Talk:Geology/Archive 2

Etymology

The claim that the word "geology" was introduced in the 18th century is contradicted by the OED, which traces the English word back to the 17th century (c. 1686) and its Latin form "geologia" several centuries earlier. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 21:41, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Overall Structure

I feel that this article, although quite comprehensive, is less useful than it could be for the typical reader.

• It lacks overall structure.

• It is too long.

• It is too detailed in many areas.

• It lacks an adequate overview.

• It is inaccessible to the nonspecialist reader, because it frequently uses technical terms before or even without defining them.

For an example, consider the "History of Geology" section. Here we have a thousand words describing in some detail the contributions of significant figures in the history of the science. But we have a separate History of Geology article. I believe the history section in THIS article should be an overview of no more than a paragraph or two. Someone wanting to understand the basics of Geology does not need to be told that Theophrastus was a student of Aristotle or which languages his works were translated into. I don't mean to diminish the scholarly importance of this information, but right now this is almost the first thing the casual reader will be presented with when they read the article!

I believe that this article should provide a comprehensive overview of these topics, in roughly this order:

• The Earth

• Geological Time

• Processes

• Rocks

• The Practice of Geology (added as an afterthought Thparkth (talk) 17:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC))

I think tpretty much everything else that is in the article today should be presented in other articles, and those articles linked in-line from the body text of this article.

Of course I understand that not everyone will agree with me, but I hope to at least kick off a discussion about how the article might be structured better to be more useful to the non-specialist reader.

Thparkth (talk) 16:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I 100% agree and this has been on my to-do list for quite some time. I'll put it on my real to-do list in order to make sure that I don't forget to work on it. Awickert (talk) 16:57, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to start making some changes to the article to see what sticks. I intend to be bold but I won't take it personally if anyone disagrees - just go ahead and revert :) Thparkth (talk) 00:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Catastrophic Geology Debate

The one-user campaign to add a "catastrophic geology" (a mildly used term at most) section to the main geology page (along with other questionable edits) is at best, a misguided irrelevant sidebar, and at worse, a veiled Creationist infiltration, in my humble opinion. Thoughts? Shouldn't there be an actual article about this topic, before it is thrust on the main geology page? Does the main geology page need some kind of protection? I'm no admin, so there isn't mush I can do but shake my head.Qfl247 (talk) 04:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I've asked the user to discuss here rather than revert warring. The sources used are not reliable. Vsmith (talk) 04:33, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree that edit wars are useless. Before I move on to less dogmatically defended topics, I will put my replies to the criticism and my defenses on this talk page (Please see below...) --Gniniv (talk) 04:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Please read WP:3rr and discuss your concerns on the article talk rather than edit warring. Also, please read reliable sources. Vsmith (talk) 04:23, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your diligence to preserve article integrity. As all my claims are thoroughly referenced and legitimate information (Please feel free to check all of them) and I have not deleted any prior information I believe this section can stay. --Gniniv (talk) 04:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Along those lines, your edits to the geology page are scary... at least two are directly Creationist Propaganda, and many others are nearly so. Only real science please, and that means real articles from real peer-reviewd publications. And yes, some of yours are that, but the important once you use are certainly not. Qfl247 (talk) 04:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate your persistence to uphold "pure science"-but science itself is defined as the investigation of all evidence and the formation of a theory that attempts to explain the results. It is not the formation of a certain theory (whether that theory be currently accepted or not) and the dogmatic insistence that all alternative theories are not "pure science". Please also recognise that even if this reply is considered insane, all alternative ideas must be accepted in a free encyclopaedia like wikipedia, no matter how zany!--Gniniv (talk) 04:43, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Also realise someone of an alternative viewpoint could easily call this suppression of a legitimately referenced Catastrophic Geology section as Uniformatarian Propaganda....--Gniniv (talk) 04:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I intend to create a new article on Catastrophic Geology, due to suppression of the topic on the main page. Feel free to contribute!--Gniniv (talk) 05:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

All alternative ideas must be accepted: No, WP:WEIGHT.

I think that your terminology on the debate is antiquated as well. Uniformitarianism and catastrophism are outdated and over-simplified; catastrophic events do happen, as does the slow march of time.

Pure scientists indeed do view all evidence.

Also, if you could please try to write in non-bold, it would be easier on the eyes. Thanks. Awickert (talk) 05:47, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

No problem, it hurts my eyes to come think of it! I agree that minority view topics (which Catastrophic Geological Theory is definitely among) should be properly referenced and substantiated as all topics should be. If you check out the Catastrophic Geoligy article you can help contribute to its inclusion of both sides of the issue.--Gniniv (talk) 06:05, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of sources

A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of Jagged 85 (talk · contribs). Jagged 85 is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits, he's ranked 198 in the number of edits), and practically all of his edits have to do with Islamic science, technology and philosophy. This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. Tobby72 (talk) 11:30, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

If anyone else is wondering why this is here, I searched the page history, and found 5 edits by Jagged 85 in June/July 2008 and 5 more edits in May 2007. I'll leave it to a subject expert to determine whether that content belongs in the article. (if it still remains in the current version). HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:49, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to editors to vote/discuss definition of science in Talk:Science

There has been an extensive discussion on the Talk:Science of what the lead definition of the science article should be. I suspect this might be an issue that may be of interest to the editors of this page. If so, please come to the voting section of the talk science page to vote and express your views. Thank you. mezzaninelounge (talk) 18:32, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Globalize images

Too many images and pictures in this articles shows western USA regions while there is no picture at all from Africa, Asia or South America. We should replace some of the "western USA" pictures with one from other places if there are good enought ones (that Im sure there are). 18:51, 10 January 2011 (UTC)Dentren | ^Talk

I agree - in fact many non-USA readers may presume that only the USA has any geology, when in fact the opposite is true. Some examples that I feel should be shown - Hutton's unconformity at Siccar Point, the Moine Thrust in Scotland which was the proof that rocks could be moved long distances when others assumed that if metamorphic rocks overlaid sedimentary rocks, that was due to "normal" sequencing not thrusting due to tectonics, the volcanoes of the Andes are a volcanic island arc that has migrated onto the continental plate. There are many more locations around the world which demonstrate geological processes without resorting to those solely from the USA.The Geologist (talk) 15:29, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I came here to say the same thing - there are far too many images from the US and far too few from anywhere else in the world. From this article, you'd think only the US has geology! 86.134.92.118 (talk) 08:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Commons has a material for Media related to Siccar Point at Wikimedia Commons. A search for Moine Thrust yields over 20 files. Also look at Geology articles on non-english Wikipedia sister sites which may offer ideas for selected regional images.
SBaker43 (talk) 10:49, 7 February 2013 (UTC)