[WikiEN-l] What surprised me about Britannica's response to Nature...

Tue Apr 4 23:16:36 UTC 2006

...was that they thought it was advantageous to respond to it at all.  
Their response struck me as being lame and as tending to call  
attention to the very things they'd just as soon have people forget:  
that Nature, which has a stellar reputation among its readership,  
even put Britannica and WIkipedia in the same category.

It is as if Nature were to say "Britannica eats shit and bays at the  
moon," and Britannica were to respond by saying "That conclusion is  
false, because Nature's research was invalid. We don't eat nearly as  
much shit as Nature claims we eat, and some of what we ate, which  
Nature imprecisely referred to as 'shit,' was actually putrescent  
offal, and as for baying at the moon, we take issue with that  
characterization of our vocalizations, and anyway we only do it when  
the moon is full, which is less than 3% of the time. So, when Nature  
says we eat shit and bay at the moon, our response is that we do not  
eat shit and bay at the moon, so when you think of eating shit and  
baying at the moon, don't think of us, and when you think of us,  
don't think of eating shit and baying at the moon, because it is  
really not very true at all, hardly. Eating shit. Baying. Moon. Not  
us. Not really. Not much. Did I mention we don't eat shit and bay at  
the moon? Even though Nature says we do?"