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Notice to Students: Wikipedia No Longer an Acceptable Source

DarwinWikipedia.jpgAccording to a recent article in the Seattle Times, “School officials unite in banning Wikipedia,” because “[t]here have been many cases of incorrect information on the Web site, some of which has been biased.” The article reports that sadly, “A teacher researching Martin Luther King Jr. found white supremacist information in his entry.”

Dr. King is one of my personal heroes. His perseverance in support of a just cause, and his calls for civil, reasoned responses to false personal attacks and persecution should be seen as a model for any ID proponent on how to behave in the present political climate. Thus, it is tragically unsurprising that Wikipedia, which promotes so much incorrect and biased information against intelligent design, should also be a haven for an even more distasteful form of incorrect and biased information about the pathway taken by the civil rights movement to strive towards freedom.

Regardless, there is one piece of good news coming from this article: Wikipedia itself is slowly recognizing its own deficiencies. As the article reports, “

Wikipedia officials recognize the problems with using the Web site for research, said Sandra Ordonez, communications manager for Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group behind Wikipedia. The company does not recommend using the Web site as a primary research source, she said.

Students should thus be forewarned about the dangers using Wikipedia as a primary source — or even as a haven for secondary sources — for information on controversial issues like intelligent design.

Casey Luskin

Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Casey Luskin is a geologist and an attorney with graduate degrees in science and law, giving him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution. He earned his PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, and BS and MS degrees in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied evolution extensively at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. His law degree is from the University of San Diego, where he focused his studies on First Amendment law, education law, and environmental law.

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