User:Kåre Fog/List of errors

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Error lists may be produced in many situations. The subject treated here is error lists used to correct claims in controversial films and books. This term is used here as a collective term for reports and lists that check to what extent claims made in such media are tenable. An error list may be a point-by-point rebuttal, i.e. a complete contradiction of each point, or it may be a "list of errors and facts", for instance a critical review that points to a number of specified errors but does not totally reject the text.

Contents 1 The purpose and function of error lists 1.1 Controversial publications 1.2 Delayed peer review 1.3 Publication on the internet 1.4 Variable quality 1.5 Is it possible to correct errors? 2 Examples of error lists 2.1 Errors in controversial books with scientific content 2.2 Error lists for The Da Vinci Code 2.3 Error lists for films 2.4 Errors in Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica 2.5 List of erroneous quotes 3 Related types of lists 4 References

[edit] The purpose and function of error lists

[edit] Controversial publications

Most error lists refer to controversial publications. Books or films which allegedly present facts or scientific evidence may be published for the general public without having passed a proper scientific evaluation of these so-called facts or evidence. Instead of having the book being discussed in scientific fora to clarify pending issues, it is published with the aim of being read directly by the general public, short-circuiting the usual scientific quality control before scientific results are popularized for the general public. Such controversial books will often be written and published by groups or persons who want to promote a particular political agenda and who want to present doubtful or disputed `scientific facts´ to support their arguments. The publication of such books creates a need to investigate whether their claims are tenable, and to publish the results of such investigations. For instance, after the publishing of The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray in 1994, the American Psychological Association stated: The publication of The Bell Curve in the fall of 1994 generated a tremendous amount of controversy, both in the scientific community and the mass media. The APA Board of Scientific Affairs, during a discussion of the controversy in late fall 1994, concluded that much of the public debate was ill-informed, overly political, and not constructive. As a result, the board established the task force on intelligence to identify, examine and summarize relevant research on intelligence.^[1]

[edit] Delayed peer review

A book dealing with scientitic issues should ideally be subjected to peer review before publication. If such a review has not been performed before the book is published, erroneous or doubtful statements may be widely distributed to the public. These statements will then have to be corrected or commented in public media. This process may be perceived as a delayed open peer review. The delayed peer review of "The Bell Curve", referred to above, is one example. The joint publication by 12 experts of a book criticizing The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg ^[2] is another example.

[edit] Publication on the internet

Error lists, in the sense of the word used here, are a new phenomenon, as they depend mainly on distribution via the internet. They are usually directed at publications that have had a wide distribution to a public audience. They would be inefficient if they were only published in scientific journals with a narrow readership. For instance, the criticism of "The Bell Curve" referred to above was published not only in the scientific journal American psychologist, but was also published on the internet ^[3]. There is no centralized organization of error lists, for instance no central internet site with an overview over relevant lists. This means that the reader of a book will not know that an error list for that book exists, and even if he searches for it, he may find it only incidentally.

[edit] Variable quality

The quality of error lists varies widely. Some lists are produced by respected scientific authorities, or groups of scientists. Others are produced by single persons aiming at being neutral and well-informed. Still others are produced by organisations with special interests, such as Christian organisations, industry lobby organisation, or environmental NGOs. The lists may be lists of alleged errors which do not stand up to careful scrutiny. For example, as an expert witness before the high court in London, professor Robert Carter of James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, made a list of errors ^[4] in the film An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. However, after having heard the arguments from both sides, the judge decided that 11 of the `errors´ could not be acknowledged, and that only 9 `errors´ required amendments to the guidance notes accompanying the film ^[5]. Even if any particular error list is by itself unreliable or biased, it may be studied in conjunction with competing error lists and thus lead to a balanced judgment. The most important merit of the list may be that it points out details which have been overlooked by others.

[edit] Is it possible to correct errors?

If conflicting views have been expressed concerning a certain issue, one may ask if the conflict can ever be solved. It may be argued that it can never be definitely proven what is the truth. However, it may often be possible to prove definitely that some claim is false. For instance in the film An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore says: "That´s why the citizens of these Pacific nations had all had to evacuate to New Zealand". This postulate can be checked and has been checked, and it is demonstrably wrong. In the same film, Al Gore also says: "In 2004, Japan set an all-time record for typhoons." Critics have disputed this ^[6], stating that 2004 was not a record year for typhoons in the oceans around Japan. But if we talk about typhoons that made landfall, Gore is right ^[7]. He said "Japan", not "the seas around Japan", so arguably, he is talking about typhoons that hit land. The critics are demonstrably wrong, and the issue can be definitely resolved.

[edit] Examples of error lists

[edit] Errors in controversial books with scientific content

History: The book The rape of Nanking by Iris Chang has been much criticized. This includes the publication on the internet of an error list ^[8].

Biology: The book Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells is widely used by creationists and intelligent design adherents to support their position that Darwinism is wrong. Based on postulates in the book, Christian groups in USA claim that a number of ordinary biology text books have factual errors and should be excluded from school schedules ^[9]. Such claims make it absolutely necessary to investigate carefully if the postulates of the book are correct. There have therefore been made several thorough and detailed error lists for the book, either by single persons (biologists) ^{[10] [11]} or groups of persons ^[12]. Massimo Pigliucci devoted a section of his Denying Evolution work to refute each point presented in Wells' Icons of Evolution^[13].

Environmental issues: Some very controversial books have been written about environmental issues, especially global warming. Several error lists, in addition to many critical reviews, have been produced in this connection. There have been made error lists countering other error lists ^[14], ^[15].

[edit] Error lists for The Da Vinci Code

Although The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is fiction, this fiction is built on a historical foundation that is claimed by the author to be factual, and these so-called facts have wide implications for Christian belief. Therefore, Christian organizations have created short lists that point out a number of errors, and have distributed these on several web pages. In addition, a thorough and detailed error list has also been published on the net ^[16].

[edit] Error lists for films

Documentary films give obvious opportunities to present `facts´ that have not been subject to a careful scientific scrutiny before they are presented to a large audience. Therefore films may require error lists even more than books do.

This is the case for films on global warming. There have been produced half a dozen of error lists that refer to An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore; some of these lists have been referred to above, and nearly all have been produced by persons or organisations that are skeptical of global warming.

The film The Great Global Warming Swindle by Martin Durkin has been subject to many rebuttals by scientists, including at least one error list ^[17] written by John Houghton, lead editor of the first three assesment reports from the [[Intergovernmental panel on cliamte change ([IPCC]).

[edit] Errors in Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica

The scientific journal Nature arranged in 2005 that scientists reviewed articles in Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica in order to compare the reliability of the two. Forty two randomly chosen articles that occurred in both encyclopedias were scrutinized. The results may be seen on the page Wikipedia: External peer review. Errors found in Wikipedia articles have been corrected since then. Errors found in Encyclopædia Britannica have been listed on web pages by Encyclopædia Britannica itself ^[18] and Wikipedia has a page that "catalogs some mistakes and omissions in Encyclopædia Britannica", titled Wikipedia:Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia.

[edit] List of erroneous quotes

A web page that deals mainly with environmental issues has an error list of quotes that are widely cited, but not correct ^[19].

[edit] Related types of lists

A wiki-based product which treats the reliability of organisations is SourceWatch which also has some articles that deal with the reliability of books and films.

[edit] References