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R.A.Ross wrote:

> Teachers are being told over and over that the `net' will
> solve all their information gathering problems, often by self-serving
> individuals such as systems salespeople and computer magazine
> journalists, but also by politicians.

I'm glad you couldn't resist answering, as it is very informative to hear
the problem described from the other side of the pond. Am I wrong in seeing
the difference between (what I take to be) your position and that of the
people you describe as epistemological? That is, 'the "net" is a means of
access to academia, which is where the answers are,' as opposed to, 'the
process of forming conclusions by interrogating sources is the real lesson.'
Or, as you more clearly described:

> The `net' is being presented to
> them as a replacement for traditional research.

Or perhaps it's just because it's easier to ask an expert an uninformed
question than it is to be confronted by your own ignorance in pouring over
traditional sources not "targeted" to your particular level, question,
assumptions, etc? This is what terrifies me about the popular (in the US)
notion of "the marketplace of ideas": if people are accustomed to tailored,
entertaining, not to mention pleasing information, will they balk at
difficult mental tasks and will they refuse to "buy" unsettling facts (i.e.,
doing for people's minds what welfare allegedly does for their work-ethic)?
I'm not suggesting that laziness and denial are recent inventions, however.

I am suggesting rather an explanation for the problem you outline here:

> It is the teachers we must educate. They need to understand that the Net
> is not a repository of all information, and more importantly they must
> be taught that information of the net must be treated with the same
> scepticism as printed media. They need to have the importance of
> traditional library resources emphasised to them, and they have to be
> persuaded to teach both source criticism (in its most basic sense) and
> nettiquette.

The only sort of source-criticism I observe in many people is the evaluation
of whether or not that source contains what is expected, comforting, what
confirms pre-existing beliefs, what is accommodatable, in a word. Since you
have mentioned politicians, I will go out on a cynical limb and suggest that
one can go far in a democracy by encouraging the worst in the most people.
Unfortunately, the selectiveness you referred to in your opening paragraph
(which I left out above and will reprint below for convenience) would strike
many of the people which I've referred to so generally as *elitism.* This is
the problem which attends Dr.Bachrach's otherwise perfectly reasonable
statement on Higher Education: "What we can to is make it less difficult for
the talented to learn and stop trying to convince the world that there are
really a great mass of silk purses hiding in sow's ears" : it will sound to
many like condescension.

It is very hard to make our case to people who may not be capable of
evaluating it.

J. St.Lawrence


p.s.: I hope the above is not what you meant when you wrote:

> More insidiously, the `tone' of a list can
> drift away from an `academic' level towards a `general' level



R.A.Ross wrote:

> `Young Mr. Renihan' is a perfect example of the phenomenon I described
> at the Med_Rel session at Kalamazoo, a casual user trying to find
> serious information. He also represents an interesting problem for
> academics (and by that I mean most if not all the regular denizens of
> this list, whether they are part of a recognised institution or not).
> Non-academics now have easy access to academic forums. Traditional
> academic forums were selective by their location, by their entry
> criteria, and by their cost. Now anyone can jump in, with queries, with
> opinions, and with all sorts of other interventions. This can have
> potentially damaging consequences, as the `refugees' from the Old Norse
> Net flame war can testify. More insidiously, the `tone' of a list can

> drift away from an `academic' level towards a `general' level, and
> discussion can become dominated by `fringe' groups. The fate of any list
> with the word `Celtic' or the phrase `Dark Age' in the title is
> instructive. AnSaxNet, for example, now has elaborate security
> procedures to discourage non-academic participation.



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