 | Of all the global warming blogs in all the domains in all the world... she comes across mine. |
One of the nice things about using a data service like Statcounter is that I usually find out pretty quickly when somebody has linked to this site. Today I found out that I had the distinct honor of being a case-in-point in a college freshman's lab exercise on reliable and unreliable sources of information on the internet.
In case you were wondering, I was singled out as an example of an unreliable source of information on global warming. As soon as I got over the shock and shame at being thus labeled, I read on.
Before I relate why Ms. Cooper determined my site to be unreliable, I thought it might be good to note the qualities that she thinks makes a site reliable and/or credible. To sum up, a reliable/credible source is:
- Associated with a commercial publication of some kind; or
- Associated with some known organization; or
- Associated with a government, military or academic internet domain.
How did I fail Ms. Cooper? My sins are threefold:
- I use "sarcasm" in the "About the Heretic" section on the sidebar when comparing my credentials to those of Al Gore. I thought of it more as dryly humorous hyperbole, but okay. I guess her complaint here is that by the use of such humor, I have surrendered any claim to objectivity. However, objectivity is not my aim, as I explain in the next item.
- In that same blurb I mention that I use this site to present my opinions on the various issues surrounding the global warming debate. I have never pretended that this site was to be seen as a source of original news reporting or original research. There are other excellent sites out there (many linked in the sidebar) which accomplish this quite well. My goal is to analyze what others are reporting as news or publishing as science, and to look at possible cultural and ideological trends therein. So, if I was dinged for not being an original source for news and research results... guilty.
- I publish on Blogspot. To the same extent that anything published on a site ending in .edu, .mil or .gov is deemed automatically reliable, so anything published on whatever.blogspot.com is automatically unreliable. In both extremes, the judgment is made without regard to actual content. Although I do work for a university, this site is a personal project of mine and is unrelated to my current work. Too bad. If I was a college professor I could move my analyses to my departmental web page, and by virtue of the .edu domain it seems that my essays would be citeable. Nice racket, if you can get into it.
 | I'm shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that opinions are expressed on this blog! |
Ms. Cooper's assignment appears to have been about which kinds of sources should be citeable when writing a college research paper. Fair enough, but I think that the broad generalizations given by Cooper discourage critical thinking.
Better to have the following standard regarding internet sources: Cite whatever you want, but be prepared to defend your choices.
(P.S. Here's a philosophical poser: Was it okay for Ms. Cooper to cite this site in support of her thesis that this site should not be cited?)
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4 comments:
"(P.S. Here's a philosophical poser: Was it okay for Ms. Cooper to cite this site in support of her thesis that this site should not be cited?)"
I love logical moebius loops.
Which of the three is globalwarming.org?
Oddly, I'm reminded of a bit of dialog from the Princess Bride where Montoya and Wesley are determining the ground rules by which Montoya can be trusted to hoist Wesley up to the top of the cliffs of insanity.
Wesley rejects all offers until Montoya swears on his father's sword.
When I was in College, one of my professors used a book which was filled with errors, the same book was the text for a graduate level course that he taught and he offered extra credit to the students for finding errors in the book. Yet, the book, errors and all was a reference in the Ceramic Engineering field and in Academic circles.
Lest you consider that a poor example, I had the opportunity to take a history class several years ago. The text book for that class stated that one of the reasons for Columbus's voyages was to bring back spices which were used to cover up the smell of decaying food. In fact, if you eat rotten food you are much more likely to have trouble with food poisoning. The function of some of the spices was to act as a preservative. It is only since the development of canning processes that navies have stopped relying on salted beef, and salted pork for the primary meat ration.
I feel the same way about trusting a .mil address implicitly. Taking for an example the GPS satellite constellation which is generally understood to be accurate to within about 10 meters. The system owner the US Air Force reserves the right to scramble the data to prevent accurate determination of position. Known in the business as selective availability. Then consider the needs of the military to conduct operations to confuse and misdirect our enemies. Some of the that deceptive information may or may not be available from publicly accessible web pages with a .mil extension.
Lastly, the remaining darling of the article the .gov web site. Late last year I hear an interesting statistic the the US Department of Commerce's Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was the 2nd or 3rd most hacked web site. I'm told that most of the hackers are looking for a "door" into the secret data that proves that Global warming is real.
As far as evaluating web sites for use or inclusion in a paper or in the general course of researching something. I prefer to use the critical thinking skills that I was taught in school, and grew up using in my home.
Which of the three is globalwarming.org?
They're category #2, since the site is associated with the Cooler Heads Coalition, composed of a variety of known organizations.
As far as evaluating web sites for use or inclusion in a paper or in the general course of researching something. I prefer to use the critical thinking skills that I was taught in school, and grew up using in my home.
We are in total agreement here.
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