According to its history page, the first iteration of RationalWiki (now called "RationalWiki 1.0") was started in March 2007 by "ColinR", a contributor at Conservapedia who had become dissatisfied with its policies. From March to May 2007, RationalWiki 1.0 served largely as a gathering place for dissatisfied Conservapedia contributors, and had significant levels of vandalism. On May 16 and 17, a number of contributors to RationalWiki 1.0 were banned from editing Conservapedia. On May 22, 2007, Colin R. and Trent Toulouse wiped and restarted RationalWiki (now called "RationalWiki 2.0.").[1]
RationalWiki pages are often shared on Reddit.[2] One of the most popular pages on RationalWiki is the page entitled "Scientific evidence of evolution being a hoax". The page shows two tumbleweeds blowing across the page, indicating the view held by RationalWiki contributors that there is no scientific evidence of evolution being a hoax.[3] In April 2011, this was featured on the front page of Reddit, causing a huge traffic spike to the website.[4]
LessWrong contributor Konkvistador described RationalWiki as "what a slightly left of centre atheist needs to win an internet debate" and "an ammunition depot to aid in winning debates". Konkvistador argues that this bias and this approach to article-building makes RationalWiki unable to convince outsiders, especially those who disagree with the contents of the website.[5]
Metapedia's page on RationalWiki states that: "The website [RationalWiki] fraudulently portrays itself as being "rational", and opposed to
"pseudoscience", yet promotes exactly the thing that they claim to oppose: the irrational spiritual pseudosciences of genetic egalitarianism and race denialism."[6]
From a somewhat different angle, a website called RationalWikiWiki was set up with the aim of documenting and critiquing RationalWiki,[7] and listed some common critiques of RationalWiki.[8] RationalWikiWiki has since shut down.
RationalWiki has extensive coverage of some other wikis.[22]
RationalWiki has a detailed article on Citizendium[23] as well as a page covering "[w]hat is going on at Citizendium".[24] Citizendium is a wiki started in 2006 by former Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger as a proposed alternative to Wikipedia.
In other cases, a glance at the entry's history -- which shows editing over time -- makes clear how quickly dissenting views are deleted. Dr. Peter A. Lipson, an internist in Southfield, Mich., repeatedly tried to amend an article on breast cancer to tone down Conservapedia's claim that abortion raises a woman's risk. The site's administrators, including Schlafly, questioned his credentials and shut off debate. After administrators blocked their accounts, Lipson and several other editors quit trying to moderate the articles and instead started their own website, RationalWiki.com. From there, they monitor Conservapedia. And -- by their own admission -- engage in acts of cyber-vandalism. In recent months, Conservapedia's articles have been hit frequently by interlopers from RationalWiki and elsewhere. The vandals have inserted errors, pornographic photos and satire, including this addition to an entry on Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales: "Mr. Gonzales is a strong supporter of torture as a law enforcement tool for use against Democrats and third world inhabitants."
Conservapedia hasn't, though, been quite as friendly to dissenting voices. The LA Times explains: "Dr Peter A Lipson, an internist in Southfield, Mich., repeatedly tried to amend an article on breast cancer to tone down Conservapedia's claim that abortion raises a woman's risk. The site's administrators, including Schlafly, questioned his credentials and shut off debate." Lipson duly enlisted other disgruntled editors and started RationalWiki, whose aims include: Refuting and analysing the anti-science movement, ideas and people; Refuting and analysing the full range of crank ideas; Writings on political authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism. The site doesn't mess around, either. Its entry entitled "Conservapedia:Delusions", promptly mocks the claims that "Homosexuality is a mental disorder", "Atheists are sociopaths", and "During the 6 days of creation G-d placed the Earth inside a black hole to slow down time so the light from distant stars had time to reach us". Unfortunately, RationalWiki admits it, and others, have engaged in "cyber-vandalism" against Conservapedia during which they've "inserted errors, pornographic photos, and satire". The entry for Atty Gen Alberto R Gonzales was apparently amended to read: "Mr Gonzales is a strong supporter of torture as a law enforcement tool for use against Democrats and third world inhabitants."
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RationalWiki was described in Crowdsourced Knowledge: Peril and Promise for Complex Knowledge Systems.[3]
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To help sort out the complexities there are sites like RationalWiki.org, which announces its purpose: Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement. Documenting the full range of crank ideas. Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism. Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media. This Website features Carl Sagan’s essay “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” with a set of warning signs for common fallacies, which Sagan calls a ‘baloney detection kit” listing the types of fallacy, with definitions, and an example found on the current Internet [24]. (It does not specifically list the MOR fallacy, but “begging the question” is a generalization.)
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RationalWiki was described in The Social Pollution Prevention Guide.[4]
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If you prefer Web surfing, to reliable sites, you might try Rationalwiki and Snopes.com Rationalwiki is like Wikipedia, but with a focus on science and social issues. They promote logic, critical thinking, and expose scammers and nonsense. Their biographis of notable personalities in alternative health, politics, fringe science, and televangelism are all quite amusing. The site also has a guide to the fine art of baloney detection. Either site can show you a list of logical fallacies and cognitive biases, with brief explanations and examples. .... For more on fringe science, conspiracies, cranks, suppressed inventions, and threats to clear thinking, check out RationalWiki.
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RationalWiki was described in Intelligent Systems'2014:[5]
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There are few online resources and periodical articles that provide some information about pseudoscientific theories. Such information helps non-experts to acquire the necessary knowledge to avoid being deceived. One of the online resources that can be distinguished is international resource "RationalWiki" that was created to organize and categorize knowledge about pseudoscientific theories, personalities, and organizations.
^Davis, Chester (2014). The Social Pollution Prevention Guide. Booktango. p. 37. ISBN1468943170.
^Shvets, Alexander (October 2, 2014). Filev, D.; Jabłkowski, J.; Kacprzyk, J.; et al. (eds.). Intelligent Systems'2014: Proceedings of the 7th IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems IS’2014, September 24–26, 2014, Warsaw, Poland, Volume 2: Tools, Architectures, Systems, Applications. Series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Vol. 323. Springer Publishing. A Method of Automatic Detection of Pseudoscientific Publications, page 533 et seq. ISBN978-3-319-11310-4.
RationalWiki was repeatedly cited and/or quoted in the Daily Telegraph.[1]
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5. Scopie’s Law States: “In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the room.” First formulated by Rich Scopie on the badscience.net forum. This law makes little sense without a background knowledge of Whale.to, a conspiracy theory site which includes such items as the complete text of the anti-Semitic hoax Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as claims that Aids is caused by vaccination programmes, and that Auschwitz never happened. It has been expanded by posters on rationalwiki.com to include any use of Answers in Genesis in an argument about creationism and evolution. 6. Danth’s Law (also known as Parker’s Law) States: “If you have to insist that you've won an internet argument, you've probably lost badly.” Named after a user on the role-playing gamers’ forum RPG.net. Danth’s Law was most famously declared in “The Lenski Affair”, between microbiologist Richard Lenski and the editor of Conservapedia.com, Andrew Schlafly, who cast doubt upon Prof Lenski’s elegant experimental demonstration of evolution. After what is widely held to be one of the greatest and most comprehensive put-downs in scientific argument from Prof Lenski, Mr Schlafly declared himself the winner. 7. Pommer’s Law Proposed by Rob Pommer on rationalwfiki.com in 2007, this states: “A person's mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.” 8. DeMyer's Laws Named for Ken DeMyer, a moderator on Conservapedia.com. There are four: the Zeroth, First, Second and Third Laws. The Second Law states: “Anyone who posts an argument on the internet which is largely quotations can be very safely ignored, and is deemed to have lost the argument before it has begun.” The Zeroth, First and Third Laws cannot be very generally applied and will be glossed over here.
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RationalWiki was singularly cited in an NBC News article.[2]
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(The RationalWiki has boiled down his essay to hit the bullet points.)
This October 2013 item about "highly placed" sources in the Pentagon supposedly warning Russian officials to expect a "radical change" in the U.S. government isn't a real news item; it's just more fictional "Sorcha Faal" sensationalism that originated with a single disreputable source, the whatdoesitmean.com political conspiracy site, of which RationalWiki says: Sorcha Faal is the alleged author of an ongoing series of "reports" published at WhatDoesItMean.com, whose work is of such quality that even other conspiracy nutters don't think much of it. Each report resembles a news story in its style but usually includes a sensational headline barely related to reality and quotes authoritative high-level Russian sources (such as the Russian Federal Security Service) to support its most outrageous claims. Except for the stuff attributed to unverifiable sources, the reports don't contain much original material. They are usually based on various news items from the mainstream media and/or whatever the clogosphere is currently hyperventilating about, with each item shoehorned into the conspiracy narrative the report is trying to establish. .... As RationalWiki notes of the European Union Times: The European Union Times strays deeply into tinfoil hat territory. For example, it regularly re-publishes the hilarious "reports" of "Sorcha Faal." If you see a headline that is really "out there" (for example, "US Earthquake Weapon Test Fails Again, Destroys New Zealand City"), scroll to the bottom and have a look at the "Source" link. If it points to whatdoesitmean.com, it's the handiwork of "Sorcha". The EUTimes has also re-published material from Pravda Online, another site dedicated to conspiracy theories, such as a 2010 article about alien spaceships attacking Earth in 2012.
Ah, but there was a beginning. According to RationalWiki.com, in 1959 the John Birch Society released a pamphlet called, "There Goes Christmas." In it, the group — which politically stands somewhere to the right of Attila The Hun — purportedly described a Communist plot to "take the Christ out of Christmas" by replacing Christmas decorations with United Nations iconography. Considering that O'Reilly is still living in the 1950s, this modern War on Christmas suddenly makes sense. And yet it is entirely nonsensical. As RationalWiki satirically noted, "There is actually a War on Christmas. But Christmas started it, with its unparalleled aggression against the Thanksgiving Holiday, and now Christmas has seized much Lebensraum in November, and are pushing into October."
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RationalWiki was listed in A Manual for Creating Atheists.[9]
RationalWiki was quoted in Perspectives on Information.[10]
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"While each e-mail provoked more information, neither side changed their position: Dear Mr. Schlafly: I tried to be polite, civil and respectful in my reply to your first email, despite its rude tone and uninformed content. You wrote: 'I did skim Lenski's paper ...'. If you have not even read the original paper, how do you have any basis of understanding from which to question, much less criticize, the data that are presented therein? Second, you capacity to misinterpret and/or misrepresent facts is plain ... So, will we share the bacteria? Of course we will, with competent scientists ... I'm confident that some highly qualified scientists would join the fray, examine the straings, and sort out who was right and who was wrong. That's the way science works.... I would also generally ask what the requesting scientist intends to do with our strains. Why? ... we are continuing our work with these strains, ... I would not be happy to see our work 'scooped' by another team ... (RationalWiki, 2010). .... RationalWiki (2010). 'Lenski Affair', RationalWiki, http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lenski_affair (Accessed 15 October 2010).
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RationalWiki was listed in Freethought Resource Guide[11]
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RationalWiki rationalwiki.org
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RationalWiki was cited in Ancient Aliens Exposed.[12]
RationalWiki was quoted in Southeastern Geographer: Innovations in Southern Studies, Winter 2011.[14]
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An entry on the "Bible Belt" on RationalWiki (2010) contends that Kentucky, Ohio, and Georgia are "considered contenders" for the Bible Belt's buckle, "but many people also claim that the Florida panhandle is the strongest part." .... RationalWiki. 2010. Bible Belt. Accessed 3 August 2010 at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bible_Belt
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RationalWiki was cited in Real Life: A Christianity Worth Living Out.[15]
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To see some critiques, see rationalwiki.org/wiki/William_Strauss_and_Neil_Howe.
Available at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Water_memory (accessed January 26, 2011). The moment this one came out, I knew it was hokum, and I couldn't believe it had actually made it into Nature, one of the premier journals of science.
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RationalWiki was cited about Homo Economicus in Game Theory Applications in Network Design.[17]
RationalWiki was quoted in Wikipedia U: Knowledge, Authority, and Liberal Education in the Digital Age.[20]
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Ironically, Citizendium's insistence on recognizing the special role of experts and identifying its experts by name revealed further problems of authority. As the RationalWiki article on Citizendium contends: There's expertise and then there's certification as an expert, which is a social construct made of pieces of paper and (hopefully) accredited standards. Sometimes the two don't quite overlap. In the quest for expertise - "This article is good and I can explain why" - Citizendium went for credentialism - "This article is good because I have the authority to say so." ... But the most damaging part of the Citizendium approach was that the required credentials are inconsistent. Someone wishing to be a general editor in an academic field must prove they have a PhD, or are a tenure-track professor. ... But if they wanted the authority to take over articles in alternative medicine, they only had to prove that they were licensed to practice their branch of alternative medicine. Once advocates of homeopathic medicine were credentialed and protected as experts in their field, the result was a flood of articles endorsing homeopathic medicine duly approved by these experts, who successfully repelled all attempts by mainsteam scientists and physicians to question their authority.
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RationalWiki was cited in A Method of Automatic Detection of Pseudoscientific Publications.[21]
