Conservapedia
This is a draft of the Conservapedia article for when the DRV comes through (hopefully). Feel free to help out.
Conservapedia is a wiki project to construct an encyclopaedia whose articles are supportive of conservative Christianity, social conservatism and American nationalism. The project was founded by Andrew Schlafly, son of conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly, in response to an alleged anti-Christian and anti-American bias on Wikipedia. The site was originally created as a project for homeschooled children, with many of its entries being created by teenagers as part of a school assignment.[1]
Conservapedia and Wikipedia
Andrew Schlafly has stated that the project's goal is to become an educational source for teachers free of the of the alleged liberal, anti-Christian and anti-American bias of Wikipedia.[1] Conservapedia claims there is an institutional aversion on Wikipedia to the use of Christian scripture and doctrine as a reliable source. Topics relating to natural phenomena, morality, religion, politics and American history have been singled out for particular criticism.[2] Examples include the use of the CE/BCE notation in place of the Christ-centric AD/BC, and allowing evolution to be defined as fact in contradiction of the Christian creation story. [2] Allegations of an anti-American bias include the allowing of the use of British and Commonwealth spellings such as labour and theatre.[3][4].
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Mr Schlafly stated "I've tried editing Wikipedia, and found it and the biased editors who dominate it censor or change facts to suit their views. In one case my factual edits were removed within 60 seconds - so editing Wikipedia is no longer a viable approach."[1]
Criticism and vandalism
The project has come under significant criticism for factual inaccuracies and allegations of a bias of their own. Widely disseminated examples of Conservapedia articles which contradict the scientific consensus include the claim that all kangaroos descend from a single pair which were taken aboard Noah's Ark, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity having "nothing to do with physics", and gravity and evolution being theories which remain unproven.[5][6][7] The offending articles have since been revised to include fewer statements of the kind which have brought derision from the blogosphere.[citation needed]
There is evidence that people who object to Conservapedia's stated conservative Christian mission have been creating deliberate parody entries in an attempt to ridicule the widespread use of Christian scripture as a source Conservapedia articles.[3] Critics, including the conservative writer Andrew Sullivan and the conservative blogger Jon Swift, as well as the science writer Carl Zimmer and others have criticised and mocked the website for factual inaccuracy, extremism, hypocrisy, bias, and ignoring the scientific consensus on subjects such as the Big Bang and evolution in favour of biblical exegesis.[8][9][10]
It has also been suggested that Conservapedia and its initial contributers display political bias in articles. The article on the United States Democratic Party has been criticised for including the seemingly pejorative sentence, "Rightwing critics claim, however, that the Democrat voting record reveals a true agenda of cowering to terrorism, treasonous anti-Americanism, and contempt for America's founding principles such as freedom of religion."[1]
The project has also been criticised for promoting a dichotomy between conservatism and liberalism and for promoting the notion that there are "often are two equally valid interpretations of the facts."[11] Conservapedia has also been compared to CreationWiki, a wiki written from a creation science perspective.[8]. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has stated that he has no objections to the project.[12] "Free culture knows no bounds," he said. "We welcome the reuse of our work to build variants."[1]
Example entries
An entry on the "Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus" has received particular attention, with it being pointed as a nonsense entry that was able to slip under the radar. However, Andrew Schlafly has asserted that the page was meant as a parody of environmentalism and he intends to keep it up.[8][13]
References
- ^ a b c d e Johnson, Bobbie. (2007). "Conservapedia - the US religious right's answer to Wikipedia". The Guardian, March 1.
- ^ a b Conservapedia. (2007). "Examples of Bias in Wikipedia". Retrieved March 2.
- ^ a b Thomson, Iain. (2007). "Conservapedia takes on Wikipedia 'bias'". Information World Review, February 28.
- ^ Lewis, Shelley. (2007). "Introducing "Conservapedia" - Battling Wikipedia's War on Christians, Patriots". Huffington Post, February 23.
- ^ Conservapedia. (2007). "Kangaroo". February 23 version.
- ^ Conservapedia. (2007). "Theory of Relativity". February 22 version.
- ^ Conservapedia. (2007). "Sir Isaac Newton". February 21 version.
- ^ a b c Calore, Michael. (2007). "What Would Jesus Wiki?"Wired, February 28.
- ^ Zimmer, Carl. (2007). "Sources, sources", The Loom February 21.
- ^ Sullivan, Andrew. (2007). "Conservapedia?"The Atlantic Online, February 24.
- ^ Clarke, Conor. (2007). "A fact of one's own".The Guardian, March 1.
- ^ Biever, Celeste. (2007). "A conservative rival for Wikipedia?"New Scientist, Feburary 26.
- ^ Conservapedia. (2007). "Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus". Retrieved March 2.