User talk:Jumacdon

Welcome!

Hello, Jumacdon, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using 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 your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! Mushroom (Talk) 11:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evolution & fact/theory[edit]

I noticed your recent edits to evolution articles. If you haven't seen it yet, you should check out Evolution as theory and fact as I think it's relevant to some of your efforts and may be informative. Cheers, — Scientizzle 21:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. I noticed from your additions (& your user page) that you're clearly far more knowledgable about the topic than the average YEC cranks that constantly swing by these articles. ;)

I'm sorry you feel discouraged to contribute in this area, and I hope you'll reconsider--they've been such a battleground that sometimes well-intentioned editors can be overwhelmed by the response. While I disagree with some of your additions & claims, I don't think they're without merit.[1] I'd suggest, should you feel so inclined, that you chat it up on the talk pages of the articles in question and see if there is some improvement to be made that might incorporate some of your ideas. — Scientizzle 00:56, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding this edit...one concern I have with your statement (if you haven't already considered this) is the ambiguity inherent in any of the myriad ways to define speciation. In the end, it's a human attempt at categorizing and applying rules, a game in which Mother Nature isn't willing to play nice. We've a tough time with hybrid crosses, ring species, and other complexities in the multicellular world, that we're lucky if we can shoehorn microbes of the world into a phylotype.

This, I think, is one of the under-represented complexities in the debates that engulf evolution, and generally ignored. When all of the simple organizational rules have been found to be globally inadequate in application, we're left with a plethora of ways to assert that population A is "different enough" from population B to be considered a separate species. (The subjectivity involved would ring true with Potter Stewart, I'm sure.)

All of that rambling sets the stage such that a statement like "...microevolution...is evolution below the species level, and macroevolution at or above the species level..." loses almost all of its intended meaning. Since there are no hard rules about what constitutes a species, it is of little practical use to use such a construct to delineate between micro- & macro-. To paraphrase myself, the only difference between micro- & macro- is the time-scale invovled; macro-, as it is commonly understood to describe the speciation process, is just the accumulation of some (any) number of micro- events to enact sufficient phenotypic differences, allowing a population to meet the human-constructed categorization rules.

Such nuance, however, is exceedingly difficult to properly convey...and it doesn't fit well on a bumper sticker. Cheers, — Scientizzle 23:10, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

August 2008[edit]

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Evolution. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at that Gould article I've posted on the talkpage. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not add content without citing reliable sources, as you did to Easter. Before making potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page. If you are familiar with Wikipedia:Citing sources please take this opportunity to add references to the article. WP:CIT is a good place to look up citation templates. Contact me if you need assistance adding references. Thank you. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Calypso[edit]

Thanks for your work on the calypso article. Some wag keeps vandalising the page by e.g. replacing the antecedents with "ska" and "reggage" or the country of origin with "jamaica" or "guyana". There is a version before the one you edited which had a better introduction, which was then vandalised with the "ska" that you removed. You may want to look at that version, but I agree the article needs work. I'd help but I've given up editing wikipedia as I'm fed up with people deleting my pages and adding pointless tags. Good luck. James Fryer (talk) 10:36, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question about Geronimo[edit]

Where did you hear or read about him and his vanishing in that cave?

I find the story most interesting. --Soturk100 (talk) 21:05, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:34, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]