Edit war on Lenski talk page at Conservapedia!

Edit wars on talk (discussion) pages on wiki-based (i.e., normally editable by all readers) encyclopedias are rare but one is going on right now on Conservapedia's talk page about Lenski's E. coli experiment! Edit wars on the talk pages are generally considered to be no-nos -- the talk pages are supposed to be free-speech areas (unscrupulous Wickedpedian administrators censored my comments on talk pages). Here is a comment that one user added and another user censored on the Lenski talk page (Aschlafy should be spelled Aschlafly -- it's the username of Conservapedia founder Andy Schlafly):
.

Stop the carping and do the right thing

The original hypothesis was that Professor Lenski was being disingenuous in both his paper and his dealings with “the public”. Professor Lenski has, politely and patiently, disclosed his data sufficient for his good intent to be verified. He then, again politely but less patiently, expanded on this. He has offered to share not just his data but also the “real data” contained in the genomes of his various strains of bacteria. Any hypothesis about Professor Lenski’s honesty has been thoroughly refuted.

However Aschlafy appears not to accept this refutation and, instead, appears to be trying to find something that is less than perfect about the various publications, review processes and disclosures to support the “Professor Lenski isn’t playing it straight” hypothesis. If you accuse someone of dishonesty when they have been honest you have done them wrong. The correct action is to stand up, like an adult, and apologise; it is not to desperately scratch around for something, anything, that would make the allegation justified. I would expect a grade schooler who had trespassed to come up with a string of excuses, why little Katy hadn’t lied but it was his turn on the swing anyway and so…. I would expect an adult to simply extend a hand, apologise and carry on.

I would suggest that Aschlafy acts like a man and publishes an apology to Professor Lenski. It does not have to be crawling, it does not have to be humbling. If it were me I would hope that I would write something like:

“I am sorry for the tone and the implication of my letters. As you are probably aware evolution is a big issue with me. I rather let the importance of that issue affect the way I wrote to you. Naturally I am happy to accept that you’ve been both honest and professional in your work and your publications. Again I think the emotive nature of the subject was behind what, in retrospect, are pretty silly accusations that were put on Conservapedia.

I may, in the future, try and organise some research in this area. I’m no biologist but Conservapedia and other organisations I am involved in may be able to organise the Discovery Institute or other organisations that do have the skills needed to perform the research. If so we may take you up on your offer of samples of the various strains. As our main aim will be to test the apparent support of your results for evolution per se I do not think that it would risk overlapping, and thus “scooping”, your research. I’m sure, however, that all the knowledge that you have gained over the years in this specific field could help us in designing the best tests. Who knows we may be able to devise a “critical test” of whether new information can arise in the genome.”

How about it Aschlafy?

.