On 2/28/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I often drift in and out of attention when the radio is playing in the background. Mention of Wikipedia grabs my attention. It was interesting to hear a commentater remark that in the light of some recent scandals over science that had been published in peer reviewed journals something like Wikipedia might be a better avenue for peer review than the existing system. Many of these journals operate on a tight budget. They may require their authors to maintain raw experimental data for authentication, but in reality most of these journals do not have the resources needed to properly audit submissions. Repeating experiments may be costly, and if the author and his institution have the research tied up in patents repeating them would not be cost effective either when the auditor can have no return on his investment.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend was recently told by the third different lecturer at university "please do not use Wikipedia as a source" :) Apparently these days a large number of students are citing Wikipedia, because it's there, and it's so easy.
Steve