It’s sad to find you have been taken in by Klein’s intellectually deceptive, intellectually dishonest 500-page Shoc Doctrine.

Have you made no googling at all of the book and its absurd claims?

For a starter I recommend you read Johan Norberg’s excellent piece “Defaming Milton Friedman” in the october issue of Reason Magazine.

Secondly, go to the sources. Read Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Friedman and make up your own mind.

Best regards,

Mats

Article:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9384

Video:
http://www.cato.org/weekly/index.php?vid_id=66

1. That table you link to was compiled by Wikipedians. It was not part of the original study.

2. In the discussion that follows, the Wikipedians admit that they really have no idea what versions of the articles were actually used in the study, or how long they were. The article lengths included in the table are merely guesses.

3. Some of those guesses cannot possibly be right, because in the supplementary information for the study, it states: “We chose fifty entries from the websites of Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica on subjects that represented a broad range of scientific disciplines. Only entries that were approximately the same length in both encyclopaedias were selected. In a small number of cases some material, such as reference lists, was removed to bring the length of the entries closer together.” Note the “approximately the same length” part.

4. The errors identified in the study include errors of omission – which are probably more prevalent in shorter articles than in longer ones – so the number of errors per word is not necessarily a good measure of overall accuracy.

5. Britannica, not Brittanica.

Wikipedia has more raw errors because Wikipedia’s articles are significantly longer and more detailed than Brittanica’s. Per word, per fact, Wikipedia is more accurate.

Here’s the full data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_peer_review#Errors_per_word_comparison

That said, Wikipedia’s reliability depends on how you use it. For obscure information or very controversial subjects, you shouldn’t put too much trust in it (or in any other single source). But for basic information about well-established subjects, it’s fine. I use it all the time for work-related stuff.

That doesn’t say much. I prefer a lot more source material than something any schmedrick can edit.

Dude!

Dude! Wikipedia is more accurate than Encyclopedia Brittanica! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

Dude!

That being said, I may look into Shock Doctrine. While I do like to keep track what the far left is thinking, I spend too much time trying to keep steam from issuing forth from my ears. I’ve read No Logo and came to the conclusion that she didn’t know what she was talking about.

Interesting article about regular writing. I agree with the article and with your comment. I’ve been a writer (technical, mostly) for 21 years.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp102.pdf

A good critique of Klein’s biases and intellectual mistakes can be found here: http://www.strike-the-root.com/81/bill/bill1.html