www.conservapedia.com - What do you think?

I don't know if you've heard about this, but someone has started up a new wiki aimed at countering the perceived liberal bias in Wikipedia.Check out some of the articles, of most relevance to us perhaps:
EvolutionMutationsClearly it is very amateurish, and says some very funny, strange things. It must be noted that it has to some degree been compromised by piss-takers and pastiche-artists, hence the current lock-down on new accounts.Personally, I think its as mad as a screaming weasel on a pogo-stick, and I think it might be potentially quite damaging - an example of a kind of social isolationism. I was just wondering what anyone else thought of it.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Tried tweeking topic title. There has been problems with replying to this topic.Edited by Tusko, : Ah - thanks Adminnemooseus!I was going nuts trying to edit my hideous spelling and other errors there.

Oh yes. Sit an infinite number of true Scotsmen down at an infinite number of typewriters....Hey Presto!

What I find funniest about the whole thing is that before they had a lock-down to prevent new people having accounts (and perhaps also editing by non moderators?) there were quite a lot of piss-takers going on and modifying hotbutton entries for a joke... and the tragedy is in many cases you can't tell whether they are taking the piss or not.

I read on a blog - I forget which one annoyingly - something that I thought was rather insightful. The writer was saying that they thought this was one example of a wider project of constructing a parallel reality: a reality in which you can be born, raised, live and die, and never come into meaningful contact with people with differing viewpoints.It reminds me of the Amish. Except with computers.

The irony probably hasn't escaped you that this is now not an open framework encyclopedia - they've locked it down because people were screwing with it too much. I think
the discussion page for the Theory of Evolution entry is a great example of how the wiki ethos and this project seem to be incompatible. An individual is arguing for improvements and is being shouted down by others. Chaos.

Seriously now, I think the problem you raise is a fascinating one; namely, how do you communicate with people who sincerely believe that logic, experiment, observation and evidence are fundamentally worthless, even dangerous?When confronted with the bald fact that there are plenty of people who call themselves Christians (or in this case plenty of people who call themselves conservatives) who don't find the idea of an old earth or of evolution incompatible with their beliefs, how can they say that these people aren't true Christians (or conservatives) without even batting an eyelid?How can they have come to believe this? It's a yawning, world-swallowing gulf in understanding, isn't it?

Oh come on. That has to be a piss-taker.Doesn't it?

But do you know what the really sick thing is? The more that people take the piss by altering this godawful site, the more this proves to people inclined to take it seriously that the evolutionists/atheists/onanists are a nasty bunch who should be avoided: the more it proves that Wikipedia is biased - which to them is clearly synonymous with wrong.Isn't that the biggest tragedy of all?

What I find utterly paralysing is the claim that evolutionists/bad people are just as rabidly in thrall to their ideology as the Christians/good people. Forgetting for a moment that the unspoken flip-side of this argument is that they are admitting they are crazy zealots, I think it is true, with caveats. Although scientific methodology has brought us massive advances in medicine, engineering, agriculture and materials science to name but a few, its true that you have to believe in it to engage with it and to push it forward.It seems self-evident to me that a scientific methodology is preferable, but I prefer it only because I have matured in a very specific kind of environment, and made very specific decisions. I could just as easily be asking WWJD.I want someone to come up with a really good riposte to this line of argument because I think it becomes a bottom line in many fundamentalist's minds. Whether it makes sense or not, it is brilliantly divisive and I think it needs to be addressed.

Priceless!

Its not just the fundamentalist Christians who are increasingly flexing their political muscle in this country. There is also the Sharia movement, which is seemingly quite entrenched. I think the idea of a secular society is being put increasingly under pressure. At the moment there isn't any real danger, but public opinion can slide and there isn't anything one can do when it does. Maybe that's excessively apocalyptic.I think the laws that were brought in to prevent "incitement to religious hatred" and so forth are terribly counterproductive. Rather than extending the blasphemy laws, they should have levelled the playing field by removing all limits to free speech in religious matters.

That sounds pretty good to me too.Its unfortunate that there are so many people for whom checking the evidence isn't so appealing. Perhaps its an affront to their belief -do not test the lord thy God? Or they simply have no interest in searching beyond the explanations that sit right before them because their lives are busy and interesting and they don't have the time to go thinking about erosion or dendochronology or whatever.I think that it should be made clear that there really shouldn't be any harm in checking - and that exploring your beliefs should strengthen those beliefs worth holding on to.I wonder how you go about doing that?

I'm really not sure about the one about native (south) Americans. Do you think its genuine? I guess it could be. Eeeuch!

You sound like you are saying that liberals are less dogmatic perhaps (sorry if thats a misreading). I don't know if you can make such blanket statements fairly. Maybe you can? Personally I think it divides along different lines - those who don't have enquiring minds are just going to get stuck with whatever beliefs they were born in to. Those who do have enquiring minds are subdivided into two categories: those who aren't readily able to admit they are wrong and those that are. There are people of both kinds who are religious and people of both kinds who are athiest. There are people of both kinds who are politically conservative and politically liberal.How does that sound?

I don't feel uncomfortable telling you where I'm from - Gants Hill on the East end of the Central line... well, near enough.