Post by stavros on Jul 15, 2010 9:51:28 GMT 1
Wikipedia?
There is a growing, and worrying, tendency to consider information sourced from Wikipedia as the absolute truth. I found myself doing it when preparing some quiz questions at the beginning of the month. Luckily, I woke up to my intellectual laziness in time, and checked out the answers that I'd not properly researched. Whoops!
We should all remember that it's not an authoritative source, with articles researched & subject to peer review, it's a "community resource", with folk all over the world contributing, and after a quick 'face-vetting', the 'information' gets posted. This can lead to inaccuracies, some of which are reported in the media, particularly when someone important (or who believes they are) says that they're off to consult m'learned friends.
Not everyone is fooled - check out uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wikipedia -it should make you laugh! It might also make you think twice
You could also take a look at www.wikipedia-watch.org/
If it was just Wikipedia, it wouldn't be such a big deal - point out its errors, let everyone laugh, then get on with researching our subjects properly. Unfortunately, this intellectual dishonesty is creeping in everywhere - even the UN's climate change set-up isn't immune:
quote"
Last week, after six months of evasions, obfuscation, denials and retractions, a story which has preoccupied this column on and off since January came to a startling conclusion. It turns out that one of the most widely publicised statements in the 2007 report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a claim on which tens of billions of dollars could hang – was not based on peer-reviewed science, as repeatedly claimed, but originated solely from anonymous propaganda published on the website of a small Brazilian environmental advocacy group.
"unquote
You can read the full story at www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7883372/Amazongate-At-last-we-reach-the-source.html
There are medical reports (how many actually died in France from Mexican pig flu?), scientific reports, economic reports where folk have handed down far-reaching decisions - based on little more than hearsay!
So next time you hear "Of course it's true"....
There is a growing, and worrying, tendency to consider information sourced from Wikipedia as the absolute truth. I found myself doing it when preparing some quiz questions at the beginning of the month. Luckily, I woke up to my intellectual laziness in time, and checked out the answers that I'd not properly researched. Whoops!
We should all remember that it's not an authoritative source, with articles researched & subject to peer review, it's a "community resource", with folk all over the world contributing, and after a quick 'face-vetting', the 'information' gets posted. This can lead to inaccuracies, some of which are reported in the media, particularly when someone important (or who believes they are) says that they're off to consult m'learned friends.
Not everyone is fooled - check out uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wikipedia -it should make you laugh! It might also make you think twice
You could also take a look at www.wikipedia-watch.org/
If it was just Wikipedia, it wouldn't be such a big deal - point out its errors, let everyone laugh, then get on with researching our subjects properly. Unfortunately, this intellectual dishonesty is creeping in everywhere - even the UN's climate change set-up isn't immune:
quote"
Last week, after six months of evasions, obfuscation, denials and retractions, a story which has preoccupied this column on and off since January came to a startling conclusion. It turns out that one of the most widely publicised statements in the 2007 report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a claim on which tens of billions of dollars could hang – was not based on peer-reviewed science, as repeatedly claimed, but originated solely from anonymous propaganda published on the website of a small Brazilian environmental advocacy group.
"unquote
You can read the full story at www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7883372/Amazongate-At-last-we-reach-the-source.html
There are medical reports (how many actually died in France from Mexican pig flu?), scientific reports, economic reports where folk have handed down far-reaching decisions - based on little more than hearsay!
So next time you hear "Of course it's true"....