[(JD)]

I find it laughable how much stock people are putting into certain websites such as wikipedia and snopes. IDK why they seem to be the current "standard" for information, but I don't trust anything like those sites 100% of the time, as some do.

With the availability of the internet also comes the potential for finding out truth on your own, that and using common sense and what you learned in school too. (Such as what things are political and what are economic.) Don't rely upon one site to give you fully trustworthy information, it just doesn't exist.

[gardenergirl]

Glad to provide you with something else for you to disdain. Turnabout is only fair, after all.

gg

[gardenergirl]

Ohhh, I get it. You wrote this in response to the thread about chain mails and such. That 'splains a lot.

gg

[Timgt5]

I am going to actually agree with you that no ONE source of info is 100 percent accurate or entirely comprehensive, therefore I recomend examining the source material the listed on the site in question.

Wiki, like the print encyclopedia should be used as a reference or gateway source, as encyclopedias site the in-print source material, Wiki does the same in most of it's articles, and yes I do check them all out.

If you dispute Snopes, they will allow you to email the site owners and they will in turn research the info provided and if it so warrants it, they will revise their classification.

I also read a lot of print ( books, newspapers such as the Wall Street journal, USA today, articles, news magazines, time, newsweek, the economists, etc)and when I am still confused or need further clarification about a paticularly complex issue, I will seek out a local expert in the field and talk to them.

So yes always consider the source on anything, do the research, and if you or anyone else can prove I am wrong on anything I say by showing me accredited, overwhelming evidence, I will admit I am wrong publically.

I always accept defeat with grace.

Take care TJ

On the show Steven Colbert's Report (which is one hundred percent accurate BTW, he asked everyone to send a new definition of a word that was on Wikipedia because if enough people agree with a different/added definition, Wikipedia will change it. The information that he asked them to send in was intentionally not true, of course. Now, that was laughable!

[nowheretorun]

you're so right Sky, we need to double check all out info.. a person can find what they want to support about any view they choose... when i did some college work recently we were taught about checking sources.. you are right, we need to apply discernment

[kim_johnson]

I think there might be a proof something along the lines of 'for any truth that can be expressed within a system there will be truths that can't be expressed within that system'. Something to do with Godel's incompleteness theorums... But I don't really understand them (or whether his proof is properly or improperly applied to issues of semantics).

I'm pretty sure it is uncontroversial that there isn't much (probably isn't anything) that is complete. Maths isn't... Logic isn't... I'm pretty sure you won't find a science that is (or they wouldn't still be doing it lol). Wiki certainly isn't lol.

I think there are a whole range of considerations that come into play with respect to how much one should be inclined to believe a source. I know a lot of people who start out with Wiki (which is actually pretty good as far as it goes, I think, though not perfect, of course, and you do find some doozy's sometimes) and then progress from there. Most people have 'confirmation bias' which means they tend to seek out evidence that confirms their views rather than seeking out evidence that would disconfirm their views (which is a kind of logical fallacy in data collection), however. I guess that is the thing. If we get a random email and we fairly much agree then we are inclided to take it at its word. Whereas if we get a random email and we fairly much don't agree then we aren't so inclined to take it at its word.

People have tried to systematize the things that should indicate that a source is reliable compared to a source that is unreliable. It is kinda hard to systematize... People are especially keen to get that right when it comes to consumers finding health information on the internet... Issues with data collection... Issues with assigning high weights to sources that are outliers rather than sources that are representative of expert opinion and so on and so forth...

It is kinda interesting how one person can think they understand the politics / economics distinction just fine - but that other people can either not see the distinction so clearly or have quite a different distinction in mind. I'm used to 'PPE Programs' - which is to say 'politics, philosophy, and economics programs'. Where do you draw the hard line between politics and economics? Hard to say... I wouldn't like to attempt a definition...

[(JD)]

You do find doozies sometimes at wiki... and that is part of my point: only someone with more complete knowledge (of what they are reading at wiki) can discern if what they are reading is a doozy or not.

Such sites, imo, should not be used like a dictionary where everything is pretty well documented and worthy of belief without questioning. (And yes, sometimes I question my massive collegiate dictionary!)

[Timgt5]

Well said!

The point is that to some degree all truthes are perception, different people can look at the very same information and come to different conclusions. This applies to almost any issue you can name, but at the same time such disagreements are important to the advancement of intellectual discourse.

If all of us were on the same page from the begining, the human race would have progessed little past standing upright. It is our knowledge that must continue to evolve and develop. Discourse is one way this happens.

Glad you are on the site Kim!

TJ