[Foundation-l] Wikiversity

Wed Aug 16 18:19:37 UTC 2006

Cormac Lawler wrote:

>On 8/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>James Hare wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>We can develop Creationism instruction material as well as Science
>>>instruction material, can't we? As long as we have interested parties?
>>>      
>>>
>>Information that lets people learn, neutrally, information _about_
>>Creationism, sounds great.  Courses advocating creationism, no.
>>    
>>
>The obvious question this raises is (as Elian has already asked):
>"where do we draw the line?"
>
>We could orchestrate, for example, a policy that says "Wikiversity
>will not host materials that endorse a particular world-view". But
>then, we are excluding all religious material (and not all religious
>material is bad). It could well be argued that much of what most
>people consider to be appropriate educational material espouses a
>particular world-view, such as that of free-market economics,
>feminism, whatever.
>
>This is a difficult issue that we can't simply dismiss out of hand.
>I'm genuinely interested in finding a usable concept that we can apply
>as policy - fwiw, there's already a page on NPOV on Wikiversity for
>anyone who's interested:
>http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Neutral_point_of_view
>
The serious scholar is not deterred by the fact that a subject is 
controversial, and that he must fairly explore areas that many would 
fairly consider POV.  The integrity of research is not well served by 
putting it in the hands of True Unbelievers who are more satisfied with 
polemical than with reasoned approaches.

My own brand of atheistic spiritualism is not consistent with 
creationsm.  If creationsim as a theory or doctrine must fail it must 
fail of its own accord, and not in as a part of freeing itself from a 
heap of mindless invective.  If someone wants to teach a course on 
creationism that puts that doctrine in a favorable light, I have no 
objection.  The introductory page should probably note prominently that 
the subject is very controversial. Those enrolled could then proceed at 
their own risk, but with eyes wide open.

I would like to see the creationsit emperor without his clothes.  In the 
light of day he may not be as powerful as either the supporters or 
detractors would have us believe.

Ec