User talk:FrancisGrant

Welcome![edit]

Hello, FrancisGrant, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Ian.thomson (talk) 15:04, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A summary of some important site policies and guidelines[edit]

"Truth" is not the only criteria for inclusion, verifiability is also required.
Always cite a source for any new information. When adding this information to articles, use <ref>reference tags like this</ref>, containing the name of the source, the author, page number, publisher or web address (if applicable).
We do not publish original thought nor original research. We're not a blog, we're not here to promote any ideology.
Primary sources are usually avoided to prevent original research. Secondary or tertiary sources are preferred for this reason as well.
Reliable sources typically include: articles from mainstream magazines or newspapers (particularly scholarly journals), or books by recognized authors (basically, books by respected publishers). Online versions of these are usually accepted, provided they're held to the same standards. User generated sources (like Wikipedia) are to be avoided. Self-published sources should be avoided except for information by and about the subject that is not self-serving (for example, citing a company's website to establish something like year of establishment).
Articles are to be written from a neutral point of view. Wikipedia is not concerned with facts or opinions, it just summarizes reliable sources. Real scholarship actually does not say what understanding of the world is "true," but only with what there is evidence for. In the case of science, this evidence must ultimately start with physical evidence. In the case of religion, this means only reporting what has been written and not taking any stance on doctrine.
We do not give equal validity to topics which reject and are rejected by mainstream academia. For example, our article on Earth does not pretend it is flat, hollow, and/or the center of the universe.

Some of your edits have given some editors the impression that you intend to downplay evolution in favor of creationism. Following mainstream sources, Wikipedia treats evolution the best description available for known facts, and positions that fail to understand this are generally classified as pseudoscience. It does not tell the readers what to believe regarding God or the Bible (for example, Theistic evolution is not listed as pseudoscience), only what any mainstream scientist would affirm about the material world. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:04, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]