Wikipedia's perfection (was Re: Discussion of the relative advantages/disadvantages of PAE (was Re: Memory >3.5GB not used?))

[Thomas Sparrevohn]

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 21:21:47 Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 01:58:55PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > I definitely agree that's suboptimal.  I'd expand that to include other
> > sorts of pages, other than webpages, as well.  It's pretty rare for this
> > particular brand of intellectually lazy person to realize that about the
> > printed page, though.
> 
> I recall reading some interesting comments from studies (second hand, e.g.,
> in Science News) which stated that people tended to believe things that
> were presented in a credible fashion, not questioning them - using the
> paper or page as an authority which amplified their own general beliefs
> on a topic.
> 
> Aside from the circular referencing that occurs when believing that...
> 
> It's certainly hard to see where/how to decide to stop and question the
> authority, given that premise (knowing that one is biased).  But it's
> perhaps a good habit to get into - observing that reading things that
> one already agrees with are perhaps as problematic as those that one
> does not.
> 

If there was an easy answer to this quistion most con attists would be
out of a job. Even high ranking universities has been known to employ
a con man from time to time - so while the discussion is relevant - i don't 
see any reason that this thread should not be in chat ;-)