[WikiEN-l] Nobel prizewinning chemist: "in my field, Wikipedia is more reliable than textbooks"

[Ray Saintonge]

On 11/04/11 8:45 AM, geni wrote:
> On 4 November 2011 14:24, Tony Sidaway<tonysidaway at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Harry Kroto.
>>
>> 'Kroto shared his views on what he calls the "GooYouWiki-Revolution"
>> and spoke highly of Wikipedia as a resource.
>> "In my field," said Kroto, "it's more reliable than the textbooks."'
>>
>> http://www.reflector-online.com/life/wikipedia-not-all-bad-even-sexy-1.2665094
> In fairness his field is chemistry which has issues with its
> textbooks. Most of the best chemists are more interested in publishing
> in journals rather than text books and all but the most fundamental
> areas (and Atkins Physical Chemistry has rather a lot of that area
> locked down) move so fast that books are outdated within a year or so.
>
> Throw in the academic publishing sector wishing to push out new
> editions of their organic and inorganic chemistry books each year and
> errors in proof reading are also an issue.
>
>
Writing a long textbook may not be financially rewarding for the 
author.  But I would also think that with undergraduate science there is 
not much incentive to investigate alternative approaches.  That 
certainly keeps the textbook publishers happy.

If a student uses Wikipedia for an essay it's dishonest not to say so, 
so the present state of things only drives users into the closet. The 
real issue should not be about using Wikipedia as a source, but using it 
as the only source for the key concepts of the essay.

Ray