this site has made my day!
ant
Canning J. wrote:
> Thanks Jon
> I like this bit in 'Examples of Bias in Wikipedia entry'.
>
> Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most
> English-speaking users are American. Look up "Most Favored Nation" on
> Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British
> spelling "Most Favoured Nation." Look up "Division of labor" on
> Wikipedia and it automatically converts to the British spelling
> "Division of labour," then insists on the British spelling for
> "specialization" also
>
> http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jon Cloke
> Sent: 06 March 2007 10:30
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Conservapedia.com - A conservative encyclopedia you can trust
>
> Any of the rest of you come across this extraordinarily useful teaching
> tool? Given the disputes about student use of Wikipedia this couldn't
> have come at a better time, although it is admittedly a work in
> progress. No more 'grey areas' or subjectivity, just hard facts! As an
> example, here's the page on Ancient History...
>
> Introduction to Ancient History
>
> Ancient history, which is everything before about A.D. 600, created or
> discovered all the major religions today except Islam. Ancient history
> created civilization and achieved many of the greatest intellectual
> breakthroughs of all time. Literature, drama, mathematics, philosophy,
> language, etc., were all created in ancient history.
>
> When did mankind first begin? There is no reliable evidence of man
> existing before 3500 B.C. The oldest writing is a pictographic tablet
> called a "cuneiform" dated to about 3400 B.C. from Sumer (SOO-mur) in
> Southern Mesopotamia (where Iraq is today). These cuneiforms look like
> chicken-scratches featuring wedge-like or arrow-shaped characters. The
> oldest western-style script is from the Indo-Aryan language, and one
> dated to 1550 B.C. was found in the Sinai. The oldest verified
> civilization dates to about 3000 B.C. We can also extrapolate backwards
> from modern populations to estimate that only about 300 million people
> existed in the world at the time of Christ, and extrapolating backwards
> further yields only one family in the year 3300 B.C. Languages can be
> traced backwards to about 3000 B.C., and some experts reconstruct a
> point of origin in southeastern Europe near the Baltic, not far from the
> Ararat mountain range cited in the Bible in connection with Noah. Old
> trees never predate this time either; the oldest sequoias, which never
> die of old age, are only 4000 years old.
>
> No "civilization" has been found that is older than about 3000 B.C. By
> "civilization" we mean order and hierarchy in the way of life. Some type
> of political system or government is usually necessary to have a
> civilization.
> A structure similar to a city or town is necessary to bring together
> people, jobs, buildings or religious centers. Usually there are
> different classes of people, such as rich and poor. Some historians say
> there must be an agricultural surplus also: enough food to feed the
> people so that some workers could spend time in jobs other than farming.
> In a nutshell, a civilization must have cities, skilled (non-farming)
> workers, social and government institutions, writing to maintain records
> such as property ownership, and advanced technology. Memorize the oldest
> dates for the ancient civilizations:
>
> Mesopotamia (Mes-uh-puh-tay-mee-uh): 3500 - 500 B.C., when conquered by
> Persia Egypt: 3100 - 525 B.C., when conquered by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs)
> Indus
> (IN-dus) Valley: beginning in 2900 B.C. China: beginning in 2200 B.C.
> Mexican Olmec (AWL-mek): 1200 - 300 B.C., the earliest known American
> civilization Peru (South America): 900 B.C.
>
> History books speculate at length about "prehistory", which predates
> writing. But there is no reliable evidence to support this speculation,
> and not worth spending time on. There is no reason to think that man
> existed for thousands of years without ever expressing himself in
> written form. But in case you are asked, historians describe the period
> of time known as "prehistory" as the "Stone Age." They divide the Stone
> Age into two time
> periods: "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic". The Paleolithic Age is older,
> when man relied mostly on hunting and picking nuts and fruit to
> supplement his diet. The Paleolithic Age was followed by the Neolithic
> Age, which consisted of the rise of agriculture. The "Neolithic
> Revolution" means the "Agricultural Revolution," when farming became
> dominant. The dates of these ages are controversial, and historians have
> a bias for giving them older dates than proven by archaeology.
--
Anthony Ince
Research Student
Department of Geography,
Queen Mary, University of London,
Mile End,
E1 4NS
www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/student/ince.html
www.iww.org.uk
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