Harry's Place

An unfortunate side-effect of the democratic nature of the Internet is that loons, crackpots and bigots can appear as legitimate as, erm, legitimate folk. Curse you standardised templates!

Recently I was talking with some friends about Wikipedia, and one of the problems with it is that a zealot who is wrong can usually win a Wikipedia battle with several people who are right using sheer brute force – that is, by continually reverting edits and by spending enough time making a nuisance of themselves that anyone with a life simply gives up.

I experienced this myself when someone whose Wikipedia personal page shows them to be obsessed with pederasty kept reverting edits made to page on Cathal O’Searcaigh (an Irish-language poet recently accused in a documentary of sexual tourism). It ended up with them leaving accusations of libel and slander on my talk page – something that, judging from their own talk page – they use frequently as a silencing method. In the end, I just gave up; I simply don’t have the time, patient, or inclination to bother. In the end, of course, Wikipedia just becomes the playpen of obsessives.

P.

Indeed, and that is a concern.

The question is: do you want them to win?

My guess is that there are sufficient people out there on the internet who don’t.

do we know the IP addresses of those trying to censor the entry?

German language Wikipedia is sometimes paralysed by right-wing trolls and nouvelle droite users around the far right weekly “Junge Freiheit” see http://nazipedia.twoday.net/ – a German language site discussing far right attacks on Wikipedia and the (dangerous) tolerance of liberals admins towards right-wing users

and one of the problems with it is that a zealot who is wrong can usually win a Wikipedia battle with several people who are right using sheer brute force

Our beloved Fwanker has also been engaged in similar tactics regarding his heroes Che and Castro and the complete whitewashing thereof on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is a shithole. Its only good for knowing the members of the Huddersfield Ladies Football Team 1939-1945. Anyone who uses it for a serious purpose should be shot.

I hate Wikipedia because controversial subjects are not written by objective, balanced experts in the field but the editorial stance is related to gang warfare and the tedium of a flawed bureaucratic dispute resolution process, which invariably relies on the impulse and prejudices of unqualified busybody arbitrators. Instead of wasting time editing or arguing over the article, it is perhaps better to hold it up as an example of how fucking crap Wikipedia actually is.

I agree that this is a problem which should concern us all and such abuse of Wikipedia should be publicised as widely as possible.

David T, of course I don’t want them to win, but as others here have written it takes considerable time and effort to overcome this lunacy and all of us have lives and many of us jobs to do.

The danger here is of bystander apathy, of everyone who cares waiting for someone else to do something and in the meantime the problem assumes gigantic and dangerous proportions.

The printed rubbish doesn’t have to have any basis in fact – it just needs to remain and be repeated often enough to take on a spurious truth of its own. Those of us who can bear to read Comment is Free are well-acquainted with that.

In my own case, I don’t have the first clue about, much less a lot of time, how best to work against this! Can anyone give me some tips?

Dan makes a persuasive point, although this appears to be annoying Press TV shrills, which is surely a good thing.

I don’t think the Huddersfield Ladies Football Team has a wiki page. If it did, surely it would state the team was founded 43 years after WWII?

“In my own case, I don’t have the first clue about, much less a lot of time, how best to work against this! Can anyone give me some tips?”

A start is to ensure that as many people as possible are told what is going on.

I’m sure that many of you know other blogs that would be interested in reporting on this example of Wiki manipulation.

Wikipedia was a good idea from people who think we should all behave responsibly and thoughtfully. Given that the internet is increasingly all about opinions rather than facts (just like me writing this in fact, but I get the irony) we shouldn’t be surprised that for a lot of people “facts” are simply something you juggle to get the result you want.

The disappointment is that kids use Wikipedia to build a world view, journalists use it because it is quick and easy, and nutcases use it because they can be belligerent without going outdoors.

in any case, mitnaged, surely opposing things is in your nature?

I think Kyle Reese said it best about Wikipedia zealots:

“Listen, and understand. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

P.

Wikipedia would be a whole lot better if they only allowed editing on controversial subjects by people who sign-up under their real names and are duly verified.

There should be some sort ranking system for editors.

Wikipedia can be quite good for non controversial subjects; it’s great for esoteric IT related stuff.

For anything vaguely controversial it’s really dodgy.

Actually; sometimes I think HP should adopt the same signed up user/ real names policy. I suspect it would reduce some of the trolling and make many folks a little more civil.

No Way, Nicholson Baker also bases ‘research’ on it.

“Andrew Gilligan worked on programs that uncovered the 9/11 operation”

hmm….

The problem is that there is no other freely available source on lots of stuff. As a teacher, sometimes I need to point to some event or issue, and there is nothing else on the internet than Wikipedia and its clones (sites that copy Wikipedia content and post it as if it were their own – lots of them).
This is especially the case in the Spanish blogosphere. We really really lack the amount of academic material the English world produces. Sometimes you find only a few lines in Wikipedia.
I sincerely hate it, but I have just used it today!

I agree with all the criticism of Wikipedia voiced above. It’s very good on Huddersfield ladies’ teams in the 1950s, indeed, but anything on any subject remotely open to controversy becomes completely unreliable if not downright political propaganda. I have this discussion with colleagues in my own profession all the time. They say: “But that’s supported by Wikipedia!”. To which I can only respond: “As I explained to you X times already, anyone can edit Wikipedia pages at will – except the locked pages, which by definition express the non-peer-reviewed opinions of some Wiki bigwig with an axe to grind”.

There are some very good analyses on the Internet of serious Wiki errors, and descriptions of the built-in fundamental issues with it. I have the URLs saved somewhere, and will try to find them later.

The main benefit of Wikipedia is that it allows you to put “Edited a prominent encyclopedia” in your cv.

More generally though I agree that it can be good for uncontroversial subjects, and even then it’s shouldn’t be considered definitive.

Weirdly, although we’ve been discussing this extensively, there STILL seems to be no entry on Press TV’s promotion of Holocaust Denial on the Wiki page.

“Listen, and understand. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

ROFL. Perfect!
That’s from the Terminator, right?

That was a short ijtihad. The latest edit was removed in half an hour.

David, it must have disappeared in the last ten minutes.

The section was there, and now it’s gone.

This article or section is written like an advertisement.
Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view.

Good luck.

How very odd.

I’m sure that there are very many people out there who won’t stand for this.

It is VERY IMPORTANT that any changes observe the Wiki rules, or else it will simply be locked.

Anyone with an itchy trigger finger?

When I heard about Wikipedia, I thought I’d create and article on something uncontroversial and see where it went.

The entry I created was BARV, something most folks will not have heard of.

Here’s my original entry from when I created the article in April 2004.
Here’s the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BARV

Quite a dramatic improvement; collaboratively generated. This sort of thing is what Wikipedia, as currently configured, is good for.

Now that they have some 2.5 million articles in English, I think there is a strong argument for changing the MO and focussing a little more on their failing on contentious topics.

I remember I read somewhere that knowledge in Wikipedia is in like some kind of quantum situation (excuse my ignorance on this subject). One day you enter and it is there, five minutes later it isn’t anymore.

Found it: (see what my hobbies are)

“…Reponses to criticism of Wikipedia go something like this: the first is usually a paean to that pure democracy which is the project’s noble fundament. If I don’t like it, why don’t I go edit it myself? To which I reply: because I don’t have time to babysit the Internet. Hardly anyone does. If they do, it isn’t exactly a compliment.

Any persistent idiot can obliterate your contributions. The fact of the matter is that all sources of information are not of equal value, and I don’t know how or when it became impolitic to suggest it. In opposition to the spirit of Wikipedia, I believe there is such a thing as expertise.

The second response is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you’ve proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn’t exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information.”
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/12/16/

I find Wikipedia an excellent source for science related things that I need to look up, often giving a concise explanation and perhaps most usefully key words and concepts to search for on more comprehensive databases. This is because all the morons are too busy editing pages about Israel and Tony Blair, meaning that most of the science pages are edited by enthusiasts.

It can’t be emphasised enough that Wikipedia (like any encyclopedia) is a starting point for research, not the only port of call.

The best case of vandalism I read about recently was after one of the recent UEFA cup draws, someone went on the Wiki page of the team I think Everton was playing and made up a load of stuff about this team, which subsequently ended up in newspaper previews of the match.

Somebody has put back in the relevant text.

However the references have been lost. I’m posting the text at the top of this article.

“It is VERY IMPORTANT that any changes observe the Wiki rules, or else it will simply be locked.”

One of the rules of Wikipedia is to “ignore all rules”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules
It states that “If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.”

That is useful to know.

It’s pretty good on maths also, e.g. number theory (some wonderful stuff there). I assume this stuff is posted by professionals, not enthusiasts, and those that spend their time ‘improving’ Middle East history can’t be bothered to insert comments to the effect that it’s the Mossad’s fault that complex analysis is so difficult.

Mind you, a very prominent troofer, and one of the most lunatic ones, is a fairly noted Canadian maths professor (Dewdney). Doesn’t stop him displaying his ignorance about physics on the usual 911 conspiracy sites, though; and quite possibly on Wiki.

Seriously, David, don’t bother with Wikipedia. You’ll end up going mad and wasting time you could put to use elsewhere.

I once added a paragraph in the “history” section of a town I once lived in that falsely stated that it hosted the world’s first cheese triangle factory, founded in the 19th century by a pair of Quaker twins. I think it remained there for a year, despite the article undergoing several revisions in the mean time – including additions by the town clerk! The lack of editorial oversight makes the whole thing ridiculous.

I stopped contributing after an editorial dispute with some nutters who insisted the Left Front in India was part of a Brahminical conspiracy to keep lower castes oppressed and that Communists were responsible for all terrorism in the country. They won the argument simply because of they commanded a large number of editors – or one person with a large number of accounts. I got blocked by administrators for repeatedly removing this nonsense, which lacked any verifiable source. I wasted hours on this joke of an “encyclopaedia” because the task of protecting the article from people who wish to introduce their wild conspiracy theories became obsessional. Now, I stand back and laugh at anyone who quotes from it.

I wouldn’t intend to do it myself.

Its just that I think that there are probably more people out there in the world (who speak English, at least) who don’t want Press TV to be able to cover this up, than Press TVers who DO want to cover it up

“Its just that I think that there are probably more people out there in the world (who speak English, at least) who don’t want Press TV to be able to cover this up, than Press TVers who DO want to cover it up”

Sure, but why bother with Wikipedia?

1. The “principle of the thing”

2. Google Press TV and see what happens.

I once spent the afternoon editing the Braveheart page on wikipedia, inserting all the historical inaccuracies that that prize cock Mel Gibson had put in the film as part of his warped Aussie plan against the plutocratic British Empire.
Anyway ten minutes later I had a look and someone had removed it. An entire afternoon’s work wasted, which otherwise would have been well-spent furthering humanity’s progress.

Anyway apart from an obvious cabal of sinister Gibsonites I don’t think Wikipedia is especially biased. Look at the BBC if you want genuine distortion.

I Googled and this was the result in the top 10:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/martin-bright/2008/05/station-based-iranian-london (which mentions you)
http://www.spectator.co.uk/stephenpollard/808396/press-tv-and-me.thtml

If both the New Statesman and the Spectator think Press TV is a piece of shit, then that’s good enough for me. Whatever shit is written in a Wikipedia article by some anonymous nutter doesn’t interest me at all, and shouldn’t interest anyone else either.

As some people have said, the problem is Wikipedia, and particularly the way it lets unqualified and/or obsessive people to make changes to entries.

Unless they introduce a system of vetting editors it can’t be trusted as a source. That’s why there’s a gap in the market which I hear Google will exploit with their peer-reviewed units of information known as ‘Knols’.

Until then, Wiki pages are usually fine for settling pub arguments such as who starred in what film, played for what team, etc. Nothing more.

“Wiki pages are usually fine for settling pub arguments such as who starred in what film”

The internet movie database is better than Wikipedia in that respect: http://www.imdb.com/

“Wikipedia was a good idea from people who think we should all behave responsibly and thoughtfully. Given that the internet is increasingly all about opinions rather than facts (just like me writing this in fact, but I get the irony) we shouldn’t be surprised that for a lot of people “facts” are simply something you juggle to get the result you want.” – No Way

Very well put.

“There are some very good analyses on the Internet of serious Wiki errors, and descriptions of the built-in fundamental issues with it. I have the URLs saved somewhere, and will try to find them later.” – Nearly Oxfordian.

I wonder if these will include a priceless one I came across early in my Wikipedia searching career. Apparently, (I was born in the 1940s) Winston Churchill’s Secretary of Defense was one Manny Shinwell in 1950! I think the clue is in “Defense”.

It was on paper (and to be fair remains in certain places) a good idea; but Wikipedia breaks down when the facts encapsulate positions which strike at someone’s or some people’s inherited, cherished wisdom. I think I prefer Q.I.

I find wikipedia fascinating precisely because of the fact that in controversial issues it is so prone to manipulation, and it happens that studying manipulation is my business.

But the fact is that is is a very unreliable source that is used accritically by too many people.

Still, I cannot say I hate it. I think it has a lot of potential, but above all that it reflects a certain social dynamism.

Freedom needs to be constantly protected, and those who hate it and want to destroy it are much more active and skilled because they have a precise goal and a strong motivation, as well as the necessary knowledge of what freedom is in order to subvert it,

while most of the persons who cherish and want to protect freedom seem to be unable to reflect on the limits of tolerance and thus give too much power to their ennemies.

The wikipedia is one of the places where we can observe this fight going on, that’s why I like it. The question then is, how to make their average users aware of this and stimulate prudence?

Anyway apart from an obvious cabal of sinister Gibsonites I don’t think Wikipedia is especially biased. Look at the BBC if you want genuine distortion.

That’s true enough. Al Beeb have central agendas, whereas Wiki has as many agendas as there are nutters… err, commissioning editors, or whatever they call them, for the locked pages, and all the other nutters on the open pages.

Yes, IMDB is the place. There is no comparison in terms of accuracy (although there are occasional minor errors, or more often omissions).

Not sure I agree with Sarah that those who wish to protect freedom are less active and skilled. But beyond that, who do you think are the ones protecting freedom on Wiki, and who are freedom’s enemies?

Larkers, I see no irony in stating that Wiki is increasingly about opinions not backed by facts (or backed by ‘facts’ a la Dan – I love the cheese story).

Still haven’t found the promised URLs – maybe I’ve deleted them – but I think one was a British online IT blog.

There now appears to be a temporary lock on the entry.

Sarah Franco. Thank you. An interesting perception of Wiki.

I particularly liked – Freedom needs to be constantly protected, and those who hate it and want to destroy it are much more active and skilled because they have a precise goal and a strong motivation, as well as the necessary knowledge of what freedom is in order to subvert it, while most of the persons who cherish and want to protect freedom seem to be unable to reflect on the limits of tolerance and thus give too much power to their enemies.

Let’s face it. Wiki is spoilt goods. As long as it can be edited by anyone, it loses any standing.

The question then is how to reduce it to a simple message board and destroy the prestige that it once had. It is a lost cause.

The Holocaust denial is simply one tiny tiny little aspect. Could be very representative but still very tiny.

However, by all means everybody, go to work on the Holocaust Denial part. It is a lost cause but if nothing else, to keep the Iranian team working hard.

(What about the Russian team working on the Georgian crisis and the Chinese team working on the recent history of Tibet. To say nothing of …..)

“However, by all means everybody, go to work on the Holocaust Denial part. It is a lost cause but if nothing else, to keep the Iranian team working hard.”

Not only Iranian. I was briefly involved in trying to preserve the page devoted to Holocaust Denial. HD sympathizers were adamant in changing the title to Holocaust Revisionism on account that they are “revising” the history.
Too long the dispute went on, because the disagreement is exactly that HD are a bunch of liars, and this is part of the lie, but in wikipedia whenever there are two opinions, the issue is “disputed”.
I think we lost.
The most infuriating thing was to see how the moderator, the guy with the power over the lock was a -well meaning- ignorant on the subject and was easily persuaded that, again “whenever there are two opinions, the issue is “disputed”.” So were were treated just like Spanish HD with nicknames like “greywolf” or “Rudolph”.
Sincerely, to be involved in that polemic in that type of media is demeaning.

“Larkers, I see no irony in stating that Wiki is increasingly about opinions not backed by facts …” – Nearly Oxfordian.

The words I quoted with approval are in fact taken from a longer post by No Way (12.27 pm above) hence my attribution. It makes perfecrt sense in context.

*Epilogue – A 25-minute weekly program introducing controversial & seminal literature while interviewing well-known writers and critics, hosted by Derek Conway, Bob Stewart, George Logan, Patrick Fyffe and James Whale.

Does James Whale *really* present a programme on Press TV? And I’ve googled those other names, and found something even more surprising. I never imagined two people from sherry adverts would have much to do with Iran.

I agree that the idea that anyone can edit wikipedia is naive, to say the least.

What I would like to stress is that we can learn a lot about the mind set of the manipulators if we monitor their activities in wikipedia, as well as in blogs ans other internet resources. Sometimes we have to read them ‘backwards’, and to look for what is missing and the small distortions, which are much more serious than the big ones, because big distortions discredit the content, but smaller ones go often unnoticed. I have done this myself often to understand what type of self-image certain groups try to project. But obviously this is an unintended side-effect …

that said, this is a matter of democracy, but since only a small minority of people have time and mental disposition to keep an eye on these problems, then the question remains, how to make the average people aware and prudent?

this is a problem than goes much further than the internet, it reveals a certain laziness to think for themselves among too many people. It reveals above all that people don’t care about what they take for granted.

I can’t argue with that, Sarah … ;-(

… and a stunning cat photo, btw.

Oh, shoot. Now I’m going to have to start liking Nearly.

As others have said, at least you get to know when an area is controversial with wikipedia
without having to read blogs…

My experience is exactly the same as “Fabian from Israel”, only it was a completely different topic. I have a piece of advice for those referring to Wikipedia on controversial subjects. Click on the “talk” page of any article entry and scan any discussion to understand the controversy (if you can bear it), then read the article again to understand where they may be biases that are enforced by the bizarre and arcane editorial procedure, which can be hijacked by ideological cliques. Take, for instance, the Press TV article. The “talk” page is so full of arguments over content and procedures, which date back to July last year (!) and is partly archived. If editorial disputes have been ongoing this long – in this case, about Press TV’s editorial neutrality and political independence – then obviously Wikipedia is unable to come up with a balanced and objective article and no-one is prepared to compromise. As such, it is probably not worth quoting from. In contrast, a subject such as the dwarf planet Ceres has no great controversy and discussion seems amicable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

Computer game delayed over fear of offending Muslims

http://www.edge-online.com/news/littlebigplanet-delayed-quran-concerns

In more positive news

A female professor has become the first woman to lead a mixed congregation in Islamic prayer in Britain.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7676239.stm

I wouldn’t even trust it very far for science tbh. EG a few months ago I was reading on the linseed oil page that there was a danger of oil soaked rags spontanetusly combusting due to runaway evaporative heating (now corrected)

Nearly Oxfordian, I’m glad you liked the photo and the comment.

“do we know the IP addresses of those trying to censor the entry?”

Well, that’s what Cyber Cafés are for.

The Wikipedia is an excellent tool, true. With one obvious exception: political stuff (which is certainly manipulated). As for everything else, in general two thumbs up.

Suffice to say that Nature Magazine even said that the scientific articles are as good as the ones in Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Many scientific articles are obviously written by very knowledgeable people, same for maths – certainly the ones on things in my own and similar fields seem to be, and could well be written by top academics in their fields.
But once you are into even biographies, you start getting politics (e.g. the Jewish ethnicity of some top scientists is ignored and cannot be edited).

By its very nature, Wikipedia accentuates the difference between exact sciences and the rest of scholarship (in the language of classical positivism, the tautological and scientific vs the metaphysical). Everything boils down to the issue of authority.

In exact sciences authority is (most of the time) about better knowledge of the subject matter, better familiarity with theoretical results and experimental outcomes. It is simply bad strategy to enter the public domain with statements that display ignorance, bias or ideological slant, because you’ll be found out and humiliated in public. Not so in rest of scholarship (and what passes for scholarship). Since the relatively noncontroversial yardsticks of experiment and formal inference from basic premises don’t exist outside exact sciences and maths, respectively, kudos go to those who either shout loudest or whose voice carries the most political (with small “p”) power and influence. This means the the optimal strategy is the exact opposite of that in exact sciences: shout loudest, drown the voices of your opponents, persist when everybody else gave up and bolster your argument with maximal appeal to power and authority.

This reflects on Wikipedia exactly like it reflects on academic life. It isn’t as if scientists, mathematicians or engineers were some sort of superior beings of integrity and intelligence, while those working in humanities and social sciences were somewhat lesser beings or more corrupt at a personal level. Anybody familiar with real academia will be wary of such silly generalizations. But the very nature of “metaphysical scholarship” makes it open for abuse, and we should be always aware of that.

And to end on a pessimistic tone… There are those who intermediate between us as individuals and broader knowledge. (How do I know that Iraq was invaded? How do I even know that Iraq exists? Most of us, overwhelmingly, don’t have direct experience: somebody intermediates the information on our behalf.) The problem is that those intermediaries, in particular in the media, are overwhelmingly from “metaphysical” scholarly traditions, hence by their very nature and training cannot be even expected to realise that there is a problem!

There’s also an inbuilt tendency to favour citations that can be checked online which gives wiki a massive recent events syndrome. Year dot is the far end of newspaper online archives. Even when it’s working well the novel is favoured over the important.

… And a shelf full of proper scholarship on dead trees isn’t worth as much as an online pamphlet by a fringe nutter.

Jon d: It looks like the dispute on the Press TV article is about whether the Jerusalem Post is a reliable source of information, so even online sources are not sufficient according to some. The other allegation is that putting two sources together to make a logical conclusion – ie Press TV is publishing articles from a Holocaust Denier – is “synthesising” the truth, whatever that means. It seems that, at this hour of the day, the section on the criticism of Press TV remains in the article. Perhaps in an hour, the article will change according to the whims of some pro-Tehran fanatic. Some encyclopaedia!

It is worth far more to me.

How about calling it something like Shiftopaedia?

“In exact sciences authority is (most of the time) about better knowledge of the subject matter, better familiarity with theoretical results and experimental outcomes. It is simply bad strategy to enter the public domain with statements that display ignorance, bias or ideological slant, because you’ll be found out and humiliated in public.” – s.o.muffin

I generally welcomed your post but I am doubtful over some of its, admittedly broad, assumptions. These could be best illustrated up by paraphrasing one of your own questions: “How do I know there is such a phenomena as global warming by carbon emissions?” Ask a scientist and observe what happens next. I do think there are branches of knowledge which require such specialisation as to shut out most people who do not have training in the field: Roman poets or seventeenth century Dutch painting equally with electro-magneticism or astrophysics.

I suspect the issue is broader than Wikipedia. It is how to train ourselves to be intelligently sceptical of all knowledge, exemplified by the scientific method itself.

Larkers:

I generally welcomed your post but I am doubtful over some of its, admittedly broad, assumptions.

And I welcome your scepticism. And will try to address it briefly:

These could be best illustrated up by paraphrasing one of your own questions: “How do I know there is such a phenomena as global warming by carbon emissions?” Ask a scientist and observe what happens next.

Well, the overwhelming answer will be that (a) global warming, as part of a more general pattern of climate change, is a real phenomenon, and (b) it is caused in the main by emissions that can be attributed to human activity. There will be a small minority of those with different views (and, unlike many of my colleagues, I welcome that, not least because it keeps everybody on their toes), but this is the general scientific consensus, based on huge observational data bank, fairly robust theory and very fine statistical analysis.

I do think there are branches of knowledge which require such specialisation as to shut out most people who do not have training in the field: Roman poets or seventeenth century Dutch painting equally with electro-magneticism or astrophysics.

But we are talking about altogether different things. It is true that you can’t enjoy Horace or Catullus in their full glory unless you speak fluent Latin and, likewise, you can’t understand electromagnetism unless you can make head-or-tail from Maxwell and Helmholtz equations. This is about the interaction between scholarship and general public. But I was talking about the interaction within scholarship. All (OK, to stay on the safe side, I’ll say “Virtually all”) astrophysicists are in basic agreement on the foundations of their subject and, even more importantly, on the basic tests to which they must subject an astrophysical assertion before it is accepted. This is definitely not the case with historians of art investigating 17th Century Dutch paining. Therefore, a Wikipedia article on magneto-hydrodynamics is likely to be completely non-contentious (and if there is contention, to be decided quite easily), while an article about Vermeer might well find disfavour with many art historians.

I suspect the issue is broader than Wikipedia. It is how to train ourselves to be intelligently sceptical of all knowledge, exemplified by the scientific method itself.

Absolutely. But even here one needs an important qualification. One of the main pitfalls underlying some “scepticism” (and a major reason why “public understanding of science” is so often more of a misunderstanding than understanding) is the lazy belief that we can capture the nature of a complicated phenomenon in few easy catchphrases. If you really want to be sceptical of assertions in a subject (whether astrophysics or Latin poetry) then first you should make an honest (and difficult, time consuming!) effort to acquire knowledge, learn the facts, assimilate the underlying language – whether Latin or maths – and only then your scepticism will be well informed.

…if you ask people what falls quicker, a feather or a coin, most will say a coin, even though Galileo proved that to be wrong centuries ago, and even though this is something everybody learns at school…

there are answers that make sense to non-informed and non-critical persons even though they are clearly wrong.

the will not to think, and just accept what is ready made and easily available, there’s the problem.

but, how to face that? it is not enough to keep an eye on the bullies from Teheran, to use the case in appreciation. Dismissing as stupid those who let themselves be manipulated is not an answer either.

the internet is still a very recent phenomenon, and if we think how underdeveloped it was even 5 years ago (or even more recently), then there is some ground for hope. people are learning how to use it and becoming less naive. but in order not to allow anti-democratic forcer to subvert the spirit of what is in fact one of the most valuable tools to enhance our freedom, issues like this need to a great deal of reflection.

And: wtf.
http://www.gumtree.com/london/00/29238100.html
“It will be hosted by Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn and will feature 4 specialist panellists who will be asked the question: Is western media a friend or foe of Israel?”

Corbyn now working for IRIB too. What an idiot.

How they choose the audience:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=XgY3bTHX1g8A8II4V_2fw5xQ_3d_3d

Pretty bizarre that a less than 2 year old weirdo tv station with virtually no audience in the uk gets approx half the write up of, say, the daily mirror which has been published for 100 years and is read by millions… Well about a million anyway.

Though of course both articles are heavily skewed towards ‘recent controversy’

…if you ask people what falls quicker, a feather or a coin, most will say a coin, even though Galileo proved that to be wrong centuries ago, and even though this is something everybody learns at school…

That is not a well-defined question. Coins do fall faster than feathers in earth atmosphere (or indeed, in any fluid).

you are right, I didn’t put it well. coins fall faster, because of the attrition. not because of the weigh of each object, as common sense puts it. the weight determines the impact on the soil, and a feather is particularly sensitive to wind, for instance so it’s not the best example. but I was merely trying to make an analogy to point to the problem of how knowledge is ignored despite being easily accessible. the fact that I misspresented my example, in that sense, reinforces it ;-)

there is a beautiful poem about that, but it’s in portuguese an I haven’t found a good translations…

http://www.citi.pt/cultura/literatura/poesia/antonio_gedeao/galileu.html

but as it happens that much more people can read portuguese than one might imagine, here it goes:

Eu queria agradecer-te, Galileo,
a inteligência das coisas que me deste.
Eu,
e quantos milhões de homens como eu
a quem tu esclareceste,
ia jurar- que disparate, Galileo!
- e jurava a pés juntos e apostava a cabeça
sem a menor hesitação-
que os corpos caem tanto mais depressa
quanto mais pesados são.
Pois não é evidente, Galileo?
Quem acredita que um penedo caia
com a mesma rapidez que um botão de camisa ou que um seixo da praia?
Esta era a inteligência que Deus nos deu.

what does this has to do with wikipedia and iran? well, we all know what happened to Galileo…

Linda poesía, sarah, pero no creo que haya entendido el final…

“Quem acredita que um penedo caia
com a mesma rapidez que um botão de camisa ou que um seixo da praia?”

Who believes that a feather¿? fell as quick as a shirt button or a beach’s pebble?

Galileo? Oh, didn’t an apple fall on his head?

Sarah,
It’s not that coins fall faster (what does attrition have to do with it?), but that feathers encounter air resistance.

I don’t speak Portuguese (of course many people speak it – Brazilians for a start, all 120 (?) million of them), but I tried reading the poem with the help of the start Fabian provided. Didn’t get very far, however linda it is ;-(

…attrition, meaning attrition provoked by the air, or as you say, air resistance. I was pretty good in physics and also in chemistry and biology, but I learned them in in portuguese and I am already having a hard time finding translations for concepts in political science to be able to focus on physics too.

ABout the portuguese language, I meant non native speakers. It’s amazing how many people I have met who could either speak or at least understand it (thanks mostly to Brazil).

A penedo is a big big big rock.

Antonio Gedeão was the pseudonym of Romulo de Carvalho, who was a teacher of physics. His most famous poem is ‘Pedra Filosofal’. Unfortunatelly I can’t find a translation. This is one of the most beautiful poems I know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_Gede%C3%A3o

(here is a good example of why wikipedia is a success…sorry for the fact that the article is a stub, but that reflects the lack of interest in the portuguese culture and the degree of isolation of the portuguese society where people seem not to realize how important it is to get our voice heard abroad by translation into english what we want to say)

I appreciate very much the authors that come from the natural sciences but have no problem in diving into literature or the social sciences. Unfortunatelly the opposite is very rare. People from the social sciences tend to be very resistant to making an effort to understand the other fields of knowledge. I know people with PhD who cannot even make a simple mental calculation and that impresses me.

the case of Galileo is particularly interesting because he challenged the authority not only of the church and the bible, but also of Aristotle. This is an inspiration to me because I find so many authors in political science being treated just like Aristotle was treated when Galileo was a student: their theories treated as unchallengeable dogma…

Fabin, hay que ler el poema completo!

sorry for my lousy english and even worse spanish and for my display of ignorance in physics.

“If you really want to be sceptical of assertions in a subject (whether astrophysics or Latin poetry) then first you should make an honest (and difficult, time consuming!) effort to acquire knowledge, learn the facts, assimilate the underlying language – whether Latin or maths – and only then your scepticism will be well informed.” – s.o.muffin

Exactly. This is of course my point, which you amplify so well. Readers have to accept that in all texts there will be a bias (and I have worked with scientists who could not agree on very much or for very long). Only by building up some familiarity with the subject can one hope to sive the wayward and at times downright mendacious from broadly accepted facts. Wikipedia’s problem stems from open access and a resulting free for all (and a determined and malicious intent to distort and mislead). But then I suspect any long established library could produce volumes whose authors firmly believed in ’subject races’, the innate intellectual inferiority of women, or theories long consigned to the dustbin of history.

I must thank you for your thoughtful, informed response.

the case of Galileo is particularly interesting because he challenged the authority not only of the church and the bible, but also of Aristotle. This is an inspiration to me because I find so many authors in political science being treated just like Aristotle was treated when Galileo was a student: their theories treated as unchallengeable dogma…

Indeed! Just think of the adulation accorded to Derrida, let alone Chomsky … ;-(((((

the case of Galileo is particularly interesting because he challenged the authority not only of the church and the bible, but also of Aristotle. This is an inspiration to me because I find so many authors in political science being treated just like Aristotle was treated when Galileo was a student: their theories treated as unchallengeable dogma…

Indeed! Just think of the adulation accorded to Derrida, let alone Chomsky … ;-(((((

-think about Edward Said’s ideas in ME studies and history studies generally…

Having just watched Michele Renouf in this debate, on presstv, I have come to the conclusion that she is completely fucking bonkers.

http://www.presstv.com/pop/wmp.aspx?id=55153

David T, of course opposing things is in my nature (and in my moniker)! However, there sometimes seems so much that cries out to be opposed that there aren’t enough hours in the day!

Having said that, I do take your point – that the more widely such infamy is publicised the less likely it is to take root and spread its poison.

Posts getting removed? TUT TUT TUT

Yes, by all means add Said to that bunch of liars and lunatics.