11 March, 2007

Conservapedia

OK, I didn't want to post before the exams got over. But this is such a find that I thought i had to blog on it. People have done it before, but, come on, this is a special find...

Site in focus: Conservapedia. Why? It's supposed to be:

1) A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.
We'll see indeed how much one should trust it.
2) much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American.
Right. They have a page devoted to examples of bias in Wikipedia, but it sounds more like nitpicking than criticism. Not that there's nothing wrong with Wikipedia... but Wikipedia is God, compared to this pile of crap. (Pardon the pun.)

Ok, now some justification for the above statement. Here are some extracts from Conservapedia and my criticism:

Article: Moon

Brilliant piece of work, if only it were satire. Sadly, it's not. Here are two points from the article:

4. The Moon is currently receding from the Earth at less than 6 inches per year. The Moon could never have been closer than about 150,000 miles or it would have been broken up by tidal forces. If the rate of recession is assumed to have averaged about 6 inches per year, the Moon's present distance of about 250,000 miles implies a young age for the Moon of no more than one billion years. Under the non-creationist claim that the Moon somehow broke away from the Earth, the Moon's rate of recession must have been faster in the past, and thus the Moon would have been only 150,000 miles from the Earth far more recently than one billion years ago. This contradicts the claim of non-creationists that the Moon and Earth are somehow several billions of years old.
5. Our solar system is one of the few that has only one sun. Only one sun and only one moon: this uniqueness may reflect the existence of only one God.

The last point is laughable. Ok, let's follow religion, but not fly in the face of accepted science, please. The wikipedia article on the same is rather encyclopediac, the discusses controversy and, of course, emphasises science, not religion.


This was just a sad, sad example of where fanaticism can take people. Currently, it's been modified, and the modified version, while it still doesn't discuss much science, is much better than the previous version (which you can find here.)

Article: Plesiosaur

Well, besides emphasising creationism, this has a gem of a quote (which might be vandalism, but it hasn't been corrected) ... which shows the how much respect creationists should get:
According to evolutionary scientists, who use relative dating methods .... According to creation scientists, who use the Bible, ...

And why do these creation scientists deserve respect in the scientific community again?
---

I really hope children don't get this kind of homeschooling. Not only is it too baised in favour of a particular religion (this page, the intro), a particular country (like the equator page), but it also used unaccepted science, and emphasises religious claims over scientific ones. Examples: creatoinism, God, the Bible (and look at the references below many articles. They will be from "bible" sites.)

We need unbiased education. Religion has it's place, science has it's place. I thought there was no controversy over non-interference. I didn't know such fanatics even existed.

Note: And I'm willing to forgive the fact that most aticles are stubs... this is a new site.

4 comments:

  1. What a load of crap. I'd like to drive a plesiosaur up each of the 'creation' scientists' asses. Such sites need to be flagged for spreading nonsense. I just don't get it. I thought religion/faith was something personal. And these guys are trying to apply it to the theory of relativity?

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  2. I find it increasingly difficult to believe that people smart enough to make stuff that is totally wrong sound almost plausible (if it's 1am and you're sleepy), are dumb enough to actually believe the stuff that they're spouting!

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  3. Haha. Stupidity.
    Er, well. These Americans are crazy.

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  4. Hmm... well u can find loads of crap on the internet... about such stuff... thank God Wiki exists coz u know that it tries to be its best when it comes to reliability of articles... i can't agree more with Rahul about education of homeschooled kids... also the existence of such sites goes to show that a lot has to be done in the field of education as well... anycase - over and out... hehe

    Tanmay Singal

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