Tuesday 2 February 2010

Random


I was sent this apology from a former Xian, and I liked it so much I wanted to pass it on. Please enjoy.

Also, here's a pretty good Onion-esque satire site that I know has fooled at least one gullible Xian. See, apparently we'd all be cannibals if not for Jebus, even if not everyone was a cannibal before Jebus supposedly came to Earth or before ever hearing about Jebus. You're not supposed to actually use logic and facts and stuff!

9 comments:

tinkbell13 said...

You see, that is where you fell for it. I never check his links because he considers Wikipedia to be a valid source. I have been burned by that a few times myself.

It is like I always say- you can bring him to water, but he will not drink. But, that might change if you lead him to pork rinds and beer. The poor thing.

Tristan Vick said...

This picture made me giggle. "Thou shall stop hitting thyself!"

GCT said...

Tink, I don't know that Wikipedia isn't a valid source, but if he does believe it to be so, that's interesting. He has, in the past, completely disregarded some of my arguments if I linked to Wikipedia saying that it is not valid.

Still, if you never check his links, you'll never know when he makes the collosal blunder of linking to a satire site and you'd deprive yourself of quite a few laughs.

tinkbell13 said...

I know.... But, it it tiresome. Every so often I do, but I have seen it enough. One time, I googled something like he did, and I was able to replicate how he gets his sources. It was funny. He disregards selectively, and he ends up arguing with something other than what everyone else is talking about. It is kinda sad actually.

I don't know, none of my profs don't consider it to be a valid source. In fact, you lose marks if you use it as a reference. I could be wrong, but I think its open source. That means that people like him can add to the body of knowledge as they see fit, and that is why academics do not recognize it.

GCT said...

Correct, it is open source, but the editors do patrol and ask for citations and supporting links. You have to take it with a grain of salt, but it doesn't always mean that it's wrong. Conservapedia, OTOH, is probably always wrong, and I would think that's where JD spends more of his time. In fact, he thinks the definition of methodological naturalism as stated in Conservapedia - including the distorted definition of atheists and atheism - is correct.

fuuuuck said...

Although wikipedia is somewhat self-correcting, information from it should still be taken with a grain of salt (or by checking the citations and making a judgment on them).

I have seen many dozens of articles that completely lack citations, cite unreliable sources, or include factually incorrect information (at least with regards to articles about scientific things). You know, truthiness.

I guess wikipedia can be a good place to get an idea for something, but it's not a reliable source. There is a similar ban on using wikipedia as a source at my university, but we have an excellent library network and access to EBSCOhost.

Tristan Vick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tristan Vick said...

I wouldn't cite Wikipedia in an academic paper, but I see why there's no reason to cite it for pointing people to further references.

After all, if the person is genuinely intelligent they'll neglect the main part of the articles, skip down to the citations and references section, make a note of the books and articles cited, and go find further sources.

As a source finding tool I find Wikipedia is excellent. After that it just becomes a matter of inter-library loans.

Also, in all honesty, the articles are written for the layman, and that helps immensely when you just want someone to glance at an issue full well knowing they're never going to go any further than that.

That's also why I use it on my blog, just to add to the already well cited references and content which I know they're never going to read or engage with anyway.

tinkbell13 said...

Yes, sometimes I will use it for generalized info. Tristan, so true. Good for references.

Google Scholar is getting better, and it is becoming easier for a layperson to access credible and current research from multiple sources.

Wikipedia is good for movies, stuff like that.