Here’s another special interest wiki: Athpedia, die säkulare Enzyklopädie. It’s a wikipedia for secularists, and as you might guess from the description, it’s so far all in German. There isn’t a lot there right now, so make it grow; a moment’s browse with my slow and clumsy recollections of German suggests that it isn’t a bad site—at least the articles don’t read like they were scribbled by third-graders and cribbed from some bottom-tier homeschool rag—but it clearly needs more contributors. More English would be helpful, too, but I mustn’t be a language imperialist, I know.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is a wonderful opportunity to point out that ASchlafly is three croutons, four anchovies, one romaine heart and a half-cup of dressing short of the salad.
Here’s what he wrote about J. Robert Oppenheimer:
http://www.conservapedia.com/J._Robert_Oppenheimer
That is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. As with everything else in Conservapedia that has anything whatsoever to do with the theory of gravity, they’ve inserted something in there about black holes not being falsifiable (huh?). It’s like the asswipe hasn’t even read Karl Popper, but keeps trying to throw his name around anyway. I’m amazed that Conservapedia doesn’t have an entry that goes like: “The hypothesis that kittens exist is not falsifiable, and therefore not scientific by the guidelines set down by Karl Popper”.
It isn’t vandalism either, ASchlafly and his toadie are the two primary authors of the entry, if you check the history. But, when Phillis Schlafly is your mother, I don’t think sanity is a reasonable expectation.
Scratch that, there’s been some vandalism since last night. Sadly, it isn’t any less weird now than it was before “John” got to it. Here’s the last one before the vandalism:
http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=J._Robert_Oppenheimer&oldid=18113
It’s hardly any different.
I just thought about creating an english version, so I looked if athpedia.org is already taken – it is, and it redirects to athpedia.de.
So, do they have plans to add an english version? I cannot find any information about that there.
Considering that english is the closest to a de facto lingua franca of the internet, wishing for it isn’t provocative. Requesting it in a site that already has chosen to use only native language is a tad imperialist, perhaps. But translation engines could eventually make this an unnecessary point of contention.
Languages are dying, and as most extinctions it is progressing with exponential rate. Naturally the half-life is a lifetime or two, and IIRC that is close to what is seen, about a 100 years. I’m not sure I lament that much, even if some languages may contribute with unique concepts. What I lament is that we still haven’t a real global lingua franca (for natural enough reasons).
Now I wonder how it will play out. The internet provides cultural exchange combined with a possible lingua franca. But if translation engines ever get good enough they will empower quite a number of core languages.
Considering that english is the closest to a de facto lingua franca of the internet, wishing for it isn’t provocative. Requesting it in a site that already has chosen to use only native language is a tad imperialist, perhaps. But translation engines could eventually make this an unnecessary point of contention.
Languages are dying, and as most extinctions it is progressing with exponential rate. Naturally the half-life is a lifetime or two, and IIRC that is close to what is seen, about a 100 years. I’m not sure I lament that much, even if some languages may contribute with unique concepts. What I lament is that we still haven’t a real global lingua franca (for natural enough reasons).
Now I wonder how it will play out. The internet provides cultural exchange combined with a possible lingua franca. But if translation engines ever get good enough they will empower quite a number of core languages.
I think the Conservapedia Oppenheimer page is reverted again.
Anyway, it is really bizarre. Oppenheimer did a lot of work and is most known for the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to separate electron and molecular contributions in QM calculations of molecules, made already as a graduate student under Born.
On top of other problems Schafly has to understand what science is he thinks that the world consists of a handful of scientists because if one isn’t chosen to get the Nobel prize one can’t have made “significant contributions”.
I think the Conservapedia Oppenheimer page is reverted again.
Anyway, it is really bizarre. Oppenheimer did a lot of work and is most known for the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to separate electron and molecular contributions in QM calculations of molecules, made already as a graduate student under Born.
On top of other problems Schafly has to understand what science is he thinks that the world consists of a handful of scientists because if one isn’t chosen to get the Nobel prize one can’t have made “significant contributions”.
Those of you looking for a good English-language atheist wiki ought to check out Iron Chariots, the counter-apologetics site run by some of the guys from the Non-Prophets podcast.
Athpedia looks really neat. The articles are quite extensive.
Ok, they are partly copied from the german wikipedia… :)
Please, people, it’s spelled Conservapaedia. ;-)
Hi folks,
nice to see that our efforts drawing circles all around the world. For now we just throw pebbles in the ocean, so anyone of you, who wants to join us, is welcome.
Iron Chariots was nicely done.
Read their Noah’s Ark and Jesus pages.
I don’t see the point of a Wikipedia specifically for atheists. Facts are facts. If an article is correct, does it really need to be spin-doctored for nontheistic consumption? And if the article is not correct, then the religious beliefs of the reader should make no difference, it’s still wrong.
Shouldn’t that be “Conservapædia”?
They just state the facts as it pertains to atheism and skepticism.
Also atheists do have a opinions. It’s not called sciencepedia or factpedia.
Sastra above is absolutely correct: I don’t need a special text that won’t offend my indefensible superstitions…I don’t have any (well, I’m sure I still do…)
Wow. You guys don’t get it.
Check out iron chariot.
Mhh..
Few words from me, why we think secular entyclopedia makes sense:
1. Unlike Wikipedias NPOV we prefer the term OPOV (objetive).
On de.Wikipedia NPOV is interpretet as Majority-POV, if you have a close look on articles like Biblecritics or Atheism on Germans Wikipedia you will see slight but very important differences to the same articles on en.Wikipedia.
2. Especially secular-related items are attacked by christian vandslism or they are target of edit-wars. In the last few months we had for example Proposed Deletions on “GBS”, “IBKA”, or they brandnew “Zentralrat der Ex-Muslime”. Very small but nonetheless very effectiv and therefore important organizations in the german secular scene. That is what we think about them.
Read the (german) Article on hpd for example.
Good Night, Good Luck from Germany;-)
Sastra is right. All we’d be doing is falling into the same trap – granting them that facts are different depending on your ideology, the same damn relativistic crap that we spend so much time fighting against.
Conservapaedia is now famous worldwide.
Ah, so “Seculapedia” = good, but “Conservapedia” = bad?
I can’t speak for Athpedia, but let me say a few words about the motivation behind Iron Chariots. We describe Iron Chariots as a counter-apologetics wiki. Unlike wikipedia, not all wikis necessarily have the goal of being a bias-free collection of facts. Putting things in wiki format is merely a convenient way of generating rapid, interrelated, distributed content on a subject of interest.
We see our site as similar in function to Bob Carroll’s “Skeptic’s Dictionary”, which presents a distinctly biased skeptical take on many common beliefs. On his own site, Bob writes: “The reader is forewarned that The Skeptic’s Dictionary does not try to present a balanced account of occult subjects. If anything, this book is a Davidian counterbalance to the Goliath of occult literature.” In a similar vein, the primary function of Iron Chariots is to collect common arguments, counter-arguments and background for the vast number of apologetic arguments out there.
For a collection of such arguments, see this page.
Kazim wrote:
You got that right.
I can think of several ways in which Wikipedia cannot satisfy the needs of an intellectual community. First up is its No original research policy, which in a nutshell says the following:
This is good for an encyclopedia, but bad for other purposes. If I want to shred some piece of nonsensical apologetics from William Lane Craig or Alvin Plantinga, the NOR policy stops me dead in my tracks, even if — perish the thought — the apologetics in question are just the same old pseudo-arguments schlepped out again.
You couldn’t write the Talk Origins FAQ on Wikipedia, but you could if you had your own wiki.
It’s not difficult to find other reasons, too. Wikipedians don’t sign their articles, for example; it doesn’t make much sense with their editing practices, but in a different project working toward a different goal, signing your work could be good idea.
PZ, you’re having a bad Monday (not uncommon for anyyone), two bloopers in a single day. Posting on a ‘specialist encyclopedia’ is exactly the worst possible advice as some of your loyal scribes have noted. Theists define the world as it suits them, a non-theist encyclopedia mirrors (mimics- a very ugly word) that mind-set.
If alternatives to Wikipedia are desired, the solution is simply to create as many good science web sites as possible such that ‘inquiring minds’ will find these sites rather than theistically oriented dreck.
The name “Iron Chariots” is the best Biblical reference ever. I want to have that tattooed somewhere on my body.
The Iron Chariots site is a good concept, but having some sort of special secular wikipedia is as assanine as conservapedia. As stated above, facts are facts, regardless of spin.
Also, it seems that many in the public don’t understand what a wiki itself is. They know wiki only through it being the prefix of wikipedia and automatically assume that it relates to something encyclopedic. Just an observation.
Since when is Wikipedia guaranteed to converge towards the truth? In any case, analysis of facts is not objective. I’d like to know not just when the Civil War was, but what it was about, and that is open for debate (or at least the relative weighting of factors).
Consevapedia is not a totally evil and ridiculous idea. It could have gone into more depth on alternative view points on topics that are actually debatable. It’s just that the people running it are crack-pots to begin with.
Let me say a few words about the motivation behind Athpedia. When it comes to atheism topics, the German Wikipedia is biased. Many Theists want to have articles deleted or changed, that contradict their faith. They say that their beliefs must be presented together with the facts, that contradict them, as equally valid. Furthermore they say that atheism topics are irrelevant and that they therefore shouldn’t be explained in Wikipedia.
That’s why we started Athpedia and we try to keep it as unbiased as possible.
@oku
Yes, there are plans for an English Athpedia. If you want to help us, please write a few words on my discussion page.
The only article I feel qualified to comment on in the Athpedia is a total disaster. It is the article “Kopernikanische Wende” a concept created by Kant (not mentioned in the article) and best translated into English with the expression “Copernican Turning Point”. It is on the level of ‘back of cornflakes packet’ history of science and almost every single statement is either partially or totally incorrect. It mostly repeat 19th century myths without thought or criticism. To make a detailed analysis here would occupy more space and time than the original article so I will just give one glaring example.
It states:”Kopernikus’ Buch wurde schon kurz nach der Veröffentlichung auf den Index der verbotenen Bücher gesetzt” In English: “Copernicus’ book was already placed on the index of forbidden books shortly after it was published.”
It depends on what you call short but De Revolutionibus was published in Nuremberg in 1543 and was first put on the index 73 years later in 1616. It was never put on the index of forbidden books but was placed on the index until revised. This revision actually took place and was completed in 1621. The revision consisted of the removal of a surprising small number of lines i.e. those that stated that the Copernican theory was proven truth and not just an unproven mathematical hypothesis, it actual scientific status. With these few corrections the book was given free for Catholics to read and to work with. A small number of owners of the book in Italy, including Galileo, struck out the offending words but outside of Italy nobody else took a blind bit of notice. These historical facts are readily available in academic publications by the experts on Copernicus and De Revolutionibus and I expect anybody writing a serious article on the subject today to at least get them right. If they haven’t read and understood the literature they shouldn’t be writing the articles.
I have read somewhere that the de.wikipedia people have a minority complex for having much fewer articles than en.wikipedia (…instead of being mighty proud of having more articles than anyone else). To counter this, they claim that de.wikipedia has higher quality because it lacks “irrelevant” articles. Looks like we’re seeing this mindset here.
I should mention that often the German articles are shorter and simpler than the English ones, so it’s not just the number of articles that’s different. Unless they start a massive translation effort — German is the most translated-into language in the world, plus everyone knows English nowadays, so I don’t see why they don’t translate more –, they’ll continue to suffer from having at most 100 million speakers.
I have read somewhere that the de.wikipedia people have a minority complex for having much fewer articles than en.wikipedia (…instead of being mighty proud of having more articles than anyone else). To counter this, they claim that de.wikipedia has higher quality because it lacks “irrelevant” articles. Looks like we’re seeing this mindset here.
I should mention that often the German articles are shorter and simpler than the English ones, so it’s not just the number of articles that’s different. Unless they start a massive translation effort — German is the most translated-into language in the world, plus everyone knows English nowadays, so I don’t see why they don’t translate more –, they’ll continue to suffer from having at most 100 million speakers.
Blake Stacey wrote:
That is definitely another consideration. In fact we already have several articles of that nature — see the various pages under Chick tracts and Way of the Master.
Uups – of course they would spell it so. Thanks, Blake!
Uups – of course they would spell it so. Thanks, Blake!
I should point out something important that alae didn’t mention – possibly because it’s explained on the athpedia front page:
Athpedia is NOT a conservapaedia-esque attempt to duplicate wikipedia from an atheistic viewpoint. It is not a wiki for atheists, it is a wiki ABOUT atheism, supplementing wikipedia the way any specialized science book supplements a general encyclopedia. Because atheism does not follow a hidebound rulebook as religions do, it is a varied and complex topic that well deserves the in-depth treatment that an entry in wikipedia cannot (and should not) supply.
Comparing this to the finger-in-the-ears-and-shouting approach of conservapaedia would be an insult.
This is poorely named. The “Ath” without the “Theis” is meaningless.