They Just Don't Get It

[kateorman]

Here's an entry from my proto-blog, "Kate Almanac", dated 9 July 2000.In June this year, I visited relatives in Washington DC. I packed my passport, my swimsuit - and a list of references to look up at the Library of Congress. Despite plundering university and local libraries around the world, there were still a handful of citations I hadn't been

Comments

[barrington]

it takes so little effort to distort the truth, and so much effort to find it

Amen, as they say. I hardly like to cast any debate as "us vs them" - that's where so many of the problems we try to fight start, after all - but it does seem that the enemies of humanism, feminism and science have a clear advantage: they don't respect the rules. Quoting out of context or without fact-checking is more or less standard practice for Creationists, climate change "debunkers" and extreme "conservatives".

On a related note, I had a look at Conserveapedia (http://conservapedia.com) the other day. It's...worrying. Mind you, RationalWiki (http://rationalwiki.com) is potentially as bad, and I feel I might look at both sites when researching "contentious" issues in the future.

PS - have I mentioned The Dawn Chorus (http://thedawnchorus.wordpress.com/) before? It occurred to me it'd be of interest. They had a good piece about Elizabeth Blackburn, and The Age's coverage of her Nobel win.

[kateorman]

Feminists have made some prize fuckups with statistics and things over the years - actually, there was a whole other "Kate Almanac" entry about that! But I always like to think when progressives cock things up, it's the result of incompetence, not malice. :)

I reckon the chances of finding useful information in a Wiki are too low to bother with. I'll usually just scroll straight down to the references and links and go see for myself.

Ta for the link!

[murasaki_1966]

Good to see some one using good research practice? Did you buy the book?

[kateorman]

I did - I think it's going to a new home now at the Women's Library. :)