Conservapedia:Community Portal

This is the place to discuss issues of interest to the Conservapedia community.

This page contains some material that has been moved from Talk:Main_Page. We are attempting to get general discussion of issues relating to Conservapedia's content and policies on this page, leaving the main talk page for its original purpose of discussing the content of the Main Page.

Restoring User Pages

I wonder if you [I was referring to User:Conservative in the original context] would be be so kind as to restore the following user and user-talk pages. Most of these people were long-time respected sysops and administrators, as I'm sure you, being a long-time respected sysop and administrator yourself, well know. Many of our important articles were written by these people. Current users may want to know something about the people that went before them and built Conservapedia. We should show some respect for our history and our founding fathers/mothers.

SamHB 23:33, 10 October 2014 (EDT)

Your suggestion is a reasonable one. I was not in favor of deleting user pages. But once deleted, I don't think it would be time well spent to restore the pages. Time moves on, and time could be better spent by improving substantive entries.--Andy Schlafly 00:37, 11 October 2014 (EDT)

I can see that all the active users are pretty busy, and are probably disinclined to do this. So how about letting me do it? I'm willing to restore those pages myself. You would have to give me the appropriate temporary rights, which might be "undelete" rights, or maybe full administrator rights, I don't know how this works.

I'm sure you know, from our many communications, both public and private, that I can be trusted not to harm Conservapedia in any way. During any period in which I have extra rights, I will refrain from annoying, harassing, irritating, teasing, insulting, or otherwise getting under the skin of any other user. I will not react to any taunts. I will not abuse the rights in any way. (Though if my rights include blocking, and I see any vandals come to town, I will of course take action.)

You didn't want the pages deleted? We can fix that. What say you? SamHB 12:48, 12 October 2014 (EDT)

There's an extremely troubling aspect to all this. You say you weren't in favor of deleting the pages, and yet, here, Cons says that the owner of the web site was in favor of the deletion. Was Cons lying? Also, here, Cons seems to indicate that he was in communication with you on the subject of giving JoeyJ deletion powers. These powers are not taken lightly. In fact, JoeyJ is the only non-admin who has them. So it looks as though you gave JoeyJ the deletion powers knowing full well that he would use those powers to delete user pages. What is going on? SamHB 00:05, 14 October 2014 (EDT)

God delusion

I finished reading the Prof. Dawkin's book. I have to admit that it has shaken my religious foundations... I sometimes wonder whether that has made me an Agnostic now. It has made me question a lot of my upbringing. I was a good catholic girl. I wonder what my mom will say --Maria O'Connor 12:44, 15 November 2014 (EST)

Richard Dawkins did not research or fact check his book very well and it has a number of errors in it as can be seen in this PDF version of The Irrational Atheist.

Second, how strong were your foundations before you read the book? How did you build your foundation?

In the physical life, if you are flabby, don't get enough sleep, etc., it provides an opportunity for disease to enter. The same is true in a person's spiritual life. How familiar are you with the classic defenses of the existence of God? How familiar are you with the various evidences for Christianity? See: Evidence for Christianity Did you ever repent of your sins and dedicate your life to following Jesus Christ? How often were you reading your Bible? How often were you praying? What are the most serious arguments against agnosticism? What are the most serious arguments against atheism. See: Rebuttals to atheist arguments.

Also, Jesus promises that those who repented of their sins and accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord will have communion with Him and will receive the Holy Spirit who will guide them. Did you ever know God or were you just engaging in religious rituals? Conservative 20:07, 16 November 2014 (EST)

Richard Dawkins has had his day, says Ravi Zacharias - Christianity Today, November 15, 2014 Conservative 04:04, 17 November 2014 (EST)

@Maria O'Connor: I'm really sorry that you have been abused so badly at Conservapedia. I want you to know that there are quite a number of decent and well-intentioned people here. You should ignore the abusers, and feel welcome to make contributions. We particularly need people who are knowledgeable in matters of science. If you can contribute in this area, dig in! SamHB 22:22, 20 November 2014 (EST)

Sam, you can contribute constructively to Conservapedia, or you can pick fights on the Main Page talk page. You cannot do both. VargasMilan 17:16, 21 November 2014 (EST)

Of course Sam can contribute constructively to Conservapedia whilst disagreeing with certain other editors. He's been doing it for years..... and more strength to his arm. There are not enough Sams these days. AlanE 19:36, 21 November 2014 (EST)

Subject Matter Experts

I recently had to deal with a case of someone making an edit to a chemistry article (with a note that he has a chemistry degree, which of course we can't verify, but it very well may be true) that was reverted. It's true that his use of "subjective" and "objective" could give the wrong impression to non-experts, and I have cleaned it up. But it just needed to be cleaned up. (The cleanup that someone did afterwards was ridiculous.) This person was blocked, apparently just because of that edit. This should not have happened. Quite a number of good contributors, and potential good contributors—we'll never know—have been reverted and blocked because the people with blocking powers did not know how to evaluate the edits. Now Conservapedia often has people come here and make stupid/parody/vandalism edits. But it is monitored constantly by the sysops. It is not necessary for people to be trigger-happy. Except of course for clear vandalism. I would suggest a page, probably in the Conservapedia namespace rather than "mainspace", listing subject matter experts who can make expert analyses of these things. The list should be publicized to all sysops. Contributors can volunteer as experts in various subjects. And sysops could hold off on reverting questionable edits until an expert opinion is rendered. SamHB 23:45, 28 November 2014 (EST)

Best Troll Detection of the Public

You have no proof that the person who was blocked was merely a Subject Matter Expert and not a troll as well. This ought to be dealt with by the Best Troll Detection of the Public. Trolling techniques include emphasizing words (when the logic of argument doesn't require it) to trample over anticipated reasonable opposition to one's argument with raw emotion as well as arguing about things on the Main Page talk page that don't appear on the Main Page. VargasMilan 10:55, 29 November 2014 (EST)

I can assure you that, in my 7 years here, I have developed a good sense for the kinds of vandals, trolls, parodists, sycophants, "mall cops", and other unsavory personalities that we have. I also notice other fascinating types of people, like those who complain about posting to this page not on the topic of improving the main page content while making quite a few such postings themselves (though, in fairness, they also make on-topic postings, which I rarely do), people who did not realize that they had been given blocking powers until I told them, and people who use spectacularly recondite sentences while attacking other contributors. You see, I've been around for a while.

On the matter of making posts to this page that are not directly on the topic of improving the content of the main page, I'm sure you know that, for several years, this page has been used for a discussion of CP in general, and that everyone, including Andy and the other admins, is OK with that. A more natural place for such discussion might have been a general discussion page such as Conservapedia:Desk, but, as you can see, it has rarely been used of late. There is actually a (an?) historical reason, from a few years back, for this. I won't bore everyone with the details, but you can email me if you are interested.

Regarding my "subject matter experts" comment above, I wasn't asking for people who are good at detecting trolls. We already have plenty of people (including myself) who are good at this, and plenty of people (including you) who are good at dealing with them. We probably already have the "Best Troll Detection of the Public". I was requesting "subject matter experts", which we don't really have very many of, or don't know who they are on various topics, and requesting that subject matter expertise be used in deciding whether to revert an edit.

In the case of the molar mass edit, I was well aware that this person might be a troll—his use of the recondite (there's that word again) terms "subjective" and "objective" in a description of quantitative chemical analysis was a bit suspicious—these are quasi-philosophical terms that might be considered provocative on a wiki like this. But he also knew what molar mass means. His change was a vast improvement over the "fuel quantity" phrase. The article just needed to have the "subjective" and "objective" words taken out, which I have done. The person did know his subject matter. There was no urgency in reverting his edit.

A suggestion, Vargas: Let's both try to be nice. You do good work when you're not talking about "withering patrician disdain". We can both do better than fight with each other.

Maybe I should have spent the day shopping instead of this :-) SamHB 00:02, 1 December 2014 (EST)

I will not disregard Andy's express instructions at the top of the page! VargasMilan 16:12, 2 December 2014 (EST)

Fair enough. I will try to abide by that policy also. SamHB 17:11, 6 December 2014 (EST)

I would be interested to hear what Andy thinks of the "subject matter expert" approach. Wikipedia generally hates experts and does everything to drive them away as editors. Many of the early CP articles were written by home-schooled students. We then had Ed Poor spending years curating a large number of articles. A few other editors undertook work in particular areaa of expertise such as AlanE and BHathorn. I suspect that Andy has his own lists of experts in the back of his mind, if not written down. The problem is that everyone believes that they are an expert while management may not agree with that assessment. So, we have to see whether this proposal is compatible with the "best of the public" concept. Thanks for raising it. Wschact 07:16, 7 December 2014 (EST)

Growing Conservapedia's conservative readership and editor base

Now that Conservapedia's Twitter link on the main page, two things:

1. We could organize our wiki editors to create/expand conservative articles in order to feature them on the Twitter feed.

2. Twitter is popular among conservatives. This book shows people how to attract 200 Twitter fans every single day: http://www.amazon.com/Twitter-Followers-Step---Step-guaranteed-ebook/dp/B00KEX694O/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1417623658&sr=8-3&keywords=twitter+marketing The book is only $1.00 and it should be easy to implement. If it was implemented, the Twitter account would go from 10,000 Twitter fans/followers to 83,000 fans/followers in one year.Conservative 11:30, 3 December 2014 (EST)

Has anyone considered taking out some modest ($50-$100) number of Facebook advertising? We could use it to drive traffic to the site and to recruit new editors. Thanks, Wschact 05:34, 15 December 2014 (EST)

Wschact, create a web page called Conservapedia: New editors wanted which I will feature on the main page. I can also talk to Andy about various ways to drive traffic to the page like online advertising, etc.

It will not be Facebook advertising because Andy dislikes Facebook. Of course, if you want to take out a Facebook advert to have it go to Conservapedia: New editors wanted, you could certainly do so.

Regardless, the main page will give the page Conservapedia: New editors wanted some traffic. Conservative 15:34, 15 December 2014 (EST)

Make the username policy more clear

Copied on over from Help talk:How To Create a Conservapedia Account

I think it should be made clear that the username must include your real name, as opposed to recommending your real name; perhaps there could be a help page on Conservapedia's username policy. A few users have been blocked for violating an otherwise nonexistent policy (and also advised to create an account with a real name even though their account creation is disabled for two years). A clear username policy would probably be beneficial for Conservapedia. -- DanielJackson 10:46, 6 December 2014 (EST)

Conservative's "Message Area"

I seem to be unable to edit it, despite wanting to discuss something with him. As such I put out a general request for a way to contact him or for him to unlock his message area. Hopefully I'm not missing something really obvious! Nhodgson 20:18, 6 December 2014 (EST)

You would do well to just ignore him. There's really nothing that you could discuss with him. He is notoriously secretive, seeming to believe that other people go along with his games, and he often locks his own talk page, and the talk pages of his "pet" articles. He seems to expect other people to go along with his fantasy that he might be multiple people. Just ignore him. SamHB 21:37, 6 December 2014 (EST)

If we could talk to him, we might tell him that his reversion of this on purely political grounds was ludicrous and shows a serious failure to observe what is going on. That edit was more than just a minor thing about whether Lincoln was a "classical liberal" or a "post New Deal progressive"—it was blatant and outrageous vandalism, about which most admins are very vigilant. The user ("TheonlySIL", whatever that means) should be blocked permanently. Perhaps some other admin will notice. SamHB 21:48, 6 December 2014 (EST)

Setting aside SamHB's axe to grind because I/we are pro-biblical creationism and anti-Darwinism/liberal Christianity, my/our talk page has just been unlocked.

By the way SamHB, what do you think about the data contained in this article: Liberal Christianity and marital infidelity ? Can you refute it? It does not appear so! Conservative 13:00, 7 December 2014 (EST)

Haven't read it. But thanks for unlocking your talk page, Could you keep it that way, please? SamHB 23:52, 11 December 2014 (EST)

SamHB, may lock it again if I/we become extremely busy for an extended period or for other reasons which I/we prefer not to discuss. The talk pages of articles I/we created/contributed can certainly be used. Conservative 01:59, 12 December 2014 (EST)

Purpose of this page

This page provides a forum for editors to discuss matters related to CP and its policies. Please do not use it as a sandbox for drafting article. You can create your own sandbox by making a subpage of your user page. Thanks, Wschact 09:43, 13 December 2014 (EST)

You're right. I was in a hurry before. Haste makes waste. :) Conservative 10:17, 13 December 2014 (EST)

There was no need to be hasty. You, of all people, must have known that it wouldn't be lost. Take a deep breath before editing.

Speaking of careless editing, I'm pleased that you correctly used "you're" above, though it took another edit, at 10:17 yesterday, to fix it. Haste makes waste. But your recent edit to the bottom of TAR's talk page has that mistake. You're in need of more care in editing. Take a deep breath (and get some sleep!) now and then. SamHB 11:31, 14 December 2014 (EST)

@TAR: I've taken out the rest of your stuff. You can move it to your talk page if you like. You can get it out of the page history, of course; nothing is ever lost unless an admin explicitly vapes it, which I don't think is going to happen. You do not need to worry about vandalism; it's easy to revert. SamHB 11:31, 14 December 2014 (EST)

@SamHB, thanks, I didn't know I could make a sandbox page beneath my username page that won't be indexed. I will do that from now on for articles I am working on. TheAmericanRedoubt 20:11, 14 December 2014 (EST)

There's a quick-and-easy trick to doing it, that I guess I ought to explain, though you might already know it. To create a new page subordinate to your user page, talk page, whatever, edit the user/talk page, and insert something like

[[User talk:TheAmericanRedoubt/sandbox99|My spiffy subpage]], and save it. When you look at it, it will be a redlink. Click on it, and you will get something like "this page doesn't exist. If you want to create it, enter the text below." Or something like that. Then paste in you new stuff. SamHB 20:25, 14 December 2014 (EST)

Deleting material from talk pages, or, even worse, deleting the page outright

Talk page material should not be deleted unless it is truly libelous or detrimental. Talk pages should be an ongoing journal of discussion of the corresponding project page. There is nothing wrong with a talk page being very short, and it is perfectly acceptable, albeit unusual, for an article page's author to say something on the talk page.

I recently had to re-create Talk:IP_camera to make a comment on the article.

SamHB 17:05, 15 December 2014 (EST)

Is there any way to recover the earlier material. Perhaps Andy or an admin could review the situation? Wschact 06:50, 18 December 2014 (EST)

Two millionth page view for the "Counterexamples to Relativity" page

The Counterexamples to Relativity has just gotten its two millionth hit. It is one of Conservapedia's best-known pages.

It seems that this page is very famous all over the internet. A Google search of Conservapedia+Relativity gets about 8000 hits. (Your mileage may vary; the test was done several months ago.) I didn't look at all of them, but I looked at the first 100, other than the CP article itself. Two were completely neutral and matter-of-fact, one was an item on ask.com that was a discussion of what "theory" means in a scientific sense, and was neutral. The other 97 were all derisive, mocking, contemptuous, and sarcastic.

Now I know that principled people are not deterred by popular opinion. But people might want to ask themselves whether the page has convinced anyone that Relativity is wrong. Or, more generally, whether it has accomplished anywhere near what its goals were. People might also want to ask themselves whether the counterexamples are objectively correct, and whether Relativity is objectively wrong. Now a lot of the discussion at CP has been about what people think about Relativity—for example, discussion of Laurence Tribe, and Barack Obama, and the folks that designed the GPS system, and the folks that operate that system, and so on. I'd like to get completely away from consideration of what people think about Relativity. Vox Populi and all that. I'd like to propose 3 questions about objective, observable facts, and ask the senior admins here to explain them without reference to people's opinions. These are matters of fact and incontrovertible observation.

It is known that the perihelion of Mercury precesses, beyond Newtonian calculations, by an amount of about 43 arcseconds per (Earth) century. Without getting bogged down into quibbling over thousandths of an arcsecond, and just using the accepted figure of 43 arcseconds, why do you think this is so? Now there has been extensive discussion at Conservapedia over the possibility that the exponent in the "inverse square law" is not exactly 2. People have argued over whether or not that satisfies some principle of theoretical elegance, or makes integration easier, or whatever. I'm not interested in any of that. What I am interested in is that it doesn't work. That theory was proposed by Hall and Newcomb about 100 years ago, and quickly discarded, because it predicts a completely wrong precession for the Moon. So, why do you think this precession occurs? Do you have some theory of gravity that correctly predicts the precession of Mercury, other planets, the Moon, and Earth satellites?
It is known that the received frequency of GPS satellite clock signals is about 0.44 parts per trillion faster than the frequency at which the signals were transmitted from the satellite. This discrepancy is well known, and there is circuitry in the satellites to compensate for it. Minuscule as this discrepancy is, compensating for it is essential to the correct operation of the system. Without getting into what people believed or were thinking about when the system was designed, or what people believe or think about when they upload correction parameters, why does this discrepancy exist?
It is known that the mass of a Radium-226 atom (including the electrons--it makes no difference in the final outcome) is 226.025403 amu. When it undergoes alpha decay, it turns into an atom of Radon-222 (222.017571 amu) and an atom of Helium (4.002603 amu). This constitutes a loss of .005229 amu. Why is that? Is the law of conservation of mass not correct?

SamHB 00:18, 17 December 2014 (EST)

RESPONSE:

The precession of the perihelion of Mercury disproves Relativity. People stopped reporting the discrepancy as technology provided greater precision; yet Relativists still insist that this proves their theory when the actual data disproves it. Newtonians are honest about the issue. Why can't liberal Relativists publicly admit that the data disproves their theory? Every scientist knows that if he questions or criticizes Relativity, then he disqualifies himself from ever winning a Nobel Prize (see, e.g., Robert Dicke), obtaining a doctorate, or receiving any research funding.
There are a variety of possible explanations for the GPS discrepancy, starting with the obvious plausibility that the laws of physics are not invariant at every point in the universe. An honest, open-minded discussion of the issue would likely yield some valuable insights.
There is nothing startling about an emission or loss of energy when something decays. It certainly does not prove Relativity.

Liberals make false statements about science all the time. Jimmy Carter became president by claiming that oil would run out in 35 years. There is nothing new about liberals misusing science to advance liberal goals.--Andy Schlafly 00:33, 17 December 2014 (EST)

"There is nothing startling about an emission or loss of energy when something decays. It certainly does not prove Relativity. " - So, you do accept the equivalence of mass and energy, as SamHB was talking about the loss of mass! That's good news... Or maybe, you want to rephrase your point #3. --AugustO 06:55, 21 December 2014 (EST)

It requires an enormous leap of faith, far more than is suggested by the Bible, to go from what I said to the silly, illogical E=mc² equation.--Andy Schlafly 17:12, 21 December 2014 (EST)

Does it really? SamHB described a process where mass disappears - you answered that there is nothing startling about an emission or loss of energy. This gives the impression that you think of mass and energy as somewhat interchangeable. I know that you don't think so, that's why I asked for you to "rephrase your point #3". --AugustO 17:26, 21 December 2014 (EST)

When something decays to a lower energy state it can emit energy. That is not relativity, that is not E=mc², and that is not "mass-energy equivalence."--Andy Schlafly 17:53, 21 December 2014 (EST)

Agreed - but you are talking about energy. The question is where is the mass of .005229 amu? (Take a look here...)--AugustO 17:56, 21 December 2014 (EST)

You rely on primitive technology used in an 82-year-old experiment. The technology is far better now, and the claim of mass-energy equivalence cannot be verified.--Andy Schlafly 19:51, 21 December 2014 (EST)

I had not intended for this to re-open the entire discussion, including the Cockcroft-Walton experiment. Aside from pointing out the 2 millionth view, the goal was to ask 3 very narrowly drawn questions. So narrowly drawn that they were not about relativity!. Not directly, anyway. They were about 3 observable phenomena, and the intent was to ask for explanations, relativity or otherwise, about them. For the second and third questions, Andy sort of did give explanations, though they were totally unsatisfactory by the standards of contemporary science.

I specifically asked for explanations that were indpependent of people's opinions, beliefs, or behavior. I guessed that Andy would either ignore the questions, or give off-topic answers. I got the latter. I got comments about relativity, honesty of "Newtonians", "relativists", liberalism, Nobel prizes, doctorates, research funding, Robert Dicke, Jimmy Carter, oil, and discrepancies with modern measuring technology. (Really? Are you saying that the anomalous precession does not occur? It's been observed since 1843. Are you saying that modern measurements show that the precession is zero, and that Leverrier was seeing something that isn't there?).

Let me restate the questions in their simplest possible form. Note that I am not asking about relativity.

Anomalous precession. Why does it occur?
Time dilation. Why does it occur?
Non-conservation of mass. Why does it occur?

Andy did give a sort of explanation for the 2nd and 3rd of these: "The laws of physics are not invariant at every point" and "There is nothing startling [about this]".

Here is why those answers are completely unsatisfactory. Suppose that Johannes Kepler, when presented with Tycho Brahe's exhaustive data on planetary motion, including the puzzling retrograde motion of Mars, Jupier, and Saturn, had simply said "Well, I guess that, at some points in the Solar System, at some times, some planets go backward for a while." Or "There's nothing startling about this, Mars sometimes just goes backwards." He would simply be abandoning science to the capriciousness of nature. He didn't do that. He was a SCIENTIST. He looked for an explanation. He and Isaac Newton worked out a formulation that explained it. They didn't just say that the laws of nature are just something random at various places in the solar system, they came up with a physical law that was valid (relative to the measurements of the day) at all places and times in the Solar System.

The time dilation in the Earth's gravitational field is not just something random. It is known, and explained, with great precision. You can set your clock by it. (Literally!) To not be startled, or at least intrigued, by the time dilation, when time can be measured, and found not to dilate, between two points that are at the same altitude, shows a serious lack of scientific curiosity. Can you come up with a theory that explains this phenomenon quantitatively?

The same thing goes for the mass discrepancy. Conservation of mass had been known, with extreme precision, by 1900. Scientists were in fact startled and intrigued by its non-conservation. By the way, it can be measured with greater accuracy now than 82 years ago, and it still holds, or do you deny that it happens? Can you cite modern precise measurements that show that the discrepancy is zero? Can you come up with a theory that explains this phenomenon quantitatively?

SamHB 23:58, 21 December 2014 (EST)

I did specifically respond to your three points, and then days went by without a reply from you. Again, the anomalous precession disproves Relativity just as it conflicts with one model of Newtonian gravity in the solar system. Why is there an anomalous precession? The Newtonian model can be tweaked to explain it; Relativity cannot. An honest discussion by scientists of the data would advance the understanding, rather than scientists pretending that the precession proves Relativity (it doesn't).

Second, time dilation is not directly shown by anything, and certainly not by GPS. The slight variations can be explained by classical physics, or by recognizing that physical laws are probably not invariant across the universe.

Third, the evidence for non-conservation of mass is almost non-existent, with the leading experiment more than 80 years out of date. But I don't think mass is necessarily always conserved, and Newtonian physics does not depend on it. Quantum mechanics may have the potential -- if pursued with an open mind -- to shed light on this.--Andy Schlafly 00:16, 22 December 2014 (EST)

I'm not interested in what the anomalous precession proves or doesn't prove, or what scientists pretend that it proves or doesn't prove. I want to know why it occurs. The Newtonian model can be tweaked to explain it? Can you say what the tweak is? I hope it's not the Hall-Newcomb exponent tweak that was proved to be incorrect almost immediately after it was proposed. Do you have another tweak in mind?

Time dilation is most definitely shown, both by GPS, and by the Pound-Rebka experiment in 1959. This can be explained by classical physics? Really? Can you give us details? Can you give us a Johannes-Kepler-the-scientist type of explanation, that goes beyond the cop-out of saying that the laws of physics are simply different in different parts of the universe? "Different parts of the universe" is a far bigger chunk of real estate than is needed to show the effect. The Pound-Rebka experiment involved different parts of the same building, and GPS exhibits the discrepancy between different parts of medium Earth orbit. We should have a pretty good handle on how physics works in the vicinity of the Earth. Newton's law of gravitation worked over the whole solar system.

Evidence for non-conservation of mass is not "almost non-existent"; it is ubiquitous. The specific case of Radium alpha decay can be found on the periodic table charts hanging in high-school science classrooms. "I don't think mass is necessarily always conserved"—well at least you qualified it with "necessarily always", but can you be more specific? To a degree that Johannes-Kepler-the-scientist would respect? You are quite right in that Newtonian physics does not depend on it, but that's not what I was asking.

SamHB 00:38, 22 December 2014 (EST)

Andy: "You rely on primitive technology used in an 82-year-old experiment. The technology is far better now, and the claim of mass-energy equivalence cannot be verified." No, the experiment is routinely performed in courses on modern physics around the world, using modern technology. --AugustO 01:37, 22 December 2014 (EST)

On the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, tweaking the Newtonian model almost certainly can fit the data. Some objected to anything other than an exponent of precisely -2 for the force, because that muddies up the math, but that is a silly objection. The reality, however, is that anyone who pursues this approach is deemed an enemy of Relativity and won't get another research grant, doctorate, or Nobel prize. Nothing but radio silence by the Relativity promoters about that obvious reality.--Andy Schlafly 18:01, 22 December 2014 (EST)

"On the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, tweaking the Newtonian model almost certainly can fit the data." That's just a canard - and you know it, Andy: yes, the exponent of Newton's law of gravity can be tweaked (or error terms added), but this results in a model which doesn't fit all the other planets. That's known since Simon Newcomb's days - and User:SamHB elaborated on this nearly five years ago! The first time you came up with this idea, you could have pretended to be ignorant on this subject. But you repeat it over and over again, without having done the calculations, or looking up why physicists discarded the idea a hundred years ago! That's worse than ignorance, that's willful ignorance.

--AugustO 08:36, 28 December 2014 (EST)

Let's not be too hasty with judgements about ignorance, willful or otherwise. Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this (and the other two phenomena). We're making good progress by drawing the questions very narrowly.

I believe that Andy has indeed read the relevant items, like this page from nearly five years ago, and this section, with its table of precessions of the planets. (I did not put in the phrase "fail to", by the way.)

So let's go over the situation again, extremely carefully. The bulk of the table was from me, though the all-important final column was added by User:Jloveday, using some experimental data that he dug up. I'm not in full agreement with the way he rounded the data, but the effect is clear. Even though getting good error bounds on the minuscule precession of planets beyond Mercury is very difficult, one can easily see, from the last few columns, that General Relativity tracks the observed precession very well, while the Newcomb-Hall tweak of 2.000000157 tracks it extremely poorly. Except for Mercury, of course, since the exponent was tweaked specifically for that planet.

So, Andy: What is the tweak to Newtonian mechanics that explains the precession for all the planets? And, while we're at it, can you give a satisfactory explanation for the other two phenomena, time dilation and mass non-conservation?

Andy also says: "Some objected to anything other than an exponent of precisely -2 for the force, because that muddies up the math, but that is a silly objection." I agree, it's silly. Though I am a little curious about who these "some" are. Can you cite something on the subject? Perhaps one of your physics textbooks?

Also: "The reality, however, is that anyone who pursues this approach is deemed an enemy of Relativity and won't get another research grant, doctorate, or Nobel prize." As I said earlier, I'm not interested in the personalities; I just want to know why you think the precession occurs. (Actually, that's not true. I am deeply interested in the history of science and technology. But not right now. We can discuss that some other time.) So I'll make you an offer: If you get turned down for a research grant, doctorate, or Nobel prize over this, I'll stick up for you. I'll cite the spirited debate you and I have been having over the last several years as evidence that you've thought deeply about these issues. Though I don't think I have much influence over funding agencies or Nobel committees. :-)

SamHB 19:12, 29 December 2014 (EST)

To my liberal, sissy boy, atheist critics of guns in Texas!

Gentlemen, consider this picture of Amish women shooting rifles. When is the last time you heard of Amish women going on shooting rampages? :)

Amish women do not watch violent video games or watch television shows and/or movies with gratuitous violence! See Hollywood values. And unlike Muslims, the only beheadings Amish women read about is David beheading Goliath (and we know Goliath deserved it for defying the armies of the living God!).

Amish women are peaceful creationists and not violent evolutionists (see: Social effects of the theory of evolution and World War I and Darwinism and Evolutionary racism),

Amish women are loyal wives and are less likely to have their husbands go on jealous/violent rampages (see: Liberal Christianity and marital infidelity). And Amish men have submissive wives and do not endlessly quarrel with stubborn, feminist wives! And irreligious men are more likely beat their wives/girlfriends than religious men (see: Irreligion and domestic violence).

Gentlemen, it is the dysfunctional liberals and liberal influence that causes much of the violence in Texas. No true conservative goes on a gun rampage! When is the last time you heard of a gun rampage occurring due to a student in a Bible believing Christian school? Never, my liberal, atheist friends? If only Texas wasn't creating so many jobs and a magnet to unemployed and undisciplined liberals fleeing their liberal welfare states!

And remember this, guns are an insurance policy for rogue states. Surely, you have read about such states (see: Atheism and Mass Murder and Evolution and Nazi Germany).

Gentlemen, I hope this clarifies matters. Conservative 14:47, 17 December 2014 (EST)

By the way, don't even think about saying that the Amish are pacifists and would not kill in self-defense.

Would an Amish man use violence to protect his wife? Did David eat the show bread?[1] :) Conservative 15:00, 17 December 2014 (EST)

Thank you for giving up your precious time to add these insights to the talk page, Conservative. The world would be a better place if more wives followed your example. JSamson 17:25, 17 December 2014 (EST)

No true skeptic pretends to know the gender/genders of the editor(s) of the User: Conservative account. Solve the mystery of who/whom edited the Atheist actions against homosexuals article and you will earn the right to declare the gender/genders using the User: Conservative account to edit.

But it is a moot point anyways as the feminine Sarah Palin has more machismo than all liberal atheists combined! Conservative 17:45, 17 December 2014 (EST)

I thought there was to be no further additions from the User: conservative account on the talk page? Perhaps one of the members did not get the memo? -JaysonK 13:51, 18 December 2014 (EST)

Buckling down on time management. Plan to post less on talk pages. Revised plans about talk pages. Will post on talk pages when it is related to article/wiki improvement. Conservative 18:54, 18 December 2014 (EST)

References

A project for active editors to collaborate on

Would you anyone like to collaborate with other editors on a wiki project to help Conservapedia be a strong resource for a given topic.

The topic could be decided by the editors participating.

If you are interested, please leave comments below. I suggest picking a leader/leaders for the project or least assign people for various tasks associated with the project. Conservative 21:50, 25 December 2014 (EST)

I would be happy to help, but my time is limited.FOIA 22:06, 25 December 2014 (EST)

Merry Christmas Cons, and thanks for the thought. I think, however, that I would tend to become a "Devil's Advocate" in any collaboration I can envisage. The token liberal so to speak (and I say that with no malice.) I will need to know more. AlanE 22:21, 25 December 2014 (EST)

AlanE, it doesn't have to be a political project. It can be on a non-political topic. I will let whoever participates decide on the topic and whether or not it will be a political project.Conservative 22:44, 25 December 2014 (EST)

If AlanE and FOIA and anyone else who joins wants to decide on a topic tomorrow, the project can start right away. It can be announced on the main page also.Conservative 23:33, 25 December 2014 (EST)

I'd be happy to join in and help in any way I can. Merry Christmas. I have been and will mostly focus on the articles List of military tactics and List of military strategies and concepts. Long life the Republic! TheAmericanRedoubt 01:33, 26 December 2014 (EST)

Your invitation was an honor, and I thank you for your confidence. I will be happy to help. As soon as I finish my current "Bible" project, I will look more closely at what you have here and see what I can do. Semper Fi! --Dataclarifier 19:00, 26 December 2014 (EST)

Sounds great. Thanks for tackling the project. Conservative 06:16, 27 December 2014 (EST)

Ideas for potential articles

Political:

Republican beliefs

21st Century Republican Party

Differences between Republicans and Democrats

Social conservatism (article needs to be improved)

~~Islamic terrorism (article needs to be improved)~~

Political fundraising

Kim Jong-un (article needs to be improved)

Tiananmen Square massacre (article needs to be improved)

Less political:

Modern slavery

Republican presidents

List of military tactics

~~List of military strategies and concepts~~

Socio-cultural indoctrination

Rugged individualism vs Christian community (body of Christ)

Non-political:

Dog training

Chess strategy

Marathon (needs to be expanded)

Tourism (needs to be expanded)

Feel free to add article ideas Conservative 00:32, 26 December 2014 (EST)

Do we really have so few responsible editors .....

that obsessed individuals can materially change the tone and direction of Conservapedia with no one to apply the brakes.? Remember when this was supposed to be a resource for home-school students? A place where they could look up "vibration", for example, and get a concise definition of what it is, at their level, without going off into mystical medical cults? Remember when this was a good description of Conservapedia's vision and goals?

What happened? We now have just a tiny number of people turning the place into a survivalist blog, and an herbal medicine blog, or whatever, with hardly anyone to apply editorial direction. This wiki needs supervision.

SamHB 18:30, 2 January 2015 (EST)

Things like Category:Ayurvedic Medicine look very troubling indeed! --AugustO 01:58, 3 January 2015 (EST)

I agree with you there AugustO, I would say the content in those articles would be more at home on hippypedia or alternaticemedicinepedia than on conservapedia. Remember, conservatives like to have things backed up by facts, not nonsensical anecdotes that are the backbone of alternative medicine. PhilH 02:15, 3 January 2015 (EST)