Fred Bauder wrote:
Generally there is a near absence of citations made in most of our wars. Mainly there is bald assertion of "authoritative" point of view, usually accompanied by repeated references to NPOV.
I'm personally a little wary of using citations overmuch. Obviously in many cases they can provide some backing for claims, but especially on contentious issues a citation can be produced to back up essentially any arbitrary claim. This includes "scientific" fields, where for example I can probably produce at least one study to back up any claim you'd care to make about anti-depressants (they work, they don't work, they sometimes work, they're better than nothing, they're worse than nothing, they're the best current solution, there are better current solutions, etc., etc.). "The devil can cite scripture for his purposes" and all that.
-Mark