Debate:Bias in conservapedia

Opportunity for Debate

This seems like a good place to begin a discussion of why some views must go unchallenged on this site. For example, if one feels that a subject like George W. Bush is complete, that is, not needing any further information, then by all means--lock it. Unfortunately, many of these instances smack of censorship of the truth. Shouldn't some of the controversy surrounding the president be addressed? Or, is Conservapedia really just a forum for unchecked, unquestioning dogma? I just think we need to talk. Menkatron 16:50, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Reason for locking

It was locked because of persistent vandalism. MountainDew 16:51, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

When it is locked, we only get one version. Why not allow people to make changes, add material and revert vadalism? EVERY open source content site is going to have vandalism, it is the job of us editors to fix it, repeatedly if necessary. Menkatron 16:53, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Examples of Bias in Conservapedia

The growing list of examples of bias and errors on Conservapedia. Please add to this.

1. Conservapedia condemns the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. despite B.C.E. and C.E. being the recognized standard world-wide. The change was made to not alienate other cultures around the world, since using B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) is supposed to be an international standard, not an American standard only.

2. Conservapedia gives credit to America, Christianity (sometimes radical Christianity and Creationism), and Conservative views, many times forgetting other factors involved, other countries, other religions, and other points of view. On the main page, Conservapedia even says that "Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we give full credit to Christianity and America". However, often full credit is not due to either Christianity or America, the world does not revolve around Christian Americans.

3. Conservapedia claims it is correcting the Liberal bias found in Wikipedia, yet Wikipedia shows both sides of possible debates in the majority of their articles. Conservapedia on the other hand only includes the arguments for the conservative view, and Christian view. Conservapedia, while claiming to be less biased, includes an article called "Examples of Bias in Wikipedia" which slanders Wikipedia in many ways, often giving incorrect information and irrelevant arguments against its articles.

4. Conservapedia lets anyone with a Conservative, Christian point of view to edit their pages, but any edits done from another point of view are removed, while Wikipedia lets anyone from any point of view edit their pages, and payed experts and scientists edit and make changes to keep the information extremely accurate.

5. Conservapedia claims that twice as many Americans identify themselves as Conservative compared to Liveral, while three times as many editors identify themselves as Liberal as compared to Conservative on Wikipedia. However, the fact that 2/3 of Americans are Conservative does not mean that all information should be adjusted to have an approximate 2/3 bias towards Conservatives, facts are facts. Also, the fact that 3/4 editors on Wikipedia are Liberal means nothing since they are professionals, and are payed to remain unbiased while they make changes with legitimate sources. There is no logic, truth, or relevance in saying that Wikipedia is 6 times more Liberal than the American public, and we also must remember than Wikipedia is meant for the entire world, not just Americans.

6. Conservapedia also condemns Wikipedia for claiming 1.5 million articles, but not all of them being useful. However, Wikipedia never claimed that their articles were educational. Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia which contains information about anything and everything.

7. Conservapedia restricts editing of many pages that are considered to be controversial, but some of these pages are purely restricted because visitors with non-conservative, non-christian, or non-american views correct the biased material.

8. The majority of articles about animals include an amazingly short stub of relevant information (generally the animal's description), while the last 80% of the article or so is all about the creation of said animal. In most cases, the creation section of these articles only includes the views of Creationists, and there is little to no mention of Evolution, despite the evidence supporting it.

9. In more than one case, Evolution is also thrown aside and discarded with completely false information about the dating of fossils being incorrect, despite the method of dating fossils (carbon dating) being incredibly accurate. Evolution is generally thrown aside because the fossil evidence proving the Earth's age is at least several million years old (if not several billion), conflicts with the views of Young Earth Creationists. Evolution is also discarded because of the apparent lack of mid-evolution evidence, despite there being many examples of such.

10. References are seldomly cited, even on the most popular of pages, and when they are cited, they often include very little literature and many websites which are statistically much less accurate. The majority of the time, if there are sources, most if not all of the sources will be relating only to the Christian/Creationist, Conservative, American point of view, therefore anything written about the other side of any possible debates are being written with no sources, and the sources used for the Conservative side of the debate are almost always extremely biased.

11. On the main page, the Conservapedia claims that it includes 4,700 educational articles that are student-friendly. However, the majority of the articles are extremely short stubs with few to no references that show only a single point of view. Also, the majority of the articles are written with poor grammar and a low grade reading level, which is hardly appropriate for student use.

12. Conservapedia has since edited the following statement which was included on the main page: "Conservapedia has over 4,100 educational, clean and concise entries on historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics, including more than 350 lectures and term lists." However, to claim that Conservapedia is scientific when it often states that the Theory of Evolution is incorrect solely because "there is no evidence" or that it's "just a theory" despite fossil evidence and many animals, including humans backing up this theory, is very unscientific.

13. Conservapedia also displays is bias through the use of American spelling of words only, and in fact points out that Wikipedia uses the "foreign" spelling of words, even though most English-speaking users are American. This is true, however the English language was derived in England - where the spelling of words most certainly is correct if they invented the language. The so called "foreign" spelling of English words on Wikipedia is in fact correct for the rest of the world, and it should not have to cater to any country which uses different spelling which is in fact an altered version of the original, correct, English language. The fact that Wikipedia redirects to the original English spelling of American words shows that they are serving the entire world, and it is in fact conveniant for everyone in this case.

14. Articles such as the one on Kangaroos, and the one on Dinosaurs have ridiculous claims which are used solely to support the Young Earth Creationist view. For example, the article states that from the Origins Theory Model that Kangaroos originated in the Middle East. However, Kangaroos would have had absolutely no way of travelling as far as they would need to during Pangea to end up in Australia, and even moreso after Pangea. Kangaroos can only live in a certain climate, and it is physically impossible for them to have originated in the Middle East. The only references are to Christian and Creationist websites, which are extremely biased and try as hard as they can to prove that their ideas are the one and only correct ones. The article on dinosaurs is similar, and has very little about dinosaurs living millions of years ago. Instead, the article focuses on how creationists believe that fossil evidence is incorrect because of dating methods (even though this is physically impossible to be incorrect, since carbon dating is extremely precise). There are no references citing where these fossil records could possibly be proven wrong in any way, and even mentions that the Young Earth Creationists believe this primarily because of biblical sources, which can hardly be used as a reference. Once again the only other references cite Creationist and Christian websites only. There is absolutely no mention of even the possibility of an ice age, a meteor, or anything else relevant, it is purely talk about Creationism, and to try and support its claims it says there is even a possibility that these dinosaurs still live on Earth without us seeing them (even with satellite technology somehow).

15. There are many more examples of these biased articles, all you have to do is look around. I encourage others who are outraged at the complete inaccuracy of these articles, and complete lack of anything even remotely non-Christian, non-Creationist, non-Conservative, and non-American, to add more examples to this list to show that Conservapedia is much more biased than Wikipedia, which it is attempting to "fix".

These are from a single user, I take it. Maybe if each is addressed we can move on. Menkatron 16:56, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes, they are all by me, and believe me, if you address each one, I will have another 30 ready for you. Fix those? Another 60. Etc. Talk page next time please. --ALFa 01:43, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

Let me answer a couple of these.

1. For centuries textbooks in America have used B.C./ A.D. Common Era means nothing to many Americans, conservatives especially.

2. We give credit to verifiable sources, we differ from Wikipedia because we allow the Bible as a source. This is not evil. If you see something falsely attributed to America, you can and are encouraged to fix it.

3. Examples of Bias shows why we exist and what is broken. Wikipedia has a liberal bias, and does not have all sides of the picture. Circumcision is controlled by a group who delete criticism, if i added a study disproving evolution it would be removed.

4. Just because one is a scientist does not make one infallible. Conservapedia allows properly sourced perspectives. At least we admit our bias.

5. Wikipedia selectively removes facts. Facts are facts, why remove them?

6. An encyclopedia is expected to be educational, not a compendium of garbage.

7. I want to know which pages you are referring to. Pages are protected only to prevent or stop vandalism.

8. No one has added properly cited info on evolution, because most of the users are creationists.

i will answer the others later. Geo. 02:26, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

Regarding 7, Fox News is one, a piece of the article stating the other side of the issue was deleted and called vandalism, and the page was blocked. Splark 02:42, 16 March 2007 (EDT)