Encyclopedia Updatica

I grew up with The Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia, published by the Grolier Society. But the standard for encyclopedias of the day was the Encyclopaedia Britannica (American Edition). The traveling salesman for Grolier must have gotten to our house before the traveling salesman for Sears (the distributor of E.B. at the time). Grolier had written and telephone research facilities as part of the price, so I'm sure that was also a decision-maker for my parents.

Today, you can buy the Encyclopaedia Britannica online, complete with interactive research. But the online "people's encyclopedia," which is free, is Wikipedia. Millions of students and others seeking information turn to Wikipedia for research materials and historical information turn daily to this online source. They should have their heads examined.

Let's start with Wikipedia's own article on the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Since the article is not supposed to be either an advertisement or an editorial, the content of the article ought to be neutral. At first blush, it appears to be completely neutral. But very little goes on Wikipedia that doesn't have some sort of agenda. The article describes the venerable Britannica publication and its history with a large amount of accuracy and neutrality. But why the emphasis on this? Read what Wiki's writers have to say: "In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt a 'continuous revision' policy, in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted and every article is updated on a regular schedule."

The suggestion that the Britannica was dumbed-down with the 11th edition for consumption by dumb North Americans aside, Wikipedia is setting the stage for justifying its own policy of having friendly users revise Wiki entries online, sometimes daily. It ignores the fact that the Britannica is carefully put together by international scholars, peer-reviewed, and changed only to correct erroneous facts in earlier editions and bring each edition up to date. It is not changed to reflect current political trends, nor does it utilize scholars with a viewpoint which has strong opposition from other peer scholars. And it most certainly doesn't allow "democratic" changes to entries that delete or revise the work of other writers. Britannica avoids updated entries by writers who might simply not agree with the tone or politics of the original authors.

Wikipedia on the other hand, commits all of the aforementioned scholarly errors. Which brings me to the point of this article. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, wrote a piece published in the Wall Street Journal last week which lamented "the rise of online hostility"and the "degeneration of online civility." Much though I may agree with him on that general principle, what does it have to do with publications which are supposed to provide information that the public can rely on?

Mr. Wales is of, shall we say, the "progressive" persuasion. Which means that among other things, there are no real "facts" or "truths" but only opinions of fact and truth. And since that is the situation, why not allow a supposedly neutral compendium of knowledge to be edited by hand-picked experts and writers of like mind?

The latest, and biggest flap over Wikipedia rewrites, and the one which brought Mr. Wales out of hiding, was the startling article by Lawrence Solomon entitled "How Wikipedia's green doctor rewrote 5,426 climate articles." In the wake of irrefutable proof that the world has been cooling slightly for nearly ten years, "global warming" articles on Wikipedia have become "climate change" articles. But the articles predict doom, either way, if mankind doesn't surrender to the wisdom of the pseudo-scientists and give up almost all of their modern conveniences.

The revisionist author in question is William M. Connolley, a Green Party activist in Britain, and a pal of Wales. After most of the globaloney appearing on Wikipedia was either disproved (the "hockey stick graph") or seriously challenged by other, less agenda-driven scientists, Connolley began the lengthy process of re-writing the global warming articles on a regular basis to justify the conclusions by adjusting the responses to the legitimate challenges to the underlying theory/agenda.

Among Connolley's accomplishments are his twin magical tricks of eliminating both the medieval warming period and the "little ice age" from the entries describing earlier warming and cooling periods. With those earlier eras left in concerning a period of pre-industrialization and low population, the entire agenda of the neo-luddites simply looks like a ridiculous con job. Having eliminated science from the science articles, he then began prodigiously producing political articles attacking all the critics of the global warming/anthropogenic climate change agenda. Did I mention that Connolley has no scientific expertise, but is rather a software engineer? That makes his revisions and new articles easy for him to post, in large numbers.

Although Wales laments the harshness of Solomon's uncivil "attack," nevertheless on December 23, a mere day after Solomon's article appeared, the following showed up at Wikipedia: "Recently, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee determined that Wiliam M. Connolley has on a number of occasions misused his administrator tools by acting while involved, and as a consequence, William M. Connolley's administrative privileges are revoked." I suppose that means that "uncivil" commentary gets results. But at Wikipedia, such results appear to be highly ephemeral.

Within three days after Solomon's article, the articles on the medieval warming period were still revised nearly 50 times. Connolley had departed, but his acolytes kept submitting articles, which were then countered by other less agenda-driven writers, and then back again. The facts from Wikipedia on Monday were quite different from the facts on Tuesday. Are you high school and college scholars beginning to get a picture of why I think you should have your heads examined if you rely on Wikipedia as a source for your term papers?

Some of the notable Connolley disciples who have been involved in the revisions on the medieval warming period alone have included Penn State's Michael Mann (the inventor of the "hockey stick graph") and numerous writers from RealClimate.org, global warming enthusiasts all. I won't go any farther into the climate debate, since that alone could be the subject of many articles, and isn't the purpose of this piece anyway. It is simply a cautionary warning to those who aspire to knowledge and academic excellence. Go to the sources and view opposing opinions. Don't go to the secondary or tertiary source and the purveyor of multiple revisions and secret agendas. In other words, don't go to Wikipedia.