Google De-indexes Talk.Origins, Won't Say Why UPDATED 575
J. J. Ramsey writes "Talk.Origins is an archive with thousands of pages exposing creationist pseudoscience. Rather mysteriously, Google pulled the plug on its search engine, giving only the vague reason: 'No pages from your site are currently included in Google's index due to violations of the webmaster guidelines.' This was apparently triggered by a recent cracking of the site that added 'hidden links to non-topical sites,' but Google won't say just what the violations were. Talk.Origins webmaster Wesley R. Elsberry believes that this Google policy harms honest webmasters." From the article: "My mission, whether I liked it or not, was to find and fix whatever problem the [Talk.Origins Archive] might have, with no guidance as to what the problem was and nothing at all about where to start looking... I was extremely lucky. The damage to my site was limited and in the first place that I happened to look. Other honest webmasters might not be so lucky. They may have to undertake an arduous process of vetting pages, essentially having to second-guess the mind of the cracker in trying to locate a problem that Google knows the exact location of." Thanks to an alert reader who sent in Matt's blog posting about how Google handles hacked sites.
Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)
And indeed, as of right now (10:35 PM CST) a Google search for "talk.origins" doesn't show any links at all to the Talk.Origins Archive. In fact, the first link that comes up is to a young-Earth creationist site which claims to offer "intellectually honest responses to the claims of evolutionism's proponents, including--but not limited to--the 'Talk.Origins' newsgroup and the 'Talk.Origins Archive' website."
Conclusions about species competing in crowded niches are left as an exercise to the reader.
Re:ahhh i love it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility (Score:2, Informative)
What if instead of evil they decided to be bad, reckless... or whatever else that might be considered negative?
Google Webmaster Tools (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility (Score:3, Informative)
Talkorigins hacked by porn spammers (Score:5, Informative)
This is a google cache of talkorgins.org [72.14.203.104] showing the porn spam links.
However, I checked on deepx.com [deepx.com] and it is *not* a porn site.
From DeepX.com's about page:
XML provides an open and flexible language for the creation, management and exchange of electronic content. Founded in 2000, deepX has an experienced team of consultants and developers, who specialise in the design and development of solutions using XML and the emerging technologies related to XML.
Also, another link shows www.theoi.com [theoi.com] and it is *not* a porn site, either:
Here's how THEOI used to look via the Wayback machine. [archive.org]
Theoi.com has been banned by Google (no reason given) and forced to close down as a result. There are no plans to re-establish this site in the future.
wu.edu.gh is Valley View University is a Seventh Day Adventist college in Ghana.
Both deepx.com and wu.edu.gh redirect to porn sites.
Unsurprisingly, wu.edu.gh, theoi.com and deepx.com have been de-indexed by google.
I speculate that all these sites that have been de-indexed were tagged by automated processes.
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe this is just a curse of being a zealot who couldn't be bothered with the ten seconds needed to see the talkorigins site is an Apache/Linux combo?
Netcraft is your friend.
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility (Score:2, Informative)
I may be a little outdated but last I checked, ASP was an active server page that runs on microsoft's IIS.
Didn't know apache does ASP now. Cool!!
Yea, I couldn't be bothered with 10 seconds becsause i spent all of 20 seconds reading the FTA.
Re:ahhh i love it (Score:3, Informative)
I'm pretty sure that if you ask an imam [islam.tc] you'll find that Christians aren't the only creationists. And that hair gel is permissible.
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility (Score:5, Informative)
These companies were all given special monopoly privileges by the force of government. They can run wires, pipes, and other items through your property without your consent, by law. They are required to provide service to all persons in their scope of operation by law. No such law exists regarding Google Inc. and they are not a utility.
Re:ahhh i love it (Score:2, Informative)
Oh really? A quick search of the TO archive turns up:
Harun Yahya and Holocaust Revisionism [talkorigins.org]. (Harun Yahya is a Turkish islamic creationist).
Qur'an accuracy [talkorigins.org]
Qur'an on embryology [talkorigins.org]
Qur'an on expanding universe [talkorigins.org]
All of which critique claims made by islamic creationists.
If they focus heavily on Christian creationist claims it's probably because the bulk of creationist pseudoscience comes from Christian ministries in the US, some of which is picked up and repeated by creationists of other religions (islam, hindu, etc.).
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You love to whine, don't you? (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, so you're saying that god says god exists? But why do you actually believe anything about god in the first place? Personally, I am not arguing that god does not exist. I do not know that, because I do not even know for sure what you mean by the word "god." Rather, I am arguing that your argument doesn't make any sense without starting with your core mystical beliefs as axioms. Moreover, I don't see why one couldn't have a framework in which a god creates a world containing creatures that evolve. Nor do I think that truth is necessarily a knowable quantity—we live by approximations.
By the way, are you at all familiar with formal logic? It can't answer every question, but it does give useful insight into human reasoning. For example, let's say my assumptions are X = {all of my observations of the natural/physical world}, and let's say your assumptions are Y = {X and "god exists and the bible is correct"}. Now, it follows that any proposition I can verify is true under my assumptions, you can verify as true under your assumptions; and similarly, any proposition I can prove false under my assumptions, you can prove false under your assumptions. But moreover, there are additional propositions which you can prove true or false, but I cannot. This is because you're making a stronger assumption than I am. This is why I contend that my arguments and conclusions are simpler and more universal than yours.
Now, if some of your additional assumptions are contradictionry with real-world observations, you'll be able to prove both a proposition and its negation—this is troublesome, because it makes it easier for someone to persuade you into believing contradictory statements. You might think that's a bunch of nonsense, and that's because in practice, the human mind operates on a precedence system, where certain assumptions are deemed more valid than others. Thus if you arise at a conscious contradiction, you work to resolve it by deciding which side—or which side's assumptions and reasoning process—is "more right." This is why people who don't believe in god say you're illogical. But that is not entirely correct; you actually are reasoning under essentially the same system of logic as they are. The key difference is that your assumptions of the existence of god and correctness of the bible are gratuitous, and, for you, override the arguments offered by people who make fewer ontological commitments.
Here's a couple of lists of them:
Google emailed this site (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Synopsis (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, you really are entertaining, you say science has found an "intelligent life" molecule?
As to the point you are failing to make on abortion, how is it more/less hypocritical than "praise god and pass the amunition" or "kill 'em all and let god sort it out"? Also how does the moral status of abortion involve science other than the epidemiological studies that demonstrate birth control is a boon to womens health and social equity outcomes?
There is no political "acid test" on abortion to become a scientist, to science morals are a matter of social opinion based on survival, animal instinct, upbringing, religion, politics, circumstance, personality and more. Science mearly supports or refutes claims made about "the real world" by all of the above, it informs people so their moral judgements can be aligned to "real world" consequenses, but it certainly does not adjudicate on moral issues (re: the worlds atomic arsenal).
You have an unusual definition of both "history" and "accurate" but I do agree religion has had an "historically evident impact" and is still a strong force in politics. Considering all the misery this preocupation with blind faith has wrought and the accelerating degradation of the environment, why not switch to the only system that has ever done anything to improve our lives in the one thing that we all agree exists, the real world! [slashdot.org]
You clearly have not put alot of reasearch or critical thinking into your concepts of philosophy, science or religion. You have added nothing new to science or philosophy and despite your "intelligent life molecule" addition to religious dogma I lost the desire to argue about it.
As I suggested in my other post, Carl Sagan's book will give you some valuable tips for your life long journey through our "demon haunted world" but I've had enough of trying to "inform" for now.
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility (Score:3, Informative)
Um, actually, no they can't. They can run wires, pipes, etc. through a utility right-of-way if it crosses your property (which is usually provided for in your deed), but for any other use they have to get your permission and compensate you accordingly.
Their "public utility" status does not give them any rights of trespass otherwise.
Re:The problem (Score:2, Informative)
You, sir, are a troll.
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility (Score:3, Informative)
So wrong. Electric, gas and hardwire local phone companies are public utilities, and regulated as such, because they are monopolies condoned by government. The reason that they are condoned is because it would be completely inefficient to have duplicate infrastructures, which is what a competing company would have to implement. Furthermore, there is no way for a competing company to enter the same market as a public utility, because of the insane cost of building that infrastructure.
Oil companies are more like public utilities, in that society would founder without them. However, there is competition in that market; I can buy my gasoline from Shell or BP or Thornton's or anywhere I like. Hence, oil companies are not regulated as public utilities.
Re:The problem (Score:4, Informative)
Also, we can't accurately ascertain whether the earth is the center of the universe or not. It's probably not, but the way space time expands gives no reference point for the point of origin. From any point in the universe, it looks like everything is expanding away from you.
But you are correct, the earth is indeed not flat. It's sort of a squashed sphere.
Re:The problem (Score:2, Informative)
The fact that this is done in a reasoned tone is not a sign of "political correctness" (side note: even if it were, so what? political correctness isn't a four letter word, whatever the neocons might say), but rather a sign that Talk.Origins isn't aimed at 12 year olds.