Conservapedia
Conservapedia is a private wiki project to construct an encyclopedia with articles that are pro-American, socially conservative and supportive of conservative Christianity.
The project was founded by Andrew Schlafly, son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, in response to a perceived anti-Christian and anti-American bias in the articles of Wikipedia. According to recent stories about the site, Conservapedia originated from a project by homeschooled children, with many of its entries created by teenagers as part of a school assignment.[1] In addition to its role as an encyclopedia, Conservapedia is also used by Andrew Schlafly's Eagle Forum University. Material for various online courses, for example, on American History, is stored on the site.[2][3][4] Eagle Forum University is associated with Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum.[2] Andrew Schlafly has stated that he hopes the site becomes a general resource for United States teachers.[1]
Conservapedia and Wikipedia
Conservapedia disapproves of what it claims is an institutional aversion on Wikipedia to the use of Christian scripture and doctrine as objective and reliable sources for scientific matters, along with other religious texts, intuitions, and superstitions. Topics relating to natural phenomena, morality, religion, politics and American history have been singled out for particular criticism.[5] Conservapedia provides asserted examples of anti-Christian bias, including the use of the secular CE/BCE notation in place of AD/BC (Anno Domini and Before Christ), and allowing evolution to be defined as based on evidence, in contradiction of the creationism favored by certain Christians who reject evidence which does not support their religious belief.[5] Allegations of an anti-American bias include the acceptance of non-US English spellings of English words, such as labour and theatre, as the various editions of Wikipedia are broken up by language, not region.[6][7]
In a March 2007 interview with The Guardian newspaper, 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] A week later Andy Schlafly was interviewed on BBC radio opposite wp-administrator Jim Redmond, where he complained that the article on the Renaissance does not give any credit to Christianity, that many Wikipedia articles use non-American spellings even though most users are American, that the article on American activities in the Philippines has a distinctly anti-American bias, and that attempts to include pro-Christian or pro-American views are removed very quickly.[8]
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has stated that he has no objections to the project.[9] "Free culture knows no bounds," he said. "We welcome the reuse of our work to build variants."[1]
Criticism and vandalism
The Conservapedia project has come under significant criticism for factual inaccuracies and allegations of a bias of its own (see Factual relativism).[10] Critics, including the libertarian conservative writer Andrew Sullivan and conservative blogger Jon Swift, as well as the science writer Carl Zimmer and others, have criticized and mocked the Conservapedia website for factual inaccuracy, extremism, hypocrisy, bias, and ignoring the scientific consensus on subjects such as the Big Bang and evolution in favor of biblical exegesis.[11][12][13] Widely disseminated examples of Conservapedia articles that contradict the scientific consensus include the claims that all kangaroos descend from a single pair that were taken aboard Noah's Ark, that "Einstein's work had nothing to do with the development of the atomic bomb" and that gravity and evolution are theories that remain unproven.[1][6][14][15][16][11][17] 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. Andrew Schlafly has asserted that the page was meant as a parody of environmentalism and he intends to keep it up.[11][18] However, as of 4 March, the entry has been deleted.[18] Other offending articles have since been revised to include fewer statements of the kind that 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 for Conservapedia articles.[6]
The project has also been criticized for promoting a dichotomy between conservatism and liberalism and for promoting the notion that there "often are two equally valid interpretations of the facts."[17] Conservapedia has also been compared to CreationWiki, a wiki written from a creation science perspective.[11]
References
- ^ a b c d e Johnson, Bobbie. (2007). "Conservapedia — the US religious right's answer to Wikipedia". The Guardian, March 1.
- ^ a b (2007). "Conservapedia: christlich-konservative Alternative zu Wikipedia". Heise Online, March 3.
- ^ Conservapedia. (2007). "American History Lecture One". Retrieved March 5.
- ^ Eagle Forum University. (2007). "Eagle Forum University". Retrieved March 5.
- ^ a b Conservapedia. (2007). "Examples of Bias in Wikipedia". Retrieved March 2.
- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ "Today show". BBC radio. 7 March 2007 8:16am. Retrieved 2007-03-07.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Biever, Celeste. (2007). "A conservative rival for Wikipedia?"New Scientist, Feburary 26.
- ^ Read, Brock. (2007). "A Wikipedia for the Right Wing" Chronicle of Higher Education, March 2.
- ^ a b c d 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.
- ^ Conservapedia. (2007). "Kangaroo". February 23 version.
- ^ Conservapedia. (2007). "Theory of Relativity". February 22 version.
- ^ Conservapedia. (2007). "Sir Isaac Newton". February 21 version.
- ^ a b Clarke, Conor. (2007). "A fact of one's own".The Guardian, March 1.
- ^ a b Conservapedia. (2007). "Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus". Retrieved March 2. Cite error: The named reference "Conservapedia: Octopus" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).