Ed Poor

Software Engineer, father of two.

Interested in philosophy, science (and the history of both), pizza, music, children, and world peace -- not necessarily in that order.

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Say, I hope people don't mind the fact that I "save" often. When editing an article, I will typically hit the save button a half dozen times or more. If you want to get my final word on a subject, you might try waiting an hour.

I find it extremely annoying, actually, to try to fix one of your articles and have continuing collisions. It's bad enough when you do it, worse when I'm colliding because you're making lame statements like "gone forever are the days when people can suppress ideas"... GregLindahl

Sorry, Greg. I will try to cut down my edit frequency while maintaining productivity. The habit comes from software development on machines which crash a lot. I will also try the preview and minor edit option Dmerrill and GWO suggested.

I don't find it remotely annoying. In fact, I do it too. I usually use the "minor edit" option for most of them though. As to discussions about wikipedia, (such as Controversy, these are best voiced on http://meta.wikipedia.com) -- GWO

Sounds good. How do I move it?

Try this link... http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?action=edit&title=Controversy_on_Wikipedia

Try using the Preview button. --Dmerrill

Does that catch edit clashes? -- GWO

I'm not really sure. I didn't think so, but I saw a couple of clashes today. Maybe the software has been updated to catch clashes on preview? --Dmerrill

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Welcome to Wikipedia!

Another way to ask questions is to put them right on this page, then put a summary in the Summary field. Within minutes usually someone will respond.

You can add a Talk page if you have a question on an article, and ask your question there. Someone will answer. You can ask on your own page (this one) if it's not related to a specific article. You can also add a /Talk page to your own personal page when conversations here get too long or annoying, or if you just don't like others adding stuff like this statement for instance. :-) --Dmerrill

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Hi Ed, I just wanted to say welcome to Wikipedia, and tell you not to be discouraged by criticism of your contributions; its par for the course around here. You don't seem to be taking it personally though, and that will take you far around here. :) --STG

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It's been good working with you today, Ed. While we apparently disagree on a lot, we both want to see accurate and npov representations of all beliefs, not just our own. So we actually clashed rather little, and wound up educating each other instead of arguing. That's in the best of the Wikipedia spirit!

However, I still think you do not understand natural selection. It means exactly what it says -- it attempts to explain the process of selection of survivors in nature. That's all. It has nothing to do with what causes the variations in organisms.

It does accept as a premise that those variations happen, but only as a premise upon which the theory is built. The cause of the variations is not a part of the theory. You are reading into it things that are not part of it, but part of a separate phenomenon usually called individuation. What ID proposes is a different cause, and a different characterization, of individuation.

Natural selection does not explain the appearance of new forms, only the mechanism by which one survives and another does not.

The two, taken together (individuation + natural selection) are called evolution. By interpreting "natural selection" to mean "individuation + selection", you are making "natural selection" == "evolution" which is wrong.

I believe this is only a misunderstanding. It is quite common to not really understand views with which you do not agree, as part of not taking them seriously. I do that myself. But if you're going to write an encyclopedia article it is important that you reflect other people's views accurately, and I don't think you're doing that. --Dmerrill