[WikiEN-l] RE: Verification

[Brown, Darin]

Fastfission wrote:
> It's actually not easy to verify that. It's easier to just point to a
> published resource by a reputable press, which is a lot harder to
> fake. We reach outside the internet for our verification, in the end,
> because we know that the internet is unreliable. It's an interesting
> model of digital epistemology, is it not?

Yes, I know.  Math is like French or German, though -- one often has to be
able to speak, before one is even able to "check the literature", so in many
cases, offering someone non-internet verification amounts to "Here's a
textbook...go home, read chapters 4-7 until you understand them, then come
back and see that the results at the end of chapter 7 justify the argument."
The real "verification" is in the understanding of chapters 4-7.  Now, if
someone isn't willing to take the time to learn chapters 4-7, (which may
itself require previous years of training even to consider tackling), then
the person could conceivably say, "That's not a reference, just an appeal to
authority."  In fact, this is precisely the response of the typical crank
(as opposed to the knowledgeable but mistaken person, which has been myself
on more than one occasion).

Of course, I'm sure other subjects are not so simple, either...imagine
chemistry, archaeology, law, e.g.!  If I asked for a reference for something
in law, I wouldn't be surprised to hear, "Here's a law textbook...go home,
read pages 200-400 until you understand them, and then see that the statutes
on page 385-395 apply."  Even in areas like history or lit crit, the same
could apply (ever try to verify that Derrida or Habermas made a certain
claim on page 352 of such-and-such?)  My point is that "verification" always
requires some amount of prior intangible expertise, and not all references
to the literature will be "checkable" by everyone.

> Of course, in general. But when there are real disputes, where the
> answer is not self-evident to most editors (such as the use of "there"
> vs. "their"),

That's not self-evident?!  What are they teaching in schools today? :-)

darin