Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 10 Dec 2009, 01:53
To me deciding whether you should trust something you read on the internet is no different from evaluating a printed source. The only way to do it is for each of us to learn critical skills and apply them ourselves. The responsibility of making a judgement can only ever be partially delegated to traditional authorities.
It might seem that an encyclopedia, for example, will be trustworthy because the articles are written by established experts, and carefully reviewed. True this ensures that in most cases what is published is free from serious factual error. However it will still reflect the particular viewpoint of the author (and the editor), which may be quite partial when deciding what to include, which parts of the topic to emphaise as important, and what the significant areas of future developement are likely to be. From any one article the reader can only ever get a one-sided impression.
In addition, bias has been introduced by the mere act of choosing what topics the encyclpedia has articles on and whch not.
Only by consulting multiple sources and comparing can we form a balanced view, and this process must always involve us taking an active part. No panel of experts can ever be relied on to do it for us.
For these and other reasons I cannot believe that the recent proposal by A.C.Grayling, see
Which websites to trust
To me deciding whether you should trust something you read on the internet is no different from evaluating a printed source. The only way to do it is for each of us to learn critical skills and apply them ourselves. The responsibility of making a judgement can only ever be partially delegated to traditional authorities.
It might seem that an encyclopedia, for example, will be trustworthy because the articles are written by established experts, and carefully reviewed. True this ensures that in most cases what is published is free from serious factual error. However it will still reflect the particular viewpoint of the author (and the editor), which may be quite partial when deciding what to include, which parts of the topic to emphaise as important, and what the significant areas of future developement are likely to be. From any one article the reader can only ever get a one-sided impression.
In addition, bias has been introduced by the mere act of choosing what topics the encyclpedia has articles on and whch not.
Only by consulting multiple sources and comparing can we form a balanced view, and this process must always involve us taking an active part. No panel of experts can ever be relied on to do it for us.
For these and other reasons I cannot believe that the recent proposal by A.C.Grayling, see
Universities should flag up which websites to trust - science-in-society - 19 January 2009 - New Scientist.URL
could ever achieve what it sets out to do, which is to somehow validate the web, so that learners could be directed only to reliable sites.