Here at the DailyKos, we pride ourselves on being a "reality-based community". That's one of the stated standards of the site, and it's a good standard. However, even we all too often rely on dubious resources to back up claims. That's nothing unusual to DailyKos--it's endemic in American society.
In an ironic twist, we 21st century Americans, who have so much information at our very fingertips--on our desktops, on our laptops, and on our PDAs, iPhones, and Blackberries--have apparently completely lost the ability to discern fact from fiction.
Unfortunately, the internet has become an engine of misinformation. Crazy theories, misinformation, and paranoid diatribes make their way to the top of Google's search engine before reliable information does. The internet has let us grow lazy. Instead of getting our hands dirty with print, we punch a few keywords into Google or Wikipedia, and figure we're done. Those who would have us be deceived figured that out a long, long time ago, and use it to exploit us.
Real research is not done by press release. Real research is not conducted in tiny publishing houses whose only standards are "Will this sell?" Real research does not come with celebrity endorsements. Real research does not have high production values. Real research is not linked to the internet for free.
Until very, very recently, only students, professors, and others attached to colleges and universities had easy, online access to the kind of tools used to conduct real research. Most academic journals are extremely costly to college and university libraries, serials having an inflation rate typically five to six times that of the national inflation rate, and most research libraries are loathe to shell out $90,000 per year for a academic journal and then give free online access to all comers.
Thankfully, Google stepped up to the plate recently and has begun a "Google Scholar" project. It's not perfect, but if you don't have access to a research institution's resources, it's the next best thing. The advanced search options don't give you quite as much control as a library's database does, but they're not bad. They also don't have much access to full-text, though that's not terribly surprising.
So how can you tell if something's reliable?
- If it's an article, is it in an academic journal? If it's a book, was it published by an academic or university press?
- Was it peer-reviewed prior to publication?
- Is it on an *.edu or *.gov website?
- Is the author or editor trying to sell you something, whether that's an ideology, a magazine or a vitamin package?
This issue makes me tear my hair out, whether the topic is global warming, vaccination, or ex-gay ministries. Reliable information is out there. It's not that hard to find, but you're not going to find it in Newsweek, on 20/20, or on Wikipedia.
Educate yourselves. Please, be informed. Really informed.