On 03/09/2012 06:53 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
I'm not criticizing all academics. In mathematics, physics and other physical
sciences,
I have no quarrel with the authority of academics.
But a sweeping worship of academic authority in general is unproductive for
progress
of any kind.
There are areas where academic authority is questionable at best. Have you
every looked
at what academic philosophers write? You'd be surprised how nearly-uniformly
muddled and
befuddled they are. Voting system academics are similar. I'm sorry, but the
metaphor
of "head up the a**" is unavoidable when the subject of voting system academics
comes up.
I'm disappointed to hear that about wikipedia.
I think their reasoning for this is that Wikipedia is not supposed to be
a place where you prove something. Wikipedia is supposed to refer to
what has already been said so that people who are interested can go to
the primary sources.
Now, anyone can make statements, so those who argue that only notable
sources should stay say something like: "if we allow any and every
reference as a source, the whole thing would become a mess and there
would be edit wars everywhere. We have to rein in things". Meanwhile,
others argue that Wikipedia has many eyes so that kind of argument
doesn't hold. The disagreement between the camps means that policy may
get applied inconsistently.
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