Saturday, February 24, 2007

What Passes for Truth is Stranger than Fiction

For some folks, Wikipedia (the online resource deceiving college students everywhere) leaves something to be desired. The creators of Conservapedia created their site as "a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American."

This is not a parody site. Parody is entirely unnecessary. I submit for your approval the Conservapedia's entry for "unicorn."

As an aid to future historians, looking to understand the odd things that "conservative" came to represent during the 00's, here's "unicorn" as it stood on the morning of 2/24/07:


"Great Job on the Unicorn page!" Conservapedia contributor PhilipB writes to Rich P, the primary author of this scholarly contribution. Great job indeed.

Hat tip to Sadly, No!

1 comment:

Amos Blackman said...

Finally, proof that unicorns exist(ed)! See The Conservapedia Commandments ("1. Everything you post must be true and verifiable."). Another excellent commandment: "4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). 'BCE' and 'CE' are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis." I feel bad for Mary; an "approximate birth" sounds pretty painful.

But my favorite entry the Examples of Bias in Wikipedia entry (it's also their most popular entry). Some of the gems:

"Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English speaking users are American."

"Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia. Many entries read like the National Enquirer. For example, Wikipedia's entry on Nina Totenberg states, 'She married H. David Reines, a trauma physician, in 2000. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming.' That sounds just like the National Enquirer, and reflects a bias towards gossip. Conservapedia avoids gossip and vulgarity, just as a true encyclopedia does."

"Wikipedia's article on Feudalism is limited to feudalism in Europe and does not mention the feudal systems that developed independently in Japan and India." (By definition, Feudalism refers only to the medieval European lord-vassal system.)