The whole problem with anything political is the complete inability for so many to look at citations/resources and properly comprehend, evaluate, and make decisions.
So often an interpretation of a fact becomes the fact.
Take Wikipedia disputes, a short while back a dispute happened over the Haymarket Riot. A historian edited a factually incorrect statement that had become popular due to repeated citations by secondary and tertiary sources. The original claim was that the prosecutors did not present any evidence. The problem with this is the historian looked at the trial record and saw the prosecutor did indeed present evidence and argued a case. The claim they didn't was completely false. But it was a well sourced claim that was popularly accepted.
So as a result many editors at Wikipedia (aka people with lots of time and a desire to have power over something) kept throwing out the change in order to keep the false statement.
This could be cured if people just learned to employ logic and not confuse a strong belief for an absolute statement.
Credits & Style Info
Talk Politics. A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 3/5/12 05:02 (UTC)So often an interpretation of a fact becomes the fact.
Take Wikipedia disputes, a short while back a dispute happened over the Haymarket Riot. A historian edited a factually incorrect statement that had become popular due to repeated citations by secondary and tertiary sources. The original claim was that the prosecutors did not present any evidence. The problem with this is the historian looked at the trial record and saw the prosecutor did indeed present evidence and argued a case. The claim they didn't was completely false. But it was a well sourced claim that was popularly accepted.
So as a result many editors at Wikipedia (aka people with lots of time and a desire to have power over something) kept throwing out the change in order to keep the false statement.
This could be cured if people just learned to employ logic and not confuse a strong belief for an absolute statement.