At least, that’s how Andy Schlafly characterizes Conservapedia in a New Scientist article. I called it “shallow and useless or downright wrong,” if you’re interested in an alternative position on it.
Josh Rosenau wasn’t any more charitable.
They are re-defining their own truth and seem to think facts are malleable.
Strictly speaking, I guess Schlafly was correct: if you’re redefining facts and making up nonsense as you go along, you certainly are presenting a new way of learning.
The level of vandalism and obscenity was shocking.”
OK, I can understand if he wants to keep obscenity out of it, but I fail to see how having actual scientists editing topics about science is tantamount to vandalism. I think he meant to say “the level of reality was shocking.”
I haven’t encountered anything on Wikipedia as shocking as the entire Conservapedia entry on the Holocaust:
“The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them.”
“This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them.”
Since I’m Jewish, I think I’m quite qualified to say that statement is BULL.
I’m sure that Conservapedia is full of anti-semitic freaks. How disgusting.
Strictly speaking, I guess Schlafly was correct: if you’re redefining facts and making up nonsense as you go along, you certainly are presenting a new way of learning.
It’s a “new way of learning” in the same way that a shit sandwich is still a sandwich, I suppose.
I’ve been getting the distinct impression that ASchlafy is a little more than just “conservative”. Particularly when it comes to Einstein. They hate Einstein, and I don’t know why, and try to give credit for relativity to other people (like Ponicare, never mind that his formulation isn’t consistent with the Michaelson-Morely experiment), and are generally hostile towards him. I can understand maybe pointing out where Einsteins contributions were, and where he got them from other people, but some of the things I saw were completely irrational.
And then I read that Holocaust entry and figured it out: Einstein was a Jew, and ASchlafy is probably a goose-stepping, propaganda spouting, Jew-hating Nazi asshole.
It’s a “new way of learning” in the same way that a [expletive deleted] sandwich is still a sandwich, I suppose.
Yeah, but the real irony here is that all the parodies being added to the Conservapedia that are being unwittingly accepted by the Schlaflys as legitimate entries are merely adding to their uncritical “knowledge” base. A Schadenfreude sandwich that tastes like [expletive deleted].
Is it normal to have 58 students at a home school?
Yeah, that’s why it took me so long to figure out that the Einstein stuff wasn’t a parody. Then ASchlafy reverted it to something from before the blitzkrieg, and I had my answer.
Sure. According to many conservatives, birth control is a tool of the devil, so 58 kids sounds about right to me.
what in the hell is going on with new scientist that they felt a compelling need to give conservapedia even the briefest of mentions?
I swear, the pop science mags seem to get worse every year.
You know the line: “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts” ?
Apparently, conservatives think that’s a lot of hippie crap.
Same goes for conservatives and vaccinations. I guess they’re more into the Intelligent Design approach to medicine (that’s the one with rattles and beads).
I think the genuine freaky wingnuts (of which Conservapedia is a prime example) have a problem with Einstein for the same reason that they have a problem with a lot of mathematics.
Since we’re now seing honest-to-goodness geocentrists come out of the woodwork, I don’t think it’s too farfetched to say that probably a lot of them have a similar attitude about math to Mel Gabler, who once (in)famously opined, “When a student reads in a math book that there are no absolutes, suddenly every value he’s been taught is destroyed. And the next thing you know, the student turns to crime and drugs.”
Read too much on the Theory of Relativity, and you too can become a crack-smoking variety store knock-off artist…
That is a truly warped quote. But I can fix it.
And speaking of which… *grabs red pen*
…and PZ, I’m delighted to inform you that you have a flash banner for “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” at the top of your page.
But without Conservapedia, I would never have learned about the endangered Tree Octopus, an amphibian mollusc that surely you would be interested in learning about, PZ: http://www.conservapedia.com/Pacific_Northwest_Arboreal_Octopus
I believe mating season approaches, which should involve some sighting opportunities in the vicinity – surely worth a trip out west.
Jebus H. Christ. You’re right. There’s a Jebus ad at the top of my page.
The Discovery Channel may regret that.
The random function brought this up. Nah, they wouldn’t make stuff up!
Their version
What…a…thirty…second…session…with…Google…turns…up…
” Since I’m Jewish, I think I’m quite qualified to say that statement is BULL.”
See, there you go getting touchy.
I’m not sure, but I think the 58 kids were not all physically present–think distance learning.
I keep having flashes of Andy Rooney and Judy Garland–“I know! We’ll put on a show!”
Here’s Part I of my response to Conservapedia — I’m not sure if there will be a part II or part [more]
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2007/02/attention_high_.html
At last, the real truth about dinosaurs.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Dinosaur
Wikiality
Dustin figures that Schlafly’s opposition to Einstein results from anti-Semitism. No doubt, but it’s part of a bigger story.
He hates Galileo too, after all. If you were to Google the soc.history.science archives for his contributions, though why you’d want to is way beyond me, you’d find a particularly strong statement of all the nonsense available from the More Catholic than the Pope party. (The people who engaged him on s.h.science didn’t do a particularly good job, but there’s some excuse for that: this particular sort of lunatic was a new experience for those used to nothing worse than Archimedes Plutonium.)
Einstein was Jewish; Galileo was worse, if such is possible: a Catholic who didn’t bend over on demand. And, I think it’s relevant, they were both smart. Both intolerable.
I suspect that any Catholic who stumbles into a discussion with Schlafly should try a tactic not available to most of the readers here: start praising Jesuits with great enthusiasm. It would probably give him apoplexy. A useful service to the world, though maybe an unChristian thing to do.
Uh, Liz, that’s Mickey Rooney. I don’t think that the 60 Minutes curmudgeon had anything to do with Judy.
Well, the real hatred of Einstein probably has a lot to do with him having been something of an atheist and a good deal more of a socialist.
The A Beka people are convinced that free market capitalism is given unto us by God, and any turning away from it is a turning to Satan and his evil works.
“A new way of learning about history and science.”
HA! That should be ammended to read: “A new way to learn about history and science, or…as we like to call it, revisionist history and creation science 101.”
Smokey holes. The sad part of all of this is that there are kids out there who are going to google some random topic for a school report and THIS is the bullshit they’re going to find. I think every entry should come with a disclaimer: Warning! The entry you are about to read was written by a person who watches NASCAR, thinks Bush is “a great leader!”, and defers to myths for morality. Use with caution.
See, there you go getting touchy.
Jeez, I guess the very mention of the word holocaust sent me into fits! Those good folks at conservapedia must be right. :)
I’m not sure, but I think the 58 kids were not all physically present–think distance learning.
Trying…not to make joke…about if they were mentally present…
Dear disco ball, please tell me the dinosaur page doesn’t actually have a picture of Jesus on a sauropod, holding what may be an iguana. I’m hallucinating, right? I’ve never been able to get on the site before now due to the combo of high traffic/bad bandwidth, but now that picture is going to haunt me all day.
Was this page done by someone from here? I find it fairly offensive (but I’m one of those darn librul PC types) so I didn’t know if it was satire that the good Christians there either didn’t notice or didn’t care that it was offensive.
Mena,
I’m pretty sure the baramin entry was (at least largely) swiped from Objective Ministries. But then, I don’t think the Conservapedists would recognise Objective for what it is…
À propos, I made sure to point out in the entry for “Species” that, when secular scientists say “species”, “baramin” is what they mean. But now I am afraid I have been banned (apparently, for editing the article of “College of Cardinals” to point out that the College only offers post-graduate degrees). The ban lasts for two weeks, after which I am sure I will be much more accurately conservative.
It dates from the Punking Period, so it probably was done by a parodist/satirist.
“(apparently, for editing the article of “College of Cardinals” to point out that the College only offers post-graduate degrees)”
Well, there’s the problem. I have it on good authority that they offer a BS in programming. They’re a bit behind the times though- they only teach Red Hat.
That New Scientist article would have been less vacuous if they had provided some actual examples of edits which were made and then removed.
At Insane-o-pedia under the heading “What’s wrong with Wikipedia” the authors bring up British spelling. Yes, articles about British subjects might spell the word “color” as “colour” and that’s just wrong! It’s downright un-American!
Insane-o-pedia uses only American spelling.
That’s telling ’em!
Interrobang mentioned the fear that mathematics would undermine values by denyhing absolutes. Way back in the 1920s Friedrich Torberg had a story in which a school boy loses faith in god after being taught about imaginary numbers. In the story the boy is better off for it.
I remember years ago seeing a show about religious zealots home-schooling their children. My favorite part was when they interviewed one of the boys who said, in a thick southern accent:
“I don’t want to go to college. College is where they teach you to hate God.”
Conservapedia appears to be hosted on a Commodore VIC-20 equipped with a 300 baud modem.
Do not insult the VIC-20 that way. Obviously, the site is hosted on a TRS-80.
…and the database is stored on cassette tapes.
No, it’s Christian. Jesus allegedly kicked out a bunch of world-pushing nitwits from the synagogue. I think argument could be made that the Conservapedia inbreds are being as disrespectful of (at least a conceptual) sanctuary.
As for Jesuits — this is a good idea. Mendel rocked!
But Warren, wasn’t Mendel an Augustinian?
The only Jesuit scientist that springs to my mind is poor old Teilhard de Chardin, the paleontologist and woo-merchant, whom Peter Medawar gave such a thorough spanking.
Mrs Tilton:
The first one which popped into my mind was Christoph Scheiner (1573–1650).
Blake,
I gladly bow before your superior knowledge of Jesuit sages!
Having clicked on Blake’s link, I see that Scheiner was no Gregor Mendel:
But all’s well that ends well:
Mrs Tilton:
Hee hee! Actually, I just have a fair memory for people mentioned in James Burke documentaries.
PZ said: “Jebus H. Christ. You’re right. There’s a Jebus ad at the top of my page.
“The Discovery Channel may regret that.”
I’ll tell you what they’ll really regret: If they find Jebus’ Lost Tomb and **it’s occupied**.
Zombie Christ: ‘Cause resurrection is for sissies.
Forget winning hearts and minds. All Zombie Christ wants is… BRAAAAAINS!
Dustin wrote:
I don’t know if it’s directly relevant, but a few years back John Farrell wrote an article in Salon called
“Did Einstein Cheat?“, exploring the seamy anti-Einstein underworld of the Internet.
Loonballs who don’t know physics, to put it briefly. The article concludes as follows:
Sadly it isn’t new. Religion has been around for a very long time.
In the lust for short-term election victories, conservatives have irrevocably merged their political ideology with religion, and so they have begun to apply the infinitely malleable, evidence-free methodology of theology to the political realm. Thus we have “faith-based” politics rather than “reality-based” politics. Ann Coulter’s frenetic claims that liberals have turned politics into their religion seem like a perfect example of psychological projection to me.
I still can’t find a conservapedia entry for “Scrotum.” Hmmm. Maybe I should check “Nutbag” instead.
I recommend we start spelling it “Conservapaedia”. You know, just to advance the anti-American agenda with that weapon of mass irritation, UK spelling. :)
A. Nonny Muss:
Excellent.
Mrs. Tilton,
That’s too rich! I do hope that you have learned the error of your ways though. ;^)
MikeM,
I can see how the non-PC crowd wouldn’t have any problem with using terms like negro and mongoloid in that baramin article but nut-anything strikes too close to home.
I was thinking of trying this when I get some time and their site works a bit better. Zheesh, how long would I have to wait for those pages to download without broadband?!?!? I was going to start with pointing out that the conservatives during the Revolution were the loyalists but haven’t figured out a sneaky or funny way of doing that yet.
Nah. Its hosted on an Apple III. For those not knowing this gem, it was their attempt at a *business machine*. It only ran CP/M applications (those old pre-8086 CPU programs), required extra hardware to run AppleII applications, and then only if you first “booted” through a special disk. They where pieces of total crap. And, he’s probably using the joystick port on it to “fake” a serial port (standard practice in some, “make your own device”, concepts for the early Apple computers). The standard model didn’t come with any ports at all, if I remember, and you had to add those seperately too. All in all, the III was a boat anchor and even the better high res that later became standard on the Enchanced IIe and II+ was virtually impossible to actually use unless you had pre-existing software from them, like a crappy picture editor. Not even the Pascal language disks came with “proper” libraries for it. lol
Reminds me of Randall Terry going on about how much he “hates the Enlightenment.” Says it all.
Mrs. Tilton,
I was disappointed to see you were (temporarily) banned. I, too, was banned, though permanently. I thought I was doing a better job at being subtle, and Ashcyfly (sp?) banned me only a day after thanking me for my valuable, though strongly-worded, contributions. I’m not sure if it was my edits pointing out the anti-free market nature of the Gracchi brothers, that George Danton remains popular with homosexuals, or my insistence that scientists wrongly value evidence over the unchanging word of God. The only remaining vestige of my fun is the “Democrat” page that mentions their treasonous anti-Americanism with a link to a story with the headline “Democrats disagree with Bush.”
I particularly enjoyed your comment that (paraphrasing) “while all nazis were atheists, not all atheists are nazis (some are communists, for example)”.
I think part of the issue is that there was a goon rush by somethingawful.com … I think they took delight in adding in some obscene pictures and changing some articles to make them comedically conservative.
Similar to what happened here but by a much more immature(?) community?
Man! I gotta stop doing my very best Okazaki Fragment. I am totally lagging on this issue…
Great comments thread – Smart People Be Here…:)
(Kagehi and Tekla: I not only remember the Apple III, I have a desk drawer full of FORTRAN punchcards, and one of those envelopes holds the program for the perfect shuffle. I also still have tapes for a tape-drive machine I haven’t owned for 20 years – but damnit – someone may want to read my Senior Thesis on Tryptophan and ADD/ADHD, written in 1986 when we were at our Neuro zenith. I also have Tandy DOS for a TRASH-80 on 5 1/4″ floppy. And Appleworks by R.J. Messner. And dBASE-III. And Lotus. And WordPerfect 5.0. I seriously have a 51/4 library that I should be ashamed to admit I own.)
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those of us who understand binary, and those who don’t.
–BG
Speaking of which, does anyone know of a service that will read punch cards onto a usable magnetic medium?
Didn’t think so. about 15 years too late, I guess.
(Wrote that as magentic medium. But no need for flying purple card eaters.)
As to Jesiuts, I wasn’t thinking of them as scientists but as intellectual Catholics of a sort that I just know Schlafly can’t stand. And I won’t tell the story here about the Franciscan, the Dominican, the Benedictine and the Jesuit at dinner, out of respect to the norms of the group.
But forget Scheiner. In fact, he’s Schlafly’s kind of guy, not only as a fierce opponent of moving the Earth, but as one who heard someone praise Galileo in a bookstore and started quivering with rage. But there’s another Jesuit of legitimate fame: Clavius, who was Mr. (or Dr.) Astronomy in the time between Copernicus and Galileo&Kepler.
Not to mention the still-living Fr. Coyne, the subject of comments some weeks ago, who really isn’t Schlafly’s sort.
Please do!!! Pretty please!
Please do!!! Pretty please!
“I don’t want to go to college. College is where they teach you to hate God.”
************
They tell that to you with Canadian accents, too. In private schools.
And tell you to ground yourself in scripture before taking philosophy courses, and Lit courses, and science courses…. Lest you lose all faith.
After a while it gets old.
Not so much when you first hear it.
Eh.
I noticed that the entry for the “Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus” now has a comment by ASchlafly mentioning how the Conservapedia site has been bombarded by science bloggers, but that the science bloggers are too stupid to notice that the article on the tree octopus is actually a parody making fun of environmentalists. So there science bloggers!
Seriously, check it out.
The PNAC entry in that basteon of useful information is gone … :(
Oops, wrong PNA* acronym.