are Learning at Home."



== Prominent people who were educated at home ==


Throughout history, a disproportionate number of achievers have benefited from being homeschooled. Here is a growing list of some of them:

*[[Alexander Graham Bell]] (1847-1922), inventor of the telephone.
*[[Mary Breckinridge]] (1881-1965), pioneering American midwife and founder of Kentucky's Frontier Nursing Service. Mary's father was a diplomat, and she was educated in America and abroad by private tutors.<ref>Frontier Nursing Service[http://www.frontiernursing.org/History/MaryBreckinridge.shtm] </ref>
*[[Robert Browning]] (1812-1889), a brilliant English poet.
*[[Andrew Carnegie]] (1835-1919), the brilliant American businessman and philanthropist of the late 1800s, his father was a poor weaver and Andrew dropped out of elementary school<ref>http://www.education-reform.net/dropouts.htm</ref> and had only five years of formal schooling.<ref>http://www.carnegieinstitution.org/carnegiemedal/background.html</ref>
*[[Thomas Edison]] (1804–1896), the most prolific inventor in world history and the holder of 1093 patents.<ref>http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bledison.htm</ref>
*[[Abraham Lincoln]] (1809-1865), American president. "Though his [formal] education was limited to a few months in a 1-teacher school, Lincoln avidly read books such as the Bible, ''Pilgrim's Progress'' and Weemss ''Life of Washington''."<ref>http://www.civilwarhome.com/lincolnbio.htm</ref>
*[[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] (1882-1945), U.S. President. Was educated by private tutors at home through age 14, then entered Groton, an elite private school in Massachusetts, in 1896. <ref>The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers. "Franklin D. Roosevelt." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003).
[http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/roosevelt-franklin.htm]</ref>
*[[George Bernard Shaw]] (1856-1950), author. Tutored in the classics by a clerical uncle until he entered school at age 10. Left school by age 15. <ref>Encyclopedia of World Biography on George Bernard Shaw[http://www.bookrags.com/biography/george-bernard-shaw/]</ref>, <ref>Dictionary of Literary Biography on George Bernard Shaw[http://www.bookrags.com/biography/george-bernard-shaw-dlb/]</ref>, <ref>George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950 Biographical Sketch[http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/shaw.gb.bio.html]</ref>
*[[Mark Twain]] (real name was Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910), American author and satirist who said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Attended school through the 5th grade, where he "excelled only in spelling" and was frequently truant, then worked as a printer's apprentice for a local newspaper. His mother said, "He was always a great boy for history, and could never get tired of that kind of reading; but he hadn't any use for schoolhouses and text books." <ref>The Mark Twain House and Museum: Biography of Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain [http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml]</ref><ref>The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mark Twain, by Archibald Henderson
[http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/8/7/6873/6873.txt]</ref>
*[[Andrew Wyeth]] (1917- ), American artist, was tutored at home until he was 18. <ref>The Homeschooling of Andrew Wyeth, A Conversation with the Artist, Gifted Children Monthly, May 1986, Vol 7 No. 5.[http://www.nfgcc.org/51.htm] </ref>

== Arguably Homeschooled ==

Lists abound of famous homeschooled achievers.<ref>http://www.eadshome.com/Famoushomeschooled.htm</ref><ref>http://www.education-reform.net/dropouts.htm</ref>. Here are some examples in addition to those above:

*'''Military'''
**[[Stonewall Jackson]]
**[[John Paul Jones]]
**[[Robert E. Lee]]
**[[Douglas MacArthur]]
**[[George Patton]]

* '''Inventors and Scientists'''
**[[Cyrus McCormick]]
**[[The Wright Brothers|Orville and Wilbur Wright]]
**[[George Washington Carver]]
**[[Pierre Curie]]
**[[Charles Louis Montesquieu]]
**[[Blaise Pascal]]
**[[Bernhard Riemann]]
**[[Booker T. Washington]]

*'''Leaders'''
**[[George Washington]]
**[[John Adams|John Quincy Adams]]
**[[James Madison]]
**[[William Henry Harrison]]
**[[John Tyler]]
**[[Theodore Roosevelt]]
**[[George Clymer]]
**[[William Livingston]]
**[[George Mason]]
**[[Charles Pickney III]]
**[[George Wyeth]]
**[[Patrick Henry]]
**[[William Penn]]
**[[Henry Clay]]
**[[John Jay]]
**[[John Marshall]]
**[[John Rutledge]]

*'''Religious Figures'''
**[[Joan of Arc]]
**[[John the Baptist]]
**[[Jesus|Jesus Christ]]
**[[William Cary]]
**[[Jonathan Edwards]]
**[[Dwight L. Moody]]
**[[John Newton]]
**[[Charles Wesley]]
**[[John Wesley]]
**[[Brigham Young]]

*'''Writers'''
**[[Hans Christian Andersen]]
**[[Pearl S. Buck]]
**[[Agatha Christie]]
**[[Charles Dickens]]
**[[Bret Harte]]
**[[C.S. Lewis]]
**[[Sean O’Casey]]
**[[George Bernard Shaw]]
**[[Daniel Webster]]

*'''Artists and Social Figures'''
**[[Leonardo da Vinci]]
**[[Claude Monet]]
**[[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]]
**[[Ansel Adams]]
**[[Clara Barton]]
**[[John Burroughs]]
**[[George Rogers Clark]]
**[[Florence Nightingale]]
**[[Leo Tolstoy]]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Education]]

==External links==
*[http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/view/rc/s31p54.htm Christian Children Must Have More Than A Fighting Chance] - Four reasons to homeschool your children, by [[Art Robinson]]

Talk:Homeschooling

2007-05-08T15:10:35Z

Third Day: /* Cleaning up the list - putting uncited people on the talk page */

==Homschoolers at harvard.==
I read it some were, but it is true that 10% of students in a classroom at Harvard were homseschooled. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:38, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
:For a claim like that, I doubt "I read it somewhere" works; finding a citation shouldn't be hard if it's true, though. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 15:39, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::I will try to find it.--[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:42, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

:::Great! Find a citation *first*, then feel free to add it to the article. Since only about 2% of kids are homeschooled, it would be astounding to find 10% at Harvard. Also note that 10% in a particular classroom is not the same as 10% of the Harvard student body. If your statement is true, then it deserves much more prominence in the article. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:45, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::::Alright I found the information, but I was wrong. 10% of the Students accepted are homeschooled.:) so am I.... not going to Harvard though. so if you still want the link i can get it, or if not, no problem. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:53, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::::First, make sure it's 10% of accepted students are homeschooled, not 10% of homeschooled applicants are accepted. Then go ahead and add it, just make sure you quote it properly (very important for statistics) and include the citation, including the title, etc. so it will show up nicely in the references section. Thanks for adding to this article!--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:56, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
Who are you by the way mom? I mean you sound like you have been here longer than I have, and thats a long time.ok here is the link: [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/03/21/schoolhouse_rocked/ homeschoolers at Harvard] --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:59, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
: I'm a homeschooling mom, of course! <smile>. Will, the statistic was what I suspected. It said that homeschoolers have an acceptance rate of 10%, which is the same as the general acceptance rate at Harvard. On the one hand, it doesn't show homeschoolers doing any better than anyone else, but on the other hand, it does show they can do *as well as* anyone else. Why don't you do a bit more research and write a paragraph about homeschoolers getting into college? The one in the article is a good model - I bet you can find a few other sources too, and come up with something quite worthwhile! Now I'm off to do my housework, but will check back to see what you've come up with! --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 16:04, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

That Boston Globe article is excellent, it's a real "find." I'm going to follow Hsmom's lead and let Will N. draft something rather than do something with it myself.

I can't figure out exactly what the sentence means: "At Harvard, the acceptance rate of the general applicant pool is about 10 percent, which mirrors the success of home-schoolers." I read it the same way Hsmom does, but it's not perfectly clear.

However, it says specifically that the acceptance rate of homeschoolers at ''Williams College'' (a famous, excellent, old, small liberal arts college) is 20 percent. And [http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-11-02-collegerates_x.htm this article] says that William's general acceptance rate is 19.2%. In other words, a homeschoolers are exactly as successful in gaining admission to Williams as anyone else.

The key point to be made, which should be supported with well-chosen quotations from the Globe article, is that homeschoolers are just as successful at being admitted to major colleges as others, and that these days college admissions offices are familiar with homeschooling and have no problem with it. I like the line: "We read home-schoolers' applications just like any other application. They don't get any special consideration, but they're not discriminated against, either. Their applications are interesting, and they've certainly done independent work their whole lives."

If homeschoolers are about as successful at getting accepted as the general population, and if homeschoolers currently amount to something like 2% of all students, then ''presumably'' the percentage of Harvard students who were homeschooled would be 2%. 2% of 6700 = about 130 in all. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:01, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

----

I would dispute saying Patton was a Christian as he believed in reincarnation (show me where this is in line with scripture)
Brigham Young was a Mormon, not a christian.

:Mormons consider themselves to be Christians.

:The official name of their church is ''The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints'' ("LDS Church" for short).

:See material I've just moved to [[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints#Mormons' relationship to Christianity]].

:One dictionary definition of "Christian" is "Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus." It seems to me that Mormons meet that definition.

:Who ought to make the judgement, among all the denominations that regard themselves as Christian, which are "really Christian?" [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:10, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:P. S. The question of what Mormons believe is sure to receive a lot of discussion in a year or so, since Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is running for President. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:14, 18 January 2007 (EST)

Are you a Mormon? Not to be prejudiced against you if you are but just wondering.
[[Will N.]]

*No, I'm not a Mormon. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 21:37, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:I probably should explain more. I did react to the phrase "a Mormon not a Christian." What went through my mind, and what I knew ''off the top of my head'' was: "Whoa! That's not right. Mormons consider themselves to be Christians, and the church is even called Church of ''Jesus Christ'' of the Latter-day Saints." I also got just a little bit of steam up, because there '''is''' some discrimination against Mormons—assuming Mitt Romney runs I think we'll have plenty of chance to see this soon—and saying that Mormons aren't Christians sounds a little like an attack.

:So, after I wrote what I knew off the top of my head, from my experience with Wikipedia and with college, etc. I've found that if you want to convince other people, instead of just telling them what you think, it helps if you can show them ''why'' you think that. So I decided to do a bit of very quick research. I figured that Mormons probably get asked this question a lot and that the official LDS church website would probably have something to say about it.

:First I found the passage I put in quotation marks above, the one that begins "Jesus Christ is the Son of God." I probably should have stopped there, but when I saw that they actually have a "Frequently Asked Questions" page with answers to the questions "Are you Christians" and "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a Christian church?" I couldn't resist putting that in, too. I probably put in too much. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 05:45, 19 January 2007 (EST)

Ben Franklin was a Deist --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 22:58, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:Yes, that's right... no time to look further but I'm pretty sure Franklin did not believe in the divinity of Jesus and did not belong to an organized Christian church. Guess the whole list needs checking? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 05:45, 19 January 2007 (EST)

==Homeschooled or not?==

I made a minor edit to the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart entry today reflecting the fact that he was homeschooled. This was almost immediateley changed back by dpbsmith, with the explanation that "he wasn't homeschooled as we know the term today"

Now, this is all well and good, except that in the article for omeschooling, his name is on the list of famous people who were homeschooled, with an internal link to theMozart article!

So which is it? Was he homeschooled or not? And please, this is isn't an attempt to start a big discussion of the meaning of homeschooling etc. I'm just asking for some consistency between articles here. Either a person was homeschooled, in which case their entries should be amended to reflect that fact, or they should be removed from the list of "Famous people who were homeschooled."

I'll wait a bit to see what the consensus is, but if their names are still on that list in a few days, I'm going to fix those articles to reflect that fact.
--[[User:TrueReaganConservative|TrueReaganConservative]] 13:40, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds—Emerson.

:The thing is that ''this'' article is sort of a hash. I haven't wanted to take this sorry article entire, shatter it to bits and remould it nearer to my heart's desire because I think it's here as a sort of inspiration to the students who use the site. It looks to me like one of those "X pride" lists where X is any group that is a little out of the mainstream and wants to encourage its members that it's OK.

:The quickest way to fix ''this'' article would be retitle the actual list something like "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home."

:This isn't really a factual article about homeschooling, it's a point-of-view piece that says that being educated at home not only does not put you at a disadvantage vis-a-vis public or private schools, it can be an advantage. ''This is very arguably true'' and the list is evidence in support of it.

:What the list is ''not'' is a list of people who have undergone "Christian homeschooling."

:Homeschooling is a sort of movement, mostly in the U. S. I think, that began more or less in the 1970s. Around that time there was a noticable drop in public confidence in the public schools. Maybe I remember it had something to do with John Holt? ''How Children Fail?''

:"Homeschooling" to me does not mean simply being educated at home. It means that parents have ''actively opted out'' of an ''existing system of compulsory public schooling,'' and educate their children at home in order to assert direct personal supervision of the content and values that their children are being taught.

:Calling Mozart (say) "homeschooled" is like calling Thomas Jefferson "a Republican" or William Gladstone "a Liberal" or asserting "Jimmy Carter and Joseph Stalin were both Georgians." Technically true, but confusing at best. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:08, 27 February 2007 (EST)

::I'll defer to the consensus view, but I don't see why Mozart should be eliminated. He was homeschooled in a Christian manner. What's the big deal about observing that fact? I don't think there has to have been compulsory education in his day to make this observation meaningful. At a minimum, Mozart is an example of someone who learned at home and excelled afterwards. Probably his home education has something to do with his work. This is information worth preserving, and let readers debate as they wish. As Fox News says, "We report. You decide."--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:35, 27 February 2007 (EST)

==George Bernard Shaw==
'''George Bernard Shaw'''... hmmm... I don't think he would have cared for being labelled as a Christian. You can make out a case that he did accept some of the moral teachings of Jesus ''as Shaw, personally'' interpreted them. But in his will, he wrote:

:My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice.[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813999,00.html]

If he was a Christian, he was an awfully complicated and unusual Christian. He certainly did not belong to any organized denomination. He wrote that there was “not a single established religion in the world in which an intelligent or educated man could believe."

He did write that "Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it." And he wrote that "Christianity as a specific doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly." That is, he did not think any organized Christian religions actually practiced the teachings of Jesus.

He wrote a lot about Christianity in his Preface to ''Androcles and the Lion.'' I'm not going to try to summarize it, partly because I haven't read it through in a long time, but also because Shaw's ideas are so very original and unorthodox that they are really hard to pigeonhole.

He dealt with religious themes in his plays ''Saint Joan,'' ''Major Barbara,'' and ''Androcles and the Lion,'' and in their prefaces, but if you can tell "which side" he's on after reading those plays, you're better than I am.

He also dealt with evolution, in the play ''Back to Methuselah'' and the Preface to it—in a way which will not please either evolutionists or creationists. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:10, 20 January 2007 (EST)

I question the inclusion of '''Mark Twain,''' similarly. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 12:32, 20 January 2007 (EST)

== Recent additions ==

Harpie Snark recently added John Walker Lindh, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, Charles Fletcher Lummis, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Christopher Paolini to the list. I deleted them when reverting some vandalism.

I'm restoring Charles Fletcher Lummis and Christopher Paolini on his say-so.

Franklin D. Roosevelt attended Groton, an elite private prep school.

John Walker Lindh is a Taliban member and Adam Yahiye Gadahn is an Al-Qaeda member. I don't think they should go onto the list without a pretty good source citation, on the grounds that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," or, in this case, surprising claims require good evidence. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:37, 23 February 2007 (EST)

:Christopher Paolini is the author of the Inheritance Trilogy (Eragon, Eldest, and a third book yet unreleased). I know he was home schooled, but have never seen anything about his beliefs. I asked to judge by his writing, I would tend to think he is not a Christian based on some elements of his books such as the atheism of the elves. So if anyone has a source for this, please post it. ~ [[User:SharonS|SharonS]] 19:45, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::Raw results:

::There's a source for his being home-schooled, anyway: [http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=934 A profile of Christopher Paolini], "He was home-schooled by his parents, Kenneth Paolini and Talita Hodgkinson, through an accredited correspondence course at American School, Chicago, Illinois from which he graduated with his high school diploma at 15 years of age." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:16, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::Gadahn apparently was home-schooled: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/27/CALIF.TMP 'Average American boy' accused as terrorist], Adam was the oldest of four children, all of whom were home-schooled.

::A lot of Google hits on Lindh being home-schooled, but it's all blogs... Some stuff about in Google Books about Lindh "beginning life as a Christian" but turning to Islam "in high school."

:[http://knowledgehouse.info/famous.html This page] credits Lummis as begin home-schooled but does not itself cite its sources... No clear whether or not this is supposed to be a list of home-schooled ''Christians...'' FDR listed, Groton not explained... She also lists Paolini... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:27, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Sources: Adam Yahiye Gadahn: [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian New Yorker] John Walker Lindh: [http://www.blessedcause.org/BlessedCause%20Exclusives%20II/ReelingFromLiesofHM.htm blessedcause.org] Franklin D. Roosevelt: [http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/roosevelt-franklin.htm National Park Service] [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 14:30, 26 February 2007 (EST)

:Good. Thanks. I appreciate it. I'm removing the Wikipedia references because Wikipedia itself does not consider Wikipedia articles reliable sources that can be cited in other articles.

:FDR: I'm adding a note to the FDR entry, because it seems to me to be a borderline case; I don't think private tutors and Groton would be everyone's idea of what is meant by "Christian homeschooling."

:Lindh: I don't really know what to make of the [http://www.blessedcause.org/BlessedCause%20Exclusives%20II/ReelingFromLiesofHM.htm blessedcause.org BlessedCause] reference, both because I don't understand what the site is about... but in any case, I do ''not'' see where it identifies Lindh as being ''Christian'' homeschooled. In fact if I understand the article it says there's a dispute about where he went to school, and says that according to Houghton Mifflin, he went to a public middle school in Marin County—an assertion which the site attacks. The Wikipedia article says he was homeschooled starting at age 12, but does not say he was ''Christian'' homeschooled. Wikipedia's own source for that item (wrongly formatted in the article) is a web page entitled [http://www.rickross.com/reference/islamic/islamic56.htm The Making of John Walker Lindh]. I read it as saying that he was in and out of public schools, and I do not see anything to suggest that his homeschooling resembles what is meant by "Christian homeschooling."

:Gadahn: The source you cite says, pretty clearly I think, "Adam also joined several Christian homeschool support groups. (At the time, nearly all such groups in the region were Christian," so I don't see any question that ''he'' was "Christian homeschooled." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:13, 26 February 2007 (EST)

:Actually, there's a problem of definition here... this article has never defined exactly what the criterion is for inclusion in the list. Gadahn would be a good example of someone who clearly did undergo "Christian homeschooling," and certainly was "homeschooled," but surely was not "a Christian" and therefore not a "homeschooled Christian." I think this could use some discussion. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:36, 26 February 2007 (EST)

::That strikes me as what will be viewed by our critics as pretty obvious nitpicking and cherrypicking of sources. Reading the sources I provided, it's clear that all three had Christian upbringings and were homeschooled, despite their subsequent failings. As for Adam Gadahn, "''The Gadahns homeschooled Adam''" and "''Adam also joined several Christian homeschool support groups''" are clear and explicit. There's no ambiguity there; Adam Gadahn was Christian homeschooled. And the source, The New Yorker, is as good as they get. [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian] If we'd rather not have in the list those who were homeschooled but may be viewed as casting it in a poor light, then let's just come out and say that and not pretend that sources say something other than they do or rely on turns of semantics to contrive justifications for an incomplete list. If our ideas are indeed that strong and compelling, then they can easily withstand being scrutinized in full light of all facts, and to act otherwise by ignoring or dismissing unfavorable facts only undermines our position and claims and invites greater scrutiny. Better to just put all the cards on the table, deal with them and let the chips fall where they may. As I've said before on my talk page, either CP is going to have an accurate and complete article on homeschooling or it's going to have to censor information from it's articles which may be considered unfavorable to its stated orientation, it can't always have both. This is as good an article as any to choose which it's going be, right here, right now. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 13:07, 27 February 2007 (EST)

: I agree that it is hard given this evidence not to list Gadahn. The others are less persuasive. We need to resolve whether this is a list of Christians who were homeschooled, people who were Christian homeschooled, people who are Christian who happen to have been homeschooled, or Christians who were Christian homseschooled (I think that covers the 4 obvious possibilities). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:30, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:: I commented on Harpie's talk page but now realize that the debate is here. I'll only respond here now about this issue.

:: As anyone familiar with homeschool support groups knows, simply hanging around a loosely affiliated group does not make one a "Christian homeschooler" any more than living in a neighborhood makes one a member of the majority religion. The description of Gadahn is clear that he attended Christian homeschooling groups out of necessity, not by choice. This does not make him a Christian homeschooler any more than attending Georgetown Univ. made Bill Clinton a Catholic college student. As to Lindh, there is nothing Christian about his homeschooling or his own religion, so that's not even close.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:44, 27 February 2007 (EST)

::: Notice that if we can agree to let the title of the actual list be "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home," that includes Mozart and excludes Lindh and Gadahn. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:07, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::Frankly the only thing necessary for a run-of-the-mill homeschooler to be a Christian homeschooler is intent on the part of the parents to provide a proper Christian education and action by them to keep them out of school and deliver a superior quality education at home themselves. Reading the New Yorker article it seems clear that this was the intent of the Gadahn's for young <s>Azzam</s> Adam, no matter how terribly they failed: [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian] Now arguing that Adam Gadahn was not Christian homeschooled because he didn't chose to but rather was compelled to is a red herring; many Christian homeschooled children would prefer to be playing ''Left Behind: Eternal Forces'' rather than studying math, so by that standard not many Christian homeschooled children would qualify as being Christian homeschooled. Meaning this rationale again opens us up to the lefty criticism that we exclude unfavorable facts from our articles, in other words, engaging in partisan, ideologically-motivated censorship. So if Aschlafly as the owner of this site really wants to exclude Gadahn as he seems to, we'd better set to work coming up with a reasonable-appearing justification for doing so that has at least a veneer of scholary fairness; regardless of what our motivations are, I'd think we'd want to avoid appearing to be censoring unfavorable facts in order to further our agenda. Thoughts? [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 19:58, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Harpie, there's no "censorship" or "exclu[sion]" here. The New Yorker article simply does not support the claim that Gadahn was a Christian homeschooler. The article says that, out of necessity, Gadahn was forced to associate with homeschool "support groups" for some of his teenage years. That association not necessarily even education. Every indication is that Gadahn was not Christian then, and is not now either.

:::: Also, I might add, nearly 99% of Christian homeschoolers start early. It seems to me that both Gadahn and Lindh were latecomers to homeschooling long after their personalities and attitudes had formed. Often the latecomers are just passing through and are not influenced much by homeschooling. Contrast that with Mozart.

:::: I think Dpbsmith has proposed an ideal solution. Certainly he captures the intent of the list.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 21:28, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Kind of like a book about "Famous Irish That Don't Drink". This ''is'' a brilliant solution! Now I understand how to handle situations like this. Since we don't engage in censorship or exclusion, we just need to find the right way to frame the issue that by necessity keeps any unfavorable facts out. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 12:25, 1 March 2007 (EST)

I love your sarcastic enthusiasm-- it '''''really''''' strengthens your points more than talking straight could ever hope to. Even so, Ashlafly has a good point; Dpbsmith accurately capptured the intent of the list.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 12:43, 1 March 2007 (EST)

:Well, they say a little bit of honey makes the medicine go down better. Look, I've been in conservative political PR now for nearly 20 years and know a little something about crafting credible, effective messages, and we'd be a lot more credible and better off in the long term were we to follow the rationale I provided above. Our goal should not be to just get out the message, but to get out a credible and compelling one, and this subject and article is just one of many that will face this same issue. If we go around trumpeting our own version of reality while ignoring the one that is shared by all we run the risk of being caricatures of our own cause and ultimately all too easily dismissed by those we hope to convince. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 13:34, 1 March 2007 (EST)

==Expand this article==
I'm not the person to do it. I know nothing about homeschooling, sent both of my kids to public schools (and state universities), hope I've got stuff sorta-kinda right, hope I haven't stepped on any toes, but, this should be an article where there's ''lots'' of expertise available. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:12, 28 February 2007 (EST)

Let me be more emphatic. There could be a '''lot''' more factual material about homeschooling here. Resources. Books. Tips on dealing with the authorities and how to jump through the legal hoops (I assume there are still some to jump through). There's an obvious opportunity here for people to add encyclopedic material that is informed by their personal experience and expertise. Say someone wants to homeschool in New Jersey or whereever. What office do you go to? What forms do you fill out? etc. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:39, 1 March 2007 (EST)

I don't think this is a good place to try to compile info about state homeschooling laws. There are other places that specialize in that. On the other hand, I agree that the article needs some serious work. Some thoughts:

Parents take a more active role in the education of their children when they homeschool. I'm uncomfortable with this general statement - while in some (many) cases it is true, there are lots of active parents with kids in public or private school (especially small church schools, I'm guessing), and there are homeschooling parents who simply hire a tutor (or several) and let them have at it.

The primary reason for homeschooling is to give the child a better education. A close second in reasons, however, is to avoid the culture of public school and its many adverse effects of hostility to Christianity and parental control, political bias, boredom, confusion, depression, etc.
In fact, different families have different reasons for homeschooling, usually more than one. Religion may (or may not) be a factor; so might the quality of education. But there are other reasons - a child who is not being well-served by the public schools, a child who has a special talent or interest they wish to focus on, a family who wants to travel with dad on business, a family who lives in a very rural area far from schools (or who is sailing around the world, etc.), and so on. Various surveys have been done trying to rank the reasons, but I think we'd be better off with a list of possible reasons rather than trying to rank them. Homeschoolers are notoriously hard to count or survey.

In the United States, opting out of public schools is not new. When Thomas Edison's public school teacher said he was "addled," Edison's mother took him out of public school and taught him at home. But because of compulsory education laws—the first was passed in Massachusetts in 1852, and by 1918 every state had them—schooling at home was a violation of truancy laws, and was rare until the 1970s. 
On the other hand, *lots* of kids were educated at home in earlier centuries, and certain cultures (Native American?) may not have had "schools" at all back then. Also, the 1852 date sounds too late to me, though I could be wrong - can we get a cite there?

:I just added one. There seemed to be one there already. Another, which reads well but not quite sure of the source, is [http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/compulso.html Compulsory Education]. Apparently Horace Mann—whose name is instantly familiar to me as an "educator," but of whom I know little more—was active in getting them to do it. Massachusetts had ''public'' schools much earlier, but apparently they were not compulsory. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:13, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Also - is there a reason for listing Christian homeschoolers? Why not just list people who were educated at home (in one form or another), and then give a brief explaination of their situation - e.g. Sandra Day OConnor, educated at home when she was young as the ranch she lived on was very remote, or whatever.

A lot of thoughts - hope they are helpful. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 23:49, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Prominent homeschooled Christians? ==

By your own definition, you have to "opt out" of formal education to be considered "homeschooled." Thus, I'm curious what system DaVinci, Washington, et al, opted out of.-[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 13:25, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:That's why, some time ago, I changed the title of the '''list''' to "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home." Homeschooling as we know it in the United States essentially began in the 1970s. This very interesting article on [http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/SAI/homeschool/index.html Homeschoolers: Estimating Numbers and Growth] suggests that there were about a million homeschoolers circa 1998. However, in the "late 1970s and early 1980s" it says "about 10,000 to 15,000" children received their education at home. At a very rough guess, today's U. S. adult population probably includes less than 100,000 people over 21, probably less than 25,000 people over 30, and practically none over 40. Not a large population, and not enough time to become spectacularly high achievers... yet. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:34, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

::I changed the definition part to remove the "opt out" wording - it is somewhat an attempt to address your concern above, and also an attempt to put the emphasis on what homeschoolers *do* (learn outside of school), than what they *don't do* (go to school). Not perfect, but a step in the right direction, I think. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 21:35, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree. I think that this kind of simplistic list can be a bit meaningless. Better would be a list of people with unconventional educations or minimal formal education with a brief explanation of their circumstances. For example, you could say something like "Benjamin Franklin - had one year of formal schooling, apprenticed with his brother as a printer." (Or whatever - not sure of the details on Franklin, but you get the idea.) I also think that whether the person was Christian could be handled similarly in the brief note, rather than in the heading. In addition, I don't think *anyone* should be on the list unless there is a *citation* to a source explaining their education. See my addition of Andrew Wyeth as an example. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:57, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:The nature of the list just boggles my mind. It ignores the point raised by AmesG (which I still read into it despite the "educated at home" part) that "homeschooling" needs a formal alternative to have a meaningful definition. Also, why only Christians? I'm still boggled... [[User:Human|Human]] 22:40, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

== Drawbacks ==

I'm moving this here for discussion. As it stands, it seems to me to be pure, unsupported personal opinion:
:Homeschooling is not without its drawbacks. Studies have noted that children who are schooled at home tend to enter the collegiate and working words less socialized than their public and private schooled counterparts. [http://justenough.wordpress.com/2006/10/25/homeschoolers-are-indeed-weird/] This lack of legitimate socialization can produce difficulties in homsechooled childred engaging in meaningful relationships with individuals outside of their family. Additionally, while the public school playground can be seen as a barbaric atmosphere to most kids who are schooled at home, it is important to note that these exigent circumstances can produce valuable conflict prevention skills that pay dividends in all facets of life.

No doubt there are drawbacks to homeschooling. The claim that "children who are schooled at home tend to enter the collegiate and working words less socialized than their public and private schooled counterparts" is, however, referenced only to a blog entry by someone identified only as "Tammy," no other identification or credentials—''and it does not support the statement.'' The title of the entry is "Homeschoolers are indeed weird," but she does ''not'' say homeschoolers are less socialized—that's apparently [[User:Huey gunna getcha]]'s ''interpretation.'' She means "weird" in a good way: tolerant of different opinions and not afraid to express individuality.

The sentence about the "public school playground" providing "valuable conflict prevention skills" is plausible but unsupported. (By the way: are parochial school playgrounds, or non-school playgrounds very different?)

A friend once remarked that he was astonished whenever anyone made reference to "the happy sounds of children at play." "Haven't they actually paid attention when they pass a playground?" [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:19, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:Good catch! I had read that article earlier today and put removing that section on my "to do" list - you beat me to it! FWIW, when looking at homeschoolers and socialization, it's also important to consider that some children are not odd because they are homeschooled, rather, they are homeschooled because they are odd. Homeschooling can be an understanding "safe haven" for those odd kids for whom school may be "barbaric" indeed. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 20:48, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

i was almost kicked off my baseball team cause i was homeschooled and i was playing for the middle school. i was fortunate to be kept on. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 20:09, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/zysk1.html
http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/HomeschoolingGrowsUp.pdf
A few of the thousands of references on Homeschooling and Socialization. As an educator and homeschool parent I have searched for years to find data that supports the claim that homeschoolers are lacking in good social skills. Having met hundreds of HS kids from all ages, I never found one that wasn't able in a wide variety of social situations. Indeed ''all'' of the HS teens I met were a delight to talk with and had no problems talking with adults on a wide range of topics, unlike thier Public or Private or Parochial schooled peers who always seem so sullen and distant around adults they don't know - and even those they do. After searching the academic journals and every other source I could look at, I found a lot of research on HS and Socialization and none that found widespread negative effects. While someone may find a kid here and there as an anecdote to say HS is isolating and promotes poor social development, I could probably come up with dozens of Public, private and parochial school kids to show the alleged deliterious effects of those types of schooling on the social skills of kids. Third Day May 8

==Snipping George Bernard Shaw and Mark Twain==
I'm removing

*[[George Bernard Shaw]]
*[[Mark Twain]]

Both men had complex opinions that varied during the course of their lives, but calling them "Christian" is a stretch. My reasons for excluding Shaw are given above. As for Mark Twain, he did write a sympathetic book about Joan of Arc. However, his writings are replete with sarcastic and dismissive remarks about organized religion. He refused to let "Letters from the Earth" be published until after his death. In Mark Twain's Letters, we read:

:From a gentleman in Buffalo Clemens one day received a letter inclosing an incompleted list of the world's "One Hundred Greatest Men," men who had exerted "the largest visible influence on the life and activities of the race." The writer asked that Mark Twain examine the list and suggest names, adding "would you include Jesus, as the founder of Christianity, in the list?" To the list of statesmen Clemens added the name of Thomas Paine; to the list of inventors, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. The question he answered in detail.

Twain's answer was that if the compiler of the list added Jesus, he should also add Satan: "From A.D. 350 to A.D. 1850 these gentlemen exercised a vaster influence over a fifth part of the human race than was exercised over that fraction of the race by all other influences combined. Ninety-nine hundredths of this influence proceeded from Satan, the remaining fraction of it from Jesus."

Twain has been labelled "deist," "agnostic," and "atheist." Gary Sloan suggests ([http://www.writerscramp.ca/archives/mark_twain.htm Mark Twain's Covert War with his Maker]) that he believed in a ''malignant'' God, and says "Viewing Satan as a heroic rebel against the real Archfiend, Twain came to identify with the fallen cherub and often used him as a mouthpiece." Perhaps his views were so complex that he was all of these things and a Christian at the same time, but he was certainly not a Christian as the term is ordinarily meant. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:03, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

:But if they were homeschooled, shouldn't they be in the "other" section of the list? [[User:Human|Human]] 18:21, 4 May 2007 (EDT)
::Sure. That section didn't exist when I removed them; it was a single list of Christians. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:32, 4 May 2007 (EDT)
:::Doing. [[User:Human|Human]] 21:25, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

==Cleaning up the list - putting uncited people on the talk page==
The list of homeschooled people for whom there are no citations has been here for too long, IMHO. I am moving these people here, to the discussion page. I hope this is OK with all of you. As each person's education is researched and cited, we can add them back to the list, preferably with a brief sentence explaining who they are and what form their education took (as we have now already for several people). As discussed above, I think it will be easier to describe the religious beliefs of each person individually (if needed in this context), rather than try to decide if they are generically Christian or not. Please jump in and research one of these people so we can build up this article. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:09, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

: I left in Adam Yahiye Gadahn, John Walker Lindh, George Bernard Shaw, and Mark Twain, because their entries had *something* other than their names, and because they were discussed quite a bit here; however these can/should be improved by adding a brief description of who they are/were, adding a brief description of their education, and/or adding citations, preferably ones that describe their education. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:29, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::Cleaned up the George Bernard Shaw entry.--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 18:41, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

::If it were up to me I'd make this list contemporary (20th century, maybe 19th too) personalities. As it was pointed out earlier, as the homeschooling term is used today, the majority of these wouldn't count. Also, way back in the day, practically everyone was homeschooled. [[User:Jrssr5|Jrssr5]] 12:17, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

:::Do we really need this comprehensive a list? Isn't it enough to point out a few folks who were homeschooled? [[User:Flippin|Flippin]] 12:28, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

:: Folks, I saw that list from a source and have reinserted. I took out the ridiculous Lindh reference and other liberal bias. For example, the entry did not even say that most homeschooling today is done to preserve the Christian faith! Frankly, this entry looked like something one would see on Wikipedia. We're not trying to be like Wikipedia here. Thanks and I'll try to find citations for the names I reinserted. Help is welcome.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::::I saw that list from "a source," too, but it was just that: a list. Some homeschooling-related site. It did not say where the list came from nor did it give any sources at all. I think the list may be just bouncing around the Internet. What was ''your'' source? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:44, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:::''For example, the entry did not even say that most homeschooling today is done to preserve the Christian faith!'' I'm not sure I agree with this. It is not supported by the citation given for that paragraph. In fact, religion was *third* in the list of reasons for homeschooling provided in the citation, with only 29.8% citing it as their most important reason. If you are going to assert this, it would be best to add an additional citation that backs it up. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:14, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0053.html According to the US Census, 33% cited Religion as a motivation for HS. My citation is older than the one used in this article. Mine says 33% cite religion (not Christianity, but Religion) and the more recent survey cited by ASchafly says 29% cite Religion. Homeschoolin is becoming more and more popular and common and the fastest growing group of HSers are not citeing religion as thier motivation. This is a very interesting development. May 8 [Third Day]

:: OK, fine, I'll look for citations and add them. But I've personally taught over 120 homeschoolers, and I'd say religion is the motivation for 100 or so of them. The other reasons given, such as avoidance of drugs in school, are not even factors for the vast majority of homeschoolers.

:: Also, I will find more citations for the 61 people under the "arguably homeschooled" list and move them to the higher list.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 09:55, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

== Arguably Homeschooled ==

How do you define homeschooled? Had some education at home? A formal school education was available but did not attend? Dropped out of school at age something? Without such a definition, many of the names on the list are frankly, silly and/or wishful thinking. --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 00:13, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

An example of this - Mark Twain is listed on the list. From the biography of Mark Twain[http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml] it reads:
<blockquote>In 1847, when Sam was 11, his father died. Shortly thereafter he left school, having completed the fifth grade, to work as a printer's apprentice for a local newspaper. His job was to arrange the type for each of the newspaper's stories, allowing Sam to read the news of the world while completing his work.</blockquote>
In 1847, a 5th grade education was quite sufficient for day to day life and working as an apprentice for a local newspaper was a reasonable continuation of his education. It is not homeschooling. It would probably be more useful to first put the person on the talk page and figure out if they were homeschooled and then added to the main page rather than put on the main page without refrence and then removed when they don't fit the definition (whatever that may be). --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 00:24, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:I agree, [[User:Mtur|Mtur]]. I have found several times in the past that someone on a list of this kind was not actually educated at home. I think, if we are going for a high level of accuracy that befits an encyclopedia, we should do the research ourselves first, using the talk page to discuss. Then we should add the person to the list, and be sure to explain how each person was educated. I don't think we need to have a strict definition of homeschooling; rather, we should describe each person's experience. The result will be a list with an interesting variety of approaches to education.

I've added Mark Twain's famous quote, which is proof enough.

More generally, these lists abound on the internet. I've added a cite. No one really disputes that most or all of these people, and others too, were homeschooled. We can continue to fill in cites, but there is no need to censor this info in the meantime.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:47, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." I don't think this is proof that he was homeschooled, only that he sees the difference between schooling and education, and realizes that education can come from places other than school. I'd like to know more about his education before adding him to the list. (But your sandbox, etc, so I'll leave him there.)

I agree that lists such as these abound - but here, a higher standard exists. It is not censorship to be sure something is accurate before adding it to the article proper, and the information is available to all on the talk page while the research is being done. Students who want to use these people as examples in their work should know enough about the individual's education to be sure it is indeed an example of what they are writing about. Brief descriptions of the person's education, along with a cite or two about it, will be very useful to our readers. A list without this information, not so much. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:I'm breaking my self-imposed examtime exile to ask this question. Isn't it kind of facetious to say that most of those people were homeschooled, when no formal schooling existed? It's sort of like making a big fuss out of someone from the 1600s being a creationist - of course he was, there was no alternative! Or, like saying, "Jesus didn't believe in global warming." Well... of course not. The controversy didn't exist back then. It creates an idea of conscious choice and rejection of an idea, when there was no such thing. Example: Joan of Arc? There were no formal schools in France at the time. Put another way, could you name someone from before 1700 who was ''not'' homeschooled until college? Just seems a little facetious to me. K, back to the books.-'''Speak[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:SpeakerOfTheDead er]''' 00:59, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:: The point is not to say that someone succeeded by rejecting public school, but that someone succeeded from homeschooling. The latter observation is true and meaningful regardless of whether public schools existed. We don't care as much '''why''' someone was homeschooled as whether it was effective.

:: Sure, I can think of people who lived before 1700 but were not homeschooled: the illiterate, of whom there were many.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 01:11, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Sure, that's true. But the point that others are making is that the tone of the article suggests that you're suggesting that they rejected public schools, or were part of the homeschooling "movement." Would you mind if I clarified it, to better express your point, or would you like to? Perhaps something like, "Even before public schools were active, homeschooling produced many successful people worldwide. Here are some examples"? -'''Speak[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:SpeakerOfTheDead er]''' 01:15, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::A previous version had such a statement - I think something like that should be included. I would also argue that the statement "a disproportionate number of achievers have benefited from being homeschooled" has not been cited or proved, and I'm not sure it's accurate or (from a historical perspective), even meaningful. (See the Harvard discussion above, though of course college admittance is not a great measure of success in life - but that's a whole 'nother conversation.)--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

: The problem with your approach is that most of the people on the list did reject formal or public school, I think.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 01:53, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:: I don't think that's true for many of the historical figures. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

I think the list, if it actually describes the education each person had, shows that there are a wide variety of approaches to education which can be successful. This can be very useful in an age where educational standardization is being pushed - having all kids learn the same material in the same grade, etc. It's also nice for homeschooled kids to see that they are not so much an oddity as part of a long line of people who did a significant amount of learning outside of school. There's a reason you often see lists of successful minorities - it is very helpful to members of the minority group to havfe these role models, even if their lives aren't exactly parallel. I agree that it's problematic to call it "homeschooling" before, say, the last 50-100 years, but "educated at home", or "educated outside of formal schools" usually fits. At the same time, I think a long list of names without individualized information about their education is not particularly useful, and quite frankly lowers the standard of research and accuracy here. Again, we are setting an example for the students, homeschooled and not, who we expect will use this information in their work. If we expect them to present work that is well-researched and cited from credible sources which are themselves clearly well-researched, shouldn't we be doing the same?--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Homeschooling

2007-05-08T15:01:54Z

Third Day: /* Cleaning up the list - putting uncited people on the talk page */

==Homschoolers at harvard.==
I read it some were, but it is true that 10% of students in a classroom at Harvard were homseschooled. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:38, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
:For a claim like that, I doubt "I read it somewhere" works; finding a citation shouldn't be hard if it's true, though. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 15:39, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::I will try to find it.--[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:42, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

:::Great! Find a citation *first*, then feel free to add it to the article. Since only about 2% of kids are homeschooled, it would be astounding to find 10% at Harvard. Also note that 10% in a particular classroom is not the same as 10% of the Harvard student body. If your statement is true, then it deserves much more prominence in the article. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:45, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::::Alright I found the information, but I was wrong. 10% of the Students accepted are homeschooled.:) so am I.... not going to Harvard though. so if you still want the link i can get it, or if not, no problem. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:53, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::::First, make sure it's 10% of accepted students are homeschooled, not 10% of homeschooled applicants are accepted. Then go ahead and add it, just make sure you quote it properly (very important for statistics) and include the citation, including the title, etc. so it will show up nicely in the references section. Thanks for adding to this article!--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:56, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
Who are you by the way mom? I mean you sound like you have been here longer than I have, and thats a long time.ok here is the link: [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/03/21/schoolhouse_rocked/ homeschoolers at Harvard] --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:59, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
: I'm a homeschooling mom, of course! <smile>. Will, the statistic was what I suspected. It said that homeschoolers have an acceptance rate of 10%, which is the same as the general acceptance rate at Harvard. On the one hand, it doesn't show homeschoolers doing any better than anyone else, but on the other hand, it does show they can do *as well as* anyone else. Why don't you do a bit more research and write a paragraph about homeschoolers getting into college? The one in the article is a good model - I bet you can find a few other sources too, and come up with something quite worthwhile! Now I'm off to do my housework, but will check back to see what you've come up with! --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 16:04, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

That Boston Globe article is excellent, it's a real "find." I'm going to follow Hsmom's lead and let Will N. draft something rather than do something with it myself.

I can't figure out exactly what the sentence means: "At Harvard, the acceptance rate of the general applicant pool is about 10 percent, which mirrors the success of home-schoolers." I read it the same way Hsmom does, but it's not perfectly clear.

However, it says specifically that the acceptance rate of homeschoolers at ''Williams College'' (a famous, excellent, old, small liberal arts college) is 20 percent. And [http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-11-02-collegerates_x.htm this article] says that William's general acceptance rate is 19.2%. In other words, a homeschoolers are exactly as successful in gaining admission to Williams as anyone else.

The key point to be made, which should be supported with well-chosen quotations from the Globe article, is that homeschoolers are just as successful at being admitted to major colleges as others, and that these days college admissions offices are familiar with homeschooling and have no problem with it. I like the line: "We read home-schoolers' applications just like any other application. They don't get any special consideration, but they're not discriminated against, either. Their applications are interesting, and they've certainly done independent work their whole lives."

If homeschoolers are about as successful at getting accepted as the general population, and if homeschoolers currently amount to something like 2% of all students, then ''presumably'' the percentage of Harvard students who were homeschooled would be 2%. 2% of 6700 = about 130 in all. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:01, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

----

I would dispute saying Patton was a Christian as he believed in reincarnation (show me where this is in line with scripture)
Brigham Young was a Mormon, not a christian.

:Mormons consider themselves to be Christians.

:The official name of their church is ''The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints'' ("LDS Church" for short).

:See material I've just moved to [[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints#Mormons' relationship to Christianity]].

:One dictionary definition of "Christian" is "Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus." It seems to me that Mormons meet that definition.

:Who ought to make the judgement, among all the denominations that regard themselves as Christian, which are "really Christian?" [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:10, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:P. S. The question of what Mormons believe is sure to receive a lot of discussion in a year or so, since Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is running for President. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:14, 18 January 2007 (EST)

Are you a Mormon? Not to be prejudiced against you if you are but just wondering.
[[Will N.]]

*No, I'm not a Mormon. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 21:37, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:I probably should explain more. I did react to the phrase "a Mormon not a Christian." What went through my mind, and what I knew ''off the top of my head'' was: "Whoa! That's not right. Mormons consider themselves to be Christians, and the church is even called Church of ''Jesus Christ'' of the Latter-day Saints." I also got just a little bit of steam up, because there '''is''' some discrimination against Mormons—assuming Mitt Romney runs I think we'll have plenty of chance to see this soon—and saying that Mormons aren't Christians sounds a little like an attack.

:So, after I wrote what I knew off the top of my head, from my experience with Wikipedia and with college, etc. I've found that if you want to convince other people, instead of just telling them what you think, it helps if you can show them ''why'' you think that. So I decided to do a bit of very quick research. I figured that Mormons probably get asked this question a lot and that the official LDS church website would probably have something to say about it.

:First I found the passage I put in quotation marks above, the one that begins "Jesus Christ is the Son of God." I probably should have stopped there, but when I saw that they actually have a "Frequently Asked Questions" page with answers to the questions "Are you Christians" and "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a Christian church?" I couldn't resist putting that in, too. I probably put in too much. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 05:45, 19 January 2007 (EST)

Ben Franklin was a Deist --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 22:58, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:Yes, that's right... no time to look further but I'm pretty sure Franklin did not believe in the divinity of Jesus and did not belong to an organized Christian church. Guess the whole list needs checking? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 05:45, 19 January 2007 (EST)

==Homeschooled or not?==

I made a minor edit to the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart entry today reflecting the fact that he was homeschooled. This was almost immediateley changed back by dpbsmith, with the explanation that "he wasn't homeschooled as we know the term today"

Now, this is all well and good, except that in the article for omeschooling, his name is on the list of famous people who were homeschooled, with an internal link to theMozart article!

So which is it? Was he homeschooled or not? And please, this is isn't an attempt to start a big discussion of the meaning of homeschooling etc. I'm just asking for some consistency between articles here. Either a person was homeschooled, in which case their entries should be amended to reflect that fact, or they should be removed from the list of "Famous people who were homeschooled."

I'll wait a bit to see what the consensus is, but if their names are still on that list in a few days, I'm going to fix those articles to reflect that fact.
--[[User:TrueReaganConservative|TrueReaganConservative]] 13:40, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds—Emerson.

:The thing is that ''this'' article is sort of a hash. I haven't wanted to take this sorry article entire, shatter it to bits and remould it nearer to my heart's desire because I think it's here as a sort of inspiration to the students who use the site. It looks to me like one of those "X pride" lists where X is any group that is a little out of the mainstream and wants to encourage its members that it's OK.

:The quickest way to fix ''this'' article would be retitle the actual list something like "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home."

:This isn't really a factual article about homeschooling, it's a point-of-view piece that says that being educated at home not only does not put you at a disadvantage vis-a-vis public or private schools, it can be an advantage. ''This is very arguably true'' and the list is evidence in support of it.

:What the list is ''not'' is a list of people who have undergone "Christian homeschooling."

:Homeschooling is a sort of movement, mostly in the U. S. I think, that began more or less in the 1970s. Around that time there was a noticable drop in public confidence in the public schools. Maybe I remember it had something to do with John Holt? ''How Children Fail?''

:"Homeschooling" to me does not mean simply being educated at home. It means that parents have ''actively opted out'' of an ''existing system of compulsory public schooling,'' and educate their children at home in order to assert direct personal supervision of the content and values that their children are being taught.

:Calling Mozart (say) "homeschooled" is like calling Thomas Jefferson "a Republican" or William Gladstone "a Liberal" or asserting "Jimmy Carter and Joseph Stalin were both Georgians." Technically true, but confusing at best. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:08, 27 February 2007 (EST)

::I'll defer to the consensus view, but I don't see why Mozart should be eliminated. He was homeschooled in a Christian manner. What's the big deal about observing that fact? I don't think there has to have been compulsory education in his day to make this observation meaningful. At a minimum, Mozart is an example of someone who learned at home and excelled afterwards. Probably his home education has something to do with his work. This is information worth preserving, and let readers debate as they wish. As Fox News says, "We report. You decide."--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:35, 27 February 2007 (EST)

==George Bernard Shaw==
'''George Bernard Shaw'''... hmmm... I don't think he would have cared for being labelled as a Christian. You can make out a case that he did accept some of the moral teachings of Jesus ''as Shaw, personally'' interpreted them. But in his will, he wrote:

:My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice.[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813999,00.html]

If he was a Christian, he was an awfully complicated and unusual Christian. He certainly did not belong to any organized denomination. He wrote that there was “not a single established religion in the world in which an intelligent or educated man could believe."

He did write that "Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it." And he wrote that "Christianity as a specific doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly." That is, he did not think any organized Christian religions actually practiced the teachings of Jesus.

He wrote a lot about Christianity in his Preface to ''Androcles and the Lion.'' I'm not going to try to summarize it, partly because I haven't read it through in a long time, but also because Shaw's ideas are so very original and unorthodox that they are really hard to pigeonhole.

He dealt with religious themes in his plays ''Saint Joan,'' ''Major Barbara,'' and ''Androcles and the Lion,'' and in their prefaces, but if you can tell "which side" he's on after reading those plays, you're better than I am.

He also dealt with evolution, in the play ''Back to Methuselah'' and the Preface to it—in a way which will not please either evolutionists or creationists. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:10, 20 January 2007 (EST)

I question the inclusion of '''Mark Twain,''' similarly. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 12:32, 20 January 2007 (EST)

== Recent additions ==

Harpie Snark recently added John Walker Lindh, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, Charles Fletcher Lummis, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Christopher Paolini to the list. I deleted them when reverting some vandalism.

I'm restoring Charles Fletcher Lummis and Christopher Paolini on his say-so.

Franklin D. Roosevelt attended Groton, an elite private prep school.

John Walker Lindh is a Taliban member and Adam Yahiye Gadahn is an Al-Qaeda member. I don't think they should go onto the list without a pretty good source citation, on the grounds that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," or, in this case, surprising claims require good evidence. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:37, 23 February 2007 (EST)

:Christopher Paolini is the author of the Inheritance Trilogy (Eragon, Eldest, and a third book yet unreleased). I know he was home schooled, but have never seen anything about his beliefs. I asked to judge by his writing, I would tend to think he is not a Christian based on some elements of his books such as the atheism of the elves. So if anyone has a source for this, please post it. ~ [[User:SharonS|SharonS]] 19:45, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::Raw results:

::There's a source for his being home-schooled, anyway: [http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=934 A profile of Christopher Paolini], "He was home-schooled by his parents, Kenneth Paolini and Talita Hodgkinson, through an accredited correspondence course at American School, Chicago, Illinois from which he graduated with his high school diploma at 15 years of age." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:16, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::Gadahn apparently was home-schooled: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/27/CALIF.TMP 'Average American boy' accused as terrorist], Adam was the oldest of four children, all of whom were home-schooled.

::A lot of Google hits on Lindh being home-schooled, but it's all blogs... Some stuff about in Google Books about Lindh "beginning life as a Christian" but turning to Islam "in high school."

:[http://knowledgehouse.info/famous.html This page] credits Lummis as begin home-schooled but does not itself cite its sources... No clear whether or not this is supposed to be a list of home-schooled ''Christians...'' FDR listed, Groton not explained... She also lists Paolini... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:27, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Sources: Adam Yahiye Gadahn: [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian New Yorker] John Walker Lindh: [http://www.blessedcause.org/BlessedCause%20Exclusives%20II/ReelingFromLiesofHM.htm blessedcause.org] Franklin D. Roosevelt: [http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/roosevelt-franklin.htm National Park Service] [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 14:30, 26 February 2007 (EST)

:Good. Thanks. I appreciate it. I'm removing the Wikipedia references because Wikipedia itself does not consider Wikipedia articles reliable sources that can be cited in other articles.

:FDR: I'm adding a note to the FDR entry, because it seems to me to be a borderline case; I don't think private tutors and Groton would be everyone's idea of what is meant by "Christian homeschooling."

:Lindh: I don't really know what to make of the [http://www.blessedcause.org/BlessedCause%20Exclusives%20II/ReelingFromLiesofHM.htm blessedcause.org BlessedCause] reference, both because I don't understand what the site is about... but in any case, I do ''not'' see where it identifies Lindh as being ''Christian'' homeschooled. In fact if I understand the article it says there's a dispute about where he went to school, and says that according to Houghton Mifflin, he went to a public middle school in Marin County—an assertion which the site attacks. The Wikipedia article says he was homeschooled starting at age 12, but does not say he was ''Christian'' homeschooled. Wikipedia's own source for that item (wrongly formatted in the article) is a web page entitled [http://www.rickross.com/reference/islamic/islamic56.htm The Making of John Walker Lindh]. I read it as saying that he was in and out of public schools, and I do not see anything to suggest that his homeschooling resembles what is meant by "Christian homeschooling."

:Gadahn: The source you cite says, pretty clearly I think, "Adam also joined several Christian homeschool support groups. (At the time, nearly all such groups in the region were Christian," so I don't see any question that ''he'' was "Christian homeschooled." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:13, 26 February 2007 (EST)

:Actually, there's a problem of definition here... this article has never defined exactly what the criterion is for inclusion in the list. Gadahn would be a good example of someone who clearly did undergo "Christian homeschooling," and certainly was "homeschooled," but surely was not "a Christian" and therefore not a "homeschooled Christian." I think this could use some discussion. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:36, 26 February 2007 (EST)

::That strikes me as what will be viewed by our critics as pretty obvious nitpicking and cherrypicking of sources. Reading the sources I provided, it's clear that all three had Christian upbringings and were homeschooled, despite their subsequent failings. As for Adam Gadahn, "''The Gadahns homeschooled Adam''" and "''Adam also joined several Christian homeschool support groups''" are clear and explicit. There's no ambiguity there; Adam Gadahn was Christian homeschooled. And the source, The New Yorker, is as good as they get. [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian] If we'd rather not have in the list those who were homeschooled but may be viewed as casting it in a poor light, then let's just come out and say that and not pretend that sources say something other than they do or rely on turns of semantics to contrive justifications for an incomplete list. If our ideas are indeed that strong and compelling, then they can easily withstand being scrutinized in full light of all facts, and to act otherwise by ignoring or dismissing unfavorable facts only undermines our position and claims and invites greater scrutiny. Better to just put all the cards on the table, deal with them and let the chips fall where they may. As I've said before on my talk page, either CP is going to have an accurate and complete article on homeschooling or it's going to have to censor information from it's articles which may be considered unfavorable to its stated orientation, it can't always have both. This is as good an article as any to choose which it's going be, right here, right now. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 13:07, 27 February 2007 (EST)

: I agree that it is hard given this evidence not to list Gadahn. The others are less persuasive. We need to resolve whether this is a list of Christians who were homeschooled, people who were Christian homeschooled, people who are Christian who happen to have been homeschooled, or Christians who were Christian homseschooled (I think that covers the 4 obvious possibilities). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:30, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:: I commented on Harpie's talk page but now realize that the debate is here. I'll only respond here now about this issue.

:: As anyone familiar with homeschool support groups knows, simply hanging around a loosely affiliated group does not make one a "Christian homeschooler" any more than living in a neighborhood makes one a member of the majority religion. The description of Gadahn is clear that he attended Christian homeschooling groups out of necessity, not by choice. This does not make him a Christian homeschooler any more than attending Georgetown Univ. made Bill Clinton a Catholic college student. As to Lindh, there is nothing Christian about his homeschooling or his own religion, so that's not even close.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:44, 27 February 2007 (EST)

::: Notice that if we can agree to let the title of the actual list be "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home," that includes Mozart and excludes Lindh and Gadahn. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:07, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::Frankly the only thing necessary for a run-of-the-mill homeschooler to be a Christian homeschooler is intent on the part of the parents to provide a proper Christian education and action by them to keep them out of school and deliver a superior quality education at home themselves. Reading the New Yorker article it seems clear that this was the intent of the Gadahn's for young <s>Azzam</s> Adam, no matter how terribly they failed: [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian] Now arguing that Adam Gadahn was not Christian homeschooled because he didn't chose to but rather was compelled to is a red herring; many Christian homeschooled children would prefer to be playing ''Left Behind: Eternal Forces'' rather than studying math, so by that standard not many Christian homeschooled children would qualify as being Christian homeschooled. Meaning this rationale again opens us up to the lefty criticism that we exclude unfavorable facts from our articles, in other words, engaging in partisan, ideologically-motivated censorship. So if Aschlafly as the owner of this site really wants to exclude Gadahn as he seems to, we'd better set to work coming up with a reasonable-appearing justification for doing so that has at least a veneer of scholary fairness; regardless of what our motivations are, I'd think we'd want to avoid appearing to be censoring unfavorable facts in order to further our agenda. Thoughts? [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 19:58, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Harpie, there's no "censorship" or "exclu[sion]" here. The New Yorker article simply does not support the claim that Gadahn was a Christian homeschooler. The article says that, out of necessity, Gadahn was forced to associate with homeschool "support groups" for some of his teenage years. That association not necessarily even education. Every indication is that Gadahn was not Christian then, and is not now either.

:::: Also, I might add, nearly 99% of Christian homeschoolers start early. It seems to me that both Gadahn and Lindh were latecomers to homeschooling long after their personalities and attitudes had formed. Often the latecomers are just passing through and are not influenced much by homeschooling. Contrast that with Mozart.

:::: I think Dpbsmith has proposed an ideal solution. Certainly he captures the intent of the list.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 21:28, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Kind of like a book about "Famous Irish That Don't Drink". This ''is'' a brilliant solution! Now I understand how to handle situations like this. Since we don't engage in censorship or exclusion, we just need to find the right way to frame the issue that by necessity keeps any unfavorable facts out. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 12:25, 1 March 2007 (EST)

I love your sarcastic enthusiasm-- it '''''really''''' strengthens your points more than talking straight could ever hope to. Even so, Ashlafly has a good point; Dpbsmith accurately capptured the intent of the list.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 12:43, 1 March 2007 (EST)

:Well, they say a little bit of honey makes the medicine go down better. Look, I've been in conservative political PR now for nearly 20 years and know a little something about crafting credible, effective messages, and we'd be a lot more credible and better off in the long term were we to follow the rationale I provided above. Our goal should not be to just get out the message, but to get out a credible and compelling one, and this subject and article is just one of many that will face this same issue. If we go around trumpeting our own version of reality while ignoring the one that is shared by all we run the risk of being caricatures of our own cause and ultimately all too easily dismissed by those we hope to convince. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 13:34, 1 March 2007 (EST)

==Expand this article==
I'm not the person to do it. I know nothing about homeschooling, sent both of my kids to public schools (and state universities), hope I've got stuff sorta-kinda right, hope I haven't stepped on any toes, but, this should be an article where there's ''lots'' of expertise available. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:12, 28 February 2007 (EST)

Let me be more emphatic. There could be a '''lot''' more factual material about homeschooling here. Resources. Books. Tips on dealing with the authorities and how to jump through the legal hoops (I assume there are still some to jump through). There's an obvious opportunity here for people to add encyclopedic material that is informed by their personal experience and expertise. Say someone wants to homeschool in New Jersey or whereever. What office do you go to? What forms do you fill out? etc. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:39, 1 March 2007 (EST)

I don't think this is a good place to try to compile info about state homeschooling laws. There are other places that specialize in that. On the other hand, I agree that the article needs some serious work. Some thoughts:

Parents take a more active role in the education of their children when they homeschool. I'm uncomfortable with this general statement - while in some (many) cases it is true, there are lots of active parents with kids in public or private school (especially small church schools, I'm guessing), and there are homeschooling parents who simply hire a tutor (or several) and let them have at it.

The primary reason for homeschooling is to give the child a better education. A close second in reasons, however, is to avoid the culture of public school and its many adverse effects of hostility to Christianity and parental control, political bias, boredom, confusion, depression, etc.
In fact, different families have different reasons for homeschooling, usually more than one. Religion may (or may not) be a factor; so might the quality of education. But there are other reasons - a child who is not being well-served by the public schools, a child who has a special talent or interest they wish to focus on, a family who wants to travel with dad on business, a family who lives in a very rural area far from schools (or who is sailing around the world, etc.), and so on. Various surveys have been done trying to rank the reasons, but I think we'd be better off with a list of possible reasons rather than trying to rank them. Homeschoolers are notoriously hard to count or survey.

In the United States, opting out of public schools is not new. When Thomas Edison's public school teacher said he was "addled," Edison's mother took him out of public school and taught him at home. But because of compulsory education laws—the first was passed in Massachusetts in 1852, and by 1918 every state had them—schooling at home was a violation of truancy laws, and was rare until the 1970s. 
On the other hand, *lots* of kids were educated at home in earlier centuries, and certain cultures (Native American?) may not have had "schools" at all back then. Also, the 1852 date sounds too late to me, though I could be wrong - can we get a cite there?

:I just added one. There seemed to be one there already. Another, which reads well but not quite sure of the source, is [http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/compulso.html Compulsory Education]. Apparently Horace Mann—whose name is instantly familiar to me as an "educator," but of whom I know little more—was active in getting them to do it. Massachusetts had ''public'' schools much earlier, but apparently they were not compulsory. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:13, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Also - is there a reason for listing Christian homeschoolers? Why not just list people who were educated at home (in one form or another), and then give a brief explaination of their situation - e.g. Sandra Day OConnor, educated at home when she was young as the ranch she lived on was very remote, or whatever.

A lot of thoughts - hope they are helpful. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 23:49, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Prominent homeschooled Christians? ==

By your own definition, you have to "opt out" of formal education to be considered "homeschooled." Thus, I'm curious what system DaVinci, Washington, et al, opted out of.-[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 13:25, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:That's why, some time ago, I changed the title of the '''list''' to "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home." Homeschooling as we know it in the United States essentially began in the 1970s. This very interesting article on [http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/SAI/homeschool/index.html Homeschoolers: Estimating Numbers and Growth] suggests that there were about a million homeschoolers circa 1998. However, in the "late 1970s and early 1980s" it says "about 10,000 to 15,000" children received their education at home. At a very rough guess, today's U. S. adult population probably includes less than 100,000 people over 21, probably less than 25,000 people over 30, and practically none over 40. Not a large population, and not enough time to become spectacularly high achievers... yet. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:34, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

::I changed the definition part to remove the "opt out" wording - it is somewhat an attempt to address your concern above, and also an attempt to put the emphasis on what homeschoolers *do* (learn outside of school), than what they *don't do* (go to school). Not perfect, but a step in the right direction, I think. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 21:35, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree. I think that this kind of simplistic list can be a bit meaningless. Better would be a list of people with unconventional educations or minimal formal education with a brief explanation of their circumstances. For example, you could say something like "Benjamin Franklin - had one year of formal schooling, apprenticed with his brother as a printer." (Or whatever - not sure of the details on Franklin, but you get the idea.) I also think that whether the person was Christian could be handled similarly in the brief note, rather than in the heading. In addition, I don't think *anyone* should be on the list unless there is a *citation* to a source explaining their education. See my addition of Andrew Wyeth as an example. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:57, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:The nature of the list just boggles my mind. It ignores the point raised by AmesG (which I still read into it despite the "educated at home" part) that "homeschooling" needs a formal alternative to have a meaningful definition. Also, why only Christians? I'm still boggled... [[User:Human|Human]] 22:40, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

== Drawbacks ==

I'm moving this here for discussion. As it stands, it seems to me to be pure, unsupported personal opinion:
:Homeschooling is not without its drawbacks. Studies have noted that children who are schooled at home tend to enter the collegiate and working words less socialized than their public and private schooled counterparts. [http://justenough.wordpress.com/2006/10/25/homeschoolers-are-indeed-weird/] This lack of legitimate socialization can produce difficulties in homsechooled childred engaging in meaningful relationships with individuals outside of their family. Additionally, while the public school playground can be seen as a barbaric atmosphere to most kids who are schooled at home, it is important to note that these exigent circumstances can produce valuable conflict prevention skills that pay dividends in all facets of life.

No doubt there are drawbacks to homeschooling. The claim that "children who are schooled at home tend to enter the collegiate and working words less socialized than their public and private schooled counterparts" is, however, referenced only to a blog entry by someone identified only as "Tammy," no other identification or credentials—''and it does not support the statement.'' The title of the entry is "Homeschoolers are indeed weird," but she does ''not'' say homeschoolers are less socialized—that's apparently [[User:Huey gunna getcha]]'s ''interpretation.'' She means "weird" in a good way: tolerant of different opinions and not afraid to express individuality.

The sentence about the "public school playground" providing "valuable conflict prevention skills" is plausible but unsupported. (By the way: are parochial school playgrounds, or non-school playgrounds very different?)

A friend once remarked that he was astonished whenever anyone made reference to "the happy sounds of children at play." "Haven't they actually paid attention when they pass a playground?" [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:19, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:Good catch! I had read that article earlier today and put removing that section on my "to do" list - you beat me to it! FWIW, when looking at homeschoolers and socialization, it's also important to consider that some children are not odd because they are homeschooled, rather, they are homeschooled because they are odd. Homeschooling can be an understanding "safe haven" for those odd kids for whom school may be "barbaric" indeed. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 20:48, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

i was almost kicked off my baseball team cause i was homeschooled and i was playing for the middle school. i was fortunate to be kept on. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 20:09, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/zysk1.html
http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/HomeschoolingGrowsUp.pdf
A few of the thousands of references on Homeschooling and Socialization. As an educator and homeschool parent I have searched for years to find data that supports the claim that homeschoolers are lacking in good social skills. Having met hundreds of HS kids from all ages, I never found one that wasn't able in a wide variety of social situations. Indeed ''all'' of the HS teens I met were a delight to talk with and had no problems talking with adults on a wide range of topics, unlike thier Public or Private or Parochial schooled peers who always seem so sullen and distant around adults they don't know - and even those they do. After searching the academic journals and every other source I could look at, I found a lot of research on HS and Socialization and none that found widespread negative effects. While someone may find a kid here and there as an anecdote to say HS is isolating and promotes poor social development, I could probably come up with dozens of Public, private and parochial school kids to show the alleged deliterious effects of those types of schooling on the social skills of kids. Third Day May 8

==Snipping George Bernard Shaw and Mark Twain==
I'm removing

*[[George Bernard Shaw]]
*[[Mark Twain]]

Both men had complex opinions that varied during the course of their lives, but calling them "Christian" is a stretch. My reasons for excluding Shaw are given above. As for Mark Twain, he did write a sympathetic book about Joan of Arc. However, his writings are replete with sarcastic and dismissive remarks about organized religion. He refused to let "Letters from the Earth" be published until after his death. In Mark Twain's Letters, we read:

:From a gentleman in Buffalo Clemens one day received a letter inclosing an incompleted list of the world's "One Hundred Greatest Men," men who had exerted "the largest visible influence on the life and activities of the race." The writer asked that Mark Twain examine the list and suggest names, adding "would you include Jesus, as the founder of Christianity, in the list?" To the list of statesmen Clemens added the name of Thomas Paine; to the list of inventors, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. The question he answered in detail.

Twain's answer was that if the compiler of the list added Jesus, he should also add Satan: "From A.D. 350 to A.D. 1850 these gentlemen exercised a vaster influence over a fifth part of the human race than was exercised over that fraction of the race by all other influences combined. Ninety-nine hundredths of this influence proceeded from Satan, the remaining fraction of it from Jesus."

Twain has been labelled "deist," "agnostic," and "atheist." Gary Sloan suggests ([http://www.writerscramp.ca/archives/mark_twain.htm Mark Twain's Covert War with his Maker]) that he believed in a ''malignant'' God, and says "Viewing Satan as a heroic rebel against the real Archfiend, Twain came to identify with the fallen cherub and often used him as a mouthpiece." Perhaps his views were so complex that he was all of these things and a Christian at the same time, but he was certainly not a Christian as the term is ordinarily meant. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:03, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

:But if they were homeschooled, shouldn't they be in the "other" section of the list? [[User:Human|Human]] 18:21, 4 May 2007 (EDT)
::Sure. That section didn't exist when I removed them; it was a single list of Christians. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:32, 4 May 2007 (EDT)
:::Doing. [[User:Human|Human]] 21:25, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

==Cleaning up the list - putting uncited people on the talk page==
The list of homeschooled people for whom there are no citations has been here for too long, IMHO. I am moving these people here, to the discussion page. I hope this is OK with all of you. As each person's education is researched and cited, we can add them back to the list, preferably with a brief sentence explaining who they are and what form their education took (as we have now already for several people). As discussed above, I think it will be easier to describe the religious beliefs of each person individually (if needed in this context), rather than try to decide if they are generically Christian or not. Please jump in and research one of these people so we can build up this article. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:09, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

: I left in Adam Yahiye Gadahn, John Walker Lindh, George Bernard Shaw, and Mark Twain, because their entries had *something* other than their names, and because they were discussed quite a bit here; however these can/should be improved by adding a brief description of who they are/were, adding a brief description of their education, and/or adding citations, preferably ones that describe their education. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:29, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::Cleaned up the George Bernard Shaw entry.--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 18:41, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

::If it were up to me I'd make this list contemporary (20th century, maybe 19th too) personalities. As it was pointed out earlier, as the homeschooling term is used today, the majority of these wouldn't count. Also, way back in the day, practically everyone was homeschooled. [[User:Jrssr5|Jrssr5]] 12:17, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

:::Do we really need this comprehensive a list? Isn't it enough to point out a few folks who were homeschooled? [[User:Flippin|Flippin]] 12:28, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

:: Folks, I saw that list from a source and have reinserted. I took out the ridiculous Lindh reference and other liberal bias. For example, the entry did not even say that most homeschooling today is done to preserve the Christian faith! Frankly, this entry looked like something one would see on Wikipedia. We're not trying to be like Wikipedia here. Thanks and I'll try to find citations for the names I reinserted. Help is welcome.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::::I saw that list from "a source," too, but it was just that: a list. Some homeschooling-related site. It did not say where the list came from nor did it give any sources at all. I think the list may be just bouncing around the Internet. What was ''your'' source? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:44, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:::''For example, the entry did not even say that most homeschooling today is done to preserve the Christian faith!'' I'm not sure I agree with this. It is not supported by the citation given for that paragraph. In fact, religion was *third* in the list of reasons for homeschooling provided in the citation, with only 29.8% citing it as their most important reason. If you are going to assert this, it would be best to add an additional citation that backs it up. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:14, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0053.html According to the US Census, 33% cited Religion as a motivation for HS. Third Day May 8

:: OK, fine, I'll look for citations and add them. But I've personally taught over 120 homeschoolers, and I'd say religion is the motivation for 100 or so of them. The other reasons given, such as avoidance of drugs in school, are not even factors for the vast majority of homeschoolers.

:: Also, I will find more citations for the 61 people under the "arguably homeschooled" list and move them to the higher list.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 09:55, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

== Arguably Homeschooled ==

How do you define homeschooled? Had some education at home? A formal school education was available but did not attend? Dropped out of school at age something? Without such a definition, many of the names on the list are frankly, silly and/or wishful thinking. --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 00:13, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

An example of this - Mark Twain is listed on the list. From the biography of Mark Twain[http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml] it reads:
<blockquote>In 1847, when Sam was 11, his father died. Shortly thereafter he left school, having completed the fifth grade, to work as a printer's apprentice for a local newspaper. His job was to arrange the type for each of the newspaper's stories, allowing Sam to read the news of the world while completing his work.</blockquote>
In 1847, a 5th grade education was quite sufficient for day to day life and working as an apprentice for a local newspaper was a reasonable continuation of his education. It is not homeschooling. It would probably be more useful to first put the person on the talk page and figure out if they were homeschooled and then added to the main page rather than put on the main page without refrence and then removed when they don't fit the definition (whatever that may be). --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 00:24, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:I agree, [[User:Mtur|Mtur]]. I have found several times in the past that someone on a list of this kind was not actually educated at home. I think, if we are going for a high level of accuracy that befits an encyclopedia, we should do the research ourselves first, using the talk page to discuss. Then we should add the person to the list, and be sure to explain how each person was educated. I don't think we need to have a strict definition of homeschooling; rather, we should describe each person's experience. The result will be a list with an interesting variety of approaches to education.

I've added Mark Twain's famous quote, which is proof enough.

More generally, these lists abound on the internet. I've added a cite. No one really disputes that most or all of these people, and others too, were homeschooled. We can continue to fill in cites, but there is no need to censor this info in the meantime.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:47, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." I don't think this is proof that he was homeschooled, only that he sees the difference between schooling and education, and realizes that education can come from places other than school. I'd like to know more about his education before adding him to the list. (But your sandbox, etc, so I'll leave him there.)

I agree that lists such as these abound - but here, a higher standard exists. It is not censorship to be sure something is accurate before adding it to the article proper, and the information is available to all on the talk page while the research is being done. Students who want to use these people as examples in their work should know enough about the individual's education to be sure it is indeed an example of what they are writing about. Brief descriptions of the person's education, along with a cite or two about it, will be very useful to our readers. A list without this information, not so much. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:I'm breaking my self-imposed examtime exile to ask this question. Isn't it kind of facetious to say that most of those people were homeschooled, when no formal schooling existed? It's sort of like making a big fuss out of someone from the 1600s being a creationist - of course he was, there was no alternative! Or, like saying, "Jesus didn't believe in global warming." Well... of course not. The controversy didn't exist back then. It creates an idea of conscious choice and rejection of an idea, when there was no such thing. Example: Joan of Arc? There were no formal schools in France at the time. Put another way, could you name someone from before 1700 who was ''not'' homeschooled until college? Just seems a little facetious to me. K, back to the books.-'''Speak[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:SpeakerOfTheDead er]''' 00:59, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:: The point is not to say that someone succeeded by rejecting public school, but that someone succeeded from homeschooling. The latter observation is true and meaningful regardless of whether public schools existed. We don't care as much '''why''' someone was homeschooled as whether it was effective.

:: Sure, I can think of people who lived before 1700 but were not homeschooled: the illiterate, of whom there were many.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 01:11, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Sure, that's true. But the point that others are making is that the tone of the article suggests that you're suggesting that they rejected public schools, or were part of the homeschooling "movement." Would you mind if I clarified it, to better express your point, or would you like to? Perhaps something like, "Even before public schools were active, homeschooling produced many successful people worldwide. Here are some examples"? -'''Speak[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:SpeakerOfTheDead er]''' 01:15, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::A previous version had such a statement - I think something like that should be included. I would also argue that the statement "a disproportionate number of achievers have benefited from being homeschooled" has not been cited or proved, and I'm not sure it's accurate or (from a historical perspective), even meaningful. (See the Harvard discussion above, though of course college admittance is not a great measure of success in life - but that's a whole 'nother conversation.)--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

: The problem with your approach is that most of the people on the list did reject formal or public school, I think.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 01:53, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:: I don't think that's true for many of the historical figures. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

I think the list, if it actually describes the education each person had, shows that there are a wide variety of approaches to education which can be successful. This can be very useful in an age where educational standardization is being pushed - having all kids learn the same material in the same grade, etc. It's also nice for homeschooled kids to see that they are not so much an oddity as part of a long line of people who did a significant amount of learning outside of school. There's a reason you often see lists of successful minorities - it is very helpful to members of the minority group to havfe these role models, even if their lives aren't exactly parallel. I agree that it's problematic to call it "homeschooling" before, say, the last 50-100 years, but "educated at home", or "educated outside of formal schools" usually fits. At the same time, I think a long list of names without individualized information about their education is not particularly useful, and quite frankly lowers the standard of research and accuracy here. Again, we are setting an example for the students, homeschooled and not, who we expect will use this information in their work. If we expect them to present work that is well-researched and cited from credible sources which are themselves clearly well-researched, shouldn't we be doing the same?--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Homeschooling

2007-05-08T14:55:11Z

Third Day: /* Drawbacks */

==Homschoolers at harvard.==
I read it some were, but it is true that 10% of students in a classroom at Harvard were homseschooled. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:38, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
:For a claim like that, I doubt "I read it somewhere" works; finding a citation shouldn't be hard if it's true, though. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 15:39, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::I will try to find it.--[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:42, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

:::Great! Find a citation *first*, then feel free to add it to the article. Since only about 2% of kids are homeschooled, it would be astounding to find 10% at Harvard. Also note that 10% in a particular classroom is not the same as 10% of the Harvard student body. If your statement is true, then it deserves much more prominence in the article. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:45, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::::Alright I found the information, but I was wrong. 10% of the Students accepted are homeschooled.:) so am I.... not going to Harvard though. so if you still want the link i can get it, or if not, no problem. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:53, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::::First, make sure it's 10% of accepted students are homeschooled, not 10% of homeschooled applicants are accepted. Then go ahead and add it, just make sure you quote it properly (very important for statistics) and include the citation, including the title, etc. so it will show up nicely in the references section. Thanks for adding to this article!--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:56, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
Who are you by the way mom? I mean you sound like you have been here longer than I have, and thats a long time.ok here is the link: [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/03/21/schoolhouse_rocked/ homeschoolers at Harvard] --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:59, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
: I'm a homeschooling mom, of course! <smile>. Will, the statistic was what I suspected. It said that homeschoolers have an acceptance rate of 10%, which is the same as the general acceptance rate at Harvard. On the one hand, it doesn't show homeschoolers doing any better than anyone else, but on the other hand, it does show they can do *as well as* anyone else. Why don't you do a bit more research and write a paragraph about homeschoolers getting into college? The one in the article is a good model - I bet you can find a few other sources too, and come up with something quite worthwhile! Now I'm off to do my housework, but will check back to see what you've come up with! --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 16:04, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

That Boston Globe article is excellent, it's a real "find." I'm going to follow Hsmom's lead and let Will N. draft something rather than do something with it myself.

I can't figure out exactly what the sentence means: "At Harvard, the acceptance rate of the general applicant pool is about 10 percent, which mirrors the success of home-schoolers." I read it the same way Hsmom does, but it's not perfectly clear.

However, it says specifically that the acceptance rate of homeschoolers at ''Williams College'' (a famous, excellent, old, small liberal arts college) is 20 percent. And [http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-11-02-collegerates_x.htm this article] says that William's general acceptance rate is 19.2%. In other words, a homeschoolers are exactly as successful in gaining admission to Williams as anyone else.

The key point to be made, which should be supported with well-chosen quotations from the Globe article, is that homeschoolers are just as successful at being admitted to major colleges as others, and that these days college admissions offices are familiar with homeschooling and have no problem with it. I like the line: "We read home-schoolers' applications just like any other application. They don't get any special consideration, but they're not discriminated against, either. Their applications are interesting, and they've certainly done independent work their whole lives."

If homeschoolers are about as successful at getting accepted as the general population, and if homeschoolers currently amount to something like 2% of all students, then ''presumably'' the percentage of Harvard students who were homeschooled would be 2%. 2% of 6700 = about 130 in all. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:01, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

----

I would dispute saying Patton was a Christian as he believed in reincarnation (show me where this is in line with scripture)
Brigham Young was a Mormon, not a christian.

:Mormons consider themselves to be Christians.

:The official name of their church is ''The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints'' ("LDS Church" for short).

:See material I've just moved to [[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints#Mormons' relationship to Christianity]].

:One dictionary definition of "Christian" is "Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus." It seems to me that Mormons meet that definition.

:Who ought to make the judgement, among all the denominations that regard themselves as Christian, which are "really Christian?" [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:10, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:P. S. The question of what Mormons believe is sure to receive a lot of discussion in a year or so, since Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is running for President. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:14, 18 January 2007 (EST)

Are you a Mormon? Not to be prejudiced against you if you are but just wondering.
[[Will N.]]

*No, I'm not a Mormon. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 21:37, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:I probably should explain more. I did react to the phrase "a Mormon not a Christian." What went through my mind, and what I knew ''off the top of my head'' was: "Whoa! That's not right. Mormons consider themselves to be Christians, and the church is even called Church of ''Jesus Christ'' of the Latter-day Saints." I also got just a little bit of steam up, because there '''is''' some discrimination against Mormons—assuming Mitt Romney runs I think we'll have plenty of chance to see this soon—and saying that Mormons aren't Christians sounds a little like an attack.

:So, after I wrote what I knew off the top of my head, from my experience with Wikipedia and with college, etc. I've found that if you want to convince other people, instead of just telling them what you think, it helps if you can show them ''why'' you think that. So I decided to do a bit of very quick research. I figured that Mormons probably get asked this question a lot and that the official LDS church website would probably have something to say about it.

:First I found the passage I put in quotation marks above, the one that begins "Jesus Christ is the Son of God." I probably should have stopped there, but when I saw that they actually have a "Frequently Asked Questions" page with answers to the questions "Are you Christians" and "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a Christian church?" I couldn't resist putting that in, too. I probably put in too much. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 05:45, 19 January 2007 (EST)

Ben Franklin was a Deist --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 22:58, 18 January 2007 (EST)

:Yes, that's right... no time to look further but I'm pretty sure Franklin did not believe in the divinity of Jesus and did not belong to an organized Christian church. Guess the whole list needs checking? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 05:45, 19 January 2007 (EST)

==Homeschooled or not?==

I made a minor edit to the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart entry today reflecting the fact that he was homeschooled. This was almost immediateley changed back by dpbsmith, with the explanation that "he wasn't homeschooled as we know the term today"

Now, this is all well and good, except that in the article for omeschooling, his name is on the list of famous people who were homeschooled, with an internal link to theMozart article!

So which is it? Was he homeschooled or not? And please, this is isn't an attempt to start a big discussion of the meaning of homeschooling etc. I'm just asking for some consistency between articles here. Either a person was homeschooled, in which case their entries should be amended to reflect that fact, or they should be removed from the list of "Famous people who were homeschooled."

I'll wait a bit to see what the consensus is, but if their names are still on that list in a few days, I'm going to fix those articles to reflect that fact.
--[[User:TrueReaganConservative|TrueReaganConservative]] 13:40, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds—Emerson.

:The thing is that ''this'' article is sort of a hash. I haven't wanted to take this sorry article entire, shatter it to bits and remould it nearer to my heart's desire because I think it's here as a sort of inspiration to the students who use the site. It looks to me like one of those "X pride" lists where X is any group that is a little out of the mainstream and wants to encourage its members that it's OK.

:The quickest way to fix ''this'' article would be retitle the actual list something like "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home."

:This isn't really a factual article about homeschooling, it's a point-of-view piece that says that being educated at home not only does not put you at a disadvantage vis-a-vis public or private schools, it can be an advantage. ''This is very arguably true'' and the list is evidence in support of it.

:What the list is ''not'' is a list of people who have undergone "Christian homeschooling."

:Homeschooling is a sort of movement, mostly in the U. S. I think, that began more or less in the 1970s. Around that time there was a noticable drop in public confidence in the public schools. Maybe I remember it had something to do with John Holt? ''How Children Fail?''

:"Homeschooling" to me does not mean simply being educated at home. It means that parents have ''actively opted out'' of an ''existing system of compulsory public schooling,'' and educate their children at home in order to assert direct personal supervision of the content and values that their children are being taught.

:Calling Mozart (say) "homeschooled" is like calling Thomas Jefferson "a Republican" or William Gladstone "a Liberal" or asserting "Jimmy Carter and Joseph Stalin were both Georgians." Technically true, but confusing at best. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:08, 27 February 2007 (EST)

::I'll defer to the consensus view, but I don't see why Mozart should be eliminated. He was homeschooled in a Christian manner. What's the big deal about observing that fact? I don't think there has to have been compulsory education in his day to make this observation meaningful. At a minimum, Mozart is an example of someone who learned at home and excelled afterwards. Probably his home education has something to do with his work. This is information worth preserving, and let readers debate as they wish. As Fox News says, "We report. You decide."--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:35, 27 February 2007 (EST)

==George Bernard Shaw==
'''George Bernard Shaw'''... hmmm... I don't think he would have cared for being labelled as a Christian. You can make out a case that he did accept some of the moral teachings of Jesus ''as Shaw, personally'' interpreted them. But in his will, he wrote:

:My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice.[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813999,00.html]

If he was a Christian, he was an awfully complicated and unusual Christian. He certainly did not belong to any organized denomination. He wrote that there was “not a single established religion in the world in which an intelligent or educated man could believe."

He did write that "Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it." And he wrote that "Christianity as a specific doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly." That is, he did not think any organized Christian religions actually practiced the teachings of Jesus.

He wrote a lot about Christianity in his Preface to ''Androcles and the Lion.'' I'm not going to try to summarize it, partly because I haven't read it through in a long time, but also because Shaw's ideas are so very original and unorthodox that they are really hard to pigeonhole.

He dealt with religious themes in his plays ''Saint Joan,'' ''Major Barbara,'' and ''Androcles and the Lion,'' and in their prefaces, but if you can tell "which side" he's on after reading those plays, you're better than I am.

He also dealt with evolution, in the play ''Back to Methuselah'' and the Preface to it—in a way which will not please either evolutionists or creationists. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:10, 20 January 2007 (EST)

I question the inclusion of '''Mark Twain,''' similarly. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 12:32, 20 January 2007 (EST)

== Recent additions ==

Harpie Snark recently added John Walker Lindh, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, Charles Fletcher Lummis, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Christopher Paolini to the list. I deleted them when reverting some vandalism.

I'm restoring Charles Fletcher Lummis and Christopher Paolini on his say-so.

Franklin D. Roosevelt attended Groton, an elite private prep school.

John Walker Lindh is a Taliban member and Adam Yahiye Gadahn is an Al-Qaeda member. I don't think they should go onto the list without a pretty good source citation, on the grounds that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," or, in this case, surprising claims require good evidence. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:37, 23 February 2007 (EST)

:Christopher Paolini is the author of the Inheritance Trilogy (Eragon, Eldest, and a third book yet unreleased). I know he was home schooled, but have never seen anything about his beliefs. I asked to judge by his writing, I would tend to think he is not a Christian based on some elements of his books such as the atheism of the elves. So if anyone has a source for this, please post it. ~ [[User:SharonS|SharonS]] 19:45, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::Raw results:

::There's a source for his being home-schooled, anyway: [http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=934 A profile of Christopher Paolini], "He was home-schooled by his parents, Kenneth Paolini and Talita Hodgkinson, through an accredited correspondence course at American School, Chicago, Illinois from which he graduated with his high school diploma at 15 years of age." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:16, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::Gadahn apparently was home-schooled: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/27/CALIF.TMP 'Average American boy' accused as terrorist], Adam was the oldest of four children, all of whom were home-schooled.

::A lot of Google hits on Lindh being home-schooled, but it's all blogs... Some stuff about in Google Books about Lindh "beginning life as a Christian" but turning to Islam "in high school."

:[http://knowledgehouse.info/famous.html This page] credits Lummis as begin home-schooled but does not itself cite its sources... No clear whether or not this is supposed to be a list of home-schooled ''Christians...'' FDR listed, Groton not explained... She also lists Paolini... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:27, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Sources: Adam Yahiye Gadahn: [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian New Yorker] John Walker Lindh: [http://www.blessedcause.org/BlessedCause%20Exclusives%20II/ReelingFromLiesofHM.htm blessedcause.org] Franklin D. Roosevelt: [http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/roosevelt-franklin.htm National Park Service] [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 14:30, 26 February 2007 (EST)

:Good. Thanks. I appreciate it. I'm removing the Wikipedia references because Wikipedia itself does not consider Wikipedia articles reliable sources that can be cited in other articles.

:FDR: I'm adding a note to the FDR entry, because it seems to me to be a borderline case; I don't think private tutors and Groton would be everyone's idea of what is meant by "Christian homeschooling."

:Lindh: I don't really know what to make of the [http://www.blessedcause.org/BlessedCause%20Exclusives%20II/ReelingFromLiesofHM.htm blessedcause.org BlessedCause] reference, both because I don't understand what the site is about... but in any case, I do ''not'' see where it identifies Lindh as being ''Christian'' homeschooled. In fact if I understand the article it says there's a dispute about where he went to school, and says that according to Houghton Mifflin, he went to a public middle school in Marin County—an assertion which the site attacks. The Wikipedia article says he was homeschooled starting at age 12, but does not say he was ''Christian'' homeschooled. Wikipedia's own source for that item (wrongly formatted in the article) is a web page entitled [http://www.rickross.com/reference/islamic/islamic56.htm The Making of John Walker Lindh]. I read it as saying that he was in and out of public schools, and I do not see anything to suggest that his homeschooling resembles what is meant by "Christian homeschooling."

:Gadahn: The source you cite says, pretty clearly I think, "Adam also joined several Christian homeschool support groups. (At the time, nearly all such groups in the region were Christian," so I don't see any question that ''he'' was "Christian homeschooled." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:13, 26 February 2007 (EST)

:Actually, there's a problem of definition here... this article has never defined exactly what the criterion is for inclusion in the list. Gadahn would be a good example of someone who clearly did undergo "Christian homeschooling," and certainly was "homeschooled," but surely was not "a Christian" and therefore not a "homeschooled Christian." I think this could use some discussion. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:36, 26 February 2007 (EST)

::That strikes me as what will be viewed by our critics as pretty obvious nitpicking and cherrypicking of sources. Reading the sources I provided, it's clear that all three had Christian upbringings and were homeschooled, despite their subsequent failings. As for Adam Gadahn, "''The Gadahns homeschooled Adam''" and "''Adam also joined several Christian homeschool support groups''" are clear and explicit. There's no ambiguity there; Adam Gadahn was Christian homeschooled. And the source, The New Yorker, is as good as they get. [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian] If we'd rather not have in the list those who were homeschooled but may be viewed as casting it in a poor light, then let's just come out and say that and not pretend that sources say something other than they do or rely on turns of semantics to contrive justifications for an incomplete list. If our ideas are indeed that strong and compelling, then they can easily withstand being scrutinized in full light of all facts, and to act otherwise by ignoring or dismissing unfavorable facts only undermines our position and claims and invites greater scrutiny. Better to just put all the cards on the table, deal with them and let the chips fall where they may. As I've said before on my talk page, either CP is going to have an accurate and complete article on homeschooling or it's going to have to censor information from it's articles which may be considered unfavorable to its stated orientation, it can't always have both. This is as good an article as any to choose which it's going be, right here, right now. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 13:07, 27 February 2007 (EST)

: I agree that it is hard given this evidence not to list Gadahn. The others are less persuasive. We need to resolve whether this is a list of Christians who were homeschooled, people who were Christian homeschooled, people who are Christian who happen to have been homeschooled, or Christians who were Christian homseschooled (I think that covers the 4 obvious possibilities). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:30, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:: I commented on Harpie's talk page but now realize that the debate is here. I'll only respond here now about this issue.

:: As anyone familiar with homeschool support groups knows, simply hanging around a loosely affiliated group does not make one a "Christian homeschooler" any more than living in a neighborhood makes one a member of the majority religion. The description of Gadahn is clear that he attended Christian homeschooling groups out of necessity, not by choice. This does not make him a Christian homeschooler any more than attending Georgetown Univ. made Bill Clinton a Catholic college student. As to Lindh, there is nothing Christian about his homeschooling or his own religion, so that's not even close.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:44, 27 February 2007 (EST)

::: Notice that if we can agree to let the title of the actual list be "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home," that includes Mozart and excludes Lindh and Gadahn. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 19:07, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::Frankly the only thing necessary for a run-of-the-mill homeschooler to be a Christian homeschooler is intent on the part of the parents to provide a proper Christian education and action by them to keep them out of school and deliver a superior quality education at home themselves. Reading the New Yorker article it seems clear that this was the intent of the Gadahn's for young <s>Azzam</s> Adam, no matter how terribly they failed: [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070122fa_fact_khatchadourian] Now arguing that Adam Gadahn was not Christian homeschooled because he didn't chose to but rather was compelled to is a red herring; many Christian homeschooled children would prefer to be playing ''Left Behind: Eternal Forces'' rather than studying math, so by that standard not many Christian homeschooled children would qualify as being Christian homeschooled. Meaning this rationale again opens us up to the lefty criticism that we exclude unfavorable facts from our articles, in other words, engaging in partisan, ideologically-motivated censorship. So if Aschlafly as the owner of this site really wants to exclude Gadahn as he seems to, we'd better set to work coming up with a reasonable-appearing justification for doing so that has at least a veneer of scholary fairness; regardless of what our motivations are, I'd think we'd want to avoid appearing to be censoring unfavorable facts in order to further our agenda. Thoughts? [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 19:58, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Harpie, there's no "censorship" or "exclu[sion]" here. The New Yorker article simply does not support the claim that Gadahn was a Christian homeschooler. The article says that, out of necessity, Gadahn was forced to associate with homeschool "support groups" for some of his teenage years. That association not necessarily even education. Every indication is that Gadahn was not Christian then, and is not now either.

:::: Also, I might add, nearly 99% of Christian homeschoolers start early. It seems to me that both Gadahn and Lindh were latecomers to homeschooling long after their personalities and attitudes had formed. Often the latecomers are just passing through and are not influenced much by homeschooling. Contrast that with Mozart.

:::: I think Dpbsmith has proposed an ideal solution. Certainly he captures the intent of the list.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 21:28, 27 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Kind of like a book about "Famous Irish That Don't Drink". This ''is'' a brilliant solution! Now I understand how to handle situations like this. Since we don't engage in censorship or exclusion, we just need to find the right way to frame the issue that by necessity keeps any unfavorable facts out. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 12:25, 1 March 2007 (EST)

I love your sarcastic enthusiasm-- it '''''really''''' strengthens your points more than talking straight could ever hope to. Even so, Ashlafly has a good point; Dpbsmith accurately capptured the intent of the list.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 12:43, 1 March 2007 (EST)

:Well, they say a little bit of honey makes the medicine go down better. Look, I've been in conservative political PR now for nearly 20 years and know a little something about crafting credible, effective messages, and we'd be a lot more credible and better off in the long term were we to follow the rationale I provided above. Our goal should not be to just get out the message, but to get out a credible and compelling one, and this subject and article is just one of many that will face this same issue. If we go around trumpeting our own version of reality while ignoring the one that is shared by all we run the risk of being caricatures of our own cause and ultimately all too easily dismissed by those we hope to convince. [[User:Harpie snark|Harpie snark]] 13:34, 1 March 2007 (EST)

==Expand this article==
I'm not the person to do it. I know nothing about homeschooling, sent both of my kids to public schools (and state universities), hope I've got stuff sorta-kinda right, hope I haven't stepped on any toes, but, this should be an article where there's ''lots'' of expertise available. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:12, 28 February 2007 (EST)

Let me be more emphatic. There could be a '''lot''' more factual material about homeschooling here. Resources. Books. Tips on dealing with the authorities and how to jump through the legal hoops (I assume there are still some to jump through). There's an obvious opportunity here for people to add encyclopedic material that is informed by their personal experience and expertise. Say someone wants to homeschool in New Jersey or whereever. What office do you go to? What forms do you fill out? etc. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:39, 1 March 2007 (EST)

I don't think this is a good place to try to compile info about state homeschooling laws. There are other places that specialize in that. On the other hand, I agree that the article needs some serious work. Some thoughts:

Parents take a more active role in the education of their children when they homeschool. I'm uncomfortable with this general statement - while in some (many) cases it is true, there are lots of active parents with kids in public or private school (especially small church schools, I'm guessing), and there are homeschooling parents who simply hire a tutor (or several) and let them have at it.

The primary reason for homeschooling is to give the child a better education. A close second in reasons, however, is to avoid the culture of public school and its many adverse effects of hostility to Christianity and parental control, political bias, boredom, confusion, depression, etc.
In fact, different families have different reasons for homeschooling, usually more than one. Religion may (or may not) be a factor; so might the quality of education. But there are other reasons - a child who is not being well-served by the public schools, a child who has a special talent or interest they wish to focus on, a family who wants to travel with dad on business, a family who lives in a very rural area far from schools (or who is sailing around the world, etc.), and so on. Various surveys have been done trying to rank the reasons, but I think we'd be better off with a list of possible reasons rather than trying to rank them. Homeschoolers are notoriously hard to count or survey.

In the United States, opting out of public schools is not new. When Thomas Edison's public school teacher said he was "addled," Edison's mother took him out of public school and taught him at home. But because of compulsory education laws—the first was passed in Massachusetts in 1852, and by 1918 every state had them—schooling at home was a violation of truancy laws, and was rare until the 1970s. 
On the other hand, *lots* of kids were educated at home in earlier centuries, and certain cultures (Native American?) may not have had "schools" at all back then. Also, the 1852 date sounds too late to me, though I could be wrong - can we get a cite there?

:I just added one. There seemed to be one there already. Another, which reads well but not quite sure of the source, is [http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/compulso.html Compulsory Education]. Apparently Horace Mann—whose name is instantly familiar to me as an "educator," but of whom I know little more—was active in getting them to do it. Massachusetts had ''public'' schools much earlier, but apparently they were not compulsory. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 06:13, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Also - is there a reason for listing Christian homeschoolers? Why not just list people who were educated at home (in one form or another), and then give a brief explaination of their situation - e.g. Sandra Day OConnor, educated at home when she was young as the ranch she lived on was very remote, or whatever.

A lot of thoughts - hope they are helpful. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 23:49, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Prominent homeschooled Christians? ==

By your own definition, you have to "opt out" of formal education to be considered "homeschooled." Thus, I'm curious what system DaVinci, Washington, et al, opted out of.-[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 13:25, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:That's why, some time ago, I changed the title of the '''list''' to "High-achieving Christians who were educated at home." Homeschooling as we know it in the United States essentially began in the 1970s. This very interesting article on [http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/SAI/homeschool/index.html Homeschoolers: Estimating Numbers and Growth] suggests that there were about a million homeschoolers circa 1998. However, in the "late 1970s and early 1980s" it says "about 10,000 to 15,000" children received their education at home. At a very rough guess, today's U. S. adult population probably includes less than 100,000 people over 21, probably less than 25,000 people over 30, and practically none over 40. Not a large population, and not enough time to become spectacularly high achievers... yet. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:34, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

::I changed the definition part to remove the "opt out" wording - it is somewhat an attempt to address your concern above, and also an attempt to put the emphasis on what homeschoolers *do* (learn outside of school), than what they *don't do* (go to school). Not perfect, but a step in the right direction, I think. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 21:35, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree. I think that this kind of simplistic list can be a bit meaningless. Better would be a list of people with unconventional educations or minimal formal education with a brief explanation of their circumstances. For example, you could say something like "Benjamin Franklin - had one year of formal schooling, apprenticed with his brother as a printer." (Or whatever - not sure of the details on Franklin, but you get the idea.) I also think that whether the person was Christian could be handled similarly in the brief note, rather than in the heading. In addition, I don't think *anyone* should be on the list unless there is a *citation* to a source explaining their education. See my addition of Andrew Wyeth as an example. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:57, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:The nature of the list just boggles my mind. It ignores the point raised by AmesG (which I still read into it despite the "educated at home" part) that "homeschooling" needs a formal alternative to have a meaningful definition. Also, why only Christians? I'm still boggled... [[User:Human|Human]] 22:40, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

== Drawbacks ==

I'm moving this here for discussion. As it stands, it seems to me to be pure, unsupported personal opinion:
:Homeschooling is not without its drawbacks. Studies have noted that children who are schooled at home tend to enter the collegiate and working words less socialized than their public and private schooled counterparts. [http://justenough.wordpress.com/2006/10/25/homeschoolers-are-indeed-weird/] This lack of legitimate socialization can produce difficulties in homsechooled childred engaging in meaningful relationships with individuals outside of their family. Additionally, while the public school playground can be seen as a barbaric atmosphere to most kids who are schooled at home, it is important to note that these exigent circumstances can produce valuable conflict prevention skills that pay dividends in all facets of life.

No doubt there are drawbacks to homeschooling. The claim that "children who are schooled at home tend to enter the collegiate and working words less socialized than their public and private schooled counterparts" is, however, referenced only to a blog entry by someone identified only as "Tammy," no other identification or credentials—''and it does not support the statement.'' The title of the entry is "Homeschoolers are indeed weird," but she does ''not'' say homeschoolers are less socialized—that's apparently [[User:Huey gunna getcha]]'s ''interpretation.'' She means "weird" in a good way: tolerant of different opinions and not afraid to express individuality.

The sentence about the "public school playground" providing "valuable conflict prevention skills" is plausible but unsupported. (By the way: are parochial school playgrounds, or non-school playgrounds very different?)

A friend once remarked that he was astonished whenever anyone made reference to "the happy sounds of children at play." "Haven't they actually paid attention when they pass a playground?" [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:19, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

:Good catch! I had read that article earlier today and put removing that section on my "to do" list - you beat me to it! FWIW, when looking at homeschoolers and socialization, it's also important to consider that some children are not odd because they are homeschooled, rather, they are homeschooled because they are odd. Homeschooling can be an understanding "safe haven" for those odd kids for whom school may be "barbaric" indeed. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 20:48, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

i was almost kicked off my baseball team cause i was homeschooled and i was playing for the middle school. i was fortunate to be kept on. --[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 20:09, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/zysk1.html
http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/HomeschoolingGrowsUp.pdf
A few of the thousands of references on Homeschooling and Socialization. As an educator and homeschool parent I have searched for years to find data that supports the claim that homeschoolers are lacking in good social skills. Having met hundreds of HS kids from all ages, I never found one that wasn't able in a wide variety of social situations. Indeed ''all'' of the HS teens I met were a delight to talk with and had no problems talking with adults on a wide range of topics, unlike thier Public or Private or Parochial schooled peers who always seem so sullen and distant around adults they don't know - and even those they do. After searching the academic journals and every other source I could look at, I found a lot of research on HS and Socialization and none that found widespread negative effects. While someone may find a kid here and there as an anecdote to say HS is isolating and promotes poor social development, I could probably come up with dozens of Public, private and parochial school kids to show the alleged deliterious effects of those types of schooling on the social skills of kids. Third Day May 8

==Snipping George Bernard Shaw and Mark Twain==
I'm removing

*[[George Bernard Shaw]]
*[[Mark Twain]]

Both men had complex opinions that varied during the course of their lives, but calling them "Christian" is a stretch. My reasons for excluding Shaw are given above. As for Mark Twain, he did write a sympathetic book about Joan of Arc. However, his writings are replete with sarcastic and dismissive remarks about organized religion. He refused to let "Letters from the Earth" be published until after his death. In Mark Twain's Letters, we read:

:From a gentleman in Buffalo Clemens one day received a letter inclosing an incompleted list of the world's "One Hundred Greatest Men," men who had exerted "the largest visible influence on the life and activities of the race." The writer asked that Mark Twain examine the list and suggest names, adding "would you include Jesus, as the founder of Christianity, in the list?" To the list of statesmen Clemens added the name of Thomas Paine; to the list of inventors, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. The question he answered in detail.

Twain's answer was that if the compiler of the list added Jesus, he should also add Satan: "From A.D. 350 to A.D. 1850 these gentlemen exercised a vaster influence over a fifth part of the human race than was exercised over that fraction of the race by all other influences combined. Ninety-nine hundredths of this influence proceeded from Satan, the remaining fraction of it from Jesus."

Twain has been labelled "deist," "agnostic," and "atheist." Gary Sloan suggests ([http://www.writerscramp.ca/archives/mark_twain.htm Mark Twain's Covert War with his Maker]) that he believed in a ''malignant'' God, and says "Viewing Satan as a heroic rebel against the real Archfiend, Twain came to identify with the fallen cherub and often used him as a mouthpiece." Perhaps his views were so complex that he was all of these things and a Christian at the same time, but he was certainly not a Christian as the term is ordinarily meant. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:03, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

:But if they were homeschooled, shouldn't they be in the "other" section of the list? [[User:Human|Human]] 18:21, 4 May 2007 (EDT)
::Sure. That section didn't exist when I removed them; it was a single list of Christians. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 20:32, 4 May 2007 (EDT)
:::Doing. [[User:Human|Human]] 21:25, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

==Cleaning up the list - putting uncited people on the talk page==
The list of homeschooled people for whom there are no citations has been here for too long, IMHO. I am moving these people here, to the discussion page. I hope this is OK with all of you. As each person's education is researched and cited, we can add them back to the list, preferably with a brief sentence explaining who they are and what form their education took (as we have now already for several people). As discussed above, I think it will be easier to describe the religious beliefs of each person individually (if needed in this context), rather than try to decide if they are generically Christian or not. Please jump in and research one of these people so we can build up this article. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:09, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

: I left in Adam Yahiye Gadahn, John Walker Lindh, George Bernard Shaw, and Mark Twain, because their entries had *something* other than their names, and because they were discussed quite a bit here; however these can/should be improved by adding a brief description of who they are/were, adding a brief description of their education, and/or adding citations, preferably ones that describe their education. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 15:29, 5 May 2007 (EDT)
::Cleaned up the George Bernard Shaw entry.--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 18:41, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

::If it were up to me I'd make this list contemporary (20th century, maybe 19th too) personalities. As it was pointed out earlier, as the homeschooling term is used today, the majority of these wouldn't count. Also, way back in the day, practically everyone was homeschooled. [[User:Jrssr5|Jrssr5]] 12:17, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

:::Do we really need this comprehensive a list? Isn't it enough to point out a few folks who were homeschooled? [[User:Flippin|Flippin]] 12:28, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

:: Folks, I saw that list from a source and have reinserted. I took out the ridiculous Lindh reference and other liberal bias. For example, the entry did not even say that most homeschooling today is done to preserve the Christian faith! Frankly, this entry looked like something one would see on Wikipedia. We're not trying to be like Wikipedia here. Thanks and I'll try to find citations for the names I reinserted. Help is welcome.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::::I saw that list from "a source," too, but it was just that: a list. Some homeschooling-related site. It did not say where the list came from nor did it give any sources at all. I think the list may be just bouncing around the Internet. What was ''your'' source? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:44, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:::''For example, the entry did not even say that most homeschooling today is done to preserve the Christian faith!'' I'm not sure I agree with this. It is not supported by the citation given for that paragraph. In fact, religion was *third* in the list of reasons for homeschooling provided in the citation, with only 29.8% citing it as their most important reason. If you are going to assert this, it would be best to add an additional citation that backs it up. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:14, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:: OK, fine, I'll look for citations and add them. But I've personally taught over 120 homeschoolers, and I'd say religion is the motivation for 100 or so of them. The other reasons given, such as avoidance of drugs in school, are not even factors for the vast majority of homeschoolers.

:: Also, I will find more citations for the 61 people under the "arguably homeschooled" list and move them to the higher list.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 09:55, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

== Arguably Homeschooled ==

How do you define homeschooled? Had some education at home? A formal school education was available but did not attend? Dropped out of school at age something? Without such a definition, many of the names on the list are frankly, silly and/or wishful thinking. --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 00:13, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

An example of this - Mark Twain is listed on the list. From the biography of Mark Twain[http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml] it reads:
<blockquote>In 1847, when Sam was 11, his father died. Shortly thereafter he left school, having completed the fifth grade, to work as a printer's apprentice for a local newspaper. His job was to arrange the type for each of the newspaper's stories, allowing Sam to read the news of the world while completing his work.</blockquote>
In 1847, a 5th grade education was quite sufficient for day to day life and working as an apprentice for a local newspaper was a reasonable continuation of his education. It is not homeschooling. It would probably be more useful to first put the person on the talk page and figure out if they were homeschooled and then added to the main page rather than put on the main page without refrence and then removed when they don't fit the definition (whatever that may be). --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 00:24, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:I agree, [[User:Mtur|Mtur]]. I have found several times in the past that someone on a list of this kind was not actually educated at home. I think, if we are going for a high level of accuracy that befits an encyclopedia, we should do the research ourselves first, using the talk page to discuss. Then we should add the person to the list, and be sure to explain how each person was educated. I don't think we need to have a strict definition of homeschooling; rather, we should describe each person's experience. The result will be a list with an interesting variety of approaches to education.

I've added Mark Twain's famous quote, which is proof enough.

More generally, these lists abound on the internet. I've added a cite. No one really disputes that most or all of these people, and others too, were homeschooled. We can continue to fill in cites, but there is no need to censor this info in the meantime.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:47, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." I don't think this is proof that he was homeschooled, only that he sees the difference between schooling and education, and realizes that education can come from places other than school. I'd like to know more about his education before adding him to the list. (But your sandbox, etc, so I'll leave him there.)

I agree that lists such as these abound - but here, a higher standard exists. It is not censorship to be sure something is accurate before adding it to the article proper, and the information is available to all on the talk page while the research is being done. Students who want to use these people as examples in their work should know enough about the individual's education to be sure it is indeed an example of what they are writing about. Brief descriptions of the person's education, along with a cite or two about it, will be very useful to our readers. A list without this information, not so much. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:I'm breaking my self-imposed examtime exile to ask this question. Isn't it kind of facetious to say that most of those people were homeschooled, when no formal schooling existed? It's sort of like making a big fuss out of someone from the 1600s being a creationist - of course he was, there was no alternative! Or, like saying, "Jesus didn't believe in global warming." Well... of course not. The controversy didn't exist back then. It creates an idea of conscious choice and rejection of an idea, when there was no such thing. Example: Joan of Arc? There were no formal schools in France at the time. Put another way, could you name someone from before 1700 who was ''not'' homeschooled until college? Just seems a little facetious to me. K, back to the books.-'''Speak[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:SpeakerOfTheDead er]''' 00:59, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:: The point is not to say that someone succeeded by rejecting public school, but that someone succeeded from homeschooling. The latter observation is true and meaningful regardless of whether public schools existed. We don't care as much '''why''' someone was homeschooled as whether it was effective.

:: Sure, I can think of people who lived before 1700 but were not homeschooled: the illiterate, of whom there were many.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 01:11, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Sure, that's true. But the point that others are making is that the tone of the article suggests that you're suggesting that they rejected public schools, or were part of the homeschooling "movement." Would you mind if I clarified it, to better express your point, or would you like to? Perhaps something like, "Even before public schools were active, homeschooling produced many successful people worldwide. Here are some examples"? -'''Speak[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:SpeakerOfTheDead er]''' 01:15, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

::A previous version had such a statement - I think something like that should be included. I would also argue that the statement "a disproportionate number of achievers have benefited from being homeschooled" has not been cited or proved, and I'm not sure it's accurate or (from a historical perspective), even meaningful. (See the Harvard discussion above, though of course college admittance is not a great measure of success in life - but that's a whole 'nother conversation.)--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

: The problem with your approach is that most of the people on the list did reject formal or public school, I think.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 01:53, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

:: I don't think that's true for many of the historical figures. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

I think the list, if it actually describes the education each person had, shows that there are a wide variety of approaches to education which can be successful. This can be very useful in an age where educational standardization is being pushed - having all kids learn the same material in the same grade, etc. It's also nice for homeschooled kids to see that they are not so much an oddity as part of a long line of people who did a significant amount of learning outside of school. There's a reason you often see lists of successful minorities - it is very helpful to members of the minority group to havfe these role models, even if their lives aren't exactly parallel. I agree that it's problematic to call it "homeschooling" before, say, the last 50-100 years, but "educated at home", or "educated outside of formal schools" usually fits. At the same time, I think a long list of names without individualized information about their education is not particularly useful, and quite frankly lowers the standard of research and accuracy here. Again, we are setting an example for the students, homeschooled and not, who we expect will use this information in their work. If we expect them to present work that is well-researched and cited from credible sources which are themselves clearly well-researched, shouldn't we be doing the same?--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Darwin’s Black Box

2007-04-12T16:51:08Z

Third Day:

I wonder where this was copied from. It looks okay on the surface, but I'd like to make sure we have permission to change it before I give it much time. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 12:42, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

It was copied and pasted from Wikipedia. Look it up, there it is. Took 30 sec on google to find the source. Cut and paste from wikipedia, is that what this wiki is coming to? If so, whats the point....
Third Day

Talk:Science of global warming

2007-04-06T12:18:28Z

Third Day: /* Unlocking */

{{protected|TK}}
== Editing This Page ==

*Please refrain from wholesale editing, rollbacks, re-directs. Adding pertinent information is encouraged, however please discuss here first before major changes are implemented. It does not do the site a service to keep making drastic changes, then having someone else roll them back ten minutes later! '''Will will start with the basic FACT that the Earth does appear to be in a warming cycle, and that its ''natural occurrence'' is aggravated by man's burning of fossil fuels in increasing amounts.''' It is simply not a proven fact, among a preponderance of scientists that warming cycles are only caused by Humans. In any event, from what I have read by the most alarmist backers like Al Gore, all mediating efforts that we could undertake, cannot and will not reverse what they claim is going to happen. So, we should treat this as a theory, and one that is at least as much a political item as one of Natural Science. --~ [[User:TK|Sysop-TK]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 21:58, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

== Biased Line ==

"Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him"

Whoever said this you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. source that please!

Can you even pretend to be able to source such an outrageous claim? It's lines like this that open this project to ridicule.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 22:31, 9 March 2007 (EST)
: Sandbagger and other vandals added those lines. They have been removed and the vandals have been banned. If I am online and I see such lines, with no citations I will report future vandals after they do the same and revert their edits. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 16:49, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

(that he has problems trying to give away)

See Dave3172's comment above, this editorial has the same effect. The implication is that the film won't be seen by anyone. Unfortunately, the reverse is true, the film has been very popular and its success will somewhat stifle true debate of the issue.--[[User:Jasonhc|Jasonhc]] 22:15, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
: How about I change it to (some schools have rejected free copies of it)? --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:28, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

I edited in a section called 'Evidence' that was solidly backed up with references to reputable scientific sites. I see they've been reverted for 'Liberal bias'. What's 'Liberal bias' about facts about glacier recession and sea level rise? [[User:Britinme|Britinme]] 23:10, 23 March 2007

The article currently says "The theory enjoys wide political support, but many climatologists and meteorologists disagree with it." This makes it sound as if there is an even balance between the number of climatologists and meteorologists who agree and disagree with the theory. This is inaccurate. The sentence should read "a minority of climatologists and meteorologists disagree with it." I thought we were all about accuracy? The following sentence about 'consensus' is negated by the references to two out of that small minority of climatologists and meteorologists who disagree. By all means their names and views should be left in, to represent their disagreement, but their weight in the scale of scientific opinion should not be over-represented, and it should be balanced by reference to the names of proponents of the theory. I would be happy to make these changes, but the page is locked. [[User:Britinme|Britinme]] 11:45, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

== Points ==

=== Point 1 ===
"Point #1 has become very widely accepted in the past few decades, even by conservatives who were once skeptical." -- Not surprisingly there's no citation for this! "Very widely accepted"?? You don't have to look far to find low temperature records being set. Here's one link: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020507/content/0205071.guest.html [[User:Bwilliston|Bwilliston]] 02:25, 10 March 2007 (EST)
: I added in a few more links showing conservatives agreeing with rising temps. I also added in links that show record low temperatures. I want to try and show both sides of the debates. Because a lot of the data is conflicting or the same data yields different results based on the way it is interpreted, it shows that nobody can really know for sure what the truth is or is not. Yet what I did hope to cover in this article is the global warming scam of selling carbon credits, books, videos, and making profits off of oil stocks by those who are pro-global warming as a motive for why they lie or fabricate information to promote global warming. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 15:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
:: The first link says "Excepting the El Nino year of 1998, since about 1979, the Earth's temperature apparently has not been increasing.". It's a link about *not* accepting global warming. The second has a liberal and "ex-liberal" discussing various points. In response to a claim from the liberal that temperatures have been increasing, the "ex-liberal" says: "MANY other physical anthropologists, scientists, and other professionals have refuted that data as well" (with four broken links for citations, so I don't know which refutations he had in mind). And in the third link I see one conservative (Rod Dreher) mentioning "overwhelming scientific evidence" but it's pretty vague, and certainly doesn't justify the claim that the idea of increasing global temperatures is "very widely accepted" by conservatives. [[User:Bwilliston|Bwilliston]] 20:35, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

=== Point 4 ===
I think this is wrong. "Measures to combat global warming/climate change" are what it talks about. It would be like saying you could say communism and mean the Marshall Plan.[[User:Thisisausername|Thisisausername]] 17:43, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: How do you propose we fix it? Most Wikis have a "fix it yourself" policy, you know. :) I am open to suggestions. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 19:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
:: It reads better now, thanks for the edit. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== FYI ==
The British Conservative party was in the news today concerning climate change.[[User:Thisisausername|Thisisausername]] 17:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6438685.stm]
: Thanks it has been added. It is good to represent both sides of the issue for a fair and balanced look. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:18, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Profit Motive ==
While a lot of space is devoted to the idea that proponents of global warming are profiting by it, why isn't the same treatment being given to those who oppose it? Such as the scientists who received funding from the oil companies?--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:15, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: Probably because I haven't written it yet, trying to revert your vandalism and the vandalism of Sandbagger. It is a work in progress and the more you screw it up the longer it will take me to fix it. I have a headache from the both of you doing nonsense and I have to quit tonight. I'll try to add in more later. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:24, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::Excuse me? I vandalized nothing, but made an edit that needed editing. Frankly, a lot of your stuff should be wiped for lack of sourcing, but I'm trying real hard to keep in mind what this project is trying to do.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:29, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::: I provided at least 15 sources since I started contributing to this article. I have done a lot of research on the subject for both sides. You may deny vandalizing, and while you weren't as bad as Sandbagger, that is the reason why I didn't report you. I have you on notice. Now it is you who have to provide the sources for the proponents of global warming profiting from it. I was going to do it myself, but since you claim a lot of my stuff needs wiping, I'll give you the honors. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:36, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::You want to report me for vandalism? Because I removed one half of a title that was opinion? Go for it.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::: Blanking is vandalism, but you are lucky I gave you the benefit of the doubt. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:43, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::Fixing an opinion is not blanking, especially when its explained. You need to take a reality check.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:45, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::: It is you who is having the issues, not me. There are now over 33 citations in the article backing up most of what I had added to it. It is you who has an allergy to the truth, not me. I am not upset over this, I am just tired. I got better things to do than get into a spitting contest with you over this. I apologize if I said you vandalized it, I have had a bad day, and seeing Sandbagger scribble nonsense all over this article kind of got to me, and I guess I sort of lumped you into it with him. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::: I tell you what, I'll leave the citations needed in the conservative view section showing the bias of skeptical scientists up to you. Unlike you, I won't bully you into hurrying up and add them in like you have done to me or question the credibility of the source or any of the other political things you have done to me. Take all the time you need, use whatever resources you can find. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:22, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Source #16 ==
How can you possibly use a letter to the editor as a source? Especially when said letter had no actual hard evidence in it?--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:32, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: I have more sources I haven't used yet. They have quotes showing the evidence of the silencing. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:37, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::The problem with your sources (aside from the questionability of their reliability) is that you've attached them to a paragraph discussed the alleged lack of controls in testing. Which none of your sources mention.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::: Actually I did add in one. I was prevented from doing so because you were editing/saving the article, and I had to delay adding it until later. It is in there now. I even added in sources from conservatives who did political actions to fight global warming or say that global warming is a problem. Are you questioning everything I contributed, or just the parts you politically disagree with yet lack the proof to discredit (or at least have not shown me any proof that they should be discredited)? Remember this is not Wikipedia, there is not supposed to be a liberal bias here, and I am one of the few that actually is adding in some parts of the liberal and pro-global warming side of global warming issues. I am putting in what the skeptics are saying and what conservatives are saying, and if you have a problem with that, you can go back to Wikipedia and start your own edits of the global warming article there, maybe they'll put up with you. Your comments about wiping out all of my comments just prove the liberal side wants to silence and censor critics of global warming, and comments of that nature along with your bad attitude are what made me suspect you were a vandal like Sandbagger in the first place. By the way, what is stopping you from adding citations and paraphrasing them in anyway? A Wiki is a community edited web site, why are you trying to force me to do all of your work for you? I don't take away your free speech and threaten to wipe everything you contributed. In fact I encouraged you to add to the article with at least some citations to prove what you have been saying about it in this talk page. Are you just a critic, with no gumption to actually add to articles and back up what you are trying to say? --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:52, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== The whole article ==

The whole thing is a politically motivated hack job. What on earth does Global warming have to do with religion that would lead to such pap passed off as fact on this site?
: Global warming has become a new religion with Al Gore as the Pope of global warming. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:27, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

It's responses like this previous one which threaten to keep me coming back to this discussion board... for entertainment purposes, of course. Is this new global warming "religion" similar to Darwinism I've heard about? Many other well recognized and substantially supported scientific ideas have been labeled "religions" or "agendas," etc... I personally believe this points to the dichotamous nature of the conservative mindset, and perhaps a little bit of paranoia too. Folks who disregard science on the basis that it doesn't mix well with their present beliefs are helplessly incapable of understanding science. Now, does the scientist understand religion? Well, that's not a topic for science.

==Did you know...==
Does anyone here know that the polar ice caps have been shrinking considerably during the past three years? Now what on Mars could be doing that?

Yes, you read that correctly: MARS. It has been documented by NASA, National Geographic, the Mars Global Observatory, etc. Now what could be causing the retreat of the Martian ice caps? There's no factories there, no automobiles, no cows expelling gasses in the fields. I want to hear the excuse for it from the global warming supporters as to why the ice caps on Mars are retreating. Hint: there's only one answer. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 21:52, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
: Either it is a natural cycle on Mars, or solar activity increased and is generating more heat. If the later, it disproves pro-global warming scientists. Unless pro-global warming scientists want to claim that Martians are polluting CO2 on Mars to cause global warming, in which there is no evidence of Martians. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:27, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

::If it's the sun, and I do think it is, you have to think of how much farther from the sun Mars is as compared to earth. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 16:32, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
: It doesn't 'disprove' pro-global warming scientists. It just factors in increased solar activity as another aspect of global warming and says nothing about anthropogenic aspects. Scientists generally believe that solar forcing, as it's called, is in the neighbourhood of one tenth of the total contribution to the heating of the atmosphere. Even this skeptic is citing solar forcing as no more than one third to two thirds contribution, and feels that anthropogenic contributions will be more important over the next century. http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar . What are your figures for the extent of polar ice cap recession on Mars compared to the extent of polar ice cap recession on Earth? Take into account too the very different atmospheric conditions prevailing on Mars. --[[User:Britinme|Britinme]]1:15, 24 March 2007

== Al Gore is no expert and no saint ==
These lines were removed, but they paint a picture of Al Gore:
In fact, Al Gore does not even follow his own advice and actually made a lot of money with oil stocks, and uses private jets that pollute CO2, instead of using economical flights that pollute less CO2 or electric trains to promote his books and videos. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm Plus Al Gore does not have a science degree, but one in government and an undergraduate degree and not a PHD, and Gore scored low in his science tests and classes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37397-2000Mar18 So why is Al Gore the leading expert on global warming if he doesn't even have a degree in science or had good grades in science, rather than a certified and qualified climatologist with the ability to give an academic lecture and follows the scientific method, instead of Gore who just shows pictures.
Furthermore, Gore did nothing to try and halt global warming while he was vice-president, and actually worked with Bill Clinton to reject bills and ideas that would have reduced CO2 and pollution under the Kyoto protocols, that both rejected. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July06/Frank18.htm
Al Gore is no scientist, and he didn't do anything to halt global warming while in office. I think he does a lot of credibility damage to global warming because of these things. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:35, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

==Bias==
Dang, this article is really biased. People need to realise that Earth is changing, and it is being caused by humans. It is sad to see how people are so disrespectful to the work of God. I think that destroying everything great that the Lord has made is a terrible sin and this website should recognise the harm that they are doing to this great gift that God has given us.
--[[User:Flax+|Flax+]] 19:51, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*I believe there is plenty of evidence, and scientists, who do not adopt the panic-mode of Gore and others. Many believe it is a natural occurrence, perhaps hastened by fossil fuel consumption, but nevertheless something that has occurred hundreds of times, in the life of the planet. It is your job, everyone, as contributors and posters here, to edit the page to strike some balance, rather than dismiss opposing thought as morons, and ignore what others say. ''If this cannot be done, I will lock the page''. I hate to do that, because supposedly adults, thinking people, should be able to arrive at a meaningful compromise. Anything else is intellectual dishonesty. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 01:57, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::Lots of things are "perfectly natural".... like dying of [[cholera]] at age 28. We do our best to stop that from happening, too. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 02:01, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

:::The way we stopped cholera is by avoiding wishful thinking and carrying out careful experiments. There's a fascinating detective story about how the first researcher proved that it was contaminated water (from a single pump?) that was causing a cholera epidemic in London. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 02:04, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::On the other hand, if we render the planet TOTALLY unlivable, Jesus will HAVE to return and save us all!

::No need to lock the page. I know a lot about what both sides are saying and can perhaps help to craft a balanced article. (I am the original author of [[Wikipedia:Writing for the enemy]].) --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 02:02, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

*Thanks Ed!! Thats the spirit! I posted some links below, so some can take a look, possibly add their own, of actual scientists who just hate all the alarmism. Feel free to IM me anytime. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 02:31, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
:*'''Sorry, some felt the need for a fight tonight, I guess, and kept reverting. Just let me know, I will unlock it once the children have stopped their tantrums.''' --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 02:49, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

== Facts & Links To Check Out... ==

Whose Ox Is Gored? The media discover the former vice president's environmental exaggerations and hypocrisy:[http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009804]

The Tempest
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html]

Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus: Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html]

An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore Can’t Give Junk Science Away: [http://newsbusters.org/node/9262]

From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html]

<blockquote>
"...But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

Mr. Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made “the most important and salient points” about climate change, if not “some nuances and distinctions” scientists might want. “The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger,” he said, adding, “I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.”

Although Mr. Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in “An Inconvenient Truth,” which is why scientists are sensitive to its details and claims.

'''Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.'''

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

'''While reviewers tended to praise the book and movie, vocal skeptics of global warming protested almost immediately. Richard S. Lindzen, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, who has long expressed skepticism about dire climate predictions, accused Mr. Gore in The Wall Street Journal of “shrill alarmism.”'''

Some of Mr. Gore’s centrist detractors point to a report last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that studies global warming. The panel went further than ever before in saying that humans were the main cause of the globe’s warming since 1950, part of Mr. Gore’s message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process.

'''It estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of 23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.'''

Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist in Denmark long skeptical of catastrophic global warming, said in a syndicated article that the panel, unlike Mr. Gore, had refrained from scaremongering. “Climate change is a real and serious problem” that calls for careful analysis and sound policy, Dr. Lomborg said. “The cacophony of screaming,” he added, “does not help.”

So too, a report last June by the National Academies seemed to contradict Mr. Gore’s portrayal of recent temperatures as the highest in the past millennium. Instead, the report said, current highs appeared unrivaled since only 1600, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the medieval warm period.

Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, said on a blog that Mr. Gore’s film did “indeed do a pretty good job of presenting the most dire scenarios.” But the June report, he added, shows “that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years.”

Other critics have zeroed in on Mr. Gore’s claim that the energy industry ran a “disinformation campaign” that produced false discord on global warming. The truth, he said, was that virtually all unbiased scientists agreed that humans were the main culprits. But Benny J. Peiser, a social anthropologist in Britain who runs the Cambridge-Conference Network, or CCNet, an Internet newsletter on climate change and natural disasters, challenged the claim of scientific consensus with examples of pointed disagreement.

“Hardly a week goes by,” Dr. Peiser said, “without a new research paper that questions part or even some basics of climate change theory,” including some reports that offer alternatives to human activity for global warming.

Geologists have documented age upon age of climate swings, and some charge Mr. Gore with ignoring such rhythms.

'''“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,” Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. “Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”

In October, Dr. Easterbrook made similar points at the geological society meeting in Philadelphia. He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change.

Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”'''

Getting personal, he mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”

Biologists, too, have gotten into the act. In January, Paul Reiter, an active skeptic of global warming’s effects and director of the insects and infectious diseases unit of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, faulted Mr. Gore for his portrayal of global warming as spreading malaria.

'''“For 12 years, my colleagues and I have protested against the unsubstantiated claims,” Dr. Reiter wrote in The International Herald Tribune. “We have done the studies and challenged the alarmists, but they continue to ignore the facts.”''' </blockquote>
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html]

== Al Gore Header ==

*Is it really necessary? --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 04:00, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

There are hundreds of people, some with star power and knowledge exceeding Al Gore, on both sides of this issue. Why is Al Gore given somemuch time and space in this catagory?

"So why is Al Gore the leading expert on global warming""

quoted from above. By whose notion is he the leading expert on Global Warming? Where is reference to Hansen, Broecker, Schmidt,Thompson et al, you know people who actually study this stuff for a living? Why focus on Gore? ''---The preceeding unsigned comments were added by Third Day''

:The Democratic Party is largely Liberal, and global warming is a big issue for liberals. Al Gore is one of the most popular Democrats, and he has a book out called "Earth in the Balance". Who else *but* Gore? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 17:58, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
*Were you speaking to me? If so, I am wondering why the info under the Gore heading couldn't be better placed in the body of the article rather than his own heading..... --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:02, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::More like, um, thinking aloud here.

::Conservatives have [[Richard Lindzen]], who is an actual scientist who makes sense and doesn't fudge the numbers. Liberals only have <s>[[Jim Hansen]],</s> who will never live down his "scary scenarios" remark. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 18:04, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
:::*Oops, I meant [[Stephen Schneider]]. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 18:18, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
I just added a line to the Gore header, to balance it some. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:06, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

=Some Liberal Bias=
Under "Conflicting Ideas/ Data" someone wrote "The global warming theory is a scientific theory, that has been supported by many peer-reviewed journal articles, published in highly respected international scientific journals." Clearly this was done after deleting a point showing some actual conflicting ideas or data, and this is a bias meant to mislead people into thinking that global warming is not challenged by any in the scientific community.

:Then go in the history and find the source, and put it back in. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 16:24, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
*Exactly! And be sure to let either Hoji or me know if another revert war starts. ;-) ---~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:07, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

== Unlocking ==

This article is far from complete. When will it be unlocked so we can add information about scientific data showing natural causes for warming, explanation of the solar flux theory, carbon dioxide tracking temps, cosmoclimatology, paleoclimatology, etc. As it stands it makes it look like all we care about is the political side of things. This can't be true, can it? This unsigned comment was made by [[User:Third Day]]

*You are right. I suppose for now, if you would like to post the additions here, they can be pasted over. Or you can contact me, and I could open it up for you to edit. --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 19:57, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Obviously nothing was important enough to contact me about, or post here about. Makes me wonder why, upon locking a page, people want it open, for what? If they don't come back with a suggestion or contribution, what is the point? --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|MyTalk]] 21:53, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

I've been on the road, hence I did not respond. Some of us have lives outside of this site. I will put together a summary of additions I feel worthy and post here in the talk section. I do wonder if the whole Wiki concept is undermined if the additions need to be vetted by a select few. It may take years for the articles to settle into a reflection of community knowledge, but thats the point, right? Nobody goes to a wiki, any kind of wiki, for the absolute truth on anything. No wiki is a valid source in a peer reviewed paper or even a college paper. It is a way to get a sense of the state of knowledge in a community of users. Wikipedia suffers from the fact that the community of users is so broad as to produce everchanging articles. There are Wikis that restrict the user base to members of certain communities - like a company or agency or users of a particular software. But if Conservapedia wants to surviv and not be mocked it needs to open itself up to slings and arrows. If indeed, we conservatives really believe that our point of view will dominate, then we need not be afraid to open up to liberal edits - cause enough of us will respond in force, and in time will overwhelm. If we just lock down the articles will never evolve (pardon the word) into a compleat, trustworthy wikipedia. OK, I'm done ranting. Off my soap box now :). - Third Day

==Are there any Wikipedia editors here?==
An article on Scientific data withholding [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_data_withholding] has been nominated for deletion. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Scientific_data_withholding#.5B.5BScientific_data_withholding.5D.5D] If you are a Wikipedia editor, please read the article and vote. [[User:RonCram|RonCram]] 00:05, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Wrong question to ask here. --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|MyTalk]] 00:42, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Yes, it's a violation of Wikipedia policy to canvas for votes. You're doing the right thing in the wrong way. Next step is RFC and/or an email to Jimbo. You don't win this kind of battle by stooping to their level. Stay here and work on the climate articles, instead. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 23:17, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Okay, I just learned about "canvassing." I know Connelly is doing it because people are showing up to vote who have not read the article or the Talk page. Teach me the right way to handle this, Ed. [[User:RonCram|RonCram]] 23:55, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

:This is off-topic, but since I brought it up I better finish it.

:This is the type of battle that it's okay to lose. When people see that the process was followed on one side, but ignored or misused on the other side, then sympathy is genereated for the correct side. Think Rosa Parks. Think sit-ins at lunch counters. And also think about contributing more here. ;-) --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 00:02, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Science of global warming

2007-03-23T22:22:08Z

Third Day: Unlocking

== Editing This Page ==

*Please refrain from wholesale editing, rollbacks, re-directs. Adding pertinent information is encouraged, however please discuss here first before major changes are implemented. It does not do the site a service to keep making drastic changes, then having someone else roll them back ten minutes later! '''Will will start with the basic FACT that the Earth does appear to be in a warming cycle, and that its ''natural occurrence'' is aggravated by man's burning of fossil fuels in increasing amounts.''' It is simply not a proven fact, among a preponderance of scientists that warming cycles are only caused by Humans. In any event, from what I have read by the most alarmist backers like Al Gore, all mediating efforts that we could undertake, cannot and will not reverse what they claim is going to happen. So, we should treat this as a theory, and one that is at least as much a political item as one of Natural Science. --~ [[User:TK|Sysop-TK]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 21:58, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

== Biased Line ==

"Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him"

Whoever said this you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. source that please!

Can you even pretend to be able to source such an outrageous claim? It's lines like this that open this project to ridicule.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 22:31, 9 March 2007 (EST)
: Sandbagger and other vandals added those lines. They have been removed and the vandals have been banned. If I am online and I see such lines, with no citations I will report future vandals after they do the same and revert their edits. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 16:49, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

(that he has problems trying to give away)

See Dave3172's comment above, this editorial has the same effect. The implication is that the film won't be seen by anyone. Unfortunately, the reverse is true, the film has been very popular and its success will somewhat stifle true debate of the issue.--[[User:Jasonhc|Jasonhc]] 22:15, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
: How about I change it to (some schools have rejected free copies of it)? --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:28, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

== Points ==

=== Point 1 ===
"Point #1 has become very widely accepted in the past few decades, even by conservatives who were once skeptical." -- Not surprisingly there's no citation for this! "Very widely accepted"?? You don't have to look far to find low temperature records being set. Here's one link: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020507/content/0205071.guest.html [[User:Bwilliston|Bwilliston]] 02:25, 10 March 2007 (EST)
: I added in a few more links showing conservatives agreeing with rising temps. I also added in links that show record low temperatures. I want to try and show both sides of the debates. Because a lot of the data is conflicting or the same data yields different results based on the way it is interpreted, it shows that nobody can really know for sure what the truth is or is not. Yet what I did hope to cover in this article is the global warming scam of selling carbon credits, books, videos, and making profits off of oil stocks by those who are pro-global warming as a motive for why they lie or fabricate information to promote global warming. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 15:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
:: The first link says "Excepting the El Nino year of 1998, since about 1979, the Earth's temperature apparently has not been increasing.". It's a link about *not* accepting global warming. The second has a liberal and "ex-liberal" discussing various points. In response to a claim from the liberal that temperatures have been increasing, the "ex-liberal" says: "MANY other physical anthropologists, scientists, and other professionals have refuted that data as well" (with four broken links for citations, so I don't know which refutations he had in mind). And in the third link I see one conservative (Rod Dreher) mentioning "overwhelming scientific evidence" but it's pretty vague, and certainly doesn't justify the claim that the idea of increasing global temperatures is "very widely accepted" by conservatives. [[User:Bwilliston|Bwilliston]] 20:35, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

=== Point 4 ===
I think this is wrong. "Measures to combat global warming/climate change" are what it talks about. It would be like saying you could say communism and mean the Marshall Plan.[[User:Thisisausername|Thisisausername]] 17:43, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: How do you propose we fix it? Most Wikis have a "fix it yourself" policy, you know. :) I am open to suggestions. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 19:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
:: It reads better now, thanks for the edit. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== FYI ==
The British Conservative party was in the news today concerning climate change.[[User:Thisisausername|Thisisausername]] 17:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6438685.stm]
: Thanks it has been added. It is good to represent both sides of the issue for a fair and balanced look. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:18, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Profit Motive ==
While a lot of space is devoted to the idea that proponents of global warming are profiting by it, why isn't the same treatment being given to those who oppose it? Such as the scientists who received funding from the oil companies?--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:15, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: Probably because I haven't written it yet, trying to revert your vandalism and the vandalism of Sandbagger. It is a work in progress and the more you screw it up the longer it will take me to fix it. I have a headache from the both of you doing nonsense and I have to quit tonight. I'll try to add in more later. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:24, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::Excuse me? I vandalized nothing, but made an edit that needed editing. Frankly, a lot of your stuff should be wiped for lack of sourcing, but I'm trying real hard to keep in mind what this project is trying to do.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:29, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::: I provided at least 15 sources since I started contributing to this article. I have done a lot of research on the subject for both sides. You may deny vandalizing, and while you weren't as bad as Sandbagger, that is the reason why I didn't report you. I have you on notice. Now it is you who have to provide the sources for the proponents of global warming profiting from it. I was going to do it myself, but since you claim a lot of my stuff needs wiping, I'll give you the honors. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:36, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::You want to report me for vandalism? Because I removed one half of a title that was opinion? Go for it.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::: Blanking is vandalism, but you are lucky I gave you the benefit of the doubt. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:43, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::Fixing an opinion is not blanking, especially when its explained. You need to take a reality check.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:45, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::: It is you who is having the issues, not me. There are now over 33 citations in the article backing up most of what I had added to it. It is you who has an allergy to the truth, not me. I am not upset over this, I am just tired. I got better things to do than get into a spitting contest with you over this. I apologize if I said you vandalized it, I have had a bad day, and seeing Sandbagger scribble nonsense all over this article kind of got to me, and I guess I sort of lumped you into it with him. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::: I tell you what, I'll leave the citations needed in the conservative view section showing the bias of skeptical scientists up to you. Unlike you, I won't bully you into hurrying up and add them in like you have done to me or question the credibility of the source or any of the other political things you have done to me. Take all the time you need, use whatever resources you can find. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:22, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Source #16 ==
How can you possibly use a letter to the editor as a source? Especially when said letter had no actual hard evidence in it?--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:32, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: I have more sources I haven't used yet. They have quotes showing the evidence of the silencing. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:37, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::The problem with your sources (aside from the questionability of their reliability) is that you've attached them to a paragraph discussed the alleged lack of controls in testing. Which none of your sources mention.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::: Actually I did add in one. I was prevented from doing so because you were editing/saving the article, and I had to delay adding it until later. It is in there now. I even added in sources from conservatives who did political actions to fight global warming or say that global warming is a problem. Are you questioning everything I contributed, or just the parts you politically disagree with yet lack the proof to discredit (or at least have not shown me any proof that they should be discredited)? Remember this is not Wikipedia, there is not supposed to be a liberal bias here, and I am one of the few that actually is adding in some parts of the liberal and pro-global warming side of global warming issues. I am putting in what the skeptics are saying and what conservatives are saying, and if you have a problem with that, you can go back to Wikipedia and start your own edits of the global warming article there, maybe they'll put up with you. Your comments about wiping out all of my comments just prove the liberal side wants to silence and censor critics of global warming, and comments of that nature along with your bad attitude are what made me suspect you were a vandal like Sandbagger in the first place. By the way, what is stopping you from adding citations and paraphrasing them in anyway? A Wiki is a community edited web site, why are you trying to force me to do all of your work for you? I don't take away your free speech and threaten to wipe everything you contributed. In fact I encouraged you to add to the article with at least some citations to prove what you have been saying about it in this talk page. Are you just a critic, with no gumption to actually add to articles and back up what you are trying to say? --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:52, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== The whole article ==

The whole thing is a politically motivated hack job. What on earth does Global warming have to do with religion that would lead to such pap passed off as fact on this site?
: Global warming has become a new religion with Al Gore as the Pope of global warming. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:27, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

It's responses like this previous one which threaten to keep me coming back to this discussion board... for entertainment purposes, of course. Is this new global warming "religion" similar to Darwinism I've heard about? Many other well recognized and substantially supported scientific ideas have been labeled "religions" or "agendas," etc... I personally believe this points to the dichotamous nature of the conservative mindset, and perhaps a little bit of paranoia too. Folks who disregard science on the basis that it doesn't mix well with their present beliefs are helplessly incapable of understanding science. Now, does the scientist understand religion? Well, that's not a topic for science.

==Did you know...==
Does anyone here know that the polar ice caps have been shrinking considerably during the past three years? Now what on Mars could be doing that?

Yes, you read that correctly: MARS. It has been documented by NASA, National Geographic, the Mars Global Observatory, etc. Now what could be causing the retreat of the Martian ice caps? There's no factories there, no automobiles, no cows expelling gasses in the fields. I want to hear the excuse for it from the global warming supporters as to why the ice caps on Mars are retreating. Hint: there's only one answer. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 21:52, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
: Either it is a natural cycle on Mars, or solar activity increased and is generating more heat. If the later, it disproves pro-global warming scientists. Unless pro-global warming scientists want to claim that Martians are polluting CO2 on Mars to cause global warming, in which there is no evidence of Martians. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:27, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

::If it's the sun, and I do think it is, you have to think of how much farther from the sun Mars is as compared to earth. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 16:32, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

== Al Gore is no expert and no saint ==
These lines were removed, but they paint a picture of Al Gore:
In fact, Al Gore does not even follow his own advice and actually made a lot of money with oil stocks, and uses private jets that pollute CO2, instead of using economical flights that pollute less CO2 or electric trains to promote his books and videos. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm Plus Al Gore does not have a science degree, but one in government and an undergraduate degree and not a PHD, and Gore scored low in his science tests and classes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37397-2000Mar18 So why is Al Gore the leading expert on global warming if he doesn't even have a degree in science or had good grades in science, rather than a certified and qualified climatologist with the ability to give an academic lecture and follows the scientific method, instead of Gore who just shows pictures.
Furthermore, Gore did nothing to try and halt global warming while he was vice-president, and actually worked with Bill Clinton to reject bills and ideas that would have reduced CO2 and pollution under the Kyoto protocols, that both rejected. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July06/Frank18.htm
Al Gore is no scientist, and he didn't do anything to halt global warming while in office. I think he does a lot of credibility damage to global warming because of these things. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:35, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

==Bias==
Dang, this article is really biased. People need to realise that Earth is changing, and it is being caused by humans. It is sad to see how people are so disrespectful to the work of God. I think that destroying everything great that the Lord has made is a terrible sin and this website should recognise the harm that they are doing to this great gift that God has given us.
--[[User:Flax+|Flax+]] 19:51, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*I believe there is plenty of evidence, and scientists, who do not adopt the panic-mode of Gore and others. Many believe it is a natural occurrence, perhaps hastened by fossil fuel consumption, but nevertheless something that has occurred hundreds of times, in the life of the planet. It is your job, everyone, as contributors and posters here, to edit the page to strike some balance, rather than dismiss opposing thought as morons, and ignore what others say. ''If this cannot be done, I will lock the page''. I hate to do that, because supposedly adults, thinking people, should be able to arrive at a meaningful compromise. Anything else is intellectual dishonesty. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 01:57, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::Lots of things are "perfectly natural".... like dying of [[cholera]] at age 28. We do our best to stop that from happening, too. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 02:01, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

:::The way we stopped cholera is by avoiding wishful thinking and carrying out careful experiments. There's a fascinating detective story about how the first researcher proved that it was contaminated water (from a single pump?) that was causing a cholera epidemic in London. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 02:04, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::On the other hand, if we render the planet TOTALLY unlivable, Jesus will HAVE to return and save us all!

::No need to lock the page. I know a lot about what both sides are saying and can perhaps help to craft a balanced article. (I am the original author of [[Wikipedia:Writing for the enemy]].) --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 02:02, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

*Thanks Ed!! Thats the spirit! I posted some links below, so some can take a look, possibly add their own, of actual scientists who just hate all the alarmism. Feel free to IM me anytime. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 02:31, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
:*'''Sorry, some felt the need for a fight tonight, I guess, and kept reverting. Just let me know, I will unlock it once the children have stopped their tantrums.''' --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 02:49, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

== Facts & Links To Check Out... ==

Whose Ox Is Gored? The media discover the former vice president's environmental exaggerations and hypocrisy:[http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009804]

The Tempest
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html]

Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus: Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html]

An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore Can’t Give Junk Science Away: [http://newsbusters.org/node/9262]

From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html]

<blockquote>
"...But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

Mr. Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made “the most important and salient points” about climate change, if not “some nuances and distinctions” scientists might want. “The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger,” he said, adding, “I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.”

Although Mr. Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in “An Inconvenient Truth,” which is why scientists are sensitive to its details and claims.

'''Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.'''

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

'''While reviewers tended to praise the book and movie, vocal skeptics of global warming protested almost immediately. Richard S. Lindzen, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, who has long expressed skepticism about dire climate predictions, accused Mr. Gore in The Wall Street Journal of “shrill alarmism.”'''

Some of Mr. Gore’s centrist detractors point to a report last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that studies global warming. The panel went further than ever before in saying that humans were the main cause of the globe’s warming since 1950, part of Mr. Gore’s message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process.

'''It estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of 23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.'''

Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist in Denmark long skeptical of catastrophic global warming, said in a syndicated article that the panel, unlike Mr. Gore, had refrained from scaremongering. “Climate change is a real and serious problem” that calls for careful analysis and sound policy, Dr. Lomborg said. “The cacophony of screaming,” he added, “does not help.”

So too, a report last June by the National Academies seemed to contradict Mr. Gore’s portrayal of recent temperatures as the highest in the past millennium. Instead, the report said, current highs appeared unrivaled since only 1600, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the medieval warm period.

Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, said on a blog that Mr. Gore’s film did “indeed do a pretty good job of presenting the most dire scenarios.” But the June report, he added, shows “that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years.”

Other critics have zeroed in on Mr. Gore’s claim that the energy industry ran a “disinformation campaign” that produced false discord on global warming. The truth, he said, was that virtually all unbiased scientists agreed that humans were the main culprits. But Benny J. Peiser, a social anthropologist in Britain who runs the Cambridge-Conference Network, or CCNet, an Internet newsletter on climate change and natural disasters, challenged the claim of scientific consensus with examples of pointed disagreement.

“Hardly a week goes by,” Dr. Peiser said, “without a new research paper that questions part or even some basics of climate change theory,” including some reports that offer alternatives to human activity for global warming.

Geologists have documented age upon age of climate swings, and some charge Mr. Gore with ignoring such rhythms.

'''“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,” Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. “Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”

In October, Dr. Easterbrook made similar points at the geological society meeting in Philadelphia. He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change.

Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”'''

Getting personal, he mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”

Biologists, too, have gotten into the act. In January, Paul Reiter, an active skeptic of global warming’s effects and director of the insects and infectious diseases unit of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, faulted Mr. Gore for his portrayal of global warming as spreading malaria.

'''“For 12 years, my colleagues and I have protested against the unsubstantiated claims,” Dr. Reiter wrote in The International Herald Tribune. “We have done the studies and challenged the alarmists, but they continue to ignore the facts.”''' </blockquote>
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html]

== Al Gore Header ==

*Is it really necessary? --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 04:00, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

There are hundreds of people, some with star power and knowledge exceeding Al Gore, on both sides of this issue. Why is Al Gore given somemuch time and space in this catagory?

"So why is Al Gore the leading expert on global warming""

quoted from above. By whose notion is he the leading expert on Global Warming? Where is reference to Hansen, Broecker, Schmidt,Thompson et al, you know people who actually study this stuff for a living? Why focus on Gore? ''---The preceeding unsigned comments were added by Third Day''

:The Democratic Party is largely Liberal, and global warming is a big issue for liberals. Al Gore is one of the most popular Democrats, and he has a book out called "Earth in the Balance". Who else *but* Gore? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 17:58, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
*Were you speaking to me? If so, I am wondering why the info under the Gore heading couldn't be better placed in the body of the article rather than his own heading..... --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:02, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::More like, um, thinking aloud here.

::Conservatives have [[Richard Lindzen]], who is an actual scientist who makes sense and doesn't fudge the numbers. Liberals only have <s>[[Jim Hansen]],</s> who will never live down his "scary scenarios" remark. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 18:04, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
:::*Oops, I meant [[Stephen Schneider]]. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 18:18, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
I just added a line to the Gore header, to balance it some. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:06, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

=Some Liberal Bias=
Under "Conflicting Ideas/ Data" someone wrote "The global warming theory is a scientific theory, that has been supported by many peer-reviewed journal articles, published in highly respected international scientific journals." Clearly this was done after deleting a point showing some actual conflicting ideas or data, and this is a bias meant to mislead people into thinking that global warming is not challenged by any in the scientific community.

:Then go in the history and find the source, and put it back in. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 16:24, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
*Exactly! And be sure to let either Hoji or me know if another revert war starts. ;-) ---~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:07, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

== Unlocking ==

This article is far from complete. When will it be unlocked so we can add information about scientific data showing natural causes for warming, explanation of the solar flux theory, carbon dioxide tracking temps, cosmoclimatology, paleoclimatology, etc. As it stands it makes it look like all we care about is the political side of things. This can't be true, can it?

Talk:Ann Coulter

2007-03-23T22:15:25Z

Third Day: /* Biographical data */

I didn't realize that slinging mud at other people was a valid method to defend what a person says. No matter what, someone can mention that Hitler killed millions during the Holocaust, so it shouldn't matter that Ann Coulter is a bigoted transvestite.

[http://www.hoolinet.com/straponvets/tabid/278/default.aspx] The truth about Ann Coulter.

Attempting to defend Coulter's statements just exposes the incredible bias and partisanship of this site. She made a ragingly stupid, offensive and derogatory statement. There is not doubt about what she said or what it means.

I don't believe that footnote is all that necessary. Do you seriously think that anyone who's ever spoken English _doesn't_ know what a f****t is? --[[User:Sandbagger|Sandbagger]] 15:16, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Yes, it is important, for precisely the reason articulated below by [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. Coulter says the word "has nothing to do with gays." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:03, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

: I'm going to look for a real definition that captures its widespread use in the 1970s as a wimp or wuss. In slang in the 1970s it did not typically mean homosexual. The etymology of the word has nothing to do with homosexuality, as it comes from British prep schools a century ago.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 15:19, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::I agree that it comes from British prep schools a century ago, the three-letter version anyway. More than a century ago, actually, as it appears throughout ''Tom Brown's Schooldays,'' published in 1857 and probably is derived from Hughes' experiences decades before. But I can only suppose that you have been deceived by the euphemistic way in which British prep schools have been described in literature. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:06, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::The three-letter version is defined by Wentworth and Flexner (1967) Dictionary of American Slang, Supplemented Edition, Crowell:

::::n. 1. A cigarette c1915 .... 2 A homosexual; an effeminate man.... Although [it use for cigarettes] may have reinforced the use of the word, [three-letter version], a boy servant or lackey has been common Eng. schoolboy use since before 1830, and may be the origin....

::::There is probably no way to be certain of the range of services traditionally provided by "boy servants or lackeys" in British prep schools. <s>Even Orwell's "Such, Such Were the Joys" is very elliptical on this point.</s> In "Such, Such Were the Joys" Orwell says "At some preparatory schools homosexuality is not a problem," but is frank about its existence at St. Cyprians. He gives few details, saying that at that time he was in "an almost sexless state" and he does not use the word we're discussing. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:10, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::::[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]], If your source for "This explanation is consistent with the use of the term in American and British schools in the 20th century" is your own experience, all I can say is, not at the American school '''I''' attended in the 20th century. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:24, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::::: I don't know. But the term was never meant to apply exclusively, or even primarily, as a slur against gays. Mayor Sharpe's use demonstrates that. It's more plausible that homosexuals adopted the term "faggot" just as they adopted the term "gay". A famous Alfred Hitchcock movie (1940s?) has a line where the actor describes San Francisco as "gay". That was not a slur, and the adoption of the term by the homosexual movement does not mean that everyone else must immediately abandon its traditional meaning.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:25, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::Now is not the 1970s, and its meaning is pretty well set at this point. --[[User:Sandbagger|Sandbagger]] 15:42, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faggot Etymology] of the term, for anyone who's interested. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 15:44, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

: Thanks for the citation, which I've concluded. Does Sandbagger think the meaning of the word "niggardly" has now changed also? I've added that incident to this entry.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:04, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:: I don't think the parallel is good. The meaning of "niggardly" is well-defined. The dictionary does not suggest that it is racial slur, or hint that it should be avoided because of its similarly in sound to a racial slur. The person who used it was almost certainly using it in good faith with its dictionary meaning (there's a possibility he was ''deliberately'' using it ''because'' it was similar in sound to a racial slur but I discount it). Those who objected to it were fools.

:: In the case of Ann Coulter's use of the word she used, the situation is not parallel. It is much hazier. Unlike "niggardly," the standard dictionary definition of the word '''is''' a reference to homosexuality. (I don't think anyone would argue that she was talking about a bundle of twigs). Coulter may have been going by the meaning of the word as she learned it at school. She very likely never looked it up in a dictionary. Her recollection of what the word meant in her school may be accurate—or may have reflected innocence on her part at the time. And in the intervening years she may never have heard the word used to mean "homosexual."

:: Yes, you could say she has "plausible deniability," but it seems a stretch to me. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::: But Edwards isn't gay. So what do you think Coulter meant by the term, if not the ordinary schoolhouse usage? Do you think it is racist for one African American to use the "N" word to refer to another African American? I really don't see how there can be a gay slur against someone who isn't gay.

::: By the way, dictionaries are biased just like anything else. "Common Era" is in the dictionary now also, but we expressly reject the dictionary about that. Conservatives resist liberal attempts to change meanings of words to suit the liberal agenda.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::I don't think the "niggardly" incident really has any place in this article, especially if the goal is to limit gossip. In my opinion, all that really needs to be said on the "faggot" comment is that Coulter said it, some people got upset, she apologized for it. End of story. [[User:ColinR|ColinR]] 03:27, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:I removed the claim that no leading conservative group distanced themselves from their statements, because I remember reading a press release from the website of the Christian Defense Alliance doing just that. I consider this group notable because their pro-life activism has been noted on a national stage (particularly their attempts to get Rick Warren to distance themselves from Barack Obama.) [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 02:29, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

I thought that Conservapedia was going to stay away from this sort of trivia and gossip. Who cares about the Edwards remark? Why is it of any significance? Possibly some people were offended, but those same people are probably more offended by 100 other things that Coulter has said. I say that the whole section should be removed. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 02:44, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:No, these statements-- and the despicable, violent left-wing overreaction-- make her who she is. It's definitive, so it should stay (but be streamlined). {{unsigned|MikeM}}

It's not just gossip, in my opinion, because this is a major news story that has been covered by the news. I know it's not as significant, but it's like saying that the whole Monica Lewinsky thing was just gossip. I don't want this to dominate the article, but I don't want people thinking we approve of it, because I agree with the Christian Defense Alliance and many other conservatives that Ms. Coulter makes us look bad as conservatives.

This is just my personal opinion, though. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 02:46, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

: There is no need to either approve or disapprove. Maybe you could say that she occasionally makes inflammatory remarks. Beyond that, I see no value to showing some opinions on this particular remark. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 03:21, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Wow, I just realized how redundant I was. "News story that was covered by the news"? I'm tired. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 03:22, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

"This explanation is consistent with the use of the term in American and British schools in the 20th century, and is supported by its etymology as a term applying to someone who does duties for others more senior.[6] Edwards, whose public service consists of merely one term in the U.S. Senate, fits that meaning."

This last unsourced sentence, effectively makes conservapedia AGREE with Edwards being a "faggot". Why not add "in Ann Coulter's opinion" to that? I came to this site with high expectations and here we have the site agreeing with childish name-calling as if it is a known, verifiable fact! [[User:deronde|deronde]] 16:05, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

Why is this page blocked? Doesn't it deserve the contributions of internet users like other articles, or have we decided that an article on Coulter falls below the standard for democratic exertion?--[[User:Fpresjh|Fpresjh]] 21:26, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:::: It's pretty sad when a hate monger like Coulter is lionized on a site that is reputedly organized around Christian values and her blatent hate speech is ( apparently seriously ) treated to a convulated etymology that priveledges definitions far removed in place and time over the one that she so obivously meant. Isn't there some sin in this? It just goes to show the hypocracy and fascism that this project embodies. Isn't lying a sin? Isn't corrupt use of power a sin? Oh, I forgot the intelligent design debate. Obviously some 'christians' think lying is ok when it serves a grander purpose like, say confirming their bias or damaging those they perceive as enemies for instance. Have you no shame? The lord's work indeed. [[User:Godman|Godman]] 15:44, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:::::Godman, Why do you feel the necessity to engage in name calling? Isn't using vicious invective hate speech? What about impugning motives without cause? Doesn't throwing around the term "fascism" recklessly denigrate the meaning and suffering of fascism's real victims? [[User:RobS|RobS]] 16:16, 15 March 2007 (EDT)
:: I think Coulter's actions speak for themselves. As a practicing Christian and a true conservative I feel some compulsion to point out when radical elements co-opt the label conservative and Christian for their own seemingly cynical ends. That saddens me, as it should any Christian and any patriot, and it weakens the impact of God's message and closes hearts of those whom Coulter attacks. I didn't throw out the label fascism lightly. Coulter's position and belief seem founded on its tenents. By your tacit defense of Coulter, I gather the 'god' you worship delights in hate speech and name calling as does the brand of 'conservatism' you embrace. As it is, conservapedia is an embarassment and an abomionation. The name should be changed to radicalapedia or fascipedia. [[User:Godman|Godman]] 18:48, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

==Ann's next book==
Since the page is blocked, please add the following reference:
Ann's book publisher, The Crown Publishing Group, has no problems with Ann and is planning an October release for her next book, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans."<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258370,00.html Coulter's Book Publisher Undeterred by Flap Over Remark About Gays] FoxNews.com</ref> [[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]][[User Talk:Crocoite|talk]] 18:42, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
:Done. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 02:31, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
:Ann Coulter is to politcal discourse what [[Richard Speck]] was to the nursing profession. Thanks to hatemongers like her, Savage, and Limbaugh, we've got a country split between Conservatives who think all Liberals are communist homosexuals who murder children for thrills, and Liberals who think all conservatives are jackbooted [[Neanderthals]] who can't wait to start another [[civil war]]. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 21:35, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
::The liberals are for free speech unless it is a conservative voicing their views not using politically correct speech. The left resorts to name calling labeling conservatives "hatemongers", "homophobes", etc. I've heard the Hollywood left saying hateful speech about President Bush and the left has no problem because it's liberal politically correct. [[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]][[User Talk:Crocoite|talk]] 16:59, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
<references/>
::I concur. Why do we put up with all these namby pamby goofs that want to keep us from the truth. Bill Clinto is gay, look at Hillary. I would be gay too if I was married to that. We should be able to say whatever we want on this site--it is for us--not them. [[User:Flippin|Flippin]] 15:18, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

:::And one more thing, why don't we call things like they are? I read somewhere that the word "cowboy" was being replaced by "person of the west" in kids' textbooks. Can't we just call them cowboys and indians? And what about Manhole covers? Do we really need to say "person-hole-covers?" I have many black friends and I don't refer to them as "african-american" or whatever--I call them black. They call me white and we get along. Sometimes, jokingly, we call each other 'negro' but so waht? we're friends. If we want to call each other something unpopular, who cares? I applaud that senator from Virginia for calling the kid macaca, or whatever. it was meant to be funny. [[User:Flippin|Flippin]] 15:22, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

== Category ==
If this article is unlocked at some point, it should probably be added to [[:Category:Political people]] or [[:Category:Biographies]]. --[[User:Interiot|Interiot]] 21:37, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

:Well that's all a matter on how one views Coulter, isn't it? I think she's in there with Mort Sahl, Rush Limbaugh, (and dare I say it:) Al Franken: People who're commentators on the world as THEY see it NOW. Sure, the underlying messages are serious but she's using the tongue-in-cheek method to be able to explore issues that one cannot approach in a serious fashion because it would look like attacks straight off. I think her a master of the use of hyperbole that gets her opponents ''so'' riled up as to leave their common sense, (and at times common courtesy), in the trunk of the car. And she knows this and ''plays'' it like it's all been scripted out beforehand.
:While I do not know the woman personally, I like her. In some ways she reminds me a bit of the [[User:Aschlafly| Boss']] mother. Strong, articulate, fast on her feet, personable with being overly deferential.
:MOO --[[User:Cracker|Cracker]][[User_Talk:Cracker|talk]] 14:27, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

== Perhaps some more information about her credentials ==

I'd like to see some more information about Ann Coulter's credentials as a journalist/commentator. Many people are unaware of her years of service as a lawyer in Washington. I'd be happy to make the addition if it was unlocked.

== Biographical data ==

Shouldn't an entry on an individual include at least a little biographical information? Born, educated, work history, family, etc.
This entry is not really about ''Ann Coulter'', it's about what ''she writes'' about. This looks like a section in a lrger entry on Coulter, not a complete entry. Why is it blocked? How can this essential encyclopedia style information be added?

:It is my understanding that Ms. Coulter is unmarried, and carries on sexual relationships outside of marriage. This is very concerning to me, because this behavior is in direct violation of God's Laws. [[User:DunsScotus|DunsScotus]] 14:33, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

shouldn't this information be in the article? I mean we know for a fact where she was educated, where she has worked, and what her residence is. Although on that last point there has been some dispute as her voter fraud run in with the law has shown. Would that be gossip or pertinent biographical data? The article as it stands is just pertaining to the Edwards flap and has little to do with Coulter. Why has this article been locked??

== "Total Fag" ==

For context on how Ann was using the word to refer to Edwards, I just think its relevant to point out Ann's appearance on Hardball last July, after saying a day before that Bill Clinton was a latent homosexual.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about your private life. How do you know that Bill Clinton's gay?
COULTER: He may not be gay, but Al Gore, total fag.

So she's clearly aware of at least some connection between toe word Fag and homosexuality. So when she says that the word "has nothing to do with Gays," she's kind of... you know, lying.
--[[User:RexMundane|RexMundane]] 15:04, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

OTHER WORD GAMES: If the censors who locked the article see this, in point of fact David Howard resigned after the "N-word" incident; he was not fired. Also, the reaction was not so much from "liberals" as from Marshall Brown, an African-American colleague of his who either misheard it or misunderstood it.

Talk:Ann Coulter

2007-03-23T18:01:06Z

Third Day: Biographical data

I didn't realize that slinging mud at other people was a valid method to defend what a person says. No matter what, someone can mention that Hitler killed millions during the Holocaust, so it shouldn't matter that Ann Coulter is a bigoted transvestite.

[http://www.hoolinet.com/straponvets/tabid/278/default.aspx] The truth about Ann Coulter.

Attempting to defend Coulter's statements just exposes the incredible bias and partisanship of this site. She made a ragingly stupid, offensive and derogatory statement. There is not doubt about what she said or what it means.

I don't believe that footnote is all that necessary. Do you seriously think that anyone who's ever spoken English _doesn't_ know what a f****t is? --[[User:Sandbagger|Sandbagger]] 15:16, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Yes, it is important, for precisely the reason articulated below by [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. Coulter says the word "has nothing to do with gays." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:03, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

: I'm going to look for a real definition that captures its widespread use in the 1970s as a wimp or wuss. In slang in the 1970s it did not typically mean homosexual. The etymology of the word has nothing to do with homosexuality, as it comes from British prep schools a century ago.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 15:19, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::I agree that it comes from British prep schools a century ago, the three-letter version anyway. More than a century ago, actually, as it appears throughout ''Tom Brown's Schooldays,'' published in 1857 and probably is derived from Hughes' experiences decades before. But I can only suppose that you have been deceived by the euphemistic way in which British prep schools have been described in literature. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:06, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::The three-letter version is defined by Wentworth and Flexner (1967) Dictionary of American Slang, Supplemented Edition, Crowell:

::::n. 1. A cigarette c1915 .... 2 A homosexual; an effeminate man.... Although [it use for cigarettes] may have reinforced the use of the word, [three-letter version], a boy servant or lackey has been common Eng. schoolboy use since before 1830, and may be the origin....

::::There is probably no way to be certain of the range of services traditionally provided by "boy servants or lackeys" in British prep schools. <s>Even Orwell's "Such, Such Were the Joys" is very elliptical on this point.</s> In "Such, Such Were the Joys" Orwell says "At some preparatory schools homosexuality is not a problem," but is frank about its existence at St. Cyprians. He gives few details, saying that at that time he was in "an almost sexless state" and he does not use the word we're discussing. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:10, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::::[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]], If your source for "This explanation is consistent with the use of the term in American and British schools in the 20th century" is your own experience, all I can say is, not at the American school '''I''' attended in the 20th century. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:24, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::::: I don't know. But the term was never meant to apply exclusively, or even primarily, as a slur against gays. Mayor Sharpe's use demonstrates that. It's more plausible that homosexuals adopted the term "faggot" just as they adopted the term "gay". A famous Alfred Hitchcock movie (1940s?) has a line where the actor describes San Francisco as "gay". That was not a slur, and the adoption of the term by the homosexual movement does not mean that everyone else must immediately abandon its traditional meaning.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:25, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::Now is not the 1970s, and its meaning is pretty well set at this point. --[[User:Sandbagger|Sandbagger]] 15:42, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:::[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faggot Etymology] of the term, for anyone who's interested. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 15:44, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

: Thanks for the citation, which I've concluded. Does Sandbagger think the meaning of the word "niggardly" has now changed also? I've added that incident to this entry.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:04, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

:: I don't think the parallel is good. The meaning of "niggardly" is well-defined. The dictionary does not suggest that it is racial slur, or hint that it should be avoided because of its similarly in sound to a racial slur. The person who used it was almost certainly using it in good faith with its dictionary meaning (there's a possibility he was ''deliberately'' using it ''because'' it was similar in sound to a racial slur but I discount it). Those who objected to it were fools.

:: In the case of Ann Coulter's use of the word she used, the situation is not parallel. It is much hazier. Unlike "niggardly," the standard dictionary definition of the word '''is''' a reference to homosexuality. (I don't think anyone would argue that she was talking about a bundle of twigs). Coulter may have been going by the meaning of the word as she learned it at school. She very likely never looked it up in a dictionary. Her recollection of what the word meant in her school may be accurate—or may have reflected innocence on her part at the time. And in the intervening years she may never have heard the word used to mean "homosexual."

:: Yes, you could say she has "plausible deniability," but it seems a stretch to me. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 16:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::: But Edwards isn't gay. So what do you think Coulter meant by the term, if not the ordinary schoolhouse usage? Do you think it is racist for one African American to use the "N" word to refer to another African American? I really don't see how there can be a gay slur against someone who isn't gay.

::: By the way, dictionaries are biased just like anything else. "Common Era" is in the dictionary now also, but we expressly reject the dictionary about that. Conservatives resist liberal attempts to change meanings of words to suit the liberal agenda.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::I don't think the "niggardly" incident really has any place in this article, especially if the goal is to limit gossip. In my opinion, all that really needs to be said on the "faggot" comment is that Coulter said it, some people got upset, she apologized for it. End of story. [[User:ColinR|ColinR]] 03:27, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:I removed the claim that no leading conservative group distanced themselves from their statements, because I remember reading a press release from the website of the Christian Defense Alliance doing just that. I consider this group notable because their pro-life activism has been noted on a national stage (particularly their attempts to get Rick Warren to distance themselves from Barack Obama.) [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 02:29, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

I thought that Conservapedia was going to stay away from this sort of trivia and gossip. Who cares about the Edwards remark? Why is it of any significance? Possibly some people were offended, but those same people are probably more offended by 100 other things that Coulter has said. I say that the whole section should be removed. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 02:44, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:No, these statements-- and the despicable, violent left-wing overreaction-- make her who she is. It's definitive, so it should stay (but be streamlined). {{unsigned|MikeM}}

It's not just gossip, in my opinion, because this is a major news story that has been covered by the news. I know it's not as significant, but it's like saying that the whole Monica Lewinsky thing was just gossip. I don't want this to dominate the article, but I don't want people thinking we approve of it, because I agree with the Christian Defense Alliance and many other conservatives that Ms. Coulter makes us look bad as conservatives.

This is just my personal opinion, though. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 02:46, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

: There is no need to either approve or disapprove. Maybe you could say that she occasionally makes inflammatory remarks. Beyond that, I see no value to showing some opinions on this particular remark. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 03:21, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Wow, I just realized how redundant I was. "News story that was covered by the news"? I'm tired. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 03:22, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

"This explanation is consistent with the use of the term in American and British schools in the 20th century, and is supported by its etymology as a term applying to someone who does duties for others more senior.[6] Edwards, whose public service consists of merely one term in the U.S. Senate, fits that meaning."

This last unsourced sentence, effectively makes conservapedia AGREE with Edwards being a "faggot". Why not add "in Ann Coulter's opinion" to that? I came to this site with high expectations and here we have the site agreeing with childish name-calling as if it is a known, verifiable fact! [[User:deronde|deronde]] 16:05, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

Why is this page blocked? Doesn't it deserve the contributions of internet users like other articles, or have we decided that an article on Coulter falls below the standard for democratic exertion?--[[User:Fpresjh|Fpresjh]] 21:26, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:::: It's pretty sad when a hate monger like Coulter is lionized on a site that is reputedly organized around Christian values and her blatent hate speech is ( apparently seriously ) treated to a convulated etymology that priveledges definitions far removed in place and time over the one that she so obivously meant. Isn't there some sin in this? It just goes to show the hypocracy and fascism that this project embodies. Isn't lying a sin? Isn't corrupt use of power a sin? Oh, I forgot the intelligent design debate. Obviously some 'christians' think lying is ok when it serves a grander purpose like, say confirming their bias or damaging those they perceive as enemies for instance. Have you no shame? The lord's work indeed. [[User:Godman|Godman]] 15:44, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:::::Godman, Why do you feel the necessity to engage in name calling? Isn't using vicious invective hate speech? What about impugning motives without cause? Doesn't throwing around the term "fascism" recklessly denigrate the meaning and suffering of fascism's real victims? [[User:RobS|RobS]] 16:16, 15 March 2007 (EDT)
:: I think Coulter's actions speak for themselves. As a practicing Christian and a true conservative I feel some compulsion to point out when radical elements co-opt the label conservative and Christian for their own seemingly cynical ends. That saddens me, as it should any Christian and any patriot, and it weakens the impact of God's message and closes hearts of those whom Coulter attacks. I didn't throw out the label fascism lightly. Coulter's position and belief seem founded on its tenents. By your tacit defense of Coulter, I gather the 'god' you worship delights in hate speech and name calling as does the brand of 'conservatism' you embrace. As it is, conservapedia is an embarassment and an abomionation. The name should be changed to radicalapedia or fascipedia. [[User:Godman|Godman]] 18:48, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

==Ann's next book==
Since the page is blocked, please add the following reference:
Ann's book publisher, The Crown Publishing Group, has no problems with Ann and is planning an October release for her next book, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans."<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258370,00.html Coulter's Book Publisher Undeterred by Flap Over Remark About Gays] FoxNews.com</ref> [[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]][[User Talk:Crocoite|talk]] 18:42, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
:Done. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 02:31, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
:Ann Coulter is to politcal discourse what [[Richard Speck]] was to the nursing profession. Thanks to hatemongers like her, Savage, and Limbaugh, we've got a country split between Conservatives who think all Liberals are communist homosexuals who murder children for thrills, and Liberals who think all conservatives are jackbooted [[Neanderthals]] who can't wait to start another [[civil war]]. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 21:35, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
::The liberals are for free speech unless it is a conservative voicing their views not using politically correct speech. The left resorts to name calling labeling conservatives "hatemongers", "homophobes", etc. I've heard the Hollywood left saying hateful speech about President Bush and the left has no problem because it's liberal politically correct. [[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]][[User Talk:Crocoite|talk]] 16:59, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
<references/>

== Category ==
If this article is unlocked at some point, it should probably be added to [[:Category:Political people]] or [[:Category:Biographies]]. --[[User:Interiot|Interiot]] 21:37, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

== Perhaps some more information about her credentials ==

I'd like to see some more information about Ann Coulter's credentials as a journalist/commentator. Many people are unaware of her years of service as a lawyer in Washington. I'd be happy to make the addition if it was unlocked.

== Biographical data ==

Shouldn't an entry on an individual include at least a little biographical information? Born, educated, work history, family, etc.
This entry is not really about ''Ann Coulter'', it's about what ''she writes'' about. This looks like a section in a lrger entry on Coulter, not a complete entry. Why is it blocked? How can this essential encyclopedia style information be added?

Talk:Science of global warming

2007-03-20T21:12:32Z

Third Day:

== Biased Line ==

"Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him"

Whoever said this you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. source that please!

Can you even pretend to be able to source such an outrageous claim? It's lines like this that open this project to ridicule.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 22:31, 9 March 2007 (EST)
: Sandbagger and other vandals added those lines. They have been removed and the vandals have been banned. If I am online and I see such lines, with no citations I will report future vandals after they do the same and revert their edits. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 16:49, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

(that he has problems trying to give away)

See Dave3172's comment above, this editorial has the same effect. The implication is that the film won't be seen by anyone. Unfortunately, the reverse is true, the film has been very popular and its success will somewhat stifle true debate of the issue.--[[User:Jasonhc|Jasonhc]] 22:15, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
: How about I change it to (some schools have rejected free copies of it)? --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:28, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

== Points ==

=== Point 1 ===
"Point #1 has become very widely accepted in the past few decades, even by conservatives who were once skeptical." -- Not surprisingly there's no citation for this! "Very widely accepted"?? You don't have to look far to find low temperature records being set. Here's one link: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020507/content/0205071.guest.html [[User:Bwilliston|Bwilliston]] 02:25, 10 March 2007 (EST)
: I added in a few more links showing conservatives agreeing with rising temps. I also added in links that show record low temperatures. I want to try and show both sides of the debates. Because a lot of the data is conflicting or the same data yields different results based on the way it is interpreted, it shows that nobody can really know for sure what the truth is or is not. Yet what I did hope to cover in this article is the global warming scam of selling carbon credits, books, videos, and making profits off of oil stocks by those who are pro-global warming as a motive for why they lie or fabricate information to promote global warming. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 15:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
:: The first link says "Excepting the El Nino year of 1998, since about 1979, the Earth's temperature apparently has not been increasing.". It's a link about *not* accepting global warming. The second has a liberal and "ex-liberal" discussing various points. In response to a claim from the liberal that temperatures have been increasing, the "ex-liberal" says: "MANY other physical anthropologists, scientists, and other professionals have refuted that data as well" (with four broken links for citations, so I don't know which refutations he had in mind). And in the third link I see one conservative (Rod Dreher) mentioning "overwhelming scientific evidence" but it's pretty vague, and certainly doesn't justify the claim that the idea of increasing global temperatures is "very widely accepted" by conservatives. [[User:Bwilliston|Bwilliston]] 20:35, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

=== Point 4 ===
I think this is wrong. "Measures to combat global warming/climate change" are what it talks about. It would be like saying you could say communism and mean the Marshall Plan.[[User:Thisisausername|Thisisausername]] 17:43, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: How do you propose we fix it? Most Wikis have a "fix it yourself" policy, you know. :) I am open to suggestions. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 19:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
:: It reads better now, thanks for the edit. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== FYI ==
The British Conservative party was in the news today concerning climate change.[[User:Thisisausername|Thisisausername]] 17:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6438685.stm]
: Thanks it has been added. It is good to represent both sides of the issue for a fair and balanced look. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:18, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Profit Motive ==
While a lot of space is devoted to the idea that proponents of global warming are profiting by it, why isn't the same treatment being given to those who oppose it? Such as the scientists who received funding from the oil companies?--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:15, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: Probably because I haven't written it yet, trying to revert your vandalism and the vandalism of Sandbagger. It is a work in progress and the more you screw it up the longer it will take me to fix it. I have a headache from the both of you doing nonsense and I have to quit tonight. I'll try to add in more later. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:24, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::Excuse me? I vandalized nothing, but made an edit that needed editing. Frankly, a lot of your stuff should be wiped for lack of sourcing, but I'm trying real hard to keep in mind what this project is trying to do.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:29, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::: I provided at least 15 sources since I started contributing to this article. I have done a lot of research on the subject for both sides. You may deny vandalizing, and while you weren't as bad as Sandbagger, that is the reason why I didn't report you. I have you on notice. Now it is you who have to provide the sources for the proponents of global warming profiting from it. I was going to do it myself, but since you claim a lot of my stuff needs wiping, I'll give you the honors. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:36, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::You want to report me for vandalism? Because I removed one half of a title that was opinion? Go for it.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::: Blanking is vandalism, but you are lucky I gave you the benefit of the doubt. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:43, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::Fixing an opinion is not blanking, especially when its explained. You need to take a reality check.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:45, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::: It is you who is having the issues, not me. There are now over 33 citations in the article backing up most of what I had added to it. It is you who has an allergy to the truth, not me. I am not upset over this, I am just tired. I got better things to do than get into a spitting contest with you over this. I apologize if I said you vandalized it, I have had a bad day, and seeing Sandbagger scribble nonsense all over this article kind of got to me, and I guess I sort of lumped you into it with him. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::: I tell you what, I'll leave the citations needed in the conservative view section showing the bias of skeptical scientists up to you. Unlike you, I won't bully you into hurrying up and add them in like you have done to me or question the credibility of the source or any of the other political things you have done to me. Take all the time you need, use whatever resources you can find. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 21:22, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Source #16 ==
How can you possibly use a letter to the editor as a source? Especially when said letter had no actual hard evidence in it?--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:32, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
: I have more sources I haven't used yet. They have quotes showing the evidence of the silencing. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:37, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::The problem with your sources (aside from the questionability of their reliability) is that you've attached them to a paragraph discussed the alleged lack of controls in testing. Which none of your sources mention.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 20:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)
::: Actually I did add in one. I was prevented from doing so because you were editing/saving the article, and I had to delay adding it until later. It is in there now. I even added in sources from conservatives who did political actions to fight global warming or say that global warming is a problem. Are you questioning everything I contributed, or just the parts you politically disagree with yet lack the proof to discredit (or at least have not shown me any proof that they should be discredited)? Remember this is not Wikipedia, there is not supposed to be a liberal bias here, and I am one of the few that actually is adding in some parts of the liberal and pro-global warming side of global warming issues. I am putting in what the skeptics are saying and what conservatives are saying, and if you have a problem with that, you can go back to Wikipedia and start your own edits of the global warming article there, maybe they'll put up with you. Your comments about wiping out all of my comments just prove the liberal side wants to silence and censor critics of global warming, and comments of that nature along with your bad attitude are what made me suspect you were a vandal like Sandbagger in the first place. By the way, what is stopping you from adding citations and paraphrasing them in anyway? A Wiki is a community edited web site, why are you trying to force me to do all of your work for you? I don't take away your free speech and threaten to wipe everything you contributed. In fact I encouraged you to add to the article with at least some citations to prove what you have been saying about it in this talk page. Are you just a critic, with no gumption to actually add to articles and back up what you are trying to say? --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 20:52, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== The whole article ==

The whole thing is a politically motivated hack job. What on earth does Global warming have to do with religion that would lead to such pap passed off as fact on this site?
: Global warming has become a new religion with Al Gore as the Pope of global warming. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:27, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

It's responses like this previous one which threaten to keep me coming back to this discussion board... for entertainment purposes, of course. Is this new global warming "religion" similar to Darwinism I've heard about? Many other well recognized and substantially supported scientific ideas have been labeled "religions" or "agendas," etc... I personally believe this points to the dichotamous nature of the conservative mindset, and perhaps a little bit of paranoia too. Folks who disregard science on the basis that it doesn't mix well with their present beliefs are helplessly incapable of understanding science. Now, does the scientist understand religion? Well, that's not a topic for science.

==Did you know...==
Does anyone here know that the polar ice caps have been shrinking considerably during the past three years? Now what on Mars could be doing that?

Yes, you read that correctly: MARS. It has been documented by NASA, National Geographic, the Mars Global Observatory, etc. Now what could be causing the retreat of the Martian ice caps? There's no factories there, no automobiles, no cows expelling gasses in the fields. I want to hear the excuse for it from the global warming supporters as to why the ice caps on Mars are retreating. Hint: there's only one answer. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 21:52, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
: Either it is a natural cycle on Mars, or solar activity increased and is generating more heat. If the later, it disproves pro-global warming scientists. Unless pro-global warming scientists want to claim that Martians are polluting CO2 on Mars to cause global warming, in which there is no evidence of Martians. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:27, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

::If it's the sun, and I do think it is, you have to think of how much farther from the sun Mars is as compared to earth. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 16:32, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

== Al Gore is no expert and no saint ==
These lines were removed, but they paint a picture of Al Gore:
In fact, Al Gore does not even follow his own advice and actually made a lot of money with oil stocks, and uses private jets that pollute CO2, instead of using economical flights that pollute less CO2 or electric trains to promote his books and videos. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm Plus Al Gore does not have a science degree, but one in government and an undergraduate degree and not a PHD, and Gore scored low in his science tests and classes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37397-2000Mar18 So why is Al Gore the leading expert on global warming if he doesn't even have a degree in science or had good grades in science, rather than a certified and qualified climatologist with the ability to give an academic lecture and follows the scientific method, instead of Gore who just shows pictures.
Furthermore, Gore did nothing to try and halt global warming while he was vice-president, and actually worked with Bill Clinton to reject bills and ideas that would have reduced CO2 and pollution under the Kyoto protocols, that both rejected. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July06/Frank18.htm
Al Gore is no scientist, and he didn't do anything to halt global warming while in office. I think he does a lot of credibility damage to global warming because of these things. --[[User:Orion Blastar|Orion Blastar]] 10:35, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

==Bias==
Dang, this article is really biased. People need to realise that Earth is changing, and it is being caused by humans. It is sad to see how people are so disrespectful to the work of God. I think that destroying everything great that the Lord has made is a terrible sin and this website should recognise the harm that they are doing to this great gift that God has given us.
--[[User:Flax+|Flax+]] 19:51, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*I believe there is plenty of evidence, and scientists, who do not adopt the panic-mode of Gore and others. Many believe it is a natural occurrence, perhaps hastened by fossil fuel consumption, but nevertheless something that has occurred hundreds of times, in the life of the planet. It is your job, everyone, as contributors and posters here, to edit the page to strike some balance, rather than dismiss opposing thought as morons, and ignore what others say. ''If this cannot be done, I will lock the page''. I hate to do that, because supposedly adults, thinking people, should be able to arrive at a meaningful compromise. Anything else is intellectual dishonesty. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 01:57, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::Lots of things are "perfectly natural".... like dying of [[cholera]] at age 28. We do our best to stop that from happening, too. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 02:01, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

:::The way we stopped cholera is by avoiding wishful thinking and carrying out careful experiments. There's a fascinating detective story about how the first researcher proved that it was contaminated water (from a single pump?) that was causing a cholera epidemic in London. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 02:04, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::On the other hand, if we render the planet TOTALLY unlivable, Jesus will HAVE to return and save us all!

::No need to lock the page. I know a lot about what both sides are saying and can perhaps help to craft a balanced article. (I am the original author of [[Wikipedia:Writing for the enemy]].) --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 02:02, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

*Thanks Ed!! Thats the spirit! I posted some links below, so some can take a look, possibly add their own, of actual scientists who just hate all the alarmism. Feel free to IM me anytime. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 02:31, 20 March 2007 (EDT)
:*'''Sorry, some felt the need for a fight tonight, I guess, and kept reverting. Just let me know, I will unlock it once the children have stopped their tantrums.''' --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 02:49, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

== Facts & Links To Check Out... ==

Whose Ox Is Gored? The media discover the former vice president's environmental exaggerations and hypocrisy:[http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009804]

The Tempest
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html]

Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus: Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html]

An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore Can’t Give Junk Science Away: [http://newsbusters.org/node/9262]

From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html]

<blockquote>
"...But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

Mr. Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made “the most important and salient points” about climate change, if not “some nuances and distinctions” scientists might want. “The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger,” he said, adding, “I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.”

Although Mr. Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in “An Inconvenient Truth,” which is why scientists are sensitive to its details and claims.

'''Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.'''

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

'''While reviewers tended to praise the book and movie, vocal skeptics of global warming protested almost immediately. Richard S. Lindzen, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, who has long expressed skepticism about dire climate predictions, accused Mr. Gore in The Wall Street Journal of “shrill alarmism.”'''

Some of Mr. Gore’s centrist detractors point to a report last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that studies global warming. The panel went further than ever before in saying that humans were the main cause of the globe’s warming since 1950, part of Mr. Gore’s message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process.

'''It estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of 23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.'''

Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist in Denmark long skeptical of catastrophic global warming, said in a syndicated article that the panel, unlike Mr. Gore, had refrained from scaremongering. “Climate change is a real and serious problem” that calls for careful analysis and sound policy, Dr. Lomborg said. “The cacophony of screaming,” he added, “does not help.”

So too, a report last June by the National Academies seemed to contradict Mr. Gore’s portrayal of recent temperatures as the highest in the past millennium. Instead, the report said, current highs appeared unrivaled since only 1600, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the medieval warm period.

Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, said on a blog that Mr. Gore’s film did “indeed do a pretty good job of presenting the most dire scenarios.” But the June report, he added, shows “that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years.”

Other critics have zeroed in on Mr. Gore’s claim that the energy industry ran a “disinformation campaign” that produced false discord on global warming. The truth, he said, was that virtually all unbiased scientists agreed that humans were the main culprits. But Benny J. Peiser, a social anthropologist in Britain who runs the Cambridge-Conference Network, or CCNet, an Internet newsletter on climate change and natural disasters, challenged the claim of scientific consensus with examples of pointed disagreement.

“Hardly a week goes by,” Dr. Peiser said, “without a new research paper that questions part or even some basics of climate change theory,” including some reports that offer alternatives to human activity for global warming.

Geologists have documented age upon age of climate swings, and some charge Mr. Gore with ignoring such rhythms.

'''“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,” Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. “Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”

In October, Dr. Easterbrook made similar points at the geological society meeting in Philadelphia. He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change.

Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”'''

Getting personal, he mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”

Biologists, too, have gotten into the act. In January, Paul Reiter, an active skeptic of global warming’s effects and director of the insects and infectious diseases unit of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, faulted Mr. Gore for his portrayal of global warming as spreading malaria.

'''“For 12 years, my colleagues and I have protested against the unsubstantiated claims,” Dr. Reiter wrote in The International Herald Tribune. “We have done the studies and challenged the alarmists, but they continue to ignore the facts.”''' </blockquote>
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html]

== Al Gore Header ==

Is it really necessary? --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 04:00, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

There are hundreds of people, some with star power and knowledge exceeding Al Gore, on both sides of this issue. Why is Al Gore given somemuch time and space in this catagory?

"So why is Al Gore the leading expert on global warming""

quoted from above. By whose notion is he the leading expert on Global Warming? Where is reference to Hansen, Broecker, Schmidt,Thompson et al, you know people who actually study this stuff for a living? Why focus on Gore?

Talk:Science of global warming

2007-03-20T21:08:43Z

Third Day: /* Al Gore Header */

Global warming

2007-03-11T03:51:44Z

Third Day:

'''Global warming''' is a phrase which commonly refers to a scientific theory and to political proposals that follow if the theory is accepted. The scientific theory is widely but not universally accepted within the scientific community. Conservatives who are opposed to the political proposals that flow from acceptance of the theory, are properly skeptical of the motivations of the theorists, and challenge the scientific validity of portions of the theory. Many believe global warming is simply a liberal talking point, aimed at shackling profitable oil and power companies, forcing them to pursue a "green" agenda that environmentalists agree with. The phrase really includes three separate theories.
:1) The theory that we are currently in a period of rapid climate change consisting of increasing temperature, which, if it were to continue, would have important socio-economic consequences well within the next century.
:2) The theory that this change is caused by increasing CO2 gasses and a resulting "greenhouse" effect.
:3) The theory that this change is caused by human activity, mostly industrial emissions of carbon-based "greenhouse gasses."
Therefore, the phrase has also come to apply to
:4) The proposal that global warming can and should be reversed by taking large-scale international action to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Point #1 has become very widely accepted in the past few decades, even by conservatives who were once skeptical.

Points #2 and point #3 are more controversial, although widely accepted by scientists. Points #3 is the one most attacked by global warming skeptics.

Point #4 is what the political and international debate are about. Both climate change itself, and the very large-scale actions that are proposed to combat it, would have enormous economic effects with identifiable winners and losers, resulting in an intense debate. For example, since the industrialized nations emit most of the CO2, if it were agreed that these emissions needed to be reduced sharply, the burden would fall much more heavily on these nations than on undeveloped nations.

Al Gore, Vice President under President Clinton from 1992 to 2000, is a high profile advocate of the full global warming theory. Promoters of this theory, including many prominent scientists, call for international treaties, like one proposed in Kyoto, Japan, to limit carbon emissions using a combination of conservation and technological innovation.

The theory is widely accepted within the scientific community because of the vast amount of conclusive evidence, though that is not to say there is unanimity..<ref>Myths of Global Warming[http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html]</ref><ref>No Evidence for Global Warming[http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed012298b.cfm]</ref> On February 2, 2007, an internatonal panel of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments issued a report concluding:

The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone."<ref>Borenstein, Seth (2007), "Warming 'Likely' Man-Made, Unstoppable." Associated Press, as published by Forbes[http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/02/ap3388409.html]</ref>

It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field .<ref>FOX News: "On Global Warming: Follow the Money Indeed!" Feb 12, 2007[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251458,00.html]</ref>.

There are some scientists among the critics of the theory that global warming is caused by human activity. As they have sought funding from the very industries that face regulation, thier bias is real and thier conclusions should be suspect. For example, Dr. Fred Singer observed that "CO2 changes have lagged about 800 years behind the temperature changes. Global warming has not produced more CO2, but more CO2 has produced global warming."<ref>S. Fred Singer and Dennis T.
Avery, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)</ref> Though, it must be said, that no scientist denies that CO2 has lagged behind temperature at certain times in Earth's history. They maintain this doesn't negate in any way CO2 influence on temperature. It merely means it wasn't a first cause of temperature increase at particular times in Earth's distance history.."<ref>What the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/]</ref>

==References==
<references/>
8. [[emperor of mars]]

Global warming

2007-03-10T06:25:32Z

Third Day:

'''Global warming''' is a phrase which commonly refers to a scientific theory and to political proposals that follow if the theory is accepted. The scientific theory is widely but not universally accepted within the scientific community. Conservatives who are opposed to the political proposals that flow from acceptance of the theory, are properly skeptical of the motivations of the theorists, and challenge the scientific validity of portions of the theory. The phrase really includes three separate theories.
:1) The theory that we are currently in a period of rapid climate change consisting of increasing temperature, which, if it were to continue, would have important socio-economic consequences well within the next century.
:2) The theory that this change is caused by increasing CO2 gasses and a resulting "greenhouse" effect.
:3) The theory that this change is caused by human activity, mostly industrial emissions of carbon-based "greenhouse gasses."
Therefore, the phrase has also come to apply to
:4) The proposal that global warming can and should be reversed by taking large-scale international action to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Point #1 has become very widely accepted in the past few decades, even by conservatives who were once skeptical.

Points #2 and point #3 are more controversial, although widely accepted by scientists. Points #3 is the one most attacked by global warming skeptics.

Point #4 is what the political and international debate are about. Both climate change itself, and the very large-scale actions that are proposed to combat it, would have enormous economic effects with identifiable winners and losers, resulting in an intense debate. For example, since the industrialized nations emit most of the CO2, if it were agreed that these emissions needed to be reduced sharply, the burden would fall much more heavily on these nations than on undeveloped nations.

Al Gore, Vice President under President Clinton from 1992 to 2000, is a high profile advocate of the full global warming theory. Promoters of this theory, including many prominent scientists, call for international treaties, like one proposed in Kyoto, Japan, to limit carbon emissions using a combination of conservation and technological innovation.

The theory is widely accepted within the scientific community because of the vast amount of conclusive evidence, though that is not to say there is unanimity..<ref>Myths of Global Warming[http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html]</ref><ref>No Evidence for Global Warming[http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed012298b.cfm]</ref> On February 2, 2007, an internatonal panel of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments issued a report concluding:

The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone."<ref>Borenstein, Seth (2007), "Warming 'Likely' Man-Made, Unstoppable." Associated Press, as published by Forbes[http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/02/ap3388409.html]</ref>

It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field .<ref>FOX News: "On Global Warming: Follow the Money Indeed!" Feb 12, 2007[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251458,00.html]</ref>.

There are some scientists among the critics of the theory that global warming is caused by human activity. As they have sought funding from the very industries that face regulation, thier bias is real and thier conclusions should be suspect. For example, Dr. Fred Singer observed that "CO2 changes have lagged about 800 years behind the temperature changes. Global warming has produced more CO2, rather than more CO2 producing global warming."<ref>S. Fred Singer and Dennis T.
Avery, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)</ref> Though, it must be said, that no scientist denies that CO2 has lagged behind temperature at certain times in Earth's history. They maintain this doesn't negate in any way CO2 influence on temperature. It merely means it wasnt a first cause of temperature increase at particular times in Earths distance history.."<ref>What the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/]</ref>

==References==
<references/>

Global warming

2007-03-10T04:49:58Z

Third Day:

'''Global warming''' is a phrase which commonly refers to a scientific theory and to political proposals that follow if the theory is accepted. The scientific theory is widely but not universally accepted within the scientific community. Conservatives who are opposed to the political proposals that flow from acceptance of the theory, are properly skeptical of the motivations of the theorists, and challenge the scientific validity of portions of the theory. The phrase really includes three separate theories.
:1) The theory that we are currently in a period of rapid climate change consisting of increasing temperature, which, if it were to continue, would have important socio-economic consequences well within the next century.
:2) The theory that this change is caused by increasing CO2 gasses and a resulting "greenhouse" effect.
:3) The theory that this change is caused by human activity, mostly industrial emissions of carbon-based "greenhouse gasses."
Therefore, the phrase has also come to apply to
:4) The proposal that global warming can and should be reversed by taking large-scale international action to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Point #1 has become very widely accepted in the past few decades, even by conservatives who were once skeptical.

Points #2 and point #3 are more controversial, although widely accepted by scientists. Points #3 is the one most attacked by global warming skeptics.

Point #4 is what the political and international debate are about. Both climate change itself, and the very large-scale actions that are proposed to combat it, would have enormous economic effects with identifiable winners and losers, resulting in an intense debate. For example, since the industrialized nations emit most of the CO2, if it were agreed that these emissions needed to be reduced sharply, the burden would fall much more heavily on these nations than on undeveloped nations.

Al Gore, Vice President under President Clinton from 1992 to 2000, is a high profile advocate of the full global warming theory. Promoters of this theory, including many prominent scientists, call for international treaties, like one proposed in Kyoto, Japan, to limit carbon emissions using a combination of conservation and technological innovation.

The theory is widely accepted within the scientific community because of the vast amount of conclusive evidence, though that is not to say there is unanimity..<ref>Myths of Global Warming[http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html]</ref><ref>No Evidence for Global Warming[http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed012298b.cfm]</ref> On February 2, 2007, an internatonal panel of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments issued a report concluding:

The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone."<ref>Borenstein, Seth (2007), "Warming 'Likely' Man-Made, Unstoppable." Associated Press, as published by Forbes[http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/02/ap3388409.html]</ref>

It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field .<ref>FOX News: "On Global Warming: Follow the Money Indeed!" Feb 12, 2007[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251458,00.html]</ref>. Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him.<ref>Gloval Warming & Evolution[http://atheism.about.com/b/a/238739.htm]</ref>

There are some scientists among the critics of the theory that global warming is caused by human activity. As they have sought funding from the very industries that face regulation, thier bias is real and thier conclusions should be suspect. For example, Dr. Fred Singer observed that "CO2 changes have lagged about 800 years behind the temperature changes. Global warming has produced more CO2, rather than more CO2 producing global warming."<ref>S. Fred Singer and Dennis T.
Avery, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)</ref> Though, it must be said, that no scientist denies that CO2 has lagged behind temperature at certain times in Earth's history. They maintain this doesn't negate in any way CO2 influence on temperature. It merely means it wasnt a first cause of temperature increase at particular times in Earths distance history.."<ref>What the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/]</ref>

==References==
<references/>

Global warming

2007-03-10T04:32:23Z

Third Day:

'''Global warming''' is a phrase which commonly refers to a scientific theory and to political proposals that follow if the theory is accepted. The scientific theory is widely but not universally accepted within the scientific community. Conservatives who are opposed to the political proposals that flow from acceptance of the theory, are properly skeptical of the motivations of the theorists, and challenge the scientific validity of portions of the theory. The phrase really includes three separate theories.
:1) The theory that we are currently in a period of rapid climate change consisting of increasing temperature, which, if it were to continue, would have important socio-economic consequences well within the next century.
:2) The theory that this change is caused by increasing CO2 gasses and a resulting "greenhouse" effect.
:3) The theory that this change is caused by human activity, mostly industrial emissions of carbon-based "greenhouse gasses."
Therefore, the phrase has also come to apply to
:4) The proposal that global warming can and should be reversed by taking large-scale international action to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Point #1 has become very widely accepted in the past few decades, even by conservatives who were once skeptical.

Points #2 and point #3 are more controversial, although widely accepted by scientists. Points #3 is the one most attacked by global warming skeptics.

Point #4 is what the political and international debate are about. Both climate change itself, and the very large-scale actions that are proposed to combat it, would have enormous economic effects with identifiable winners and losers, resulting in an intense debate. For example, since the industrialized nations emit most of the CO2, if it were agreed that these emissions needed to be reduced sharply, the burden would fall much more heavily on these nations than on undeveloped nations.

Al Gore, Vice President under President Clinton from 1992 to 2000, is a high profile advocate of the full global warming theory. Promoters of this theory, including many prominent scientists, call for international treaties, like one proposed in Kyoto, Japan, to limit carbon emissions using a combination of conservation and technological innovation.

The theory is widely accepted within the scientific community because of the vast amount of conclusive evidence, though that is not to say there is unanimity..<ref>Myths of Global Warming[http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html]</ref><ref>No Evidence for Global Warming[http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed012298b.cfm]</ref> On February 2, 2007, an internatonal panel of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments issued a report concluding:
:The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone."<ref>Borenstein, Seth (2007), "Warming 'Likely' Man-Made, Unstoppable." Associated Press, as published by Forbes[http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/02/ap3388409.html]</ref>

It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field .<ref>FOX News: "On Global Warming: Follow the Money Indeed!" Feb 12, 2007[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251458,00.html]</ref>. Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him.<ref>Gloval Warming & Evolution[http://atheism.about.com/b/a/238739.htm]</ref>

There are some scientists among the critics of the theory that global warming is caused by human activity. As they have sought funding from the very industries that face regulation, thier bias is real and thier conclusions should be suspect. For example, Dr. Fred Singer observed that "CO2 changes have lagged about 800 years behind the temperature changes. Global warming has produced more CO2, rather than more CO2 producing global warming."<ref>S. Fred Singer and Dennis T.
Avery, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)</ref> Though, it must be said, that no scientist denies that CO2 has lagged behind temperature at certain times in Earth's history. They maintain this doesn't negate in any way CO2 influence on temperature. It merely means it wasnt a first cause of temperature increase at particular times in Earths distance history.."<ref>What the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/]<ref>

==References==
<references/>

Global warming

2007-03-10T04:30:10Z

Third Day:

'''Global warming''' is a phrase which commonly refers to a scientific theory and to political proposals that follow if the theory is accepted. The scientific theory is widely but not universally accepted within the scientific community. Conservatives who are opposed to the political proposals that flow from acceptance of the theory, are properly skeptical of the motivations of the theorists, and challenge the scientific validity of portions of the theory. The phrase really includes three separate theories.
:1) The theory that we are currently in a period of rapid climate change consisting of increasing temperature, which, if it were to continue, would have important socio-economic consequences well within the next century.
:2) The theory that this change is caused by increasing CO2 gasses and a resulting "greenhouse" effect.
:3) The theory that this change is caused by human activity, mostly industrial emissions of carbon-based "greenhouse gasses."
Therefore, the phrase has also come to apply to
:4) The proposal that global warming can and should be reversed by taking large-scale international action to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Point #1 has become very widely accepted in the past few decades, even by conservatives who were once skeptical.

Points #2 and point #3 are more controversial, although widely accepted by scientists. Points #3 is the one most attacked by global warming skeptics.

Point #4 is what the political and international debate are about. Both climate change itself, and the very large-scale actions that are proposed to combat it, would have enormous economic effects with identifiable winners and losers, resulting in an intense debate. For example, since the industrialized nations emit most of the CO2, if it were agreed that these emissions needed to be reduced sharply, the burden would fall much more heavily on these nations than on undeveloped nations.

Al Gore, Vice President under President Clinton from 1992 to 2000, is a high profile advocate of the full global warming theory. Promoters of this theory, including many prominent scientists, call for international treaties, like one proposed in Kyoto, Japan, to limit carbon emissions using a combination of conservation and technological innovation.

The theory is widely accepted within the scientific community because of the vast amount of conclusive evidence, though that is not to say there is unanimity..<ref>Myths of Global Warming[http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html]</ref><ref>No Evidence for Global Warming[http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed012298b.cfm]</ref> On February 2, 2007, an internatonal panel of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments issued a report concluding:
:The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone."<ref>Borenstein, Seth (2007), "Warming 'Likely' Man-Made, Unstoppable." Associated Press, as published by Forbes[http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/02/ap3388409.html]</ref>

It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field .<ref>FOX News: "On Global Warming: Follow the Money Indeed!" Feb 12, 2007[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251458,00.html]</ref>. Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him.<ref>Gloval Warming & Evolution[http://atheism.about.com/b/a/238739.htm]</ref>

There are some scientists among the critics of the theory that global warming is caused by human activity. For example, Dr. Fred Singer observed that "CO2 changes have lagged about 800 years behind the temperature changes. Global warming has produced more CO2, rather than more CO2 producing global warming."<ref>S. Fred Singer and Dennis T.
Avery, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)</ref> Though, it must be said, that no scientist denies that CO2 has lagged behind temperature at certain times in Earth's history. They maintain this doesn't negate in any way CO2 influence on temperature. It merely means it wasnt a first cause of temperature increase at particular times in Earths distance history.."<ref>What the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/]<ref>

==References==
<references/>