User:Philomathes2357
Wikipedia
- Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth. Published by MIT Technology Review.
- "Unlike the laws of mathematics or science, wikitruth isn’t based on principles such as consistency or observability. It’s not even based on common sense or firsthand experience. Wikipedia has evolved a radically different set of epistemological standards–standards that aren’t especially surprising given that the site is rooted in a Web-based community, but that should concern those of us who are interested in traditional notions of truth and accuracy."
- "So what is Truth? According to Wikipedia’s entry on the subject, “the term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree.” But in practice, Wikipedia’s standard for inclusion has become its de facto standard for truth, and since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it’s the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject. That standard is simple: something is true if it was published in a newspaper article, a magazine or journal, or a book published by a university press–or if it appeared on Dr. Who"
- WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, and Other Stories Wikipedia Tells Us: A Feminist Critique of Wikipedia's Epistemology. Published in Science, Technology, & Human Values.
- "Wikipedia has become a ubiquitous source of information and, subsequently, the layperson’s reference: it is a concrete representation of common knowledge. Interrogating Wikipedia then can also be a way of interrogating a manifestation of how “facts” are made in the public sphere."
- "To begin, many analytical philosophers have considered the epistemic effects of Wikipedia upon readers, particularly concerning reliability (e.g., Fallis 2008; Magnus 2009). Reliability has been a primary topic of investigation and concern for scholars writing about applied epistemology: the study of whether systems of investigation purporting to be seeking the truth are engineered to lead to true beliefs about the world (Laudan 2006). Other scholars have considered how Wikipedia functions as an example of group testimony (Tollefsen 2009) and, yet, has a different epistemic culture of knowledge production than, say, science because contributors have different goals, collaborate under different norms, and have different motivations (Wray 2009). In our critique and reimagining of the five pillars, we are concerned with reliability as it relates to the processes by which knowledge is produced on the site and who is excluded from these processes. We ask similar questions about Wikipedia as others have. However, we are interested mostly in Wikipedia’s mismatch in explicit and implicit values and how this mismatch impacts the ability of the site to function as “the sum of all human knowledge.”"
On the term "conspiracy theory"
- Enacting polyvocal scorn in Covid Conspiracy tweets: The orchestration of voices in humorous responses to COVID-19 conspiracy theories, published in Discourse, Context, and Media
- "Even though some authors allow for harmless conspiracy theories (Byford, 2011; Dentith, 2014), the term "conspiracy theory" is typically regarded as a loaded, pejorative one (see Wood, 2016; Bjerg and Presskorn-Thygesen, 2017; Martin, 2020)."
- Some Dare Call it Conspiracy: Labeling Something a Conspiracy Theory Does Not Reduce Belief in It, published in Political Psychology
- "'Conspiracy theory' is widely acknowledged to be a loaded term. Politicians use it to mock and dismiss allegations against them, while philosophers and political scientists warn that it could be used as a rhetorical weapon to pathologize dissent."
- Conspiracy Theory in America, published by University of Texas Press
- (applying the label 'conspiracy theory' has) "the effect of dismissing conspiratorial suspicions out of hand with no discussion whatsoever”
Sources regarding NYT misinformation and propaganda
Iraq WMD Story
Israel/Gaza
Trans Issues
Some Thought-Provoking Quotes
- "We must confess that our adversaries have a marked advantage over us in the discussion. In very few words they can announce a half-truth; and in order to demonstrate that it is incomplete, we are obliged to have recourse to long and dry dissertations." — Frédéric Bastiat
- "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, former CIA Director
- "“It makes all the difference in the world whether we put Truth in the first place or in the second place.” - Richard Whately
- "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
- "People are so conditioned to take sides that a balanced analysis looks to them like hatred." - Scott Adams