On Sun, 19 Aug 2001, Harry Avis wrote:
> I am aware that the Church of Scientology has strong reservations about
> psychological treatment and use of psychopharmacological agents. I would
> assume that some of the Church's ideas would appear on various web sites
> <snip>. Does anyone know of any such websites? I want to inform
> my students of the sponsors of all of the websites they access.
And Nancy Melucci, on another thread said:
> This morning I was watching a 1995 Merrow Report installment
> that alledged that CHADD, a leading advocacy group for children
> with ADD, receives 20% of its funding from Ciba-Geigy, the
> pharmaceutical company that makes you-know-what drug.
Nancy's note provides a reminder that the problem of evaluating
websites isn't limited to concerns about Scientology. Many (most?
all?) web sites are sponsored by advocacy groups. Information
that comes from advocacy groups isn't necessarily untrustworthy.
For example, I subscribe to newsletters from a few such groups
and find them useful. However, these newsletters don't conceal
their affiliations and separate their editorial opinions from the
information they provide. Also, they cite reputable sources such
as published papers.
The ones to watch are those that conceal their affiliation and
which provide questionable or no documentation of their claims.
By poking around in links from such sites, I can usually discover
who's behind them, and it's not hard to form an opinion
concerning the quality and trustworthiness of the information
they provide. On Nancy's note, I certainly think it's useful to
know who's providing funds for CHADD (and I see an encouraging
trend, in medical journals at least, for authors to be required
to declare any such conflicts in their published papers). But
ultimately, it's not who's funding CHADD that's critical; it's
the quality of the information they provide.
Concerning Harry Avis's question, it's just not feasible to warn
students concerning all the questionable websites they might
access in researching a particular topic. What we need to do is
to educate them to warn themselves.
Stephen
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/
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