Wikipedia's Zealots

AEGeneral · #1 04-17-2008, 06:12 PM

Need to get an answer quickly? Consult Wikipedia.

Working on a research paper? Start with Wikipedia.

Need a link to substantiate your point of view in an internet forum or a blog discussion?

Don't EVER site Wikipedia, or you'll get your ass handed to you. I should know, I did it once. And once was all it took to get the message.

Most bloggers and forum administrators, as well as many of their readers and participants, already know the truth about Wiki: behind the cyber-veil of infallibility are human beings who are no more above making a mistake than you or I.

Whether or not Wiki hemmed the veil to begin with is beside the point. Much like the arguments that prop up anthropogenic global warming, the uninformed neither see through it nor question its authenticity.

Shame that more people don't know this; but as the blogosphere continues to expand exponentially, more and more internet users are removing the wool that once covered their innocent eyes.

Or they're having the wool pulled off, as the case may be.

Having been an active participant on several sports forums for years, I can personally tell you that Wikipedia is full of errors on the topic. For instance, just a few weeks ago yet another was discovered, this time on Hall of Fame wide receiver Lance Alworth:

Quote:

"He was taken 8th overall in the first round of the 1962 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers. The American Football League's San Diego Chargers drafted him as their first pick (ninth overall) in the second round of the 1962 AFL draft, and signed him after a bidding war with the 49ers. The Chargers moved Alworth to wide receiver. His slender build, speed, grace, and leaping ability earned him the nickname "Bambi.""

Uh...no. Alworth was drafted by the Raiders. Wiki was notified and subsequently made corrections.

This was factual material not subject to misinterpretation or political bias. Which makes you wonder how such an egregious error (at least from my point of view) got there to begin with.

And having said that, let's get to the real question for our purposes here:

How does Wikipedia document issues like global warming and climate change?

Well, read this segment from ICECAP for yourself to find out.

mcclane · #2 04-18-2008, 05:01 PM

while I do use wikipedia from time to time, and most of the info on there is sound, a person does have to remember the information on there can be changed at anytime by anyone.

It doesn't surprise me that the enviro-freaks are *again* bending facts to match their lies.

AEGeneral · #3 04-28-2008, 03:44 PM

Wow. And I thought ABC's hit piece was bad enough. He's clearly a target.

Jennifer Marohasy: Fred Singer Does Not Believe in Martians: Lawrence Solomon

Quote:

Fred Singer, one of the world’s renowned scientists, believes in Martians. I discovered this several weeks ago while reading his biography on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. “Do you really believe in Martians?” I asked him last week, at a chance meeting at a Washington event. The answer was “No.”

Wikipedia’s error was neither isolated nor inadvertent. The page that Wikipedia devotes to what is ostensibly Fred Singer’s biography is designed to trivialize his long and outstanding scientific career by painting him as a political partisan and someone who “is best known as president and founder (in 1990) of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, which disputes the prevailing scientific views of climate change, ozone depletion, and second-hand smoke and is science advisor to the conservative journal NewsMax.”

AEGeneral · #4 05-05-2008, 03:23 PM

The opinionator

Quote:

Connolley is not only a big shot on Wikipedia, he's a big shot at Wikipedia -- an a dministrator with unusual editorial clout. Using that clout, this 40-something scientist of minor relevance gets to tear down scientists of great accomplishment. Because Wikipedia has become the single biggest reference source in the world, and global warming is one of the most sought-after subjects, the ability to control information on Wikipedia by taking down authoritative scientists is no trifling matter.

One such scientist is Fred Singer, the First Director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service, the recipient of a White House commendation for his early design of space satellites; the recipient of a NASA commendation for research on particle clouds -- in short, a scientist with dazzling achievements who is everything Connolley is not. Under Connolley's
supervision, Singer is relentlessly smeared, and has been for years, as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry. When a smear is inadequate, or when a fair-minded Wikipedian tries to correct a smear, Connolley and his cohorts are there to widen the smear or remove the correction, often rebuking the Wikipedian in the process.

Connolley and his cohorts don't just edit pages of scientists actively involved in the global warming debate. Scientists who work in unrelated fields, but who have findings that indirectly bolster a critique of climate change orthodoxy, will also get smeared. So will non-scientists and organizations that he disagrees with. Any reference, anywhere among Wikipedia's 2.5-million English-language pages, that casts doubt on the consequences of climate change will be bent to Connolley's bidding.

Lawrence Solomon has obviously put Wikipedia in the crosshairs. And rightly so.

h/t: ICECAP

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