like wiping out Religion?

This research is as impressive as finding water (ice) on Mars. What scares me is, if we don’t stop the Creationists attack on evolution and biology, it seems to me geology and astronomy will be next. I have saying, do you realize that whenever anyone mentions a date that is earlier than 4000BC, they are committing heresy?

I sort of agree. I definitely agree with the aim, but I’m not sure it’s always possible. Sometimes making it accessible to scientists and to the layperson can be mutually exclusive (and I do try and do both). But certainly with a bit of googling, none of my abstracts are too impenetrable.

The key problem is probably terminology. I might refer to a simulation as “stochastic” rather than saying that it has a random element. Stochastic is a more efficient way of communicating the concept in a journal (and in a searchable electronic database), but also is useful for foreign scientists who don’t know much English, but know the terms associated with their field. So that’s what I mean when I say that sometimes making a paper more accessible to a layperson can be at the detriment to making it clear for other scientists. I do try though.

As a side note, there are initiatives like researchblogging.org, which aggregates posts by dozens of bloggers like myself, who write posts about peer-reviewed research in a more accessible way.

Yes, marking would be fair. Like I said, I have no problem with bias so long as it is admitted. There are very few things more annoying than a zealot that ignores his own zeal while railing upon the zeal of others.

On the topic of objective vs. biased: It would be possible for RationalWiki to include both (clearly marked) editorial articles as well as articles that aspire to the highest degree of objectivity. There are newspapers that operate on this principle (not in the UK, by the way).

Wikipedia does that okay and any problems that wikipedia has we would too.

So long as the topic in question isn’t controversial… ah well.

@ Pieter Kok and C_E

My thoughts are that “fascism”–the word as an actual linguistic construct–is a political cringe word with no real meaning, seeing how often it’s conflated with police, oppressive, and totalitarian states in general. x-fascism has nothing to do with economics, instead capitalizing on the connection to aggressive ideological totalitarianism.

And there’s no denying that there are aggressive, ideologically totalitarian Islamic societies in the world today.

Fair point about the Romans and Fascism… although I was referring to fascism in its modern form as first coined by Mussolini. One could certainly assert that imperial Roman ideology could best be described as fascism… it’d be an interesting debate, anyhow.

Similarly, 20th century fascism took place in a predominantly Christian part of the world, but we don’t call it Christiano-fascism. Conflating the two terms indicates some form of causation, while in these cases there is only correlation.

I am not going to tell you to take a flying leap, it is interesting to get an “outside” perspective and I am always looking for ways to improve. Just trying to provide our perspective on the issue as well. Basically if our purpose was to provide a neutral point of view then why bother? Wikipedia does that okay and any problems that wikipedia has we would too. Our editorial slant, and policies and expectations for articles and users is what makes us different and I hope carves out a different niche.

But I thank everyone for their comments. Anyone that has specific criticisms is of course welcome to alert us to them at anytime.

One then also crosses from the territory of talking about opinions into talking about facts.

> Creationism, and homotoxicoloy, and chelation therapy for autism are NOT on equal footing with biology, medicine and behavioral therapy.

These are all discussions of fact, rather than discussions of ideological opinon (right versus left). “Vaccines cause autism” is a truth-value statement, and truth-value statements are related to facts (in this case, “vaccines cause autism” is for all intents and purposes false). This is distinct from “vaccines are bad,” which is a statement of opinion as ‘bad’ is a subjective statement and thus open to infinite interpretation and justification. I can say “vaccines are bad because they cause autism,” which is an opinion based on an belief in an inaccurate truth-value statement, or I cay say “vaccines are bad because they reduce child mortality and thus increase population pressures,” which is an opinion based on a belief in an accurate truth-value statement.

> I don’t think the encyclopedia dramatica comparison is fair either.

You have your axe to grind against enemies of the faith (i.e. the right, the ‘irrational,’ et al), they have their axe to grind against who they percieve to be their enemies (i.e. furries). You yourself have claimed that objectivity is not your goal; either you are aiming to be objective (and thus non-ED), or you are not (and thus similar to ED in that you’ve an unapologetic editorial slant). As we both recognize that one can’t be both at the same time, let us be intellectually honest and at the very least unapologetically assert said editorial slant rather than continue the slant then assert it doesn’t exist.

> The fact of the matter is that a great deal of the internet is spent pushing idiocy of all kinds in all fields as fact. Analysis and refutation based on evidence can’t hurt.

No argument. However, as has been pointed out, maintaining an obvious editorial slant does tend to make one seem less than rational, which seems harmful to the stated statement of trying to be a bastion of reason on the Internet. If, on the other hand, you’re just more of a collection of like minds who are swayed by reason on the one hand and happen to use selective evidence to support ideological opinions on the other, congratulations, you’re human. This is not a bad thing. It simply means that perhaps RationalWiki was a poor choice of name as far as philosophical honesty is concerned (sort of like how the “freethinker” movement isn’t really).

On the other hand, a greater deal of the internet is spent being jerkoffs to opinions and ideologies we don’t like, so it’s not like RW is being accused of high treason or perversion here.

> We are not perfect, but we are trying to do SOMETHING, and the good news is that anyone who wants to can help out.

Perfection is not requested nor required. I merely report the result of my own observation and evaluation; if my opinion troubles you, well, the choice is you as a free operative agent to make the edits necessary to fix that. If my opinion does not trouble you, then tell me to go take a flying leap and I will gladly do so, as we actually have no conflict.

It was just a peripheral thought triggered by comments regarding Schafly’s ability/inability to understand Lenski’s paper(s), if he actually bothered to read them in good faith.

@Martin

You make a good point. It’s just that I think scientific papers, like everything else written down, is a form of literature, and good literature is accessible at some level to everyone. A layperson doesn’t have to be made to understand everything in the paper, just the broad outline. For example, for Lenski’s paper, I think any layperson reading it should be able to grasp that:

1. Bacteria were grown for 20 years in order to see if and how they would evolve.
2. Ding! They DID evolve.
3. One group evolved an ability to eat something called citrate which they couldn’t eat before.
4. The evolution of this ability depended on earlier changes which, by themselves, had no observable effects at the time.

Nothing more in depth than that.

Would you be willing to compromise and say that the abstract, at least, should be understandable to a layperson?

(PS A paper describing an important and well researched finding that is hard to understand is still good science even if it is “bad” literature. We should judge scientists on the science they do. But it would be a bonus if they could write well also, and we should all strive to do so as much as we can afford to.)

that’s a pretty apt analogy… feeling more or less the same way… seems like a good premise, just too overboard in places to live up to its moniker of “rational”.

In the U.S., particularly among college-age students, “oh, snap!” typically means that someone just got owned, zinged, dissed, made fun of, etc., as in Greg in Austin’s second example, and that the zing was at least a little clever.

For me, it also nicely captures the brainbump that happens when I read a comment that directly echoes what I was thinking just prior (I get this a lot when reading a discussion of creationist nonsense; when the writer is of Lenski’s quality, I take it as a very good sign and reward myself with a Snapple).

Conservapedia, on the other hand, is a hoot! They actually use the old quote “There are no atheists in foxholes” as proof of the inconsistency of ATHEISTS. And under the article “Professor values”, they have the following:

“Professors’ common value system typically includes… unjustified claims of expertise and knowledge (for example, the dogmatic promotion of the theory of evolution)…”

That’s right – we are beset by evil biology professors who claim unjustifiable expertise in the field of biology.

I’m adding Conservapedia to my favourites!

Him: “You’ve just won a million dollars.”
Her: “Oh, snap!”

Sometimes its used as a zinger:

Him: “As payment, we could just hang out together.”
Her: “That would be punishment, not payment. Oh, snap!”

On the subject of Conservapedia, I just posted an back-of-the-envelope “analysis” of their reach, and to be honest I don’t think it’s just Lenski that owns them – by my calculation the criticism in the science blogosphere will get a far bigger audience than their efforts.
See: Conservapedia’s Reach: A Back-of-the-Envelope Study

Re: amphiox

Sorry, but I don’t entirely agree with you. Yes, it would be nice if all papers were understandable to the lay reader, and I certainly try to do it with mine where I can, but ultimately if you’re not familiar with, say, doctoral-level immunology you’re going to find it almost impossible to make sense of a lot of papers on it, and there’s only so much effort it’s worth us putting in when we’re specifically writing for an audience of other scientists in the field.

…

OK… I hear what you’re saying… but I’m confused as to which comment / personal beef you are referring to, specifically, in this thread. Can you elaborate?

A properly written scientific paper should be clearly understandable at least on some level by anyone capable of reading. Of course comprehension of specific details will vary from reader to reader, but the general focus should be obvious to everyone. The reader should, after finishing, be able to say “this is what the author wanted to do, this is roughly how he did it, and this is what he found out in the end. I may be somewhat fuzzy on the specifics because of my lack of expertise in the subject, but I was not confused at any time.”

The above only applies to readers who are willing to be receptive to the subject, of course.

More confusion: On wikipedia “Oh, snap!” redirects to “Biz Markie”. Huh?

Slightly more on-topic:
I had a look at Conservapedia – their article on “Atheism” is much longer than their article on “Jesus Christ”, which seem strange for a site with a bible-verse-of-the-day on its main page. Re. “Atheism” article – love the first listed of the “Reasonable Explanations for Atheism”: moral depravity. If only!

Volume 4, Episode 10.