There’s a new web encyclopedia in town: Conservapedia, which seems to be trying to position itself as a “Fox News” version of Wikipedia. In other words, it caters to people who call themselves conservatives.
I think they’ve got the branding all wrong. If the site’s serious – and not just meant as a silly jab at conservatives – they ought to call it “Stupidopedia: Two-bit articles for two-bit minds”. Am I being harsh?
Here are some samples. I’m a chemist, so I’ll look up some simple chemistry-related topics.
Here is the entire, unedited Conservapedia entry for water.
Water is and oderless, tasteless, colorless substance. Its chemical formula is H2O. (That is two hydrogens and one oxygen. I apologize for the lack of subscipts.)
Here’s the atom
An atom is the smallest unit chemical matter in creation. The word atom comes from the Greek term for indivisible, átomos. There have been many ideas about how atoms may look. The current one is called the Quantum Mechanical Model, and is very complex.
Who writes this crap? Fifth graders? Compare with the Wikipedia entries for water and atom, which are just a bit more useful and well-edited.
I think the best chemistry Conservapedia article I’ve seen so far, though, is one that was discovered by The Disgruntled Chemist: The law of mass conversation. Do conservatives not know how to spell the word “conservation”? 🙂
If the site wasn’t satire before, it’s satire now. Some folks have been spicing the entries up a bit. Now, the “The Law of Mass Conversation” entry says
Matter cannot be created (except by the Almighty during the Genesis creation event) or destroyed (except by the Almighty at the End of Days), it can only change form.