Scenario: 300 Van versus 1 Million C'Tisians

[Evil Dave]

Uh-Nu-Buh said:

True, that's why they/we have citations. In a study done a few months ago, a random sampling of articles in both a regular encyclopedia written by experts and wikipedia were shown to have an almost comparable number of errors.

And you can't bother to look up this study? The citation is: Giles, J; Internet encyclopedias go head to head; Nature 438, p900-901, 15 Dec 2005. This study was savaged by critics for methodological problems, notably:

numbers of errors were counted, but not types or magnitudes. Both "The Mon is generally believed to have been created by a Mars-sized object colliding with Earth." and "The Moon is made of green cheese." were counted as one error.

no accounting was made for Encyclopedia Brittanica articles generally being longer and more comprehensive than Wikipedia articles. So the error count is nothing like signal-to-noise.

Here are a small sampling of excerpts. Note that they are all accompanied by citations in the article.

"One school of thought rejects the figures given in ancient texts as exaggerations on the part of the victors"

"A second school contends that ancient sources do give realistic numbers. "

"Dr. Manousos Kampouris argues that Herodotus' 1,700,000 for the infantry plus 80,000 cavalry (including support) is realistic for various reasons"

"On the other hand, Christos Romas believes that the Persian troops accompanying Xerxes were a little over 400,000."

The first one dates from 1929, the second from 1930, and the last two are from what appear to be popular magazines*. These are not useful scholarly citations. Archeology and speculation from 70 years ago is generally regarded as junk, and popular writing doesn't have to meet any criteria for correctness.

*: other than the Wikipedia hits, I can find the title of the first offered only by an on-line wargaming store, and the second doesn't appear at all. I'd expect even tiny scholarly journals to have websites under their own names.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Evil Dave: sounds like you are well informed and have your mind made up. I'll respect that for the most part, but I can't let a few items go.

Newton's works on gravity and mathematics are over 70 years old. In hindsight, he was nutty as a pancake. A complete fruitcake.

Darwin's works are over 70 years old. From the modern perspective, his crazy theories don't stack up compared to intelligent design and spontaneous generation.

Herodotus' Histories are also over 70 years old. Worthless garbage. I am unsure why they are still published. I have no idea at all why they are regarded so well by the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Frankly, I am amazed you have a limit of 70 years. That seems so old fashioned. In this marvelous digital age, if it is older than an hour or two, I regard it as pap-smear. For example, your post from yesterday--especially your quote from Helmut von Moltke (for whom there is a very nice article on Wikipedia if you are interested)--is junk and "doesn't have to meet any criteria for correctness." It's garbage. Outdated. Digital archeology. Musings and speculations on history and information theory from literally hours ago!! Gah!

I'll also pick on your childish eye rolling. To me, that immediately means you are a dick. No matter how correct you are, you are still a dick. You could be 100% right, but you would still be a dick.

To paraphrase Churchill: 'Tomorrow I will be wrong, but you will still be a dick.'

Note to anyone other than Evil Dave: I read wikipedia articles with a grain of salt. I just do not immediately pan them due to methodology. Like everything, I am skeptical of them--but I actually like the methodology. If you want to check something, you are free to check the citations and meta-article--as Evil Dave did. You are free to choose what you believe in a wikipedia article, based on your own researches. That makes it a good reference, imo.

[Meglobob]

Uh-Nu-Buh said:
Evil Dave: sounds like you are well informed and have your mind made up. I'll respect that for the most part, but I can't let a few items go.

Newton's works on gravity and mathematics are over 70 years old. In hindsight, he was nutty as a pancake. A complete fruitcake.

Darwin's works are over 70 years old. From the modern perspective, his crazy theories don't stack up compared to intelligent design and spontaneous generation.

Herodotus' Histories are also over 70 years old. Worthless garbage. I am unsure why they are still published. I have no idea at all why they are regarded so well by the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Frankly, I am amazed you have a limit of 70 years. That seems so old fashioned. In this marvelous digital age, if it is older than an hour or two, I regard it as pap-smear. For example, your post from yesterday--especially your quote from Helmut von Moltke (for whom there is a very nice article on Wikipedia if you are interested)--is junk and "doesn't have to meet any criteria for correctness." It's garbage. Outdated. Digital archeology. Musings and speculations on history and information theory from literally hours ago!! Gah!

I'll also pick on your childish eye rolling. To me, that immediately means you are a dick. No matter how correct you are, you are still a dick. You could be 100% right, but you would still be a dick.

To paraphrase Churchill: 'Tomorrow I will be wrong, but you will still be a dick.'

Note to anyone other than Evil Dave: I read wikipedia articles with a grain of salt. I just do not immediately pan them due to methodology. Like everything, I am skeptical of them--but I actually like the methodology. If you want to check something, you are free to check the citations and meta-article--as Evil Dave did. You are free to choose what you believe in a wikipedia article, based on your own researches. That makes it a good reference, imo.

Am I a dick too?

[PhilD]

Uh-Nu-Buh said:
Evil Dave: sounds like you are well informed and have your mind made up. I'll respect that for the most part, but I can't let a few items go.

Newton's works on gravity and mathematics are over 70 years old. In hindsight, he was nutty as a pancake. A complete fruitcake.

If you reread Evil Dave's post, he didn't attack all science older than 70 years, only "archeology and speculation". I don't know about archeology (my guess is that there was some serious archeology work done way before that, even though a lot very probably lacked enormously in seriousness), but he could very well be right on speculation.

But then, to attack him with examples of older scientific theories which are solid work is, at best, unfair.

Now I'll all let you go back to your usual flamewars.

[Evil Dave]

Uh-Nu-Buh said:

Newton's works on gravity and mathematics are over 70 years old.

Darwin's works are over 70 years old.

Herodotus' Histories are also over 70 years old.

Frankly, I am amazed you have a limit of 70 years.

I pointed out that the citations were old because archeology is a young science. As you indicate from your choices of people, the sciences advance. Newton's physics, while perfectly good for many things, falls apart for very small things and very large or fast things. Darwins's core ideas of evolution are right, but he guessed at many of the details and has been shown wrong. Herodotus is no longer the authority he once was.

In the '20s, archeology was a new field, still struggling with 19th century notions of history, some of which were badly confused. When Schliemann went looking for Troy and Mycenae (1870s), some well-educated people thought he was a fool, as the Trojan War was "just a myth". Others believed the cities to be real, but thought the Illiad's descriptions were fanciful, and they'd be of no help in find them. Likewise, many of Arthur Evans' reconstructions of Knossos (1900) were silly, and many modern archeologists believe his attempts damaged the site. While things were better by the '20s, scientists at the time still didn't know how to balance skepticism of ancient sources with evidence indicating some were right on target.

In the 20s, chemistry was of no help to archeology; carbon dating wouldn't be invented until 1947. Climatology was not very advanced either, so claims about inadeqate water for ancient armies are dubious. Even archeology itself has advanced -- early stratigraphy had problems. That's why I'm dismissive of work from '29 and '30.

I'll also pick on your childish eye rolling. To me, that immediately means you are a dick. No matter how correct you are, you are still a dick. You could be 100% right, but you would still be a dick.

Keep in mind that personal attacks are not permitted on this forum.

If a poster wants to convince his audience that he knows what scholarly citation is, he should provide references to studies backing up his points. It's like having a Phoenix cast Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows on the 500 archers he brought with him to a battle. It doesn't guarantee victory, but it shows that the player knows the game.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Am I a dick too?

[/quote]

Nope, you are funny. Very different.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

PhilD said:

If you reread Evil Dave's post, he didn't attack all science older than 70 years, only "archeology and speculation". I don't know about archeology (my guess is that there was some serious archeology work done way before that, even though a lot very probably lacked enormously in seriousness), but he could very well be right on speculation.

But then, to attack him with examples of older scientific theories which are solid work is, at best, unfair.

Now I'll all let you go back to your usual flamewars.

Science, when first published, is speculation. Until it is peer reviewed, tested, and duplicated. Putting an arbitrary time limit on it is ridiculous.

Your other point about attacking him is valid though. Egg on my face. Turnabout is fair play. I will be the dick this time.

That eye-rolling thing just gets my goat. It is childish and inappropriate.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Evil Dave--you're just being nit-picky and ridiculous, and not in a humorous way. Although if you were trying to be funny it would be, especially since it is zipping past me.

Newton's physics and math are not wrong--they are incomplete; as are _all_ scientific theories and sets of theories. They completely and accurately described all of his observations. He didn't address subatomic particles, near-light speed particles, etc. Incomplete, not incorrect.

Darwin's theories _were_ wrong, but they were only subtly wrong--his basic idea of species changing over time is only contested in religious terms, not scientific.

Etc. etc.

In any case, the wikipedia vs. established encyclopedia argument--nothing new here. We've both stated our cases, and as I noted: yours is well informed, and I respect your interpretation. I just do not share it. I have stated my own position a couple of times, so I will not repeat it.

I don't like you. I don't like your attitude. I don't like the way you try to win arguments instead of using argument to either persuade or uncover truth. However, you have a valid point that wikipedia articles should not be read naively. You yourself read them the way I advise people to read them--you check the citations, take everything with a grain of salt, and make your own conclusions.

I don't like you, but you are smart, and I respect you.

See you around.

[Valandil]

Having read much of the EB, as well as using wikipedia regularily, i wish to note, in no particular order, a few issues the spring up here.

The whole history of classical argument and debate has borne out one fact: debate is not about truth, it is about the winning of arguments. However, if a claim is valid (it is 'true'), argument will bear this out. In this sense, Dave's metheod of argument is somewhat valid, even if it wouldn't work too well in court.

It is likely that everything we humans ever think or achieve will be wrong, excpet the caliph's wisdom: This too shall pass. That does not however mean that we should dismiss all knowledge, nor ignore Locke in favour of Socrates. Empiricism is valid, insomuch as we get closer to some truth, though we never attain it. Accordingly, to dismiss knowledge that is as yet unproven or disproven seems to me counterproductive. I wouldn't want to have valid science disregarded for such a reason. On the other hand, when making a judgement on the unknown, social and chonological factors must be considered: bias, inaccuracy of instuments, etc. This does not govern the decision, but it must be weighed.

The historical examples you cite, to defend your position or attack another's, just a tiny speck of science. How can someone quote four historic scientific failures and say "this backs up my point", without considering the forty thousand successes, or the forty thousand more failures that we produce now? The reverse applies as well. This is epistomologically void.

By the way, Evil Dave, popular magazines are more likely to have web sites than scholarly journals.

For fun, I referance Alan Sokal, Social Text, "Transgressing the Boundaries..."
Scholarly journal, PhD, no accuracy.
I also referance Encyclopedia Britannica, Scotland: "The country has no parliament..."
And for good measure, wikipedia: "Sheena, queen of the jungle, is a monarch living in borneo...".

If the history of mankind is wrought in errors, perhaps most surprising is that we know anything.

"Gladely wolde he lerne, and gladely teche..."
"Cogito ergo sum"
"Je ne sais rien que je ne sais pas"

[Evil Dave]

Thank you, O Great Master, that was very deep. But I still have one question: have you ever dreamt you were a butterfly?