When the task is to present information on a controversial issue, however, Wikipedia is a terrible source of information, as we can observe from the article on Dr. William Lane Craig.
Not only is the article biased, but any attempt to change the article to make it more informative, objective, and relevant, but it is under the control of several of Dr. Craig's intellectual opponents, who want to make Dr. Craig look as bad as possible.
The webcomic XKCD makes great fun of our excessive trust in Wikipedia:
Wikipedia may be useful, but please take its information with a hefty bit of salt.
I feel your pain! I found their "The Exodus" wikipedia page to be heavily biased. It simply refuses to point out the evidence for the Exodus and the how the evidence against the Exodus (i.e., an absence of evidence) could actually be used to prove that many other historical events did not happen (e.g., the numerous Egyptian massive wars in the Levant haven't left a shred of remains).
ReplyDeleteThese points are made by serious academic scholars, like Kenneth Kitchen. So I, very politely, put this stuff on wikipedia. And in under an hour it was all taken down. I naively assumed that some atheist dude must have taken it down, so I put it back up. But then I realized that it was the official wikipedia geek who took it down, and he yelled at me for putting it up again.
Why are they so against people seeing both sides of the argument? They are so paranoid! Even if "God forbid" some kid starts thinking that the Exodus was a historical event, that doesn't neccesarily mean he's going to believe in God.
And even if, God forbid, some kid starts to believe that William Lane Craig is a respected scholar, what harm will be done? Do they think that it's automatic, that if you believe in William Lane Craig you will all of a sudden believe in Jesus?! I believe in Craig and still don't believe in Jesus. So why are they so paranoid?
(The page also has a misleading misquote. It says that "MOST" archeologists say that searching for the remains of the Exodus is a fruitless pursuit. The cited book (by WIlliam Dever, an admitted atheist, who holds that the Exodus didn't happen because of the story's "recurrent problem of miracles") doesn't say that "MOST" archeologists feel that way. He's just saying his own opinion, that it is a "fruitless pursuit.")
Very true, I read the wiki for the day "Sunday" (in spanish), it had a wrong Greek translation with out references or further information, it caused misunderstanding. I checked out in google, founding thousands of citations in thousands of sites.
ReplyDeleteI had to spent hour looking the right references to use it in wikipedia. Still need improvement but people doesn't know it.