[HubbardBrookISE] Likens article to share with undergrads

[Jacquelyn Wilson]

Hello all,
I thought this might be of interest to the HB community, especially to those of you teaching undergrads. Authored by Gene Likens and Adam Wilson, Content Volatility of Scientific Topics in Wikipedia: A Cautionary Tale, was published in the Aug 2015 issue of PLOS One. There’s also a summary from the Cary Institute: 
“Likens explains, ‘In the scientific community, acid rain is not a controversial topic. Its mechanics have been well understood for decades. Yet, despite having ‘semi-protected’ status to prevent anonymous changes, Wikipedia’s acid rain entry receives near-daily edits, some of which result in egregious errors and a distortion of consensus science.’ 

In an effort to see how Wikipedia’s acid rain entry compared to other scientific topics, Likens partnered with Dr. Adam M. Wilson, a geographer at the University of Buffalo. Together, they analyzed Wikipedia edit histories for three politically controversial scientific topics (acid rain, evolution, and global warming), and four non-controversial scientific topics (the standard model in physics, heliocentrism, general relativity, and continental drift). 

Using nearly a decade of data, Likens and Wilson teased out daily edit rates, the mean size of edits (words added, deleted, or edited), and the mean number of page views per day. While the edit rate of the acid rain article was less than the edit rate of the evolution and global warming articles, it was significantly higher than the non-controversial topics. Across the board, politically controversial scientific topics were edited more heavily and viewed more often.”

The K-12 teachers I work with were shocked (Wikipedia is their go-to for their students’ science questions), and appreciated having this new perspective.

Jackie

Jacquelyn Wilson, Education Director
Hubbard Brook Research Foundation
PO Box 282
North Woodstock, NH 03262

Field Office:
25 Dobson Hill Road
Thornton, NH 03285
603.726.8911

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