Recently I was having a conversation with my friend Greg about the tendency many people seem to have to speak authoritatively about a topic without being able to back up their arguments with sources and statistics. The problem is that this often leads to the spread of misinformation, which can cause unnecessary conflict. In fact, it can even endanger human lives. The most deeply rooted misconceptions seem to stem from less-than-thorough testing of a hypothesis and misinterpretation of available information. In fact, Wikipedia lists dozens of commonly accepted falsehoods.

For generations this faulty information has been passed around, as each person in a chain of believers fails to adequately research the actual truth value of the statements. It seems likely that these misconceptions will slowly be eliminated, as modern information sources like Wikipedia (or, more specifically, the primary sources that Wikipedia articles often cite) may eventually make confirming a statement all but trivial. But are sites like Wikipedia aiding the spread of misconceptions?

Wikipedia is inarguably one of the largest repositories of human knowledge ever created, but its accuracy has been hotly debated since it was launched in 2001. Many critics believe that Wikipedia’s publicly contributed content makes it an unreliable source for accurate and thorough information. In fact, in a 2005 interview Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of the site, acknowledged that Wikipedia was “a work in progress”. He went on to state that “encyclopedias shouldn’t be cited in the first place”. Suggesting that they are generally an unreliable source of information. Rather, Wikipedia is intended to be a starting point for research, not a final source.

My position is that any statement’s (practical) truth value is only as good as its supporting data. From that supporting data it’s often possible to put together a working hypothesis. But it seems that many people (again, including myself) simply forgo the step of investigating facts they are presented with. And this is acceptable to a degree. If I tried to verify everything I believed in completely exhaustively, I would most likely have to spend the rest of my life doing so. Perhaps an acceptable middle-ground to simply acknowledge a lack of authority on a topic until research is done.

For example, I have heard countless arguments about the sources and effects of global warming, but for the life of me I can’t cite even one actual study that has been performed. For this reason, I have no right whatsoever in making any claims about whether anything can be done to stop it, let alone what should be done. I could probably spend an afternoon looking into the issue enough to form a somewhat informed opinion of the situation, but I confess that I haven’t taken the time to examine it in depth.

In conclusion, It seems that arguments people have are only really being half-fought in many cases. After all, Isn’t the reliability of information just as important as the information itself? And yet, this is seldom addressed in discussions. So I think we’d all do ourselves a service in the future if we assigned weight to our opinions based on our ability to validate them. Ultimately it’s less embarrassing to seem somewhat ignorant about a subject than it is to be disproven of something after claiming to be absolutely positive about it.

But hey, I may just be full of it. So what’s your opinion? I want to see comments this time!