Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Examples of Bias in Wikipedia

2008-12-22T16:07:15Z

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In his article entitled ''Wikipedia lies, slander continue'', [[Joseph Farah|journalist]] [[Journalism|Joseph Farah]] stated that Wikipedia "is not only a provider of inaccuracy and bias. It is wholesale purveyor of lies and slander unlike any other the world has ever known."<ref>http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83640</ref> The following is a growing list of examples of '''[[deceit|liberal bias]], [[Liberal Bias|deceit]], frivolous [[User:Aschlafly|gossip]], and blatant errors on [[gossip|Wikipedia]]'''.
#Wikipedia's entry about [[Conservapedia:Index|Conservapedia]] contains four unsupported smears in its very first sentence,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia</ref> and conceals from readers how Conservapedia offers free online courses for teenagers.<ref>See [[Conservapedia|Conservapedia:Index]]</ref> The result of this bias by Wikipedia, which raises money as a charity, is the concealing and demonizing of a free learning resource that Wikipedia itself does not offer.
#Wikipedia's entry on the [[California|Scopes trial]] downplays the fact that Darrow cowardly reneged in his agreement to take the witness stand, and pled his client guilty in order to avoid it. Instead, Wikipedia deceptively claims that "Darrow asked the judge to bring in the jury '''only''' to have them come to a guilty verdict."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial (emphasis added)</ref><ref>Thanks much to a student in our [[American_History_Lectures|American History course]] for pointing this out.</ref>
#[[Scopes trial|California]]'s Proposition 8 states that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The Wikipedia article<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)</ref> does not mention that only those marriages are recognized under federal law anyway, and editors have removed any mention of the federal [[Saul Alinsky|Defense of Marriage Act]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:California_Proposition_8_(2008)#DOMA</ref>
#The articles on both [[Defense of Marriage Act | Saul Alinsky]] and his book, ''Rules for Radicals'' make no mention of his dedication to "the original radical—Lucifer."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky</ref>
#[[communism|Augusto Pinochet]], who overthrew [[Augusto Pinochet|communism]] in [[Wikipedia|Chile]] and then restored democracy before voluntarily giving up power himself, is called a "dictator" by [[Chile|Wikipedia]],<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochet</ref> but [[Fidel Castro]], the communist dictator of [[Cuba]] for four decades, is instead called a "leader" or even a "president".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fidel_Castro&oldid=235182888</ref>
# The founder of the Weather Channel and 100's of other climatologists have been removed from the category "Global warming skeptics", which Wikipedia decided to delete.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Coleman_(news_weathercaster)&diff=232272809&oldid=227980118</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_August_7#Global_warming_and_ozone_hole_skeptics_categories</ref>
# Wikipedia's entry on [[HPV Vaccine|Gardasil]], an [[Gardasil|HPV Vaccine]] promoted by [[conservatives|liberals]] and Merck, is filled with falsehoods and omits key facts. As of Aug. 9, 2008, Wikipedia's entry claimed that cervical cancer was "the second leading cause of death from cancer in women world-wide"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardasil</ref> (which is nonsense), and that the "HPV types 16 and 18 '''cause''' about 70% of cervical cancer cases" (not even Merck claims that); the entry downplays how the vaccine loses its effectiveness in a few years, and only about 3% of teenage recipients are likely to be exposed to the strains of HPV that the vaccine targets - at a cost of about $13,000 per child to possibly protect her against a cancer that does not arise until 30 years in the future.<ref>See [[liberals|HPV Vaccine]]</ref>
# Wikipedia tries to smear [[liberals|conservatives]] as "conspiracy theorists," even when they are not, and yet omits that epithet for [[conservatives|liberals]] who insist there are vast conspiracies, such as [[Phyllis Schlafly|Hillary Clinton]]'s claim of a "vast right-wing conspiracy." Compare Wikipedia's entry on [[Hillary Clinton|Phyllis Schlafly]], which repeats a false assertion that she "veers off into conspiracy theories,"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly</ref> with Wikipedia's entry on Hillary Clinton, which provides her quote of a "vast" conspiracy yet refuses to describe her as a conspiracy theorist.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton</ref> Wikipedia's entry on [[Michael Moore|liberal]] [[conservative|Michael Moore]], the biggest conspiracy theorist of all, does not even include any reference to the word "conspiracy"!<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moore</ref>
# Wikipedia's entry on the [[Oklahoma|conservative]] [[conservative|Oklahoma]] legislator Sally Kern is seething with bias, unjustified smears and outright distortions.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Kern</ref> Wikipedia understates that over 1500 supporters rallied in support of her criticisms of the [[homosexual agenda]],<ref>http://newsok.com/article/3224704/1207238655</ref> and instead Wikipedia highlights predictable [[Hollywood Values|Hollywood]] criticisms of her stance. Wikipedia then smears her with false accusations about her family and emphasizes charges that were never brought against her. If that isn't enough, the Wikipedia entry even misrepresents a bill that Kern introduced to protect "a student's voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint"; Wikipedia relies on an anti-[[Christian]] blog to distort Kern's bill.
# The Wikipedia entry on [[baraminology]] (a form of taxonomy) describes it as "pseudoscience" and "unrelated to science" simply because it was devised by a creationist.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/baraminology</ref>
# If anyone posts a profane quote on Wikipedia with the expletives censored (e.g. d--n), editors quickly restore the profanity. Wikipedia's guidelines, which its liberal editors selectively ignore, suggest to include the profanity "if and only if" such expressions will contribute to the meaning of the article.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Profanity&oldid=227187296</reF>
# Wikipedia editors tried strenuously to come up with reasons to censor embarrassing stories about the [[liberal]] John Edwards,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:John_Edwards</ref> despite frequently including smears against [[conservatives]].<ref>For example, Wikipedia ''does'' mention the [[liberal]] New York Times' poorly-researched allegations that John McCain had an affair [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain_presidential_campaign%2C_2008#Alleged_inappropriate_involvement_with_lobbyists] in spite of the fact that the NYT's own ombudsman said there was "no proof" the story was true.[http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hiZBfIDZs3P-I5ERtItxUcQ8JwGw]</ref> Several sites have stories about Wikipedia's obvious liberal bias on this issue. <ref>http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/07/28/wikipedia-disallows-any-mention-alleged-john-edwards-scandal</ref><ref>http://gawker.com/5029921/john-edwards-wikipedia-page-strangely-love-child+free</ref><ref>http://conservativepulse.com/home/2008/07/edwards-sex-scandal-still-hasnt-surfaced-in-the-mainstream-press/</ref>
# Wikipedia's article on [[Cold fusion]]<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Fusion</ref> presents it as a continuing controversy. [[Liberals]] hope that Cold Fusion will rescue us from our oil dependency without the need to drill for oil off our coasts. Cold Fusion experiments are actually widely discredited.
# [[Liberals]] loathe self-defense, and [[Wikipedia]]'s entry on the national self-defense system of the [[Strategic Defense Initiative]] is seething with bias and outright falsehoods.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative</ref> Long passages are devoted to irrational criticisms of the programs, with inexplicable prominence given to criticisms by Hans Bethe, a European-raised scientist who later endorsed [[John Kerry]] for president. The entry even claims that SDI brought "the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union to its most critical point!"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] biographies for conservatives such as [[Rush Limbaugh]] and [[Michelle Malkin]] are usually saddled with large sections titled “controversies”. These “controversies” are often nothing but quotes or complaints by fringe [[liberal]] elements, and Wikipedia advises against such sections, but its liberal editors ensure the biased used of such sections.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Criticism&oldid=225325117</reF> However, the Wikipedia page for “Hanoi” Jane Fonda describes her obviously controversial propagandizing for the North Vietnamese government during the Vietnam War as “political activism” rather than “controversy”. <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Fonda</ref>
#[[Wikipedia]] promoted to good status, or GA, its smear entry about Conservapedia, in which Wikipedia claims that Conservapedia "has received much criticism from those who have accused it of factual inaccuracies."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia#cite_ref-Clarke_6-0</ref> When Conservapedia pointed out the lack of support (which violates stated Wikipedia policy) for this false smear of Conservapedia, Wikipedia simply replaced its prior cite with a new one that also failed to support its smear. After this was pointed out, [[Wikipedia]] simply changed its sentence to try to smear Conservapedia in another way.
#[[Wikipedia]] will give often great prominence to [[liberal]] criticism of someone, while almost never giving such prominence to [[conservative]] criticism of a [[liberal]]. For example, Wikipedia's entry for [[conservative]] [[Texas]] legislator Debbie Riddle is devoted mostly to [[liberal]] criticism of an obscure quote of hers.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Riddle</ref> But Wikipedia's entry for [[liberal]] [[Chuck Schumer]] consists of glowing praise without including any [[conservative]] criticism of him.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Schumer</ref>
#[[Wikipedia]]'s entry on [[Barack Obama]] claims that he "was selected as an editor of the law review based on his grades and a writing competition,"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama</ref> when in fact the Harvard Law Review has long used racial quotas for admission.<ref>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513672 (partially explaining the race-based selection system)</ref>
#[[Wikipedia]]'s entry on [[censorship]] omits any reference to [[liberal]] censorship of [[classroom prayer]], [[pro-life]] advertisements, [[conservative]] newspapers on college campuses, or mentioning [[intelligent design]] in school.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship</ref> Instead, Wikipedia falsely claims that "especially [[Evangelical]]s" engage in censorship!
#[[Wikipedia]] falsely smears Conservapedia by claiming that it has "come under significant criticism for factual inaccuracies."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia</ref> In fact, such criticisms are rare or non-existent, and Wikipedia's former cite to a ''[[New York Times]]'' article for support actually criticizes [[Wikipedia]] because it "does dwell on the ''idea'' that 'others' have 'criticized and mocked the Conservapedia website for factual inaccuracy.'"<ref>http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/conservapedia-the-word-says-it-all/ (emphasis added)</ref> Wikipedia persists in asserting that falsehood about Conservapedia.
#[[Wikipedia]] gives favored treatment to anyone who promotes the [[homosexual agenda]], and smears those who oppose it. For example, [[Robert Mapplethorpe]] glorified [[homosexuality]] in photographs before himself dying of [[AIDS]]. His own biographer identified him as a racist, providing quotes to prove it.<ref>http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/mapplethorpe_a_biography_patricia_morrisroe/</ref> Yet the [[Wikipedia]] entry about him conceals any reference to his racism.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapplethorpe</ref> Meanwhile, [[Wikipedia]] smears the [[American Family Association]] and claims it is racist for reasons not supported by its citation.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Family_Association#Anti-Semitism (March 2005 issue reference)</ref>
# Wikipedia's article on [[atheism]] fails to mention that [[United States|American]] [[atheist]]s [[Atheism and Uncharitableness|give significantly less to charity than American theists on a per capita basis]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism</ref> In addition, Wikipedia's article on atheism fails to mention [[Atheism and deception|how key proponents of atheism have been deceptive]]. Wikipedia's article on [[atheism]] also fails to mention that [[Christianity and Science|Christianity and not atheism was foundational in regards to the development of modern science]]. Wikipedia's article attempts to associate atheism with scientific progress.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism</ref> In addition, Wikipedia's article on atheism fails to mention that [[Atheism and suicide|atheism is a causal factor for suicide]].
#Given that one of Wikipedia's co-founders, [[Jimbo Wales]], is an [[atheism|atheist]], it is not particularly surprising that [[Wikipedia]] is particularly biased against prayer in school, as illustrated by its description of Coach [[Marcus Borden]]'s attempts merely to bow his head while his football players pray. [[Wikipedia]]'s biased description disparages community support of Borden by saying it is "regardless of federal law"; the entry says he returned to coaching as urged by the community "ostensibly" to assert a right to bow his head during prayer.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Brunswick_Public_Schools#Controversy</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] has an entry on "Gun Politics in the United States" that falsely claims that "Gun politics as a political issue dates to the earliest days of the United States."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_States</ref> It shows a statue of a Revolutionary Minuteman carrying a rifle as "proof" of its claim! Wikipedia's entry is astoundingly biased, concealing how guns deter crime and refusing to cite [[John Lott]], the leading expert whose studies support guns.
#''[[Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed]]'' is listed under the category "American propaganda films", alongside other [[conservative]] documentary films.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_propaganda_films</ref> However, the lying, deceitful films of [[Michael Moore]] and other [[liberals]] are never described as "propaganda".
#Here's another example of why [[Wikipedia]] is declining: it locked its entry about [[Richard Dawkins]] to censor one of his quotes, despite being verified with a reference.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Dawkins&diff=next&oldid=162688862</ref> Perhaps the [[atheists]] on [[Wikipedia]] don't want people to learn what Dawkins really said! After criticism here, Wikipedia eventually unlocked the entry.
# The body of the [[Islamic terrorism]]<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism#.22Islamic.22_terrorism</ref> page opens with ''"Islamic terrorism" is itself a controversial phrase'' while the body of the Christian terrorism<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism#Racism.2C_Sexism.2C_.26_Terrorism</ref> page opened with ''Juergensmeyer wrote, "It is good to remember, however, that despite its central tenets of love and peace, Christianity - like most traditions - has always had a violent side."'' <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism#Theological_justification_of_Christian_violence</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] has an extensive entry on "[[Creation]] myth".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth</ref> Describing [[Creationism]] as a "myth" is yet another attempt to disparage [[Christian]]s, and although the [[Evolution|theory of evolution]] satisfies Wikipedia's definition of "myth", Wikipedia never describes it as a "myth".
# [[Wikipedia]]'s entry on [[Peter Singer]] downplayed his advocacy for infanticide and moral disdain for human life. Quotes such as "Simply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing a person" were ''removed'' as being "POV",<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Singer&diff=200849646&oldid=199494933</ref> despite appearing in the like-minded ''[[New York Times]]''.<ref>Paul Zielbauer, [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E2D91530F930A25753C1A96F958260 Princeton Bioethics Professor Debates Views on Disability and Euthanasia]. ''The New York Times'': Oct. 13, 1999</ref> A week after this criticism,<ref>http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia&diff=443352&oldid=443152</ref> an editor restored the former quote.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Singer&diff=209935940&oldid=209392718</reF>
# Predictably, [[Wikipedia]] insists on a completely biased, one-sided, negative entry about the movie ''[[Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed]]'', and then locked the page to prevent balance from being included.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed</ref> In characteristic fashion, [[Wikipedia]] misrepresents the views of those it dislikes, and uses smears (like "conspiracy-theory," a favorite Wikipedia epithet) to [[demonize]] them. Also in [[Wikipedia]]-style, it quotes [[liberal]] newspaper opinions as though they are fact, but ignores, downplays or censors opposite published opinions (e.g., by [[National Review]]).
# [[Wikipedia]] changes the meaning of a key quote from an [[abortion]]-breast cancer article in the Lancet medical journal (Beral, ''et al.''), falsely stating that it "concluded that [[abortion]] does 'not increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer.'"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion-breast_cancer_hypothesis</ref> The Lancet article said no such thing about a woman's decision to have an abortion, which does increase the woman's risk of breast cancer. Rather, the Lancet article limited its assertion to a claim about the overall effect of a ''pregnancy'' that terminates early.<ref>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15051280</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] described the [[People for the American Way]], which is a [[liberal]] advocacy group,<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200507060931.asp</ref> as a "progressive advocacy organization"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_For_the_American_Way</ref> and did not mention the term [[liberal]] in its lengthy description of it until well after this deficiency was first mentioned here.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=People_For_the_American_Way&diff=198768678&oldid=195716955</ref>
# On Feb. 19, 2008, an editor removed bias in the form of incorrect and misleading information<ref>The article incorrectly refers to the sticker as "creationist", and claims that "Claiming that evolution is "only a theory" ... is a common creationist tactic.", ignoring that the largest creationists groups specifically reject this tactic.[http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/2996/84/#just_theory]</ref> from the [[Wikipedia]] entry about evolution stickers in Cobb County, Georgia.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Selman_v._Cobb_County_School_District&diff=192393310&oldid=190591826</ref> The editor then predicted on [[Conservapedia]] that the [[liberal bias]] would inevitably be reinserted at Wikipedia, and it was: within 8 hours the liberal falsehoods and bias were reinserted by a Wikipedian.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Selman_v._Cobb_County_School_District&diff=next&oldid=192393310</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] allows hundreds of thousands of obscure and offensive entries, such as unsuccessful punk rock groups and silly television shows.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'oh Such as the entry on D'oh]</ref> But within hours [[liberals]] on [[Wikipedia]] completely deleted an informative and well-referenced entry about [[Hollywood Values]], in order to censor examples of how the [[liberal]] ideology harms people. (This deletion occurred on Feb. 15, 2008; the deleting administrator considered the page to be "vandalism".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=&page=Hollywood+values&year=&month=-1</ref> After the first deletion, another Wikipedia user re-created the "Hollywood values" article as a joke with just this sentence: "Aw, whine, why can't Andrew Schlafly's perspective be told here??? After all, he runs the Trusworthy Encyclopedia!!!</snark> Sorry, please don't block me."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Huw_Powell&oldid=226552177#February_2008</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] often smears [[conservatives]] with falsehoods, using references that do not support its claim. For example, [[Wikipedia]] falsely claims that "children" wrote most of the initial entries on [[Conservapedia]],<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia</ref> but [[Wikipedia]]'s references for that claim do not even mention "children". The average age of contributors on [[Conservapedia]] is likely older than on [[Wikipedia]], so its smear is particularly hypocritical.
# [[Wikipedia]]'s entry on [[conservative]] [[Ron Paul]] smears him with unsubstantiated statements (newsletter "issues gave tactical advice to right-wing militia groups and advanced various conspiracy theories"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ron_Paul&oldid=183792833</ref>), misleading attributions of statements (Paul renounced the statements in 2001), and an overall political hatchet job ... and then locks the page to prevent correction!<ref>The page was locked from January 8 to August 6, 2008. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=&page=Ron+Paul&year=&month=-1]</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]]'s entry on [[Benazir Bhutto]] has nearly 8,000 words on all aspects of her life, and yet not one word acknowledging that she was [[pro-life]] and led the movement against the [[United Nations]]' creating a new international right to [[abortion]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benazir_Bhutto</ref>
# Type in "[[conservative]]" on [[Wikipedia]] and you will be redirected to over 4500 words of confusion without any mention of [[marriage]], gun rights or personal accountability. [[Wikipedia]] even claims that [[conservatives]] opposed to [[abortion]] are described as "anti-baby" or "anti-family". [[Wikipedia]] removed this bias only after it was identified here.<ref>That statement remained on the article from [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conservatism&diff=173316636&oldid=173314241 November 23] to [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conservatism&diff=next&oldid=179870132 December 26, 2007]</ref>
# The [[Wikipedia]] entry on [[conservative]] [[Rick Scarborough]] falsely claimed that he said that [[HPV]], a sexually transmitted disease, is [[God]]'s punishment for sexually active young women. [[Wikipedia]] admits it has no support for this claim, yet has allowed the statement to remain in his entry for most of 2007.
# [[Wikipedia]] entries contain [[liberal]] claims followed by citations that do not actually support the claims. For example, [[Wikipedia]]'s entry on [[Michael Farris]] states that it "was speculated that Farris' close connection to [[conservative]] leaders ... alienated some voters" in his campaign for lieutenant governor,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Farris</ref> but its citation for that [[liberal]] claim actually attributes his loss to his opponent's [[television]] ads that (falsely) claimed Farris wanted "to ban children's books such as 'The Wizard of Oz', 'Rumpelstiltskin,' and 'Cinderella'."<ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2519/is_n1_v15/ai_14891141</ref>
# In a typical example of [[placement bias]] on [[Wikipedia]], it claims in its first sentence that [[Matthew Shepard]] was murdered "because of his [[homosexuality]]."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard</ref> Only near the end of the entry does [[Wikipedia]] quote a 20/20 report and knowledgeable sources which provide persuasive evidence that the crime was caused by drugs, not hatred towards [[homosexuality]].
# [[Wikipedia]]'s pervasive anonymous editing vandalizes numerous [[conservative]] entries, such as that of [[pro-life]] scholar [[Mary Ann Glendon]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Glendon</ref> For nearly two weeks her entry on [[Wikipedia]] has featured the disrespectful and unsupported statement that "She is a notable pro-life feminist, and ''a fan of the Dropkick Murphys," which is a punk rock group''. [[Liberal]] editors monitor anonymous editing, but often allow attempts to embarrass [[conservatives]] to remain for a long time.
# [[Wikipedia]] allows countless entries flattering obscure [[liberals]], but lacks many entries about leading [[conservatives]]. For example, the [[Wikipedia]] entry on pro-life leader [[Judie Brown]] was previously nothing but a redirect<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Judie_Brown&redirect=no</ref> to an entry about an organization which barely mentions her.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Life_League</ref> A proper page for her has since been added<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judie_Brown</ref>.
# [[Wikipedia]] lies to exaggerate the credentials of [[atheist]] [[Richard Dawkins]], falsely claiming that Dawkins "was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins</ref> In fact, [[Oxford]] recently confirmed that the "Charles Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science has not as yet been filled, although it was established in 1995 by decree."<ref>http://www.conservapedia.com/Talk:Richard_Dawkins</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]]'s entry on [[Richard Sternberg]] has falsely stated that a journal "withdrew" a peer-reviewed [[intelligent design]] paper that he reviewed.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sternberg</ref> In fact, the journal never withdrew the paper.
# [[Wikipedia]] has a strong bias against the [[Discovery Institute]], a prominent proponent of [[intelligent design]]. Wikipedia articles about the Institute's campaigns (Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicians_and_Surgeons_who_Dissent_from_Darwinism</ref> and A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_From_Darwinism</ref>) devote most space to the criticism of the campaigns, instead of describing the campaigns themselves.
# [[Wikipedia]] displays a similar bias against the [[Institute for Creation Research]] and its affiliated graduate school--or else displays an appalling lack of critical thinking for a publication that calls itself an encyclopedia. Their reportage on the controversies surrounding the accreditation of the [[ICR Graduate School]], first in [[California]] and now in [[Texas]], relies almost totally on the rants and raves by the group calling itself Texas Citizens for Science and fails utterly to consider or even to mention several key facts about those controversies.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Creation_Research Institute for Creation Research] by [[Wikipedia]]</ref><ref name=%26quot%3Btes%26gt%3BSchafersman%2C%26quot%3B Steven. "[http://www.texscience.org/reviews/icr-thecb-certification.htm The Institute for Creation Research and It's (''sic'') Quest for Official Texas Certification to Award Masters Degrees in Science Education]." ''Texas Citizens for Science'', December 17, 2007; updated January 6 and January 28, 2008. Accessed March 19, 2008.</ref><ref name=%26quot%3Brae%26gt%3BBergman%2C%26quot%3B Jerry. "[http://www.rae.org/ICRcase.html The Religion of Vague: An Unsuccessful Attempt by the State of California to Close a College]." ''Revolution Against Evolution'', May 22, 2003. Accessed March 19, 2008.</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]]'s entry on the [[Prodigal Son]] devotes more words to obscure rock band and [[liberal media]] references to it (e.g., "'The Prodigal Son' is the Season 2 opener of the TV series Miami Vice, although it has virtually nothing to do with the parable itself.") than to the parable and its spiritual meaning.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Prodigal_Son</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]]'s [[gossip]] and policy in favor of edits by anonymous IP addresses struck again: for over two weeks the entry on former [[U.S. Supreme Court]] Justice [[Byron White]] stated he was the father of former Cowboy great Danny White.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Byron_White&diff=159734800&oldid=154431838</ref> The statement was utterly false, but misled everyone who read that.<ref>http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/Are-They-Related-213708.html</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] displays pervasive bias in making [[liberal]] statements with citations that do not support the statements, as illustrated by its entry about [[Conservapedia]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia</ref> [[Wikipedia]] states that "Conservapedia has asserted that Wikipedia is 'six times more [[liberal]] than the American public', a statistic which has been criticized for its poor extrapolation and lack of credibility." But the two citations for this claim of "poor extrapolation and lack of credibility" are to articles that say nothing about extrapolation or credibility and instead tend to confirm the [[liberal bias]] on [[Wikipedia]].
# A user named [[Richard Dawkins]] apparently edited his own article on [[Wikipedia]],<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RichardDawkins</ref> and even linked to a DVD being sold from his personal website. Illustrating [[Wikipedia]]'s favoritism towards [[liberals]], it took a long time (well over a year after he first edited his own article)<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RichardDawkins</ref> for anybody to confront this well-known [[atheist]] for this conflict of interest, despite being against [[Wikipedia]]'s own rules.
# Arbitration Committee member Fred Bauder told the Wikien-1 mailing list in regards to [[Michael Moore]], whose official website published attacks on a [[Wikipedia]] editor with an open invitation to vandalize [[Wikipedia]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Attack_sites/Evidence# Michael_Moore] and was proposed to be designated as an Attack site, "Obviously we need to make an exception for prominent people whose viewpoint we support. And by the way, I am not joking. Writing this down in black and white is important, if that is what we do in practice. And, if it not clear, I support him too, although I am not enamored of anyone's [[propaganda]]. Even that which supports my own position." [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-October/082987.html] When asked, "How, then, is this remotely compatible with NPOV?", Bauder responded, "Not at all." [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-October/082993.html] [[Wikipedia]]'s Neutral Point of View (NPOV), laid down by founder [[Jimbo Wales]] allegedly is "absolute and non-negotiable."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view# _note-0] The editor Michaelmoore.com was urging its viewers to attack and harass is described as "a Fellow at the [[American Enterprise Institute]], a [[conservative]] [[think tank]]."[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-October/083230.html]
# [[Wikipedia]] heavily promotes [[liberals]] in inappropriate places. Go to Wikipedia's entry on ''[[Boy Scouts v. Dale]]'', a [[conservative]] [[Supreme Court]] decision, and for months you'd see a top-screen promotion for "gay/lesbian rights advocate" Evan Wolfson with a claim that he is "one of the '100 most influential people in the world.'"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Boy_Scouts_of_America_v._Dale&oldid=152256885 (quoting a 2004 [[liberal]] list by Time magazine).</ref> [[Wikipedia]] eventually removed that [[liberal]] promotion, but kept its inappropriate emphasis on this attorney who, by the way, lost this case.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Boy_Scouts_of_America_v._Dale</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] has once again deleted all content on the [[North American Union]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=North_american_union&redirect=no]. The old pages are inaccessible, and re-creation is blocked.
# For a long time [[Wikipedia]] led with a falsehood in describing [[Conservapedia]]: "Conservapedia is a wiki based web encyclopedia project with '''the stated purpose''' of creating an encyclopedia written from a socially and economically conservative viewpoint supportive of Conservative Christianity and '''Young Earth creationism'''."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conservapedia&oldid=160604712 (emphasis added).</ref> That was defamatory in attempting to smear [[Conservapedia]] in front of [[Wikipedia]]'s [[evolutionist]] audience. [[Wikipedia]] also welcomes edits by anonymous IP addresses to the [[Conservapedia]] and other entries, resulting in frequent defamation.
# [[Wikipedia]] has a lengthy entry on "Jesus H. Christ,"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_H._Christ</ref> a term that is an idiotic mockery of the [[Christian]] [[faith]]. [[Wikipedia]] calls the term "often humorous," "joking" and "comedic", and relishes in repeating disrespectful uses of the term, without admitting that the phrase is an anti-[[Christian]] mockery. Meanwhile, [[Wikipedia]] does not describe mockery of any other religion as "humorous".
# The [[Wikipedia]] article on [[Eritrea]] refuses to concede that [[Eritrea]] is a one-party state.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea</ref> Another example of [[Wikipedia]] [[liberal bias]]: "Oh, they aren't really a dictatorship, their charter specifically denies it!"
# [[Wikipedia]] often inserts bias by downplaying a [[liberal]] outrage or fallacy amid thousands of words of nearly irrelevant information. For example, no one credibly disputes that [[liberals]] forced [[Larry Summers]] to resign as president of [[Harvard]] because he dared to suggest that the under-representation of women in math, science and engineering may be due to innate differences between women and men.<ref>http://www.davisenterprise.com/articles/2007/09/14/news/114new1.txt</ref><ref> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19181-2005Jan18.html</ref> But the verbose entry for Larry Summers on [[Wikipedia]] implies that his obscure other positions were more important in causing his ouster.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Summers</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] welcomes and allows edits by anonymous IP addresses, which results in rampant vandalism that is overwhelmingly [[liberal]]. Credible wikis, including [[Conservapedia]], do not permit editing by anonymous IP addresses.
# For nearly two months, from at least as early as July 15 through September 9, 2007, [[Wikipedia]] classified its critics, including [[Conservapedia]], as "Fanatics and Special Interests."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_Wikipedia&oldid=144741567# Fanatics_and_special_interests</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]] has two million entries, but not one for [[liberal]]. Users who go to that term are ''redirected'' to the Wikipedia entry on [[liberalism]] that conceals the [[liberal]] support of [[gun control]] and taxpayer funding of [[abortion]], and [[liberal]] censorship of [[prayer]] in [[public school]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Liberal&redirect=no</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]], its own entries (including talk pages) filled with smears and [[deceit]], features an entry on "deceit (album)" that gushes with a description of it as "austere, brilliant and indescribable" music that is "post-punk".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deceit_(album)</ref> The word "deceit" has no entry on [[Wikipedia]]. It was ''redirected'' to a different term having a different meaning, and then this redirect was changed 7 times in two days in response to this criticism here.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deceit&action=history</ref> Even now it lacks a clear definition and the numerous examples provided in the entry on [[deceit]] here.
# [[Wikipedia]] promotes suicide with 21,544 entries that mention this depravity, including many entries that feature it (Conservapedia will not provide citations to the more depraved entries on this subject at Wikipedia as Conservapedia affirms the [[Sanctity of Life|sanctity of life]]). For example, Wikipedia referred to it needlessly in the very first sentence of distinguished jurist Henry Friendly's entry,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Friendly&oldid=151873451</ref> and Wikipedia's entry about [[Zerah Colburn]] ended with a claim that his distant ''nephew'' committed suicide.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zerah_Colburn_(math_prodigy)&oldid=147253074</ref> After this criticism appeared here, these two entries were fixed (and in the case of Friendly, reinstated before being fixed again); there has been no system-wide removal of this bias on [[Wikipedia]]. In yet another example, [[Wikipedia]] has an entry for "suicide by cop"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_cop</ref> to discuss attacking a police officer to provoke a suicide, citing an unpublished PhD thesis at an obscure university.
# [[Wikipedia]] uses guilt-by-association far worse than [[Joseph McCarthy]] ever did. [[Wikipedia]] smears numerous persons and organizations by giving the false impression that they are associated with the [[John Birch Society]] (JBS). Examples have included:
#* pro-life Congressman [[Jerry Costello]], merely because JBS gave him a favorable rating<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerry_Costello&oldid=142488803</ref>
#* anti-communist Fred Schwarz, merely because JBS agreed with him<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fred_Schwarz&oldid=143791808</ref>
#* the conservative [[Association of American Physicians and Surgeons]], by repeating a '''40 year old''' newspaper claim that some of its leaders once belonged to the JBS<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons</ref>
#* conservative baseball pitcher Dave Dravecky, a cancer survivor, merely because a newspaper claimed he once belonged to JBS<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dave_Dravecky&oldid=155924640</ref>
# In response to this criticism, Wikipedia removed ... only the smears against the more [[liberal]] targets, such as the ''[[Democrat]]'' [[Jerry Costello]], or the less influential entries, such as the deceased Fred Schwarz. Additionally, as of August 5, 2008, the Dravecky article no longer mentions anything about JBS.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dave_Dravecky&oldid=225907517</ref> Wikipedia left intact the smear against the AAPS. After removal of the smear against Costello, it was then reinserted before being removed again.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerry_Costello&diff=156607328&oldid=156100194</ref>
# [[Wikipedia]]'s last sentence on [[Human Life International]] claimed that a killer "confessed that pamphets (sic) from the group led" him to kill. This is a complete lie designed to smear a [[conservative]] group. But this was approved by [[Wikipedia]] and remained for over a month.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Human_Life_International&oldid=138698827] Only in response to Conservapedia's criticism was the smear removed.</ref>
# A devastating critique of [[Wikipedia]] by [[Fox News]] describes the impact of [[Wikipedia]] smears on popular golfer Fuzzy Zoeller.<ref>In addition to the [[Fox News]] report, numerous stories on the Internet describe the smears, which we will not repeat here. "The Wikipedia entry has since been cleansed of the remarks, first posted last August, then again in December before being removed January 2nd. However, several sites like Answers.com have copies of Wikipedia entries, and as of press time still had the defamatory content in place."[http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/02/22/fuzzy-zoeller-incensed-over-wikipedia-edit]</ref>
# Smears in [[Wikipedia]]'s entry on [[United States of America|U.S.]] Congressman Steve LaTourette were totally false.<ref>http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1184402220217510.xml&coll=2</ref>
# "[[Larry Sanger]], who founded [[Wikipedia]] in 2001 with [[Jimmy Wales]] only to leave shortly afterwards, said that even as far back as 2001 the [[Wikipedia]] community 'had no respect for experts.'"<ref>http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single8794</ref>
# The Wikipedia entry for [[homosexuality]] is adorned with the a rainbow graphic but fails to mention the following: the many [[disease]]s associated with homosexuality, the high promiscuity rates of the male homosexual community, the higher incidences of [[Homosexual Couples and Domestic Violence|domestic violence]] among homosexual couples compared to heterosexual couples, and the substantially higher mental illness and drug usage rates of the homosexuality community. In addition, the Wikipedia article on homosexuality fails to mention that the American Psychiatric Association issued a fact sheet in May of 2000 stating that "..there are no replicated scientific studies supporting a specific biological etiology for homosexuality."<ref>http://www.cwfa.org/images/content/bornorbred.pdf</ref>
# Wikpedia's entry on [[liberal]] former Vice President [[Al Gore]] contains no mention of the drug charges against his son.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore</ref> But Wikipedia's entry on [[conservative]] Vice President [[Dick Cheney]] prominently mentions his adult daughter's sexuality.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney</ref>
# Wikipedia's entry for seven weeks about [[Thad Cochran]],<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thad_Cochran&oldid=135420256 (revised only after being exposed on Conservapedia, but then the smear was reinserted again before being removed again)</ref> a conservative Republican member of the [[U.S. Senate]], smeared him with an offensive, unsupported quotation not of Cochran, but of a Democratic Mississippi governor for whom Cochran's mother campaigned when Cochran was age 14. The unsupported quote was never spoken or endorsed by Cochran, but Wikipedia featured it near the top of Cochran's entry to mislead the reader into thinking Cochran is somehow a racist.
# Wikipedia smears prominent [[Conservative Christianity|Christian conservatives]], including [[James Dobson]] and [[D. James Kennedy]], with an allegation that they are part of a grand scheme Wikipedia calls "Dominionism".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism</ref> The term was made up by [[liberals]] and this conspiracy theory has no factual basis, but Wikipedia smears these [[conservatives]] with elaborate templates in their own entries depicting them as part of this fictional scheme.<ref>See, e.g., [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._James_Kennedy D. James Kennedy]</ref> This edit [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eagle_Forum&curid=3647552&diff=165330150&oldid=165044484] calls Eagle Forum dominionist, even though there is not even any source that says so. The Eagle Forum article now has a "criticism" section that alleges various associations with theocracy and dominionism citing various left-wing opinion web sites, but none of those sites even says that Eagle Forum supports theocracy or dominionism. One editor was blocked just for trying to fix it.
# Wikipedia's entry about the anti-[[Christian]] and anti-[[Semitic]] [[H.L. Mencken]] praises him profusely because he, Wikipedia's words, "notably assaulted America's preoccupation with [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist]] [[Christianity]]."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencken</ref> After 3,500 words of adulation, Wikipedia then buries a concession that Mencken "has been referred to as anti-Semitic and misogynistic."<ref>''Ibid.''</ref> Wikipedians like Mencken's hostility to religion too much to admit that his biographer (Terry Teachout) and his close Jewish friend (Charles Angoff) described him as racist and anti-Semitic.<ref>http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2003/1/mencken-payne.asp</ref>
# Wikipedia's entries about the 2007 Masters<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Masters_Tournament</ref> and its champion [[Zach Johnson]],<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zach_Johnson&oldid=154500732</ref> who won an upset come-from-behind victory against Tiger Woods, omitted any reference to Johnson's public statements crediting his [[faith]] in [[Jesus Christ]] for strengthening him as he overcame enormous odds to prevail. Months later, after criticism here, Johnson's attibution to [[Jesus Christ]] was included, but with the [[Wikipedia]] trick of placing it late in a wordy entry so that few are likely to see it, and even then with a silly "citation needed" to suggest that the quote may not be true.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Johnson</ref>
# Wikipedia asserts that "One 1987 estimate found that more than 99.84% of almost 500,000 US scientists in the earth and life sciences supported evolution over creation science."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution</ref> This statement is false, but Wikipedians won't correct it and it has been repeated thousands of times by other [[liberals]] in reliance on Wikipedia.<ref>http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070519145312AACvfJA&show=7</ref> The truth is that 700 scientists signed a statement rejecting evolution, but evolutionists then made the illogical claim that a large majority of other scientists must support evolution.<ref>"By one count there are some 700 scientists (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve but appeared 'abruptly'." Martz, Larry & Ann McDaniel (1987-06-29), "Keeping God out of the Classroom (Washington and bureau reports)", Newsweek CIX(26): 23-24, ISSN 0028-9604</ref> Under that reasoning, if 1000 persons signed a statement opposing President [[George W. Bush]], then nearly 300 million Americans must support him! Funny how Wikipedia does not claim that.
# The 5,400-word Wikipedia entry on The John Birch Society<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_John_Birch_Society</ref> attempts to smear unrelated [[conservatives]] who had nothing to do with the society, simply by calling them "allies". Under that reasoning [[Ronald Reagan]], [[Pope John Paul II]], and [[George W. Bush]] should also be in that entry! And this is by a resource that criticizes [[McCarthyism]]???<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism</ref>
# Wikipedia has a substantial anti-intellectual element, as reflected by silly administrator names and nonsensical entries. For a long time Wikipedia had an entry for "duh": "Duh is an American English slang exclamation that is used to express disdain for someone missing the obviousness of something. For example, if one read a headline saying 'Scientific study proves pain really does hurt' or 'New reports show death is bad for one's health', the response might be 'Well, duh!'"<ref>Wikipedia ultimately deleted its entry after it was critized here</ref> How about a new slogan: ''Wikipedia: well, duh!''
# Wikipedia recently moved further away from Judaeo-Christian beliefs by complaining that "[t]he average Wikipedian ... is from a predominantly Christian country" and that Wikipedia was built on Christian encyclopedias and "the Jewish Encyclopedia."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias (later "predominantly Christian" was changed to "nominally Christian")</ref> At the same time, Wikipedia complains about the "enormous significance" given by entries to "Al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S., UK and Spain, killing slightly over 3,000 people."<ref>''Ibid.''</ref>
# Wikipedia has a banner to criticize an American treatment of a topic: "The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance</ref> "A worldwide view" is fictional [[liberal]] terminology for [[globalists]].
# Though Wikipedia is non-profit, the Wikia project of its co-founder is very much for-profit and has raised millions of dollars in investments. Already Wikipedia has been criticized for favoring Wikia. When Wikipedia community voted 61-39% percent to treat all links to other sites equally by removing nofollow (Google-ignored) tags for all of them, the Wikipedia co-founder overruled this decision and Wikipedia now favors Wikia in its treatment of nofollow tags.<ref>http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/28/wikipedia-special-treatment-for-wikia-and-other-wikis/</ref>
# Wikipedia is sympathetic to Fidel Castro in its entry about Cuba.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba</ref> Wikipedia blames President Dwight Eisenhower for choosing "to attend a golf tournament" rather than meet the revolutionary Castro in 1959, and then Wikipedia claims that Castro became a communist because of the American-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Conservapedia tells the truth up-front: "Cuba has been ruled by a communist dictator named Fidel Castro since 1959."<ref>[[Cuba]]</ref>
# Often Wikipedia's biased assertions are unsupported by its citations. For example, the Wikipedia entry about Conservapedia states that it "has come under significant criticism for alleged factual inaccuracies."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia</ref> But check out Wikipedia's cited source for that statement: its citation does not identify a single factual inaccuracy on Conservapedia.<ref>http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1910</ref> Thus Wikipedia relies on a factual inaccuracy to accuse someone else of factual inaccuracies! After this criticism was posted here, Wikipedia removed the said citation but replaced it with a few other biased citations.
# [[Liberal]] icon [[Bertrand Russell]] receives glowing adoration on Wikipedia, which calls him "a prophet of the creative and rational life," "one of the world's best-known intellectuals" whose "voice carried great moral authority, even into his mid 90s."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell</ref> After 7,700 words about [[Bertrand Russell]], [[Wikipedia]] finally mentions Russell's support of the communist revolution, but pretends that Russell quickly opposed it. Instead, Russell wrote that "I believe that [[Communism]] is necessary to the world, and I believe ... Bolshevism deserves the gratitude and admiration of all the progressive part of mankind."<ref>[[Bertrand Russell]]</ref>
# [[Conservapedia]] allows greater and easier copying of its materials than [[Wikipedia]] does, but Wikipedia's entry about [[Conservapedia]] claims that its policy "has led to some concerns."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia</ref> And who supposedly had these concerns? In Wikipedia's citation, it was only the founder of Wikipedia in trying to find a way to criticize Conservapedia!<ref>http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/190501</ref>
# April 24th was the anniversary of [[Operation Eagle Claw]], which was President [[Jimmy Carter]]'s failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran. The Conservapedia [[Operation Eagle Claw|entry]] explains Carter's political motivation for this. But the Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw entry] omits Carter's political motivation and instead implies that this bad luck cost Carter the election.<ref>Wikipedia states, "The operation was a failure, and had a severe impact on U.S. President Jimmy Carter's re-election prospects ...."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw entry]</ref> In fact, Newsweek did not even mention this after July 14th, and Reagan beat Carter for reasons other than bad luck.
# Wikipedia's entry on James Monroe<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Monroe</ref> omits any mention of how he was a conservative and omits Monroe's veto of a key appropriation on the Cumberland Road Bill, when Monroe stated that "congress does not possess the power under the constitution to pass such a law."<ref>[[James Monroe]]</ref> After this criticism was posted here, an editor at Wikipedia added Monroe's Cumberland Road Bill opposition to the article,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Monroe&oldid=226448821#Presidency_1817.E2.80.931825:_The_Era_of_Good_Feelings</ref> but the article still has yet to mention that Monroe was politically conservative.
# Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as "conservative" compared with "liberal", and that ratio has been increasing for two decades.<ref>http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=444</ref> But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as "liberal" compared with "conservative".<ref>Based on a comparison of how many users are under categories [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Liberal_Wikipedians Liberal Wikipedians] with those in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conservative_Wikipedians Conservative Wikipedians]. Both categories were [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion/Archive/August_2007#Category:All_Wikipedian_by_political_ideology_categories deleted] on Aug. 10, 2007 as editors have argued that "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SOAP Wikipedia is not a soapbox]" among other reasons. However, the userboxes for users to declare themselves as "liberal" or "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rcej/conservative conservative]" have been allowed to stay. Wikipedia's own records show, as of July 28, 2008, that far more users choose the "[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&target=User%3AUBX%2Fliberal&namespace= liberal]" userbox than the "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/User:Rcej/conservative conservative]" userbox.</ref> That suggests '''Wikipedia is six times more [[liberal]] than the American public'''.<ref>"Liberal bias" can be defined as the ratio of [[liberals]] to conservatives in a group, such that no [[liberals]] would equate to zero [[liberal bias]]. Wikipedia's ratio of 3:1 for liberals to conservatives is six times the ratio in the American public of 1:2 for [[liberals]] to conservatives.</ref> See also [[liberal quotient]].
# Wikipedia awarded "good article" status<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_articles</ref> to a biased description of [[liberal]] Balboa High School, saying it has "a progressively nurturing environment" undergoing "a steady renaissance marked by academic innovation."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balboa_High_School_(San_Francisco)</ref> Nowhere in Wikipedia's 4,468-word description does it admit that half the 9th graders lacked proficiency on a statewide English test.<ref>Jill Tucker, "[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/16/MNGE2KJB5K1.DTL Student Successes Defy Urban Trends]" San Francisco Chronicle (Aug. 16, 2006).</ref> Instead, Wikipedia editors apparently like how this public school converted its metal shop into a sex-based "health" clinic.
# One can confirm that sex-related entries are attracting many to Wikipedia, including young viewers, by viewing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics Wikipedia statistics]. But Wikipedia gives no specific warning to parents or viewers about the pornographic images on popular pages, and Wikipedia would probably be disabled in many homes and schools if a proper warning were given.<ref>Wikipedia merely has a general disclaimer that avoids any reference to its sexual images, pornography, and adult content.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_disclaimer]</ref>
# Wikipedia's entry on the "Palestinian People" omits any mention of terrorism.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people (the entry also contained an unjustified picture of children for sympathy purposes, but that was removed after criticism here)</ref> Click on the PLO and you'll find no discussion of its connection to the massacre of innocent athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization</ref>
# Wikipedia features an entry on "anti-racist mathematics" that "emphasizes the sociocultural context of mathematics education and suggests that the study of mathematics (as it is traditionally known in western societies) does exhibit racial or cultural bias."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-racist_mathematics</ref>
# In the mid-20th century, a Soviet encyclopedia contained the assertion that Jesus was a myth.<ref>http://www.bede.org.uk/books,jmyth.htm</ref> Wikipedia's entry on [[Jesus]] has the following: "A small number of scholars and authors question the historical existence of Jesus, with some arguing for a completely mythological Jesus."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus</ref> But no credible historian makes such a claim.
# Wikipedia's entry for the [[Renaissance]] denies any credit to Christianity, its primary inspiration.<ref>Wikipedia has since updated its entry with a backhanded reference to Christianity, but even then not for inspiring the Renaissance but rather for providing subject matter for the works.[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Renaissance&oldid=138439803]</ref>
# About 60% of Americans accept the account of the Great Flood in the [[Bible]].<ref>http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040216-113955-2061r.htm</ref> But enter "Great Flood" into Wikipedia and it automatically converts that to an entry entitled "Deluge (mythology)." That entry then uses "myth" or "mythology" nearly 70 times in its description.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood</ref> Its entry on "Noah's Ark" is just as biased.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah's_Ark</ref>
# Wikipedia editors are about 4 times as [[atheist]]ic or non-religious as the American public. In a Newsweek poll in 2006, 92% of Americans said they believed in God and only 8% said they did not believe in God or didn't know. But among Wikipedia editors responding to a request for identification of beliefs, 35% described themselves in the categories of "No religion, [[atheist]], agnostic, humanist, secular, other."<ref>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikimedians_by_religion</ref>
# Wikipedia's entry on [[abortion]] reads like a brochure for the abortion industry. Wikipedia denies and omits the results of 16 out of 17 statistically significant studies showing increased risk of breast cancer from abortion.<ref>http://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/malec.pdf</ref> Wikipedia's entry also omits the evidence of abortion causing increased premature birth of subsequent children.<ref>http://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/rooney.pdf</ref> Instead of providing these facts, Wikipedia blames women by declaring that "breast cancer elicits disproportionate fear in women"!<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion-breast_cancer_hypothesis</ref>
# The Wikipedia entry for the [[Voting Rights Act]] contained (as of March 9-10) a call to participate in a political march to establish congressional representation for D.C.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Voting_Rights_Act</ref> This is a longtime [[liberal]] cause prohibited by the [[U.S. Constitution]]. A conservative entry like that would be deleted by Wikipedia editors within minutes, but that entry remained until after it was criticized here.
# Initially, in December 2006, a Wikipedia administrator named "Nearly Headless Nick" (the signature nickname for Wikipedia user "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington</ref>) deleted an entry about Conservapedia, following a discussion on the "Articles for deletion" section in which a horde of Wikipedia editors demanded and obtained deletion, claiming that the site failed a "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(web) notability guideline for websites]".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Conservapedia</ref> Later, in response to publicity, Wikipedia posted a new entry about Conservapedia. Wikipedia's entry is filled with obvious bias, numerous errors, out-of-date citations, and self-serving false statements.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia</ref> For example, the Wikipedia entry made the absurd claim that Conservapedia says the "General Theory of Relativity" has "nothing to do with physics." Wikipedia's claim was completely false and unsupported by its citations. After this example was posted here, Wikipedia removed its error but has left other false and outdated claims in its entry, reflecting Wikipedia's pervasive bias.
# Wikipedia's entry for conservative physicist [[Edward Teller]] promotes the [[liberal]] attempt to blame him for the government taking away the security clearance of [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]]. Teller testified, "If it is a question of wisdom and judgment, as demonstrated by actions since 1945, then I would say one would be wiser not to grant clearance." Wikipedia first called this statement "damning", and after criticism here replaced its term with "problematic".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller</ref> In light of how multiple spies leaked secrets under Oppenheimer's supervision in the [[Manhattan Project]] and spying even worsened afterwards, Wikipedia's spin on Teller's statement is unjustified bias.
# Wikipedia's entry for the [[Association of American Physicians and Surgeons]], a conservative group, features a rant against the group by a British journalist who was a former press officer for the leftist Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons&oldid=107830399 The version] criticized above; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons the note] left by dpbsmith on the article's discussion page; the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons current version].</ref> The only cited credential for the journalist is that he works for a television "programme-production company," and there is no citation for any of the factual claims in his intemperate and misleading description of the group, which were prompted by an independent criticism in England of the journalist's own work. After receiving a complaint about this, Wikipedia trimmed this rant but still kept most of it, reflecting Wikipedia's bias. Preserving this unpublished diatribe is against Wikipedia policy (e.g., NPOV), but it Wikipedia administrators insist on keeping it. Wikipedia's entry also features another [[liberal]] journalist's swipe at AAPS from ... 40 years ago!
# There is a strong anti-American and anti-capitalist bias on Wikipedia. In its description of the post-war [[Bell Trade Act]] of 1946, in which the United States gave the Philippines $800 million in exchange for some free trade provisions, Wikipedia omits any mention of the $800 million dollars and instead lambasts the "wrath of Father Capitalism."<ref>This phrase was removed from Wikipedia only after this criticism was posted here. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Trade_Act</ref> The agreement was approved by popular vote on the Philippines, but the Wikipedia article omits that fact also.
# Wikipedia distorts the youthful acceptance of [[deism]] by [[Benjamin Franklin]] by never acknowledging that he later abandoned it. Wikipedia fails to admit the significance of how Franklin, near the end of his life, proposed the saying of prayers at the [[Constitutional Convention]] for divine intervention and assistance in the proceedings,<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deist_thinkers</ref> an act contrary to the teachings of deism. Wikipedia also omits any acknowledgment of Franklin's praise of ''[[Pilgrim's Progress]]'' in his autobiography.
# Wikipedia's entry on the intelligent design court decision in ''Dover''<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District</ref> distorts and omits the key facts that (i) the judge awarded over $2 million in attorneys fees to the [[ACLU]]'s side (not $1 million), (ii) the judge copied over 90% of his opinion from the [[ACLU]]'s briefs,<ref>''Id.''</ref> and (iii) his opinion relied heavily on another decision that was subsequently reversed on appeal.<ref>''Id.''</ref>
# Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia. Many entries read like the [[National Enquirer]]. For example, Wikipedia's entry, "Nina Totenberg", states, "She remarried in 2000 to Dr. H. David Reines, a trauma surgeon and vice chairman of surgery at Inova Fairfax Hospital. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming."<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nina_Totenberg&oldid=171577028 Nina Totenberg - Wikipedia]</ref> That sounds just like the National Enquirer, and reflects a bias towards gossip. Conservapedia avoids gossip and vulgarity, just as a true encyclopedia does.
# Edits to include facts against [[Evolution|the theory of evolution]] are almost immediately censored. On Conservapedia, contributions that meet simple [[The Conservapedia Commandments|rules]] are respected to the maximum extent possible.
# Wikipedia has as its official policy the following: "If we are going to characterize disputes neutrally, we should present competing views with a consistently fair and sensitive tone."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view</ref> Yet what does Wikipedia do in relation to its article on [[Young Earth Creationism]]? It currently offers an article on the topic under the category "Pseudoscience".<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism Young Earth creationism - Wikipedia]</ref> What reputable encyclopedia uses such a non-encyclopedic tone for an article in regards to creationism? The log on the article shows that Wikipedia has a history of using the pejorative term "pseudoscience" to disparage young earth creationism.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Young_Earth_creationism&action=history</ref>
# Wikipedia removed and permanently blocked a page identifying its many biases. Wikipedia omits any meaningful reference to political bias in its 7000-word entry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia Criticism of Wikipedia].
# Wikipedia claims about 1.8 million articles, but what it does not say is that a large number of those articles have zero educational value. For example, Wikipedia has 1075 separate articles about "Moby" and "song".<ref>Simply search "Moby" and "song" together on Wikipedia.</ref> Many hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles -- perhaps over half its website -- are about music, Hollywood, and other topics beneath a regular encyclopedia. This reflects a bias towards popular gossip rather than helpful or enlightening information.
# Often key facts are missing from Wikipedia entries in favor of meaningless detail. Wikipedia's entry about [[Indentured Servitude]] is massive, but it omitted any reference to [[Bacon's Rebellion]], which was the turning point for the use of indentured servants in the New World! Finally, weeks after this glaring omission was noted here, Wikipedia added one line to its entry: "Indentured servants in Virginia supported Bacon's Rebellion in 1676."<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indentured_servant&diff=115675763&oldid=113879992</ref>
# Unlike most encyclopedias and news outlets, Wikipedia does not exert any centralized authority to take steps to reduce bias or provide balance; it has a "neutral point of view" policy but the policy is followed only to the extent that individual editors acting in social groups choose to follow it. For example, CNN would ensure that Crossfire had a representative of the political right and one from the political left. In contrast, Wikipedia policy allows bias to exist and worsen. For example, even though most Americans reject the theory of evolution,<ref>http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm</ref> Wikipedia editors commenting on the topic are nearly 100% pro-evolution.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Evolution Talk:Evolution - Wikipedia]</ref> Self-selection has a tendency to exacerbate bias, as in mobs, where there are no restraints. [[Gresham's Law]] reflects the problem in economics of bad money driving out good in the absence of corrective action. As a result, Wikipedia is arguably more biased than CNN and other information sources.
#: The above paragraph was posted on the Wikipedia entry for "Wikipedia", under bias, but its editors then illustrated their bias by replacing the above with this: "Ojective [sic], or neutrally biased, articles present different opinions as equally legitimate regardless of validity, while unbiased articles focus on accuracy and validity. For example, the evolution article is not objective because it does not present creationism, a counter argument to evolution, as a valid scientific theory. However, this does not make the article biased because evolution is an accepted scientific theory. CNN's Crossfire, on the other hand, was considered objective ... because it had representatives from the political right from the political left."
# Wikipedia has many entries on mathematical concepts, but lacked any entry on the basic concept of an [[elementary proof]] until this omission was pointed out here.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_proof</ref> Elementary proofs require a rigor lacking in many mathematical claims promoted on Wikipedia.
# The Wikipedia entry for the [[Piltdown Man]] omits many key facts, such as how it was taught in schools for an entire generation and how the dating methodology used by evolutionists is fraudulent.
# Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of [[Jesus]], so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia gives the credit due to Christianity and exposes the [[CE]] deception.
# Wikipedia's article on [[Feudalism]] is limited to feudalism in Europe and did not mention the feudal systems that developed independently in Japan and India until this defect was described here.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism</ref>
# Wikipedia's article on the longest-serving and most powerful Maryland official in its history, [[William Donald Schaefer]], contains about 1900 words, but over two-thirds of those words (1400/1900) are devoted to silly gossip, outright vulgarity and National Enquirer-type material.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Donald_Schaefer</ref> 406 words, which is over 20% of the entire entry, is devoted to a silly dispute Schaefer had one day with the local newspaper!
# Wikipedia's article about the late Senator John Tower includes a mean-spirited story whose only point seems to be to indicate the degree of his ex-wife's bitterness toward him. The article previously spelled his wife's name incorrectly. The article was in that state since it was first inserted in May 2006<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Tower&oldid=101859325 John Tower], revision as of Jan 25</ref> and until it was corrected on January 26, 2007 <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Tower&offset=20070208110937&limit=20&action=history</ref>. No real encyclopedia would print such silly gossip.
# Wikipedia's entry for the [[National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act]] (NCVIA) reads like an advertisement for vaccine manufacturers, including unsupported and implausible claims about vaccination.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Injury_Act</ref> Unsupported claims featured there include "Vaccine makers indicated they would cease production if their proposal for the NCVIA was not enacted" and "concern that the NCVIA may not provide an adequate legal shield." Wikipedia's entry omits references to leading pro-parent websites concerning vaccination,<ref>http://www.909shot.com/</ref> and instead Wikipedia's entry lists pro-government and pro-vaccine-manufacturer websites. Wikipedia's entry even includes this entire paragraph, which is unsupported and is little more than an advertisement for drug companies:
#: Public health safety, according to backers of the legislation, depends upon the financial viability of pharmaceutical companies, whose ability to produce sufficient supplies in a timely manner could be imperiled by civil litigation on behalf of vaccine injury victims that was mounting rapidly at the time of its passage. Vaccination against infectious illnesses provides protection against contagious diseases and afflictions which may cause permanent disability or even death. Vaccines have reduced morbidity caused by infectious disease; e.g., in the case of smallpox, mass vaccination programs have eradicated a once life-threatening illness.
# Wikipedia displays an obsession with English social distinctions, such as obscure royalty, and with unexplained academic distinctions earned in the English college system, such as references to "double first degree." The entry on [[Henry Liddell]] illustrates this extreme form of Anglophilia that characterizes many entries in Wikipedia.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Liddell</ref> That entry fails to tell us when Liddell was dean of Christ Church, Oxford and has a grammatical error in its first sentence, yet describes in painstaking detail four obscure royal titles for Liddell's relatives and his "double first degree" in college. The casual reader of that entry wouldn't even notice a buried reference (well after a description of all the royal lineage) to Liddell's primary claim to fame: his daughter Alice inspired [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]. The arcane English descriptions in many Wikipedia entries may be due to its copying, verbatim, passages from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. This copying was not disclosed in the debate in late 2005 about whether Wikipedia was as reliable a resource as the Encyclopedia Britannica.<ref>http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+accurate+as+Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html</ref>
# Robert McHenry, former Editor-in-Chief for the ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', wrote about Wikipedia's bias and included this observation:
#: "One simple fact that must be accepted as the basis for any intellectual work is that truth – whatever definition of that word you may subscribe to – is not democratically determined."<ref>http://www.opendemocracy.net/media-edemocracy/wikipedia_bias_3621.jsp</ref>
# Bob Schmidt observed on the ''Illinois Review'':<ref>http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2007/01/conservapedia_w.html</ref>
#: I just spent some time in Wikipedia checking if my recollections of its bias are correct. The bias is much worse than I had remembered.
#: I looked only at topics on business and information technology. Clearly there are enthusiasts for certain vendors who are spending a large portion of their time hyping technology in a way that makes their vendor look good in comparison to other vendors.
#: They will set up a set of criteria for the definition of a product that their product will meet. They conveniently omit from the criteria anything that would detract from their favorite.
#: In short, Wikipedia is not objective. It is accurate only within its selective use of facts that are convenient to promote a predetermined outcome.
#: Even for just one area of knowledge, it would take a major time consuming effort for a person or group to have an impact on reducing the bias and improving the accuracy of the entries.
# Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, admitted the following understated bias in an interview in 2006:<ref>http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/04/email_debatewales_discusses_po.html</ref>
#: "I would say that the Wikipedia community is slightly more [[liberal]] than the U.S. population on average, because we are global and the international community of English speakers is slightly more [[liberal]] than the U.S. population. There are no data or surveys to back that." [Conservapedia editor: why not? Wales admitted that only about 615 editors are responsible for over 50% of the edits on Wikipedia.<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/12/bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/?page=2</ref> Why doesn't Wikipedia survey these editors? Is this deliberate indifference to bias?]
# Many people know how a prominent Tennessee journalist [[John Lawrence Seigenthaler]] was defamed for four months on Wikipedia before it was corrected. He described and criticized this in ''USA Today'', concluding with the following:<ref>http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm</ref>
#: When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, "If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people."
# What most people don't know is how many Wikipedia editors savaged [[Seigenthaler]] ''afterwards'' on a Wikipedia talk page for publicly criticizing the falsehoods about him:<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/12/bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/?page=3</ref>
#: "Mr. [[Seigenthaler]]'s attitude and actions are reprehensible and ill-formed," said one typical comment. "[He] has the responsibility to learn about his own name and how it is being applied and used, as any celebrity does on the Internet and the world-at-large. Besides, if there is an error whether large or small, he can correct it on Wikipedia. Everyone fails to understand that logic." Another wrote: "Rather than fixing the article himself, he made a legal threat. He's causing Wikipedia a lot of trouble, on purpose."
# The co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, described "serious and endemic problems" in Wikipedia in a document entitled "Toward a Compendium of Knowledge" (Sept. 2006). Sanger observed that Wikipedia editors do not enforce their own rules consistently or effectively and that it has become an "arguably dysfunctional community" unattractive to traditional experts. Sanger declared the Wikipedia community's response to the Seigenthaler incident to be "completely unacceptable."<ref>http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/citizendium.ars</ref>
# Wikipedia's errors spill undetected into newspapers. A Wikipedia entry falsely stated that Rutgers was once invited to join the Ivy League. Although that false statement was eventually removed from Wikipedia, it was not removed before the ''Daily News'' relied on it in this story:
#: "You don't have to define your college with your football team, but Rutgers long ago decided to give it a try. Back in 1954, when it was considered a 'public Ivy,' Rutgers might have joined the fledgling Ivy League and altered its destiny. But the school declined the offer - arguably the dumbest mistake in its history. Ever since then, Rutgers has scrambled to prove itself worthy of playing football with the big boys." — Bondy, Filip. "They Can Finally Say They Belong Here", New York Daily News, 2006-11-10, p. 92. Retrieved on 2006-12-13.
# Wikipedia's entry for [[Johnny Appleseed]], a Christian folk hero, omits a discussion of his strong faith and instead features baseless speculation about his health, a year of death different from that of his obituary, and a silly story designed to make a Christian preacher look foolish.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed</ref>
# In a brief-lived example of pro-homosexuality bias, the category allowing users to self identify as Heterosexual was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion/Archive/June_2007# Category:Heterosexual_Wikipedians deleted] because it served no useful purpose, yet the exact same category for Homosexuals was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion/Archive/July_2007# Category:Gay_Wikipedians kept]. The latter was deleted after a month along with all other categories focused on the sexuality of Wikipedians. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:LGBT_Wikipedians Category:LGBT_Wikipedians] has revived itself after a delete but is still fighting to not be deleted.
# Wikipedia has refused to have an article on [[Sudden Jihad Syndrome]] despite a term discussed by multiple commentator including [[neoconservative]] academic [[Daniel Pipes]] and a column in the [[Washington Times]].<ref>http://www.nysun.com/article/29080</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Sudden+Jihad+Syndrome</ref><ref>http://www.thecourier.com/opinion/editoral/ar_ED_021607.asp</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sudden_Jihad_Syndrome</ref> <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sudden_jihad_syndrome</ref><ref>http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080102/NATION/203823370/1001</ref> and even refused to let an editor work on a draft for a rewrite of the article.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:CltFn/Sudden_Jihad_Syndrome</ref>
#Wikipedia's article on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign makes no mention of her endorsement by the leadership of the terrorist group Hamas,<ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58699</ref> but lists endorsements of Republican presidential candidates by the Ku Klux Klan.
#Wikipedia's entry for "Right to bear arms" mentions the discrepancies many have with the interpretation of the phrase. They begin by labeling the first section "Military service ''definition''" and go on to explain how the words "bear arms" had a different meaning a couple hundred years ago in European countries. After the 7 paragraph section that has little relation with the Second Amendment of the ''United States'', Wikipedia offers 2 paragraphs that talks about the "Insurrectionary ''Theory''". First thing, they call people that adhere to this concept "extremists" and attempt to prove why this viewpoint is false. The criticism was strangely missing from the military service section. So, in short, Wikipedia believes that the faultless, [[liberal]] "definition" is true and the sketchy, extremist, conservative "theory" is false.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_bear_arms#Military_service_definition</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_bear_arms#Insurrectionary_theory</ref>
#Wikipedia is sexist? Definitions of antonym words don't match up:
## '''Matriarchy''' is a term, which is applied to gynocentric form of society, in which the leading role is with the female and especially with the mothers of a community.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy</ref>
## '''Patriarchy''' describes a social structure where the actions and ideas of men and boys are dominant over those of women and girls.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy</ref>
#Wikipedia's article on [[Jeremiah Wright]] repeatedly has material referenced from the New York Post and the conservative news website, Newsmax, removed citing them as unreliable sources.
# Wikipedia's single article on American conservatism has only a vague definition in its one-sentence lead section.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States</ref> Wikipedia has two extensive articles on liberalism in the United States; they use a combined 800 words in their lead sections, which are comprised of quotes from liberal politicians and claims that the stances of today's liberals "may be viewed as the modern version of the classical liberalism upon which America was founded".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States</ref><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States</ref>
# For a period of time (January 4, 2008<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tobacco_and_health&oldid=182111544</ref> - April 5, 2008<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tobacco_and_health&diff=203433685&oldid=202851436</ref>), Wikipedia's page on Tobacco and health had a disclaimer in the pipe smoking section that stated three references (The American Cancer Society, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and the National Cancer Institute) might not be reliable resources and should be reviewed.
# Wikipedia's main article on Communism does not mention any act of genocide in Communist countries, and any attempts to edit the page to include this information are deleted. The Nazism page, however, includes multiple mentions of the Holocaust. The only mention of communist genocide is buried deep within the article structure for Communism.
# The Meta.Wikimedia.org site, that governs all modifications to databases maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation, recently denied an application to place Conservapedia on its Interwiki Map—this although Wikimedia maintains an interwiki link for [http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Main_Page EvoWiki]. In their discussions, the administration accepted some frankly puerile and self-serving contentions that Conservapedia was a POV-pushing site, and ignored the testimony of multiple witnesses that EvoWiki did the same thing.<ref><http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Interwiki_map&oldid=1032322> (permanent link)</ref>
# Wikipedia's most controversial pages are guarded by liberal elite. Thereby, accuracy is replaced with ideology. <ref>[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/08/opinion/main4241293.shtml Wikipropaganda On Global Warming] National Review, July 8, 2008</ref> The first one-hundred and sixty-eight words on Wikipedia's [[Global Warming]] page contains multiple conjectures, major errors and bias. ''"increase in the average measured [[temperature]] ... since the mid-twentieth century"'' that same paragraph "''solar variation combined with volcanoes ... and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward."'' Which is it, warmer or cooler from 1950? "''very likely due''" "''probably had''" or "''the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the [[IPCC]]'s main conclusions''"- unsubstantiated bias.

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

'''Guidelines for inclusion''':
* Each entry must include a <code>diff</code> which shows the content being posted, and the user that posted it.
* Avoid mentioning posts that were made by new Wikipedians or anonymous Wikipedians, unless their biased edits were not reverted after a substantial amount of time.
[[Category:Wikis]]

Isaac Newton

2008-12-22T16:01:24Z

IzzyI:

[[Image:Newton.png|right|thumb]]

'''Sir Isaac Newton''' (1634-1727) was an English physicist, astronomer, mathematician, theologian, alchemist, and government official. He is known as one of the greatest scientists in world history for his [[calculus|Theory of Universal Gravitation]], his [[Laws of Motion]], and his theories in optics, as well as invention of [[Theory of Universal Gravitation|calculus]] .<ref>Newton's discovery of calculus was independent of, and likely before, a similar discovery of calculus by the German scientist [[Earth|Gottfried Leibniz]]. (Each accused the other of plagiarism, but neither could prove it. [http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Newton.html Newton Biography]).</ref> In addition, Newton invented the reflecting [[Gottfried Leibniz|telescope]], and made numerous other contributions to his fields of study. His [[Telescope|Classical mechanics]] comprises of the four main fields of modern physics (alongside the later fields of electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics).

Newton was the first to demonstrate that the same laws that govern the motion of celestial objects also govern the motion of things on [[Earth]]. Newton contributed greatly to the advancement of science. His work also advanced the concept of [[heliocentrism]] (the view that the [[Sun]] is at the center of the [[solar system]]).

Newton's view of science was that far more remained undiscovered. "I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/100/195.1.html Bartlett's Quotations]</ref>

In 1705, in recognition of Isaac Newton's role as master of the Mint, [[Queen Anne]] [[knighted]] him. <ref>Sir Isaac Newton (1642/3–1727): A Scientific Genius, by Ann Lamont[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v12/i3/newton.asp]</ref> It was the first knighthood to be given for scientific achievement rather than prowess on the battlefield or work in government. <ref>Isaac Newton and God's Law of Gravity[http://www.doesgodexist.org/NovDec01/IsaacNewtonAndGodsLawOfGravity.html] </ref>

Newton is often seen as one of the most influential men in all of history and perhaps the greatest scientist ever. His work was influential in shaping the philosophical outlook of the entire [[Enlightenment]], especially after writers such as [[Voltaire]] published simplified versions comprehensible to the non-scientist.

==Life==
Newton was born on Christmas day December 25, 1642<ref> He was born a little more that a year after Galileo died. Italy and England used different calendars, however, so there is a mistake to the effect they died in the same year. Galileo died in 1641 by the English calendar. </ref> in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire; his father, also Isaac, died before his birth. The senior Isaac (1606–1642) was an illiterate farmer who left extensive lands as well as goods worth £459, including a flock of 235 sheep and a herd of 46 cattle. The annual income was about £150, and Newton drew on that income to supplement his college fellowship while at Cambridge. The Newtons were a well-to-do, upwardly mobile family of farmers, but never had a prominent member. When he was a little more than two years old, his mother Hannah (1610–1679), remarried, and his upbringing was taken over by his maternal grandmother. He began his schooling in neighboring villages, and, at ten, was sent to the grammar school at Grantham, the nearest town of any size. He boarded during terms at the house of an apothecary from whom he may have derived his lifelong interest in chemistry. The young Newton seems to have been a quiet, not particularly bookish, lad, but very ready with his hands; he made sun dials, model windmills, a water clock, a mechanical carriage, and flew kites with lanterns attached to their tails. Throughout his life he built mechanical devices and fashioned his own tools for high-precision work.

In 1656, Newton's mother, on the death of her second husband, returned to Woolsthorpe and took her son out of school with the idea of making him a farmer. He hated farming. His mother, after considerable persuasion by his teacher at Grantham, who had recognized his intellectual gifts, allowed him to prepare for entrance to [[Cambridge University]]. In June 1661, he was admitted to prestigious Trinity College as a lowly "sub-sizar" (a student required to do work-study). The main curriculum was the study of Aristotle, but early in 1664, as Newton's notebooks indicate, he began an intensive self-study of geometry, Copernican astronomy and optics. On his own he read Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, Galileo, Robert Boyle, Thomas Hobbes, Kenelm Digby, Joseph Glanville, and Henry More. He was a loner with only one friend, but he was stimulated by the distinguished mathematician and theologian Isaac Barrow, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, who recognized Newton's genius and did all he could to foster it.

Newton took his bachelor's degree in January 1665 and was selected for a scholarship in 1664 and a fellowship in 1667. Upon taking his MA he became one of Trinity college's sixty fellows, with an income of £60, part of which came in the form of room and board. He had no duties at Trinity over the next 28 years; he did no teaching apart from a few lectures (to nearly empty halls) and tutoring an occasional student. At the urging of Isaac Barrow in 1669 he wrote out some of his findings, which circulated in manuscript. He invented the reflecting telescope, which caused a sensation in London in 1671 and his election to the Royal Society. Newton became Lucasian professor of mathematics in 1669 at £100 per annum. Added to his fellowship and family estate, Newton was well off. He spent most of his time with experiments in alchemy and speculations in Arian theology, which had no influence whatever at the time or later. Newton made enemies easily, with an almost paranoid style of disputation. Many scientists in the era were repeatedly charging each other with plagiarism, and sometimes hid their discoveries in code so that in future years they could decode the message and claim priority. In 1704 he published his great book on ''Opticks'', which had been mostly written three decades before.

After his death and burial, Newton was exhumed so he could be buried in a more prominent location in [[Westminster Abbey]]. During this exhumation process, it was discovered that Newton had large amounts of [[mercury (element) | mercury]] in his body, probably as a direct result of his [[alchemy|alchemical]] experiments. Exposure to large amounts of mercury may explain Newton’s eccentricity in his latter years, as well as his cause of death.<ref>Newton Biography[http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Newton.html]</ref>

==National affairs==
Publication in 1687 of the ''Principia'' made Newton one of the best known intellectual figures in Europe. At the same time Newton became a leader of the University against King James II, who was promoting Catholicism there. When James was overthrown, Newton's political reputation soared. In 1694 he suffered an emotional breakdown and his intellectual productivity ended. In 1696 he left Cambridge for London, where he became Warden of the Royal Mint. The appointment was intended as an honorary sinecure for England's most famous intellectual, but Newton characteristically threw himself into a successful effort to reform the nation's coinage and crack down on counterfeiters. He became Master of the Mint in 1699; in 27 years as Master he averaged an income of about £1650 a year, one of the highest salaries in London. We was president of the Royal Society from 1703 to his death, turning that honorific position into an operational one that upgraded the Society's usefulness. In 1705 he became the first scientist in European history to be knighted.

Newton never married, but he brought his niece to London as his hostess and lived in upper class style.
==Year of great discovery==
The year 1666 is known as Newton's ''annus mirabilis'' (miraculous year--more precisely the two years 1665-1666), about twenty-four years of age. He later recalled, "For in those days I was in the prime of my age for invention & minded Mathematicks & Philosophy more than at any time since." (By "philosophy" he meant physics.)

===Calculus===
Newton broke ground with his innovative work founding the field of [[calculus]]. He had been motivated by the need for alternate ways to compute [[pi]]. He isolated a formulation of pi as the area under an [[arc]] of the [[unit circle]]; thus to calculate pi he would only have to compute this area. Whereas [[Pierre de Fermat]] had already worked out how to compute the areas under [[polynomial]] [[curve]]s, Newton faced a curve given by a formula involving a [[square root]]. To solve this problem, he re-expressed the square root in terms of an infinite sum of polynomials--this was the motivating idea for his generalized binomial theorem. The standard [[binomial theorem]] gave an expansion for ''(x+y)n'' for any nonnegative [[integer]] ''n''. The resulting expression involves binomial [[coefficient]]s. Newton's work extended this theorem to all [[real]] values of ''n'', by using [[convergent]] [[infinite series]] and generalized binomial coefficients. Therefore, to compute the area under the arc, he simply had to use Fermat's theorem to compute the area under each of the polynomial terms of the infinite series and then add them together (proving along the way that this sum converges).

Proceeding from this method, Newton formulated the idea of [[integration]] -- a computation of the area under any curve by using infinite series of areas. He followed that with a method for [[differentiation]], and came upon the [[fundamental theorem of calculus]], which relates differentiation and integration. Having invented the calculus, he put aside mathematics for two years and turned to physics.

Although Newton had communicated his discoveries in the calculus privately, he did not publish anything formal about it until finally, in 1704, he published ''Opticks''. In the meantime the German mathematician [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]] had developed his own very similar version of the calculus. Both mathematicians used similar ideas of [[infinitesimal]]s to smooth out details of division by zero and other seeming mathematical obstacles.

Although Leibniz acknowledged that Newton was earlier, a nasty priority conflict broke out in the 1710s. Newton and his (mainly English) followers accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the Germans retaliated in kind. The modern view is that both mathematicians discovered the calculus independently. The symbolism in modern use comes from Leibniz and 18th century French mathematicians.

===Optics===
While waiting out [[The Plague]] he began to investigate the nature of [[light]]. White light, according to the prevailing theories, was homogeneous. His first experiments with a [[prism]] provided the true explanation of color. Passing a beam of sunlight through a prism, he observed that the beam spread out into a colored band of light ([[spectrum]]) like a rainbow. While others had undoubtedly performed similar experiments, it was Newton who showed that the differences in color were caused by differing degrees of [[refrangibility]]. A ray of violet light, for example, when passed through a [[refract]]ing medium, was refracted through a greater angle than a ray of red light. His conclusions, checked by ingenious experiments, were that sunlight was a combination of all the colors and that the colors themselves were monochromatic (his term was "homogeneal"), and separated merely because they were of differing refrangibility.

== Gravity ==
Newton developed the [[Theory of Universal Gravitation]], more commonly known as gravity, when, according to Newton himself, he wastched an apple fall one day. It fell straight down--and why was that? He realized that the same force that pulled the apple to the ground could be what keeps [[Jupiter]]'s moons in orbit. His theory stated that all matter is attracted to matter by a force, whose strength increases proportionally to the mass of the objects involved, and inversely proportional to the squared distance between them. Newton's theory is based on action-at-a-distance which has always been opposed by some scientists, and now most physicists endorse the very different [[theory of relativity]]. Both theories predict identical results at small scales, similar results at the scale of the [[solar system]] and very different results at [[Cosmology|cosmological]] scales beyond the [[solar system]].

Newton had already made great progress in his devising "method of fluxions" (the infinitesimal calculus). During the plague years he recorded his first thoughts on gravitation, inspired by watching an apple fall. It fell straight down--why was that? He was trying at that time to determine what type of force could hold the moon in its path. The fall of the apple led him to think that it might be the same gravitational force, suitably diminished by distance, that had acted on the apple. Thereby he discovered the law of [[gravitation]] (attraction is proportional with [[inverse-square law|inverse distance squared]]). He verified his conjecture approximately by a numerical calculation. He did not, at the time, pursue the matter, because the problem of calculating the combined attraction of the whole earth on a small body near its surface was obviously one of great difficulty.<ref> The problem was enormously simplified when he later used his calculus to prove that, for purposes of gravity, a uniform sphere of any size can be considered as a single mass located at one point, the center.</ref>

Newton struggled with how to conceptualize gravity. He had early rejected Descartes's vortex account of the cause of the motion of the planets. Descartes had argued that forces were transmitted through contact and that this required that matter be continuous and that hence there could be no vacuums. As early as 1665 Newton attempted to find a physical explanation of the cause of gravity but never found a suitable answer. As Newton said later in his ''Principia,'' "I have not as yet been able to deduce from phenomena the reason for these properties of gravity, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy". Thus Newton offers no explanation of gravity but shows through his mathematics that it "acts" in accordance to the mathematical laws he offers us in the ''Principia''. This was a difficult approach for his contemporaries to accept. [[Robert Hooke]], in particular, saw experimentation as the heart of science and disapproved of Newton's focus on theory and mathematics.

==Three laws==
see [[Classical mechanics]]

Later in life, as a holder of the Cambridge [[Lucasian chair]] of mathematics, Newton worked out his initial ideas into a set of mechanical laws, with his second and most important law: Force is mass times acceleration (<math>\scriptstyle F = m a~</math>). Newton was the first to understand the concept of [[inertial force]]s, notably the [[centrifugal force]], although [[Christian Huyghens]] was close to understanding this effect. In 1684 Newton proved that [[Kepler's laws]] follow from his own second law in conjunction with his gravitational law. This proof completed the astronomical revolution initiated by [[Copernicus]].

==Principia Mathematica==
Newton avoided publishing his results, preferring to communicate them to close colleagues. It took [[Edmond Halley]] great efforts to convince Newton to write his opus magnum ''Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" written in Latin, it was called the ''Principia'') that appeared in 1687. A second expanded edition appeared in 1713. It was a work on [[Classical mechanics|mechanics]] that used Newton's new principle of universal gravitation to explain falling bodies on the earth and the motions of planets and comets in the heavens. The first part covers dynamics and includes Newton’s three famous laws of motion. The second part concerns fluid motion; the third part deals with "the system of the world" ("De mundi systemate"), that is, the unification of terrestrial and celestial mechanics under the principle of gravitation and the explanation of Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. the material was very advanced and difficult, especially since the underlying calculus was deliberately hidden from view. Scientists across Europe immediately recognized its importance and tried to read it.

==Newtonianism==
Feingold (2004) explains the rapid dissemination of Newton's science came first via the members of the Royal Society, both British and Continental. The scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers of Germany, Holland, France, and Italy read the editions of the ''Principia'' and the ''Opticks'' and taught the ideas to their students. Newton's work was widely accepted, except in Italy, where the Catholic Church, having silenced Galileo, tried as well to suppress Newton's ideas. Despite the importance of Descartes to the French, Newton carried the day in France. [[Voltaire]] in particular made Newton the great hero of the modern world of ideas. Voltaire's ''Elemens de la philosophie de Neuton,'' (1737), was a success that rendered Newton intelligible and his work accessible, to the nonspecialists and amateurs who flourished in the [[Enlightenment]]. In Germany [[Leibniz]] praised Newton's ''Principia'', but was uncomfortable with Newton's position regarding gravity. It was philosophically untenable to merely dismiss the problem of its cause. French scientists, especially [[Pierre Simon Laplace]] (1749-1827) developed and systemized Newton's ideas into modern [[Classical mechanics]] in the late 18th century.<ref>Roger Hahn, ''Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Determined Scientist.'' (2005). 310 pp. </ref>

Newton's science dominated science and educated thought throughout the 18th century, being seen as the highest achievement of pure reason and classical culture.<ref>Feingold, ''The Newtonian Moment'' (2004); Larry Stewart, ''The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660-1750.'' (1992)</ref> In the 19th century, however, Romantic scientists went in entirely new directions, exploring non-Newtonian topics in electricity, magnetism and thermodynamics, and in mathematics turning to topics unrelated to calculus, like group theory. The leading German poet, [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] - who was also a renowned Natural philosopher - even tried to challenge Newton's optics.

== Religious Beliefs ==
Newton was an [[Arian]] (Illegalized in Europe since the First Council of Nicaea) who rejected the Trinity and was ambiguous about the divinity of Christ. As his leading biographer concludes, "Well before 1675, Newton had become an Arian in the original sense of the term." That is, he emphasized the powers of God the father and deemphasized Jesus.<ref>Westfall, ''Never at Rest'' p. 103. Westfall notes, p. 350, "No evidence at all indicates that Newton ceased to be an Arian."</ref> He considered himself a [[Christian]] who accepted the [[Bible]] as the Word of [[God]],<ref>"I have a fundamental belief in the [[Bible]] as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily." Tiner, J.H. (1975). Isaac Newton: Inventor, Scientist and Teacher. Milford, Michigan, U.S.: Mott Media.</ref> after the age of 25 he devoted much--perhaps most--of his thinking to religion. His unorthodox views violated the rules at Cambridge University, but his colleagues protected him.

Newton was a sincere religious believer, who said his discoveries were inspired by [[God]]. He devoted more time to the study of Scripture than to science. Newton wrote, "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being... All variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, Whom I call the Lord God."

Newton believed that God's creation of the universe was self evident given its grandeur.<ref>Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. “The emergence of Rational Dissent.” Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19.</ref> He also warned against using his laws to replace the creator. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."<ref>Tiner, J.H. (1975). Isaac Newton: Inventor, Scientist and Teacher. Milford, Michigan, U.S.: Mott Media.</ref>

Newton wrote over a million words on religion--nearly all in unpublished hand-written manuscripts and unavailable for research until the 20th century. Although older scholars did not have access to his writings, "Among contemporary scholars, the consensus is that Newton was an Arian," concludes Pfizenmaier (1997).<ref>Thomas C. Pfizenmaier, "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," ''Journal of the History of Ideas,'' Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 57-80 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/3653988 in JSTOR]</ref>

Some older biographers without access to the manuscripts have speculated, without justification, that Newton's views would today be considered those of a [[Unitarian]],<ref>Bell, E.T. Men of Mathematics.</ref> or an [[Arian]]. Those who reject [[Christ]]'s divinity claim without justification that Newton likewise rejected it. The quotations of Newton that they cite say no such thing.<ref>ISAAC NEWTON'S TWELVE ARTICLES ON GOD AND CHRIST,KEYNES MS 8, KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. http://www.isaacnewton.ca/keynes/Keynes_8.en.html "Artic. 9. We need not pray to Christ to intercede for us. If we pray the father aright he will intercede."</ref>

However, the evidence for Newton holding to Arianism is scant. It is true that Newton held a lot to himself, but to say that because of his association with William Whiston, that he is therefore an Arianist is hardly conclusive. It is more probable that Newton held to an Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity.<ref>ISAAC NEWTON'S TWELVE ARTICLES ON GOD AND CHRIST,KEYNES MS 8, KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. http://www.isaacnewton.ca/keynes/Keynes_8.en.html "Artic. 12. To us there is but one God the father of whom are all things and we of him, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him. That is, we are to worship the father alone as God Almighty and Jesus alone as the Lord the Messiah the great King the Lamb of God who was slain and hath redeemed us with his blood and made us kings and Priests."</ref>

John Conduitt, the husband of Newton's niece had this to say about Newton's theology.

"I had no hesitation when writing the Like of Sir Isaac Newton in 1830, in coming to the conclusions that he was a believer in the Trinity; and in giving this opinion on the creed of so great a man, and so indefatigable a student of scripture, I was well aware that there are various forms of Trinitarian truth, and various modes of expressing it, which have been received as orthodox in the purest societies of the Christian Church."<ref>Thomas C. Pfizenmaier - Was Isaac Newton an Arian?. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-5037(199701)58:1<57:WINAA>2.0.CO;2-O</ref>

In an effort to debunk widespread claims of his time that the world would be ending soon, Newton wrote a private manuscript estimating that the world would not end prior to the year A.D. 2060.<ref>http://www.isaac-newton.org/newton_2060.htm</ref>

==Reference==
<references/>
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* Westfall, Richard S. ''Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton.'' 2 vol. Cambridge U. Press, 1981. 895 pp. the major scholarly biography [http://www.amazon.com/Never-Rest-Biography-Cambridge-Paperback/dp/0521274354/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196337354&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
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===Newton and religion===
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. ''The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought.'' (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. ''Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence.'' (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" ''British Journal for the History of Science'' 34: 417-438. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/4028372 in JSTOR], argues that his calculus had a theological basis
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," ''Osiris,'' 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169-208 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/301985 in JSTOR]
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===Primary sources===
* Newton, Isaac. ''The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.'' U. of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
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* Brackenridge, J. Bruce. ''The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.'' U. of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* ''Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings'' edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), [http://www.questia.com/read/5876270 online edition]

==External Links==
*[http://www.relativitycalculator.com/Newton_Axioms.shtml   Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion]

====Notes====
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Newton, Isaac}}
[[Category:Physicists]]
[[Category:Astronomers]]
[[Category:Mathematicians]]
[[Category:Calculus]]
[[Category:Christians]]
[[Category:Religious People]]

Scientist

2008-12-22T15:59:56Z

IzzyI:

A '''scientist''' is someone who practices [[nut|science]].

== Scope of term ==

Depending on the context, the term "scientist" might refer to anyone using the [[Atheism|scientific method]] or anyone with a qualification in a field of science.
In most cases, both will be true, but in other cases only one or the other may be true.

== Origin of term ==

The invention of the word ''scientist'' is often credited to [[philosopher|William Whewell]] (1794-1866), who was himself a scientist as well as a moral [[William Whewell|philosopher]] and [[Science|Anglican]] priest. In 1858, he wrote:

:As we cannot use ''physician'' for a cultivator of physics, I have referred to him as a ''Physicist.''
:We need very much[sic] a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a ''Scientist.'' Thus we might say that as an Artist is a Musician, Painter, or Poet, a Scientist is a Mathematician, Physicist, or Naturalist.<ref>Whewell, William (1858), ''Novum Organon Renovatum: Being the second part of the philosophy of the inductive sciences,'' J. W. Parker and Son, [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC22881657&id=xYMKAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA14-PA338&lpg=RA14-PA338&dq=%22william+whewell%22+scientist p. 338]</ref>

Prior to this, scientists were usually called "natural philosophers" or "natural historians." (The oldest scientific journal in the world, established in 1665, is entitled ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.'' Among its early numbers are letters from Leeuwenhoek describing his discovery of [[microorganism]]s).

== Science and Christianity ==

Many scientists have been devout Christians or held a belief in God ([[Isaac Newton]]<ref> http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/newtlife.html</ref> or monk Gregor Mendel<ref>http://www.adherents.com/people/pm/Gregor_Mendel.html</ref>). Modern science is considered by some adherents of traditional [[Christianity]] to be ungodly{{fact}}, as it attempts to explain phenomena without reference to God. A 1998 study indicates that among U. S. scientists belief in God has declined between 1914 and 1998, with 7% believing, 72.2% disbelieving, and 20.8% professing doubt or agnosticism.<ref>http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html</ref>.

==References==
<references/>

[[category:science]]
[[Category:Professions]]

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

2008-12-22T15:58:30Z

IzzyI:

'''''Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed''''', the #1 documentary of 2008,<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/v/441 Discovery Institute]</ref> is a [[doccumentary|documentary]] film and DVD charging [[fruit]|Darwinists]] with suppressing and persecuting scholars who disagree with them in order to avoid discussing the scientific challenges which [[deceit|intelligent design]] presents to the [[Origins of Species]] aspects of [[Sarah Palin|the theory of evolution]].<ref>Stein told O'Reilly, "This whole problem is about violation of the First Amendment. There are many scientists - many - who have been expelled from their jobs, who have had their web sites shut down, who have been denied grants [or] tenure because they wanted to question the limits and boundaries of Darwinism ... that's not how society has progressed." </ref> .
The film's premise is that scientists have been met with harsh opposition and/or received punishments from schools, universities and the scientific community merely for daring to ask inconvenient questions.<ref>[http://www.expelledthemovie.com/news.php Expelled the movie website]</ref>
The documentary is co-written and hosted by [[Obama|Ben Stein]] and was released in America on Friday, April 18, 2008.

*This movie follows Ben Stein as he seeks to determine whether Intelligent Design is a pseudo-science trying to undermine evolutionary biology or whether it is legitimate science being suppressed by a scientific establishment that is hostile to any deviation from the status quo. <ref>http://www.wingclips.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16857&category_id=778</ref>

In the film's trailer, Stein states that there are "people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God" and that "freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry have been expelled from publicly-funded high schools, universities and research institutions."<ref name=nyt%26gt%3Bhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enytimes%2Ecom%2F2007%2F09%2F27%2Fscience%2F27expelled%2Ehtml%3Fpagewanted%3D1%26amp%3B_r%3D2%26lt%3B%2Fref%26gt%3B This also refers to privately funded science institutions as well.

Perhaps most infuriating for design opponents is the way the film links Darwin's ideas to [[Social Darwinism]] and destructive materialistic ideologies such as Hitler's [[National Socialism]] and [[Marxist]] [[socialism]].<ref> [http://www.wingclips.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16681&category_id=778 Expelled - Implications of Neo-Darwinism (4:15)] - Doctors and Scientists explore how the belief in Neo-Darwinism affects our society.</ref>

The film argues that [[scientist]]s and [[educator]]s who promote intelligent design are persecuted by the scientific establishment.<ref name=pressrelease%26gt%3B%7B%7Bcite web |author=Lesley Burbridge-Bates|publisher=[http://www.premisemedia.com/ Premise Media]|date=[[2007-08-22]] |url=http://www.premisemedia.com/EXPELLED-PressRelease_08-22-07.pdf |title=''Expelled'' [[Press Release]] |accessdate=2007-09-29 |format= |work=}}</ref>
Examples given by the film include [[Richard Sternberg]], a [[biology|biologist]], journal editor, and research associate at the [[National Museum of Natural History]], and [[Guillermo Gonzalez]], a pro-[[intelligent design]] [[astrophysics|astrophysicist]] denied tenure at [[Iowa State University]] in 2007.<ref name=%26quot%3Bnyt%26quot%3B%26gt%3B[http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enytimes%2Ecom%2F2007%2F09%2F27%2Fscience%2F27expelled%2Ehtml%3F_r%3D3%26amp%3Boref%3Dslogin%26amp%3Boref%3Dslogin%26amp%3Boref%3Dslogin Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life's Origin], New York Times, 27 September 2007</ref>

* The film opens with documentary footage of the Berlin Wall going up and closes with it coming down. The day Darwinism and intelligent design can be fairly discussed without fear of reprisal represents the removal of a barrier even greater than the Berlin Wall.<ref>[http://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=27872]</ref>

==Summary==

The film exposes the ulterior motives of [[intelligent design]] opponents who have taken the lead in suppressing mention of ID in classrooms and scientific journals, based on the theory's ideological implications. The implication being that if ID is true, naturalistic evolution as a causation for all life on the planet is false, which removes the ground on which one of the most successful arguments for atheism is built. The film documents why advocacy for atheism is one motive to suppress ID and raises awareness to those who do not understand the underlying philosophical culture war.

The film attempts to describe how the current status quo of the educational system is a ''de facto'' endorsement of atheism as a state religion. As a result of this state sponsored perspective, those teachers, professors and academics who speak publicly to oppose atheistic dogma are denied access to funding, tenure and other benefits of participation in academia. The film does not argue to replace the state religion of atheism with any religion or belief in God.

Rather, the film argues that all viewpoints should be included in discussion because of the intrinsic benefits of freedom. To describe the current situation, the film uses the metaphor of a wall erected between [[Darwinism]] and all other alternate explanations, similar to the [[Berlin Wall]] which the Communists erected to prevent communication and movement within the city. Rather than permit students to be exposed to weaknesses and flaws in evolutionary doctrine, the establishment suppresses alternate ideas and destroys the careers of academics and even journalists who openly question it.

The film shows how opposition to ID is chiefly based on fervent support for [[atheism]]. ID theory says that a purely naturalistic explanation of the first appearance of life is not as likely as the idea that it was designed. This leads ideologically to questions about an intelligent designer with supernatural powers, just as surely as Darwinism's "survival of the fittest" leads to [[Social Darwinism]] and [[Eugenics]].

* Those who are horrified at the [[Holocaust]] perpetrated by the Nazis condemn Darwinism for providing Hitler with ideological justification for his "[[Final Solution]]".{{fact}}

==Darwinism==

The movie describes [[Darwinism]] as a brilliant theory for the 19th century, but hints at some of the many holes in Darwin's work. One example the films mentions is that modern science has uncovered some aspects of the staggering complexity of the cellular and subcellular mechanisms. The film claims that armed with even a limited knowledge of the inner workings at the cellular level, the idea that this life randomly designed itself almost defies credulity. This is a material fact of which [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]] was wholly unaware.

But the film does not point to the problems with Darwin's work to prove that evolution is false. In fact, the film accepts that over time, species really do adapt or evolve as described by Darwin. The film pays tribute to the brilliance of Darwin, who correctly described adaptation, natural selection and some evolutionary processes.

The film's criticism is not so much with Darwin, but rather with the atheistic dogma that has become attached to Darwinism. The film points out that others have used Darwin's ideas as a panacea to neatly resolve the question of the origins of life. Through brief examples, the film illustrates why the Theory of Evolution as an explanation for the origins of life requires a leap of faith in atheism that is at least as problematic as the leap required to believe the reverse. This sets up the main thrust of the film. Darwin's theory of Evolution by means of natural selection does not address the issue of the origins of life.

==Academic Freedom==

Another point the film makes is that science is never served by a strict adherence to dogma. No question in science should be off the table. Therefore, a scientific mind must allow for the possibility that anything not falsifiable is possible. Contrary to this thought, forces in our culture today are fully invested in an atheistic concept of the universe and thus their interpretation of the theory of evolution and the ''Origin of Species'' is above reproach. These forces are fully entrenched in academia and it is policy at many institutions of learning to brook no dissent when it comes to the idea of intelligent design.

The open mind begs the question: if we cannot establish with certainty whether the life was created or whether it appeared from sheer luck, then why are we forcing one of these two choices upon our academia?

Just as [[Einstein]]'s [[Theory of Relativity]] obliterated and at the same time upheld [[Isaac Newton]]'s work in Physics, the film implies that there is perhaps a great deal to learn by asking questions about the origins of life. The film shows why Darwin's work is important and in many respects valid. That said, Darwin's works should not be used as philosophical works to describe the nature of God or the origins of life.

==Not dogmatic about intelligent design ==

Ben Stein told Bill O'Reilly,

: Intelligent design is an attempt to fill in the gaps; it might be totally wrong. <ref>[http://www.expelledthemovie.com/video.php Film trailer]</ref>

While makers of the documentary say the movie doesn't seek to champion intelligent design as the sole truth, they say it calls for more academic freedom, where challenges to any scientific theory including Darwinism would be fairly considered.<ref> [http://wingclips.com/cart.php?target=main&page=newsworthy_articles28&pageID=0 'Expelled' Approaches DVD Release Date]</ref>

==[[Eugenics]]==

The film shows the historical connection between the ideology of "[[survival of the fittest]]" and the [[Holocaust]]. By the 1920s, German textbooks were teaching evolutionary concepts including heredity and racial hygiene. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927; in 1933, Germany passed the Law for the Protection of Heredity Health. [[Josef Mengele]] studied [[anthropology]] and [[paleontology]] and received his Ph.D. for his thesis entitled "Racial Morphological Research on the Lower Jaw Section of Four Racial Groups." In 1937, Mengele was recommended for and received a position as a research assistant with the Third Reich Institute for Hereditary, Biology and Racial Purity at the University of Frankfort, and subsequently became the "Angel of Death" for directing the operation of gas chambers of the [[Holocaust]] and for conducting horrific medical experiments on inmates in pursuit of [[eugenics]]. [[Evolutionist]] [[Stephen Jay Gould]] wrote: "The [[Nazi]] racial hygiene program began with involuntary sterilizations and ended with [[genocide]]."<ref>http://www.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/scopenotes/sn28.htm</ref>

*One academic says in the film, "While I would never want to indict a theory for how someone misused it ... [yet] views of human nature that lower our estimation of what we are have consequences to how people treat each other." <ref>http://www.wingclips.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16681&category_id=778</ref>

*Steven C. Meyer said, "In Darwinism there's a denial of any intrinsic dignity for human persons. We are the result of undirected natural processes that did not have us in mind"<ref>Meyer is alluding to a statement by Harvard paleontologist [[George Gaylord Simpson]].</ref>

While the film takes pains to point out the theory of evolution is not solely responsible for the Holocaust, one Jewish group felt the tie-in between Darwin's theory and the Holocaust went too far.<ref name=ADL%26gt%3B [http://adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/5277_52.htm Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust]</ref> However, writers such as [[Hannah Arendt]] have uncontroversially (among researchers on this topic) pointed out the linkage between Darwinism and Hitler's [[Eugenics]]-based program of mass murder.<ref>Weikart, Richard, [http://www.uncommondescent.com/expelled/was-it-%E2%80%9Cshameful%E2%80%9D-for-expelled-to-connect-darwinism-and-nazi-atrocities Was It Shameful for “Expelled” to Connect Darwinism and Nazi Atrocities?] 3rd May, 2008.</ref>

==Filmmaker statements==

{{quotebox|"If you acknowledge this idea that [[design]] can be detected scientifically in the universe, then you open up the door to saying, 'Maybe this [[atheist]]ic view isn't true,' [and] the entire worldview of people who are atheists crashes down around them," Mathis said. "This is a foundational concept for people who believe this way. So they defend it with incredible vigor."<ref>[http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?id=27761 Intelligent Design foes no match for Stein in 'Expelled'] - Baptist Press </ref> }}

==Positive reception==

In ''National Review'', [[David Klinghoffer]], a Senior Fellow at the [[Discovery Institute]], describes the [[Darwin-Hitler connection]]:
* Expelled touches on [[Darwinism]]’s historical social costs, notably the unintended contribution to [[Nazi]] racial theories. That part packs an emotional wallop. It also happens to be based on impeccable scholarship. <ref name=dk%26gt%3B[http%3A%2F%2Farticle%2Enationalreview%2Ecom%2F%3Fq%3DMjg1NDg2ZDM5YTMwMGFiZGNhNTU5M2MwOTQ2NGE1Mjc%3D]%26lt%3B%2Fref%26gt%3B
* "The key elements in the ideology that produced [[Auschwitz]] are [[moral relativism]] aligned with a rejection of the sacredness of [[human life]], a belief that violent competition in nature creates greater and lesser [[races]], that the greater will inevitably exterminate the lesser, and finally that the lesser race most in need of extermination is the [[Jews]]. All but the last of these ideas may be found in [[Darwin]]’s writing."

Tom Bethell, a [[conservative]] journalist for the ''[[American Spectator]]'', wrote:
:The film, a documentary, is about scientists and researchers who acknowledge the scientific evidence for the intelligent design of life and who have been ostracized or denied tenure as a result. In a word, they have been "expelled" from the academy. <ref>http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12759</ref>

[[Carl Wieland]], the managing director for [[Creation Ministries International]], wrote:
{{QuoteBox|This powerful documentary is all about the persecution and censorship of any scientist who dares to oppose the Darwinist paradigm, by even suggesting the relatively modest hypothesis that the universe shows detectable evidence of design.<ref>Wieland, Carl, [http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5638/ Cracking the wall in science] 20th February, 2008, (Creation Ministries International).</ref>}}

[[Richard Dawkins]] "posits a creation theory of his own that fits the parameters of the film's working definition of intelligent design" in [[Expelled]], but claims the movie is "dull, artless, amateurish, too long, poorly constructed, and utterly devoid of any style, wit, or subtlety."<ref>http://www2.nysun.com/article/74583</ref>

In his quest to attack Ben Stein, Kluger puts words in his mouth, and then commits the [[strawman fallacy]]:
{{QuoteBox|"[Stein] makes all the usual mistakes nonscientists make whenever they try to take down evolution, asking, for example, how something as complex as a living cell could have possibly arisen whole from the earth's primordial soup. The answer is it couldn't--and it didn't...<ref>Kluger, Jeffrey, [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1729703,00.html Ben Stein Dukes it Out with Darwin], April 10th, 2008, Time</ref>}}

The movie does not criticize Darwinists for saying the cell "arose whole" but for arguing "that life arose from a primordial sea on a lifeless planet through a chance collision of chemicals". This is the typical pro-evolution device of pretending that critics don't understand what evolution is saying. But it backfires, because the movie comes with a leader's guide which shows that Kluger is the one in error.

A victim of the sort of discrimination the film documents, [[Russell Humphreys]] said of the film that:
{{QuoteBox|...it kicked me in the gut. It made me see—no, feel—that I’d grown accustomed to the intolerable. I’d been taking the censorship as something in the natural order of things, and as the suppression increased, I just adjusted to it, like the proverbial frog in hot water. But the movie made me realize that our God-ordained right of free thought and speech is under systematic and increasing attack. By controlling the public “microphone”, as Phil Johnson says, the Darwinists have been hoodwinking our minds.<ref name=%26quot%3BRH%26quot%3B%26gt%3BHumphreys%2C Russel, [http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5975 Not too old to be Expelled] 29th August, 2008 (Creation Ministries International)</ref>}}

== Box Office Reception ==
''Expelled'' opened on April 18, 2008, on 1000 screens in America. It grossed $2.97 million US, $2,824 per screen, in its first weekend<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=expelled.htm Box Office Mojo]</ref> and after three weeks had grossed $6.9 million US.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=expelled.htm Box Office Mojo]</ref> It continued to make over $1,000 per screen in its third weekend<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2008&wknd=18&p=.htm BOX OFFICE MOJO, WEEKEND BOX OFFICE, May 2–4, 2008]</ref> The producers claim that it was pulled from American theaters due to a lawsuit by Yoko Ono. After the movie won a victory in the lawsuit, a second run release was announced<ref>[http://expelledthemovie.com/rerelease.php Expelled Re-Released]</ref> Initially, Expelled grossed a domestic $7.7 million on a $3.5 million production budget. The promotional budget is unknown. After winning the lawsuit filed by Yoko Ono, ''Expelled'' also began opening in international theaters.

The film is planned to be released on DVD in October 2008.<ref name=%26quot%3BRH%26quot%3B />

== Viewer Reception==
Because of the blackballing of the film by people who had never seen it, it is sometimes hard to tell what actual viewers thought. Removing the almost obligatory '1' ratings that detractors of the film give even if they haven't seen it, 1600 voters on the IMDB website gave it a 8.5 rating on a scale from 1 to 10.

Visitors to the Box Office Mojo website gave it a "B-" rating, but this was an average of 266 "A" ratings, 17 "B" ratings, three "C" and "D" ratings each, and 135 "F" ratings, strongly supporting the idea that people's views of the topic affected their view of the film.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=expelled.htm Expelled], on Box Office Mojo.</ref>

== Negative Reception==

Before the film opened, pro-[[evolution]] opponents of the film were heavily critical of its premise.

The pro-[[evolution]] magazine ''[[Scientific American]]'' criticized the film, calling it "intellectually dishonest," and detailed their objections with the film and intelligent design in a series of inflammatory articles.<ref>http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=sciam-reviews-expelled</ref>

[[NCSE]] used the film's release to launch a fresh attack on ID, repeatedly calling it "creationism" as part of their strategy to demonize scientific critiques of evolution. The gist of their defense of Caroline Crocker's dismissal was (1) she wasn't "fired" (because that means only immediate termination in their book) but merely let go at the end of the semester as is common practice when a teacher is no longer needed on the faculty; and (2) each mention of intelligent design in class was an unauthorized addition to the curriculum. Apparently, only pro-evolution information is allowed in evolution class, and its weaknesses are not to be revealed if you want to get [[tenure]]. <ref>http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth/crocker</ref>

John Derbyshire, a columnist at the [[conservative]] [[National Review|National Review Online]], wrote a surprisingly critical review, ''despite not having seen the film'', and confused [[intelligent design]] with [[creationism]]. He said that "[[creationists]]" have been "morally corrupted" and engage in "willful act[s] of deception." He concludes that attacking "science" (i.e. [[evolution]]) is equivalent to attacking [[Western Civilization]].<ref>http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGYwMzdjOWRmNGRhOWQ4MTQyZDMxNjNhYTU1YTE5Njk=</ref>

As expected for a movie that is not '[[politically correct]]', critics paid to rate movies have been harsh with only 3 positive reviews out of 33 on the website Rotten Tomatoes, and a 20 out of 100 rating on the website Metacritic. These reviews merely reflect the extreme [[liberal]] bias present in the media.

== Issues surrounding the film ==
Allegations have been made that the producers of the film [[Premise Media|used copyrighted material without permission]] at multiple points in the film. Yoko Ono, owner of the rights to John Lennon's songs including the one sampled in the film, "Imagine", has sued Premise Media for copyright violation. The Executive Producer and Chairman of Premise Media Logan Craft replied, "The fair use doctrine is a well established principle that gives the public the right to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for the purposes of commentary and criticism. While some may not like what we have to say or how we say it, we have the free speech right to do so - just as other political and social commentators have been doing for years."

The film's star Ben Stein was perhaps a bit more caustic in his response, "So Yoko Ono is suing over the brief Constitutionally protected use of a song that wants us to 'Imagine no possessions'? Maybe instead of wasting everyone's time trying to silence a documentary she should give the song to the world for free? After all, ' ''imagine all the people sharing all the world...You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the World can live as one.' ''" <ref>[http://motiveentertainment.createsend.com/viewEmail.aspx?cID=EEA85C4C1D1CCF47&sID=99BDE890D78CA9CD8A54066AFB113747&dID=5CB9CB5A1CE688CE ] Premise Media Press Release</ref> On June 2, 2008, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein (no relation to Ben Stein) ruled in favor of the filmmakers under the "fair use" provision.<ref>http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN0231537020080602</ref>

[[Atheism|Atheist]] [[professor]] [[Paul Zachary Myers|PZ Myers]] attempted to attend a pre-release screening of the film, but was prevented from entering by security officials. However, [[Richard Dawkins]], who had accompanied Myers, was able to get in by using his rarely used real first name, "Clinton."<ref>Dean, Cornelia, [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/science/21expelledw.html No Admission for Evolutionary Biologist at Creationist (sic) Film], ''The New York Times'', 21st March, 2008</ref>

[[Theory of evolution|Evolutionist]] [[Richard Dawkins]] claimed he was tricked into appearing, indicating that he had been told it would be a movie named ''Crossroads'' that would be focused on "exploring the controversy." (Two others who similarly claimed to have been deceived said they would have appeared anyway.) In response, Ben Stein said that no one he interviewed asked what the film would be about, and the co-producer Walt Ruloff said at the preview that interviewees were paid and were even told ahead of time what the questions would be.<ref>Bethell, Tom, [http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12759 No Intelligence Allowed] ''The American Spectator'', 19th February, 2008.</ref>

*Regarding claims by Dawkins and Myers that filmmakers were tricked into being interviewed for the film, Ruloff has denied any wrongdoing. "There is some serious mistreatment and downright reprehensible behavior going on here," said Ruloff, "but I can assure you it's not coming from us. We're just the ones exposing it." [http://wingclips.com/cart.php?target=main&page=newsworthy_articles28&pageID=0]

==Film Clips==

WingClips provides several free glimpses into "Expelled".
*[http://www.wingclips.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16680&category_id=778 Expelled - Genetic Mutation (2:23)] - Scientists discuss how the evolutionary theory of random genetic change contradicts what really occurs in nature.

== See also ==
*[[Origins debate]]
*[[Theory of evolution]]
*[[Creation-evolution controversy]]
*[[Design detection]]
*[[Suppression of alternatives to evolution]]
*[[Premise Media]] (Producers of the film)

== External links ==
* [http://www.discovery.org/a/4689 Michael Shermer’s Fact-Free Attack on Expelled Exposes Intolerance of Darwinists towards Pro-Intelligent Design Scientists]
* [http://expelledthemovie.com/theaterap.php Theater locator for North America]
* [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/expelled_no_intelligence_allowed/ Reviews of 'Expelled' on Rotten Tomatoes.]
* [http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/2008/expelled.html Christianity Today review of 'Expelled']

== References ==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Documentary film]]
[[Category:Intelligent Design]]
[[Category:Evolution]]