Fred Bauder wrote:
You're changing the subject. Which is that an excellent article written by a
knowledgable person which CONFORMS TO THE ACCEPTED CANON OF KNOWLEDGE can be trashed back to the level of what the average users remember from their undergraduate courses.
There's an ACCEPTED CANON OF KNOWLEDGE? Wow, I had no idea! Where is it, and how can I get my hands on it? Why hasn't anybody deleted everything in Wikipedia yet and replaced it with this CANON? (sarcasm alert)
Seriously, Fred raises a valid concern that the survey material taught to undergraduates is frequently incorrect or dated. But the idea of a canon of knowledge veers dangerously to POV. And suggesting that more advanced education is the cure is arrogant; Ph.D.s aren't required here (caveat - Fred's statement doesn't mean he's arguing for this, I'm just drawing one possible conclusion from it). Anyway, if such a canon is possible, Wikipedia seems like the best way to get it accepted, but it will take literally forever to reach that point.
--Michael Snow