On May 6, 2:51 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Andre Lieven wrote:
That also means that that definition of " facts " would include all of
the sites about the 9/11 Jewish Conspiracy, and the Moon Landing Hoax...

Books on those subjects also.

Often self published, which puts them right back at Internet quality
sourcing...

Posting web sites has as much editorial and peer review credibility as
does self publishing by a vanity press. It MAY be better than that,
but theres no standard by which to discern such a difference.

Which gives the readers of the web the golden ability to actually make
up their own minds about what they believe, rather than trusting one
version of it that's spoon-fed to them via large media outlets, thereby
letting them develop their ability for critical thinking when they are
young.

The problem with this concept is that, very often, either media bias,
or there
being a plethora of nutbar sites that come up on a Google search make
even
crazy things *appear* as if they are somewhat mainstream.

Creationism and Moon Landing Hoaxes are but two great examples of this
truth. The Creationists' current shell game is " teach the controversy
", ignoring
the fact that there is no legitimate scientific controversy, as the
decision in
Kitzmiller V/ Dover well shows.

Doing that by books would be very time-consuming, but on the Internet
it's easy.

No, its really not. Derek's distinction between facts and knowledge
was spot on. There are a lot of facts on the Web, some of them even
true, but for real knowledge in depth, books are still the place to go to.

In most cases with a book, you are getting the author's viewpoint of
knowledge, not knowledge itself.

If the book has 40 pages of footnotes, thats not really correct.

The author has studied facts in depth...hopefully...and is asking you to
trust their interpretation of them.

Again, given a work with hundreds of primary sourced footnotes is
nowhere near comparable to an unsourced website of opinings.

Given a different author...particularly if that author comes from a
different cultural background, or political point of view, and their
interpretation of the same things is bound to vary from the first
author's in regard to interpretation of the same data.

What, theres more than than one fact based view of whether or not
Apollo actually happened ?

Using the B-17 as a example, the viewpoint of a German author whose city
was on the receiving end of its bombs is bound to vary greatly from the
former AAC member who flew them and is writing about them.

Thats if you are reading Oprah class " memoirs ". If you are reading
operational histories, thats not correct.

This proposition also presupposes that books are without error in
regards to information, which certainly is not the case.

Well, as no one suggested that straw donkey, then that neither adds
nor distracts from the relative credibility of each source. But, for the
most credible knowledge,

To figure this out, you'd have to define what exactly what "knowledge"
is; once you go past the bare facts of a subject, any commentary on it
become a matter of interpretation and viewpoint.
We know that on 9/11, three hijacked airliners ran into buildings,
appalling America.
As to the meaning and of that event, and what led to it occurring, you
will find a lot of different views around the world.

So ? You find a lot of " different views " as to whether or not three
planes
actually hit the towers and the Pentagon, but the facts only allow
one
such view to be accurate.

So "knowledge" of it is lacking in a lot of ways, unless by knowledge
you mean a majority interpretation of a event held in one country or
culture.
On the day it occurred, Palestinians were dancing in Gaza City for the
strike against America - the ally of Israel that Osama had wrought...at
the same time, that van of Israeli tourists that were picked up in NYC
while videotaping it were also happy, as now America could see what
Israel had to put up with from the Palestinians.

That latter one, I''d want to see a cite to. People who say " Now you
have
a better understanding of what we live through " are not necessarily
" happy ".

So right there, you could have three different interpretations of one
event... so much for consistent "knowledge" about it.

As I have pointed out, I quite disagree. You're basically suggesting
that
intellectual nihlism is the way to go.

In much the same way, the works of Aristotle became the unquestionable
backbone of philosophic knowledge in the middle ages, despite the fact
that most of Aristotle's fact were dead wrong, including such things as
the sun going around the Earth. So much for the knowledge of the middle
ages, where books tell you that particular stars pull on particular
types of plants and cause them to grow, or the old Einstein story about
giving his students the exact same physics test two years running, on
the grounds that the answers were different the second time around. :-D

Well, the idea that just because some folks, hundreds or tens of years
ago,
used book knowledge badly, that book based knowledge now is a bad
thing,
is so stretching the point that you've gone way beyond a Road Runner &
Coyote Acme SNAP !

books remain the gold standard. And, they come without
every use fees...

Not for the trees, they don't.

Trees don't possess, or acquire knowledge, so this is a major Straw
Inflatable F*** Toy...

I've probably have the makings of a 300 to 400 pound tree sitting on my
bookshelves, and when sitting on the stool, get to examine the writing
on sheets of paper made from a tree, while flushing other sheets of
paper made from a tree down the toilet.

So ? You gonna use the WWW to download virtual wipes, or what ?

None of that in any way addressed the fact that primary sources are
the standard for any good footnoted work of a book, and few such can
be
found on primary Internet sources.

Derek's earlier well written point, IMHO, stands quite well.

Andre