conservapedia
The excellent blog Making Light has a thread on Conservapedia. I'd seen references to Conservapedia before in various dives serious blogs I frequent. However, the Making Light thread made me dig in.
One commenter, after sampling Conservapedia entries, and considering the age and experience of the original entry authors, reflects:
It's not even proper brain-washing; it's, it's brain-creme-rinsing.
(It's comment #122, if the link doesn't work the way I think it does.)
The whole discussion is here. I started poking around Conservapedia, and found some astonishing [current] Conservapedia entries.
(Note to readers: I've used a lot of jpeg images -- screen grabs. If your internet service is slow, you may want to load the full post, and then go get a cup of coffee. Or whatever.)
BAt first I thought the whole Conservapedia phenomenon was pretty funny.
The growing list of examples of bias and errors on Wikipedia. Please add to this, and also contribute entries to Conservapedia.
My personal favorites of examples of Wikipedian "liberal bias":
1. Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia is Christian-friendly and exposes the CE deception.
2. The entry for the Renaissance in Wikipedia refuses to give enough credit to Christianity.
5. Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English speaking users are American. [snip] Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.
8. Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia. Many entries read like the National Enquirer. [snip]. Conservapedia avoids gossip and vulgarity, just as a true encyclopedia does.
9. Edits to include facts against the theory of evolution are almost immediately censored. On Conservapedia, contributions that meet simple rules are respected to the maximum extent possible.
17. The Wikipedia entry for the Piltdown Man omits many key facts, such as how it was taught in schools for an entire generation and how the dating methodology used by evolutionists is fraudulent.
21. Wikipedia's entry for the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) reads like an advertisement for vaccine manufacturers, including unsupported and implausible claims about vaccination. [snip]
Conservapedia used a crack team of researchers to produce the first entries:
(click on the image for full size).
That's when I started wondering if this wasn't some kind of Onionesque parody. I wasn't alone in that suspicion, but evidently not. It is a serious project begun by Andrew Schlafly:
Andrew Schlafly graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was on the Harvard Law Review, and he clerked for a federal appellate judge in D.C. He has an engineering degree ftom Princeton University. He is General Counsel for the oldest active conservative organization, the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (founded in 1943). Mr. Schlafly ftequently files conservative briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court and appellate courts, and has also won a federal jury trial. In education, he has personally taught 120 homeschool teenagers in a series of eight courses, and also taught at a law school. As a volunteer he taught six online courses on Eagle Forum University (www.eagleforumu.org). where over 6400 students are registered. Mr. Schlafly publishes and speaks widely. He is a frequent contributor to www.conservapedia.com a free online conservative encyclopedia that we can all use and build.
By all accounts, Schlafly is an intelligent man. Why would he think that a project seeded with articles by high school students would become a respected, reliable resource? According to this New Yorker article Wikipedia started with a cadre of about 2,000 enthusiasts who were experts in their relative fields.
However, Schlafly is clear on the goals, even if his strategy to get there is a little, well, underpowered.
Welcome to Conservapedia Conservapedia has over 3,800 educational, clean and concise entries on historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics, as well as more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 252,000 page views and over 14,800 page edits. Already Conservapedia has become one of the largest user-controlled free encyclopedias on the internet. This site is growing rapidly.
About Conservapedia Conservapedia has since grown enormously, including contributors nationwide. Conservapedia already has over one-half the number of entries as the Oxford Dictionary of World History. Conservapedia is rapidly becoming one of the largest and most reliable online educational resources of its kind. (accessed Februray 25, 2007).
Remember the words "educational, clean and concise" and "reliable online educational resources". Here's what the 58 homeschoolers have come up with (all screenshots from February 24 and February 25, 2007):
On Faith--from the opening page
On Faith--the Conservapedia page
(click on the image for full size).
When I got to the following entry, that's when the funny ended.
On Theocracy
(click on the image for full size)
"educational, clean and concise" and "reliable online educational resource"
On Communism
(click on image for full size)
"educational, clean and concise" and "reliable online educational resource"
I was fooling around with Conservapedia's "random page" feature, which offered up the entry
On Freud
(click on image for full size)
Be sure to read the last sentence, and remember that Conservapedia " avoids gossip and vulgarity, just as a true encyclopedia does. "
That got me thinking. What would Conservapedia have to say about the Holocaust?
(click on image for full size)
"This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them."
I think "gobsmacked" is the correct word here.
How about the entry on Judaism?
(click on image for full size)
"educational, clean and concise" and "reliable online educational resource"
I'd expect more of my daughter in fifth grade. Well, she was educated in an Episcopalian school, so maybe another, secularly-educated, non-Jewish child wouldn't have a much more sophisticated view.
If that's the best a home-schooled high-school student can do, all I can say is that student isn't ready for college.
Well, what about the Nazi entry?
(click on image for full size)
"educational, clean and concise" and "reliable online educational resource"
Gee, you think some dates might be useful? How about the source of the word, "Nazi"?
But I did learn something new, the concept of Baraminology.
(click on image for full size)
Baraminology is the study of baramins, also known by the Biblical term kinds.
A baramin is a lineage of earthly life that that was originally created by God during the Creation Week, and corresponds in some functional aspects to the secular concept of species. However, unlike species concepts that are based on Darwinian thinking, the baraminic barrier is inviolable, as baramins do not change into other baramins.
Glad that's settled!
And for another light note, how about the Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus? I'm going to have to post three screen grabs, forgive me. I only have a laptop, and I couldn't quite get the whole, long, detailed entry into one screen grab.
(There are three stacked images. Click on each image for full size)
Other sources here; backstory here.
OK, enough silliness. For the closing episode, let us compare an entry on Conservapedia with Wikipedia. I thought for quite a while about what, or whom, would serve as a good test subject. I finally decided upon F.A. Hayek. (If you don't know who Hayek is, or his significance, you might consult this article or this article, and/or this article. Neither are from Wikipedia or Conservapedia.)
Remember, Conservapedia's goals are:
"educational, clean and concise" and "reliable online educational resource"
First, Conservapedia on Hayek:
(click on image for full size)
Second, the "liberal-biased" Wikipedia on Hayek:
(Click on image for full size. Note: I resized the Wikipedia image to be the same width as the Conservapedia image. )
Closing thoughts
After some reflection, I'm going to put my closing thoughts in a separate post, which I might not get to definitely won't attempt until tomorrow.
One hint: Schlafly started this project with the assumption that the writings of a group of high school students (Conservapedia) would be instantly equivalent to the collective knowledge of a large number of adults, well into their careers (Wikipedia's origins).
As a parent, wouldn't that give you pause?
If you were a parent of one those 58 home-schooled high-school students, how would you respond to your child's work being held up for international ridicule?
If you were one of those parents, how would you feel about your child's teacher, who exposed your child to such ridicule?
And this commentator at Making Light:
Conservatives regard the improvement of society as continuous and achieved by constant attention to the tedious detail of everyday justice and goodwill, not, generally, by grand sweeping designs. There is no goal to be reached, no target to meet and rest on, no paradise, workers' or otherwise, to enter. These people think that God is going to step down from His machine and resolve it all.
Conservatism requires a rigorous and principled examination of attitudes to every social institution, just as it does the same examination of change. It requires hard thought. It is not so simple as applying a one-size-fits-all principle. The devil is in the details. Circumstances alter cases. These people think it's simple. The Bible says it's so, and that's all they need.
I say again, they're not conservatives. They're radical fundamentalist totalitarians. They are the antithesis of conservatism. It's about time real conservatives started fighting back.
Man, that "theocracy" entry is particularly pungeant, wouldn't you say? How is it possible for people to be so deluded!
Posted by: Jo | Monday, February 26, 2007 at 12:50 PM
Is Schlafly any relation to Phyllis? If so, is this a product of a eugenics program?
Posted by: Joel | Monday, February 26, 2007 at 02:52 PM
Just looked it up:
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2005/medicine.html
and
http://www.eagleforum.org/misc/bio.html
Still remember fondly the time when she got on a television news program against ERA complaining about the extension for ratification. The interviewer told her that there were other amendments for which an extension was granted. She said they shouldn't be enforced.
So, if Phyl had her way, we'd still have slavery....
Posted by: Joel Sax | Monday, February 26, 2007 at 03:16 PM
Yes, most of the articles that are longer than 2-3 sentences were inserted by trolls and spoofers. One thing that's particularly interesting is that in many cases, the admins edited out the more obvious vandalism and jokes, but kept the original spoofed entry. The Judical Activism page is an excellent example of this.
As for the Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus, that was added by your humble servant, me. Frankly , the site was in dire need of some science and zoology pages of better quality than the one or two sentence descriptions copied out of a creationist homeschooling textbook.
Ken
Posted by: Ken | Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 06:11 AM
On this post I have the famous "Jesus on a Dinosaur" image
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2007/02/attention_high_.html
Over at the Jewish Atheist, there's a comment from a kid who claims to be one of the Conservapedia contributors..
Posted by: Liz | Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 02:15 PM