According to a recent article in the Seattle Times, “School officials unite in banning Wikipedia,” because “[t]here have been many cases of incorrect information on the Web site, some of which has been biased.” The article reports that sadly, “A teacher researching Martin Luther King Jr. found white supremacist information in his entry.”
Dr. King is one of my personal heroes. His perseverance in support of a just cause, and his calls for civil, reasoned responses to false personal attacks and persecution should be seen as a model for any ID proponent on how to behave in the present political climate. Thus, it is tragically unsurprising that Wikipedia, which promotes so much incorrect and biased information against intelligent design, should also be a haven for an even more distasteful form of incorrect and biased information about the pathway taken by the civil rights movement to strive towards freedom.
Regardless, there is one piece of good news coming from this article: Wikipedia itself is slowly recognizing its own deficiencies. As the article reports, “
Wikipedia officials recognize the problems with using the Web site for research, said Sandra Ordonez, communications manager for Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group behind Wikipedia. The company does not recommend using the Web site as a primary research source, she said.
Students should thus be forewarned about the dangers using Wikipedia as a primary source — or even as a haven for secondary sources — for information on controversial issues like intelligent design.