RationalWiki (en)

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RationalWiki started in May 2007 after a group of editors at Conservapedia were banned for trying to counteract the overwhelming anti-scientific and far-right political bias, largely by debating the issues on talk-pages. Althought the site was called RationalWiki to highlight the pro-scientific worldview of the founders, the content was largely weighted to the perceived lunacy of events at Conservapedia. Most articles focus on unfounded medical claims, pseudoscience and Biblical literalism. Despite a seemingly anti-religious stance, many editors are practicing Christans or Jews, tending towards the more liberal aspects of their religion rather than fundamentalism.

The site works to refute a range of faith based ideas and superstitions. They have material on Scientology, Astrology, New Age and many others.

Their stated goals are:

• Analyzing and refuting the anti-science movement, ideas and people.
• Analyzing and refuting the full range of crank ideas.
• Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism.

Most of their traffic is to do with the page What is going on at Conservapedia? The website has a highly controversial sense of humour.
Example of RationalWiki’s perspective:-

As a site we have a point of view, and that point of view is that the scientific method and the information gained from its application is better than almost anything else humanity has come up with. We believe that the support of, profiting from and creation of pseudosciences is dangerous and wrong. [1]

Criticism

Some members, have admitted vandalising Conservapedia in the past. As most of the founding members were blocked from Conservapedia for trying to moderate anti-scientifc content and include more liberal points of view, they have continued to undermine Conservapedia in the following manners:

• Openly mocking the site owner and administrators of Conservapedia
• Trying to add scientific content to pages espousing only a young-Earth creationist POV
• Showing outright contempt for the site, fundamentalist Christianity, homophobia, misogyny and extreme conservatism in general
• Trying to moderate lies against liberal politicians
• Adding facts about conservatives which illustrates the hypocrisy of the site
• Possibly manipulating page-view counts to highlight intolerant and unscientifc content
• Adding parody and false information in run-of-the-mill articles
• Fooling Conservapedia administrators through misdirection on Rationalwiki
• Utilising Poe's Law to undermine the credibility of Conservapedia

The site has also been criticized because

• Some editors espouse atheism and mock fundamental religion on their user pages

Allegations of cyber-terrorism, posting of pornography and use of foul language have also been made but no proof has been offered which links any of this specifically to senior editors at RationalWiki.

See also

• Atheism Wiki
• FreeThoughtPedia
• Iron Chariots
• RationalWikiWiki meta site for RationalWiki.

Wiki size:

unknown size

further tags:

• creationism