[Foundation-l] Organization on Wikipedia that deals withcontent issues.

[Peter Damian]

Hoping I am not straying too far off-topic.  I looked at the article on 
Young Earth Creationism in CZ 
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Young_earth_creationism . It comes in from 
some heavy criticism in the RationalWiki article 
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Citizendium for being "heavily (and "expertly") 
edited by Conservapedia sysop RJJensen".

But when I look at the article it is not so bad.  It is actually quite 
refreshing.  It is mercifully short, and tells me the basic facts I need to 
know about YEC, i.e. what it is, who has defended it and why, and a bit of 
history. I expect the same article in WP would come with a pack of 
disclaimers like the health warning on a fag packet, skull and crossbones 
and all, thousands of citations, statements that practically all scientists 
say it is complete rubbish, plus a few sentences later on by a rogue YEC 
that was not spotted by the police, together with other conflicting 
statements so it all reads like a confusing usenet thread.  As I say, the CZ 
article quietly says what it needs to, and does not attempt advocacy. Indeed 
it says

"The Biblical story was not a contentious issue until the 19th century, when 
theologians started reinterpreting the Bible as a historical document 
(rather than divine revelation), and geologists such as James Hutton and 
Charles Lyell developed evidence, based on their analysis of geological 
processes and formations, the earth was not a few thousand years old but, in 
fact, several millions of years old. The appearance of Charles Darwin's On 
the Origin of Species in 1859 and the associated Theory of Evolution, 
provided evidence that life was much older than 6,000 years. Most Protestant 
theologians by 1900, including those opposed to the theory of evolution, 
rejected the 4004 BC model and argued the earth was very old. Many 
evangelical theologians adopted a figurative interpretation of the first two 
chapters of Genesis."

Quite right.  I shall look at the Scientology article next.

Peter