Thank you!
1 Like
All scientific, research and educational materials should always be viewed with a critical eye. That is why good education and experience in a given field are so important. On the basis of his knowledge and experience, a person should decide whether a given text is substantive, if so, there is no problem, if do not, report abuse, so that the content does not mislead other people.
2 Likes
Wikipedia, iNaturalist and others are secondary sources. They are neither peer reviewed nor are the authors always qualified. The problem with taking those sources as primary input seems to be what I like to call “merry-go-round-confirmation”.
Example: I found a few websites that confirmed Phorcus lineatus for the whole Mediterraneis (which simply is not true). Someone even pointed them out to me as a “source” for his ID on iNat! Turns out those sites themselves relied on iNaturalist as primary source! When I re-identified the many entries on iNat, not a single Phorcus lineatus remained (except a few that are restricted to the coast of Portugal and Spain, where they are confirmed by real primary sources). But damage done, now there are websites out there that will confirm P. lineatus for the Mediterraneis.
So, if you do not go for the primary sources, you might add to the confusion instead of resolving it.
6 Likes
I cannot rely to that. Our professor simply poited out that “you may or may not come upon a reliable source on Wikipedia. This insecurity is not good enough for academic work.” Doesn’t sound like classism to me, but rather like a good advice for any scientist who wants to avoid mistakes.
6 Likes
Those people do not see what these other sources like ‘‘Generally, these have photos, range maps, and scientific descriptions. Should not these be used as sources instead of Wikipedia?’’ don’t have and why they are useless… or a lot of work to maintain…
if they are clearly picking on one source, specifically a free one, without any hard evidence that it is less reliable than other sources, then it is hard to see it as objective. Maybe not conscious classism but some sort of gatekeeping i think.
3 Likes
That certainly sounds like it, there’s no one ideal source, and Wiki is great for links you can use, often they’re not found by simple search.
Yes, this would be a case of questionable intention.
Anyhow, I believe my prof meant his warning more in the sense of “Do not rely solely on secondary sources without rechecking with the primary ones.” Like, do not cite Wikipedia, cite the source your Wikipedia article is using … preferably after reading it. 
I am aware that this is a standard that academics are prone to. For all the other naturalists - those who cannot afford to read articles all day - just goes “stay alert”.
6 Likes
I use Wikipedia a lot to get a search started. Very helpful!
5 Likes
yeah i think asking for primary sources is fine as is asking for a certain number of sources, though that whole process gets weird too. But selectively rejecting sources because they are ‘too easy’ or free is sketchy to me
4 Likes
I wonder how much of the Wikipedia bias has roots in the fact that it is free, thus undercutting the market for papers published for fee? E.g., how does this support the ‘publish or perish’ truism in academia? Just pondering…
5 Likes
I think the caution is because of the fact, like iNat, is that anyone can enter information. I could go to some obscure fish page, and enter some information that I have no clue about, and before it is corrected someone may use the information as ‘truth’.
Academia is not perfect by a long shot, but at least someone who knows something about the topic has read the research and made comments. Although those may be biased. I don’t hate Wikipedia, but as has been said, its information should be taken as a starting point.
4 Likes
The reliability of wiki articles, for animals and plants at least, really just depends on what specific organism you’re looking at. You’ll be lucky if the page for an obscure insect or freshwater fish has even been created
2 Likes
You’ll be lucky if the page for an obscure insect or freshwater fish has even been created
Conversely, Wikipedia has articles on obscure taxa that most encyclopedias don’t even cover. For example, in most/all encyclopedias you’ll get some info (if at most a blurb) on beetles as a type of insect, but almost never will you find general information on monkey beetles, or ambrosia beetles, or darkling beetles, whereas in Wikipedia this can cover the subject sometimes even down to species. Outside of specialist literature and guidebooks, it’s very rare for the layperson to be able to learn more about beetles, or other taxa that they might be interested in.
7 Likes
I disagree. Both systems are essentially open to peer review and transparent. It isn’t the exact same system of peer review as scientific papers go through (though of course that has well-know flaws as well). In fact, I would argue that you did peer-review when you went through and corrected the identifications of observations mistakenly IDed as Phorcus lineatus. Both iNat and Wikipedia allow users to see essentially the entire edit history of an entry/observation (which is more transparency than many peer-reviewed publications provide where peer reviews and editors comments are hidden, though this is changing for some journals).
In a similar vein, iNaturalist is definitely a primary source - the evidence of the observation (photo or sound) is directly available. You don’t have to take anyone else’s word for it - you can interrogate the data yourself. Primary data sources can be wrong too, of course, as in the example that you gave, but this doesn’t make a source “secondary”.
13 Likes
I hadn’t thought about things that way. Although, it does depend on who is agreeing to what on iNat. Initially, at least.
I like to use wikipedia. There is usually an article on an organism, and links to some related species sometimes. However, some species have not much information. In iNaturalist, it is amazing the system can recognise the organism in a submitted photo. However, the accurancy is not 100%. I just started using iNat recently. I can’t ID most of the organisms on the other side of the world. Upon clicking on a link to view an organism may lead to a wikipedia page on the subject. It is ok to me. Currently, I think there may be errors occasionally in iNat photo records and wikipedia entries. My country’s scientific records at the universities or institutions may have occasional errors too. I think it is easy to get the species identity, but it gets tricky when going down to sub-species level. Scientists are always shifting the species around. The species I used to know, are given new names, or split into several species eg Arapaima, blue panchax… Haven’t keep track of some organisms. iNat seems like an American system. The scientific names are quite fixed, except for some contested cryptic species. The Common names could be something I’ve not heard before until I started using iNat. I guess the accurancy of the information may get better going forward.
Searching for Hippotion eson. The Wiki on iNat tells me they are a migratory species.
The only ‘primary’ link I can find for migration is a PDF - so there is more info. I would prefer info between Wiki and a long detailed academic journal article.
Distribution map on iNat shows Cape Town to … Ethiopia and … Nigeria. Flying the green road up Africa.
1 Like
This is a general thought.
There is really nothing bad in questioning the sources that are pointed as being authoritative, either wikipedia or the scientific experts in heavy rotation in TV shows or the textbooks in a classroom.
It’s time-consuming and often tiring but people, and especially students, should be pushed to be willing to verify every source they are provided. This is particularly true with scientific matters as science is not a monolith with just one agreed point of view. As regards, one can still find in search engines (I hope this will last) scientific works that disavow what published before and, possibly, also taken for granted so far. Then, one with critical spirit can develop a point of view on a specific matter that is supported by a more or less robust knowledge.
4 Likes
Interestingly, I followed that link, and in the archived reference I spent 30 minutes searching for the species without success. It may be there, but I finally gave up. Even google scholar had no references that directly talked about the species and migration, except passing comments about the larger group being migratory. Perhaps the term is used differently - say to indicate it being widespread in Africa - but to me migration means a purposeful seasonal movement from one part of a region to another.
Basically, if I wanted to confirm the statement that they are migratory, the reference given in Wiki would be useless!
1 Like