Andrea Paola Martinez
Professor Guthrie
English 110 C
December 4, 2006
Evaluation Of Wikipedia through Book Reviews
Neutrality and the
presentation of a neutral point of view is a topic of wide discussion
pertaining to Wikipedia, making up one of the five pillars of its
establishment. Because of the nature of
Wikipedia as being an encyclopedia open for editing by almost anyone regardless
of professional status, the list of controversial subjects, especially those with questionable reliability and neutrality is
extensive. As observed in the article by Tracy Schiff, the public is quick to
criticize Wikipedia on its disputable neutrality and lack of ‘proper’
screening. Therefore, my initial aim in this project was to test main defining
characteristics of Wikipedia by finding a topic of particular controversy on
Wikipedia, conducting my own research, and submitting my expansion to Wikipedia
as a possible source of reliable and neutral information. In the search of a
controversial topic I came across a book review requesting expansion for a
novel titled “Finding
“represents fairly and without bias all
significant views that have been published by a reliable source… sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view; presenting each point of view accurately;
providing context for any given
point of view, so that readers understand whose view the point represents”
(Wikipedia).
Therefore, according to this,
with enough contributions by many people, all significant views should be
addressed; resulting in a fair representation. Interested in how, if it does,
this method of reviewing a novel fulfills the required pillar of neutrality, I
decided to read the book for myself. My objective became to prove, through an
evaluation of each review provided for the novel in comparison with the book
itself, whether the accumulated viewpoints represented in the reviews are able
to fulfill the pillar of neutrality. In addition to this, I chose to compose my
own book review and submit it as a neutral evaluation of the novel.
“Finding
The review provided by Henry Morris (young earth creationist point of view) opens by referring to the novel as a “very potent anti-creationist book” (Back to Genesis), which it unquestionably is not; one of many reasons being that the author, Ken Miller, is a practicing Roman Catholic. This reveals right away that the book review will be a biased one. Though the review is subjective, it does however, represent rightly main creationist views due to the fact that Henry Morris is known as the “intellectual father of creation science” (Washington Post):
“That is exactly what we think… that the appeal of evolution cannot be ‘scientific,’ for evolution is neither observable nor repeatable nor predictable as taking place in the present” (Back to Genesis).
Morris’s review aims more so at defending himself against what he claims were misrepresentations and mutations of his words and of creationist theories as represented in Millers novel than at actually providing a review of the book:
“[Ken Miller] is most superficially convincing…though he achieves this by…
misrepresentation of the facts… he
says that I “withdrew the argument,” I did
no such thing” (Back to Genesis).
Morris says that Miller has many shortcomings in his evidence, and that Miller does not approach some main arguments against evolution, but neither does Morris make an effort to approach these arguments himself. I also noticed instances in which Morris misquotes Miller, as when he states that Miller “claims to be a creationist” (Back to Genesis). Miller never makes such a claim; referring back to the page from which Morris claims to get his quote from, Miller states to believe in a God and denies being an atheist. The reviewer picks and chooses what to present to the reader, so those wanting an accurate book review who have yet to read the book will get a highly skewed summary of the novel’s actual contents. In his review, Morris does provide a great deal of information about young earth creationist view points, and clarifies some main confusion concerning their beliefs. Therefore, we receive a direct and informative portrayal of creationism, but in doing so we are given an inaccurate portrayal of the novel, which should be the main goal of an objective book review. This introduces the theory of sacrificing immediate objectivism in the hopes of eventually, through accretion, achieving an overall neutral point of view; a theory that this project hopes to test.
The next review is written by Henry E. Neufield, and is stated as representing a theistic point of view. It is found on Energion.com, which is a homepage for the “study and understanding of the Christian religion”. Their mission states that they “pursue thinking and creative ideas through essays, research, resources, and book reviews” (Energion). I read the review before knowing that it came from a Christian website, and never would have suspected that it was written by a devout Christian due to its objectivity. Neufield’s commentary is educated, offering interesting insight and commending Miller on his method of writing:
“The only problem I see here is simply that a variety of views can be covered under the heading of this chapter…his (Miller’s) passage on the evolution of the elephant and its relation to design is a masterpiece” (Energion).
Neufield’s process of reviewing Miller’s book is more indicative of the book’s actual contents; he demonstrates accurately the structure of each chapter and explains Miller’s main points. Only in the end does he state his opinion concerning a statement made by Miller in which Miller dismisses untraditional views of God by saying that these views “aren’t God at all”. Even then, Neufield merely states that these views of God may be of value to many, and thus have a claim of “serious consideration”. The reviewer brings a close to his effective summary of the novel by strongly recommending the novel to those interested in the issue of God as creator and of the controversy between the creator and evolution.
The next review represents an
agnostic point of view and was written by Michael Ruse, a die-hard evolutionist
and the proclaimed “expert on the social and philosophical consequences of
The next review was written by
Amiel Rossow, and can be found on a website titled “Talk Reason”. This website
is a forum for publishing papers “with well thought-out arguments against
creationism, intelligent design, and religious apologetics” (Talk Reason). The
website also states that any papers promoting any of the above beliefs or
criticizing conventional scientific theories like that of evolution will be
denied acceptance. None of the submissions to ‘Talk Reason’ are edited; they
are published in their original form as submitted by the author. This review of
“Finding
“Phillip Johnson, in his usual lawyers style, pounced on Miller’s book in a rude manner, wherein insults seem to be the prevalent substitute for knowledge about the subject” (Talk Reason).
All in all, when not addressing creationism, Rossow provides a concise summary of Miller’s main points, and gives insightful comments and analyses. Her evaluation demonstrates knowledge of the subject, and she uses the first half of her thesis paper to reiterate Miller’s claims and provide additional support for them. She does not show a biased view towards Miller in this first half of the review, possibly because the first section addresses the novel’s support of evolution (which she represents).
As expected, the second half of Rossow’s review, which deals with Miller’s arguments for creationism, demonstrates a biased perspective. The reviewers writing contains sarcasm and exaggeration; “ time and time again we see here statements which clearly contradict each other and merge into a nebulous din of little interest” (Talk Reason); however the basis of some of her criticisms do hold some ground, and thus could be beneficial to readers. Rossow concludes her review by stating, “There is a good reason to admire the larger, yang part of his (Miller’s) book. There seems to be no reason to take seriously the smaller, yin part (the part supporting creationism)” (Talk Reason). A skeptical point of view is an accurate labeling of this review; though she credits evolution over creationism, Rossow’s review is referred to as an educated criticism of Miller’s novel.
“Finding Miller’s King” is the
title of the final review posted for Miller’s novel. Written by Jed Macosko
through the University of California at Berkeley, this review is representative
of an intelligent design creationist viewpoint; which expresses the belief that
aspects of the universe and of living things are credited to an intelligent
cause, and not a random process such as natural selection (Finding Darwin’s
God). Macosko begins his review by affirming that Miller provides a peaceful
solution to the battle between religions and science. His review consists of a
description of Miller’s main points supporting evolution, a detailed evaluation
of intelligent design as represented by Miller, and a description of how Miller
accomplishes merging evolution and creationism. Macosko questions Miller’s
portrayal of intelligent design, though unlike Ruse, Mocosko does provide his
corrections to what he sees as misconceptions in Miller’s interpretation of
Intelligent Design theories. The fact that this review comes from Macosko, who
holds a position at
Throughout my exploration of
Wikipedia, the more I read from different sources, the more I observed that
representing a neutral point of view, though hard, is possible. Miller is
effective in achieving neutrality throughout the majority of his novel, as is
Neufield in his review and Rassaw to an extent, because she led us first
through an objective observation of the book in order to review if Miller is
indeed successful in accomplishing the job he sets out to do in his novel.
These writers come very close to achieving neutrality because they do so by
addressing all points of view. A complete neutral point of view, however, is
never fully achieved because at some point we see that their personal opinions
do surface and come in the way of being constant in their objectivism. This
observation strengthens Wikipedia’s methods because if the closest to achieving
neutrality is many, and in the best circumstances, all points of view, then
Wikipedia has it right: in their pooled articles, and even more so in the
structure of their individually compiled book reviews. However, though the
method of fulfilling the pillar of neutrality shown by book reviews is
effective, this status is maintained on one condition: that all of the reviews
do not just represent one argument. I also found that this method should be
restricted to book reviews only, and not applied to all articles on Wikipedia
because doing so would upset the flow of the articles and lead to confusion as
well as make it impossible to know for sure which opinion out of all of those
supplied is the right one.