Look: only people with access to nuclear reactors and extreme training can
verify what's in any number of Wikipedia entries on nuclear physics.
It COULD all be a DANGEROUS HOAX foisted upon us by scientists.
I mean, what proof do I have that the half-life of Polonium-210 is actually
138.376 days? Maybe it's really 139.24 days. Maybe Polonium-210 doesn't EVEN
EXIST.
Only a few select people with access to Polonium-210 can verify that
information.
But EVERY SINGLE ONE of those people can.
Similarly, maybe only a few people have access to Star-Gate episode #23. But
if they say that in that episode Cmdr. Pickett gets eaten by a Florgbernian
Rumpox, then I'm willing to ASSUME GOOD FAITH.
On 12/8/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
But Cunc dealt with this. 'Verifiable' is
an in-principle thing. It is
distinct from saying everyone can do homebrew
fact-checking on anything
mentioned. Verifiability on Wikipedia can't simply be a sceptics' charter:
that really would be a problem.
Verifiable means we can actually verify it to be true. Not in
principle, but in practise. The whole point of verifiable sources is
that we can be sure we don't have things stated on Wikipedia that
aren't true - some vague kind of hypothetical verifiability doesn't
help that.
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