I can't vouch for what Fred was saying, because I think I disagree
with him and actually agree more with what you're saying. But I would
say that there *is* an accepted canon of knowledge, and that Wikipedia
ought to (and mostly does) reflect it.
To me, the notion of "accepted canon" immediately raises the question
"accepted by whom?" The wikipedia process/policy of NPOV answers that
question by saying that articles ought to be such that they are
acceptable to the widest possible range of _reasonable_ contributors
working in a spirit of mutual inquiry. This means that we frequently
have to make "softer" claims than we might like, due to the existence
of some annoying minor (but reasonable) viewpoint. We have to
"contextualize" a lot of claims, but this makes us stronger overall.
...