Re: Finding information on the Internet

[Tim Folkerts <tfolkert@FHSU.EDU>]

John states:

> Deciding what information to trust is absolutely central
> to what science is (unless you're planning on personally
> re-doing every important experiment from scratch :-).

Absolutely!  And it is also central to politics, history, human relations,
....

But much of the rest of his comments I take some exception to.  As I see
it, there are basically two methods to judge the accuracy of information.
* Method 1)  check it yourself, from scratch
* Method 2)  develop some rules of thumb to correlate the accuracy to other
factors.

Since we have progressed way too far for any one person to check any
significant amount of info at any fundamental level, we rely almost
entirely on Method 2.  Furthermore, the extent to which we trust our rules
of thumb depends on how sure we want to be.

For example.
> Suppose I am reviewing a manuscript submitted to Phys
> Rev.  Am I supposed to reject it if the authors don't
> have famous names or a famous institution?  Or am I
> supposed to accept it just because they do?

When reading an article that has been *published* in Phys Rev, I place a
great deal of trust in the accuracy for two reasons.  I) I have personally
seen a great deal of accuracy in the articles that I have look at closely.
I may just have gotten lucky and most of the articles are way off base, but
the odds are way against it.  II) I know that two someones like John D have
already reviewed it carefully before it was accepted.

For an article that has only been *submitted* to Phys Rev. then I can't use
either of these criteria, so I find other criteria.  If I can verify their
starting point in published articles and I can reproduce their calculations
and/or experiments, then I trust the accuracy.  Of course, I may be just as
mistaken as the authors, or I may be less skilled and mistrust the results
because I couldn't reproduce the results.  But having two reviewers
minimizes such chances.

Furthermore, if the authors have are from Harvard, they have already been
"peer reviewed" in the hiring process and there is a good chance they know
what they are doing.  Again, no guarantee, but it increases the likelihood
that the info is accurate.


So, then the question becomes, what secondary characteristics have a
significant correlation with accuracy?  Here I think the guidelines are
right on!

> Under Authority it says:
> *  Is the author identifiable? Look for links that say "Who We
> Are," "About This Site, " or something similar.
> * Is there contact information for the author? (e.g. e-mail
> address, mailing address or phone number)
> * What is the author's background? (e.g. experience, credentials,
> occupation, have they written other publications on the topic?)
> * Does the author cite his or her sources?
> * Is this site linked to often by other sites?
> * Do links on this site lead to other reputable sites?
> * Are there spelling errors or incorrect use of grammar?
> * What domain does the site belong to? (e.g. edu, gov, com, etc.)?

Sure, no one of these will guarantee accuracy.  Heck, all of them together
won't guarantee accuracy.  Nothing will guarantee accuracy.  But taken as a
whole, I bet they are very strongly correlated to accuracy.


> Under Reliability it says nothing about whether the
> content makes sense;  it asks only whether "most" of
> the site's outbound links work.

The question here wasn't the reliability of the *information*, but the
reliability of the *site* - does it work the way it is supposed to. The
implication is that anyone who doesn't check the accuracy of the links
might not check the accuracy of the original content.  Again it isn't a
guarantee, but it has some positive correlation with accuracy.

That aside, judging "sense" requires a preexisting understanding.  It is a
very high level thinking task.  The fact that you are searching for such
info suggests you aren't already an expert.  Then you have to judge on
other factors.


    Timothy Folkerts

    Department of Physics
    Fort Hays State University
    Hays, KS  67601
    785-628-4501

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
    nothing." - Edmund Burke