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Sean Mulligan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 January 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 271
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 6:17am | IP Logged | 1
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Jason Fulton:What, John Byrne is not an expert on John Byrne?
This was Mr. Byrne's response to a question in another thread regarding AF #17
John Byrne:Since ALPHA FLIGHT holds such a diminished
position in my memories, you will doubtless not be
too surprised to learn I don't recall much about the
issues you mention.
So, no, I guess not :)
But seriously, for the argument's sake, let's say you are writing a paper on partnerships that were great creatively despite personal differences. If one of those pairings were Byrne/ Claremont, you would want more than one viewpoint. If you just asked Mr. Byrne, you would not be sure of an unbiased account. It would be like doing a story on the infighting in The Kinks, and only getting Ray Davies POV, not Dave's.
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Dave Rolls
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 24 June 2004
Posts: 309
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 6:24am | IP Logged | 2
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<who the hell has enough time in their lives to bother verifying every fact they read? You choose a text that can give you the answer and you accept it.>>
Clearly that depends on what you need the information for.
If you're flying from the Earth to the Moon and you find yourself running out of fuel because you'd accepted the first fact you read...
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Tom Melly
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 15
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 6:32am | IP Logged | 3
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Well, it presents itself as "A Free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit"
- IMHO the question is not "is this a 100% accurate resource?", but "is
this a useful resource?"
Ignoring the entry on you (which, IMHO, is a distraction - this thread,
after all, is not just a criticism of that entry, but of the whole idea
of a wikipedia), I would say "it depends what you are looking for and
what you expect".
For example, while I wouldn't use it as the basis for constructing a
nuclear reactor, an entry on an element would be a safe article.
History of WW2? A useful resource, but inevitably incomplete and
innacurate in particular details.
Then we move onto a whole slew of topics that, for one reason or
another, would be suspect. The holocaust, evolution, JB ;), etc.
However, as long as one makes sensible judgements about the
reliability, the controversies can be as illuminating as the more
reliable articles.
After all, it's one thing to read about holocaust denial - it's quite another to see it in action.
So, recognise wikipedia for what it is; check the discussions, check
the revisions, and, if the subject is controversial, use other
resources as well.
In respect of the article on JB, I would say it was too long, too
unstructured and not enough distinction was made between fact (which
can be verified and corrected), and opinion.
In respect of wikipedia as a whole, I think there is a legitimate case
for greater use of warnings with respect to specific articles - not to
indicate that the article is worthless, but to focus the user - a "here
be sea monsters" so to speak.
(and, yes, I am a wiki contributor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Tomandlu)
(and, no, tomandlu is not anonymous; I'm Tom, the wife's Lu ;)
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Tom Melly
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 15
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 6:51am | IP Logged | 4
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Ian Evens wrote:
| A contradiction surely. If I am looking up 'fairly neutral' material, I wouldn't bother
consulting more than one source...why would I, when I am expecting
facts and not controversy? So I would expect 'canonical' and not 'open
to dispute'. If I am looking for critical opinion, that is a different
matter, I would consult an encyclopaedia expecting the
opinion of the writer of the article, but presupposing that that
opinion had some kind of credibility - that I had a reason to respect
the author's opinion... |
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Sorry, I should have made a clearer distinction - the "consulting more
than one resource" applied to controversial or complex issues, not the
"fairly neutral" ones (although, as others have pointed out, if you're
flying to the moon, then check the distance in at least two
encylopedias... ;)
That said, I'm not sure that "respecting the author's opinion" is a
requirement - if I was researching creationism, for example, I would
want to read the opinions of creationists, irrespective of whether I
respected them or not. Equally, if I was trying to untangle, say,
Weisanthal's support for Waldheim, I would respect Weisanthal's
opinion, but I wouldn't regard it as canonical by any stretch of the
imagination.
Bottom line, when it comes to basic statements of fact, you are talking
about a very small subset - you don't have to be a moral relativist to
acknowledge that for most things, "opinion" is all that is available.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134189
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 8:32am | IP Logged | 5
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When it comes to the internet, I think we have all seen far too much evidence that one man's "neutrality" is another man's controversy. This is why Wikipedia fails. There is nothing that is "neutral" to the point that no one has a contrary opinion -- and allowing the contrary opinions be be inserted into entries whether they are valid or not scuttles Wiki as a useful or even usable reference tool.This is why I deleted so much of my original entry there. (Not the original, technically. That was no more than a couple of lines that were pure fact, like birth date and current employer.) The facts had become so heavily interleavened with rumor and opinion -- all unsupported -- that it was impossible to simply "edit" them. Best, I thought, to get the thing back down to those few simple, indisputable lines, as it now stands.
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John W Leys
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 April 2004
Posts: 1143
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 8:38am | IP Logged | 6
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I don't understand how otherwise intelligent people don't
always do that with every source, from bathroom gossip to the hallowed
Britannica. It's the first rule of everything.
Well, you know, we're all "a bunch of fucking idiots" who are "embarassing Luddite relics." You can expect too much from us.
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Steve Lyons
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 September 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2171
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 10:29am | IP Logged | 7
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Well, this is one Luddite relic that ignores Wikipedia.
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Darragh Greene
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 March 2005
Location: Ireland
Posts: 1812
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | 8
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Ah, epistemology! Thanks, Ian! ;-)
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Darragh Greene
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 March 2005
Location: Ireland
Posts: 1812
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | 9
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Regarding facts: is it disputable that the earth revolves around the sun whether or not people in the past thought the reverse? Sadly, commited epistemic relativists bite the bullet on this one stating that, yes, it is disputable, and, worse, that the sun did indeed revolve around the earth when people believed it to have done so. Sadder still is the fact that these people are picking up fat cheques in Arts and Humanities university faculties all around the Western world! We need a new Socrates to do away with such poisonous sophistry.
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Mike Tishman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 July 2005
Posts: 229
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | 10
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Ian Evans wrote:
| This is starting to tick me off...who the hell has
enough time in their lives to bother verifying every fact they
read? |
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You check multiple sources to the degree that you depend on the
information. If you're just satisfying idle curiosity in a matter of no
import, one source is enough. Otherwise... well, you have to decide how
much you need to know on a case-by-case basis.
John Byrne wrote:
| There is nothing that is "neutral" to the point that
no one has a contrary opinion -- and allowing the contrary opinions be
be inserted into entries whether they are valid or not scuttles Wiki as
a useful or even usable reference tool. |
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Who determines whether or not the contrary opinions are "valid?" You?
If you can find me an omniscent judge of validity, I'd love to meet
him/her/it.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134189
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | 11
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Darragh Greene: Regarding facts: is it disputable that the earth revolves around the sun whether or not people in the past thought the reverse?**** Something I like to toss at the idiots who invoke the old "evolution is only a theory" drivel is that the movement of the earth around the sun is also "only a theory" -- at least as scientists use the word. Altho every bit of evidence points solidly to this being a fact (just like evolution), it has not actually been observed happening -- no camera-bearing probe parked above the Sun's north pole, looking back to see the Earth marking its course thru space, for instance -- and so the notion remains, on paper, a theory.
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Mike Tishman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 July 2005
Posts: 229
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| Posted: 21 September 2005 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | 12
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John Byrne wrote:
| Something I like to toss at the idiots who invoke
the old "evolution is only a theory" drivel is that the movement of the
earth around the sun is also "only a theory" -- at least as scientists
use the word. Altho every bit of evidence points solidly to this being
a fact (just like evolution), it has not actually been observed
happening -- no camera-bearing probe parked above the Sun's north pole,
looking back to see the Earth marking its course thru space, for
instance -- and so the notion remains, on paper, a theory. |
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You're misunderstanding how the idea of "theory" works in science in a
way that's indicative of your misunderstanding of the ideas of "facts"
and authority. Even if you had a probe of the sort you're proposing,
observing the Earth revolving around the Sun, that wouldn't make that
revolution any less a "theory" in the scientific sense. It would simply
be yet another observation which supports the theory of a
heliocentric solar system
Theories never become "facts." Empirical observations support theories.
Theories are the conceptual framework we use to make sense of a given
set of empirical observations. They are always conditional and
incomplete - that's the virtue of scientific inquiry, misunderstood as
it often is by lay advocates of science. It never asserts "fact" so
much as it provides plausible interpretations of observations,
interpretations which are always subject to reexamination and revision
in the event that someone comes up with a theory that more coherently
and elegantly explains the same observations, or in the event that new
observations problematize the existing theory.
Science is valuable precisely because it never says
anything is 100% fact - merely the most probable explanation anyone's
been able to come up with so far. It's probabilistic, not deterministic.
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Topic Closed)
