fett on 14/1/2008 at 16:46
Quote Posted by Vivian
Yo fett, on the other hand, it's an academics freaking
job to know as much as possible about their chosen subject, so maybe we should value their take on things a bit more than someone who just works in an office? And yes, some things come from flashes of inspiration. But a lot more come from the kind of careful and laborious experimentation that only academics really have the time and available resources to carry out.
Absolutely - I feel like the devil's advocate here because as you guys well know, I get really pissed off when everyone starts throwing out laymen opinions on 'what the Bible really means' and spouting off about the Middle East. I humbly and correctly assert that MY opinion is the right one because of the years of study I've invested on that topic. So I completely emphasize with the concern that that masses are being misinformed because they've substituted sound bytes for study.
But anyone who has set foot in a college classroom will tell you that there is a virtual epidemic of academics who either don't know their topic, or have abandoned fact for opinion, or insist that theirs is the ONLY correct opinion. This is great when it come to math, languages, etc. but with the fine arts and certain other subjects, it's just arrogance.
It kind of reminds me of my Freshman Lit prof handing us a list of books that 'everyone should read' before entering college because they were considered classics or 'standards' -the list was absolute shit. Where was Lewis Carrol? Tolkein? Philip Dick? Same thing happened in Music History. I'm sorry, but Bach fucking sucks, and so do most of his imitators. The profs took it personally, and asserted that THESE were 'standards' - the material that is 'approved' for the course.
I just get a bad vibe when academics start raising an arbitrary standard of what's 'acceptable' material when the topic is subjective to begin with.
Shug on 14/1/2008 at 16:47
Quote Posted by Medlar
Try not to think so much Zylon
more like try not to type so much
Aerothorn on 14/1/2008 at 17:06
Article seems to be a rush job, with this choice paragraph in particular:
"Wikipedia, containing millions of articles contributed by users was founded in 2001. It has been criticised for being riddled with inaccuracies and nonsense. Even one of its own founders, Larry Sanger, described it as “broken beyond repair” before leaving the site last year."
Such weasel words. "It has been criticised"? By whom? Do these criticisms hold weight? Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all denying that there is a lot of misinformation on Wikipedia, but such an un-researched blanket statement is just lazy journalism.
Fringe on 14/1/2008 at 17:39
Teaching English courses as part of my grad assistantship may or may not qualify me as a Guardian of Sacred Knowledge, but, fett, believe me--so many of these kids come into college having no goddamn clue about how to do any research beyond scanning the first page of Google hits. Nor do they know what makes a source, online or not, worth trusting. I've had students try to cite websites ranting about the Beatles' secret satanic messages - or cite political screeds - or blogs - or copy things straight out of Wikipedia - and have no idea why anyone would have a problem with it. They come to class not knowing how to filter cartoonish propaganda from actual rigorous, empirical research.
So I'm a little more sympathetic to the argument. When academics get pissy about Google and Wikipedia, it's from the bitter experience of trying to teach students who live a block away from a fantastic, eight-floor library - which has more information than they could possibly need to finish writing an essay - but who can't be convinced to visit it for any reason.
mopgoblin on 14/1/2008 at 18:46
I wonder if "more information than they could possibly need" is one of the reasons they turn to the internet instead. There's so much information out there that it's impossible to absorb it all. One way or another, you have to rule out huge amounts of information without reading any of it in detail. Filtering out this information is tricky and potentially quite time-consuming (and students still have living expenses, and often have to deal with extortionate costs related to study, so it'd be pretty damn naive to assume none of them have jobs). With so much pressure on time, it's very tempting to let someone or something else - usually Google or Wikipedia because they require so little time - do a lot of that filtering for them, even if it doesn't give the best results.
Chade on 14/1/2008 at 23:35
While I can appreciate the source of the professor's frustrations, blaming Google is incredibly misguided. So the internet is full of crap. That has nothing to do with Google. IMO there's probably a small correlation between Google search rankings and reliability, so Google may even help improve the situation slightly.
At the end of the day, though, it's always been up to people to filter the information they read and pick the reliable stuff.
Libraries and newspaper are full of crap too, albeit nowhere near as much. I suspect students of decades past used to be equally as uncritical of the material they picked up from the library. It's just that they had a much better chance of getting lucky and avoiding poor information.
Vivian on 15/1/2008 at 00:28
What would really worry me would be if I found out that google scholar was full of publication-biases. I use that stuff a lot.
fett on 15/1/2008 at 04:10
I can only speak to this specific area, but it might also be worth noting here that about 80% of what I see on the History Channel regarding bible & Middle-Eastern history is complete bullshit. Any mediated form of information is flawed, including classroom lecture. But yeah, kids do need to learn how to get to the actual source of the information, not someone's blog entry about it. Seems to me that the internet is one of the best ways to actually do that though...
Medlar on 15/1/2008 at 10:09
Sounds like google needs a search engine to sort the wheat from the chaff from within it's own search results. I say that because of the comments here and I talked to a couple of students yesterday and they wouldn't dream of going to the library to research when they can just sit in front of a puter at home.
The internet is a great tool but if tomorrows sole source of information becomes googles first results page then it becomes a dangerous place.
SubJeff on 15/1/2008 at 10:13
Don't forget that you have access to many of the same textbooks and journals that are in the library online Medlar, and in the case of journals many, many, many more.
I don't think it's a google thing, it's a lazy thing. People don't even look for anything that looks factual/official, they'll just go to Wikipedia. I've altered incorrect info on there that has just been altered back to the BS.
