This fallacy lets a debater disregard an opponent's argument based solely on a point in the opposing argument being sourced from Wikipedia.
Debater A: 2 + 2 = 5
Debater B: I just checked Wiki, and there's an article that says 2 + 2 = 4
Debater A: Wiki! Seriously? Is that all you got?
Fact is, that there have been studies that have shown that Wiki is just as accurate as Encyclopedia Britanica.
"In 2005, the peer-reviewed journal Nature asked scientists to compare Wikipedia's scientific articles to those in Encyclopaedia Britannica—"the most scholarly of encyclopedias," according to its own Wiki page. The comparison resulted in a tie; both references contained four serious errors among the 42 articles analyzed by experts."
And another study:
"the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that Wikipedia had the same level of accuracy and depth in its articles about 10 types of cancer as the Physician Data Query, a professionally edited database maintained by the National Cancer Institute."
"The self-described "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" has fared similarly well in most other studies comparing its accuracy to conventional encyclopedias, including studies by The Guardian, PC Pro, Library Journal, the Canadian Library Association, and several peer-reviewed academic studies."
"Adam Riess, professor of astronomy and physics at Johns Hopkins University and one of the scientists credited with proposing the existence of dark energy , to rate Wikipedia's "dark energy" entry.
"It's remarkably accurate," Riess said. "Certainly better than 95 percent correct."
http://www.livescience.com/32950-how-acc...pedia.html
http://library.blogs.delaware.gov/2013/0...le-source/
All one has to do is scroll down to the bottom of the Wiki page and check out the footnote sources. On science, history, medicine, computers, etc, the sources are the same as used in scholarly articles with other sources.
The main types of entries on Wiki that tend to be inaccurate are those for: celebrities, politicians, other people in the public eye, articles that are highly dependent on personal opinion. Mostly due to haters and rivals.
From personal experience, as a reasonably competent network engineer, I can attest to the accuracy of the many network related entries I have researched.
Sorry debaters, on both sides, you can't blow off an argument simply because one of the sources, or the only source was Wiki. The information should be evaluated on its own merit.
Debater A: 2 + 2 = 5
Debater B: I just checked Wiki, and there's an article that says 2 + 2 = 4
Debater A: Wiki! Seriously? Is that all you got?
Fact is, that there have been studies that have shown that Wiki is just as accurate as Encyclopedia Britanica.
"In 2005, the peer-reviewed journal Nature asked scientists to compare Wikipedia's scientific articles to those in Encyclopaedia Britannica—"the most scholarly of encyclopedias," according to its own Wiki page. The comparison resulted in a tie; both references contained four serious errors among the 42 articles analyzed by experts."
And another study:
"the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that Wikipedia had the same level of accuracy and depth in its articles about 10 types of cancer as the Physician Data Query, a professionally edited database maintained by the National Cancer Institute."
"The self-described "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" has fared similarly well in most other studies comparing its accuracy to conventional encyclopedias, including studies by The Guardian, PC Pro, Library Journal, the Canadian Library Association, and several peer-reviewed academic studies."
"Adam Riess, professor of astronomy and physics at Johns Hopkins University and one of the scientists credited with proposing the existence of dark energy , to rate Wikipedia's "dark energy" entry.
"It's remarkably accurate," Riess said. "Certainly better than 95 percent correct."
http://www.livescience.com/32950-how-acc...pedia.html
http://library.blogs.delaware.gov/2013/0...le-source/
All one has to do is scroll down to the bottom of the Wiki page and check out the footnote sources. On science, history, medicine, computers, etc, the sources are the same as used in scholarly articles with other sources.
The main types of entries on Wiki that tend to be inaccurate are those for: celebrities, politicians, other people in the public eye, articles that are highly dependent on personal opinion. Mostly due to haters and rivals.
From personal experience, as a reasonably competent network engineer, I can attest to the accuracy of the many network related entries I have researched.
Sorry debaters, on both sides, you can't blow off an argument simply because one of the sources, or the only source was Wiki. The information should be evaluated on its own merit.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
