RationalWiki

RationalWiki is a wiki originally created in response to Conservapedia. It is considered to be one part of the "skeptical movement". Its licensed proprietor for taxation purposes is Trent Toulouse, who teaches Psychology in the Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is on record as saying he enjoys being sued over defamations on RationalWiki.

As leftists already control the contents of Wikipedia, there is little need for RationalWiki to restate the basic leftist arguments, since they are already stated in Wikipedia. Instead, RationalWiki is characterized by attempted sarcasm and outright defamatory and libellous attacks against those they consider "Far-Right", and opponents (in particular against Conservapedia) as well as engaging in leftist community building.

The editors are obviously Leftists, and of course anonymous, some of whom who have been banned even from the Left-wing Wikipedia for outstandingly bad editing, which may go some way to explain the sometimes extremely poor content of RationalWiki, such as articles with large-scale fabrications of what the claimed sources actually say.

Another argued explanation is the influence of "spiteful mutations".

Unlike Wikipedia, RationalWiki does not even pretend to adhere to a policy of "Neutral Point of View" and to include views from both sides. Instead, RationalWiki only presents one point of view, said to be the "Scientific Point of View" or the "Snarky Point of View", which if there is a dispute on what this is, is apparently decided by non-scientific voting, or the complainers openly abused and ignored.

The site portrays itself as being "rational" and opposed to "pseudo-science" and "denialism", yet it often promotes exactly this, such as by promoting irrational genetics denialism and race denialism. Ideologically based egalitarianism always takes precedence over empirical scientific results showing that individuals and groups are not always equal or empirical results otherwise contradicting political correctness.

Other examples of not criticizing pseudo-sciences include not mentioning the many criticisms of Marxism as being an un-falsifiable pseudo-science and not criticizing the various pseudo-sciences associated with Cultural Marxism.

Leftist psychoanalysis has been one of the more harmful pseudo-sciences, but RationalWiki alleges without presenting any evidence that it has had positive long-term effects and that "many of its adherents have much to offer scientific enquiry". The article on its creator Sigmund Freud alleges that "Freud is often grouped with Nietzsche and Marx as one of the great thinkers of the 19th century".

The site has many articles dedicated to criticizing Christianity. There are also some criticisms of Islam. However, there are almost no criticisms of Judaism. Instead, the article on the Talmud warns against making criticisms. This is part of a more general pattern of a strong pro-Jewish bias. Another example of this is regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, which previously was explained in the article on Israel as ongoing due to "The refusal of the Arab states to absorb the Arab refugees". Any form of criticism against Jewish influence is generally dismissed as anti-rational antisemitism and conspiracy theories. One possibility is hasbara editors contributing to this.

There is a hagiography on the Enlightenment, leaving out all less politically correct aspects.

Ad hominem

Much of the contents of RationalWiki consist not of factual arguments, but instead of ad hominem smears, defamations, libels, and other personal attacks against individuals whom their deliberately anonymous Far-Left editors hate.

That these smeared individuals have actually done or said what is claimed by RationalWiki is very often highly questionable.

• Smears may have no source or the given source may make no mention of the smear.
• Many the alleged sources cannot be checked as the given links are dead.
• Some of the claims and their alleged "sources" may be hit pieces fabricated by personal enemies having personal hatred/grudges/feuds involving the libeled individual.
• Other possibilities include groups such as antifa fabricating smears and libels against political opponents.
• Even if there is a "source" "supporting" a smear, RationalWiki apparently consider no "source" too poor if it contains some smear against their disliked individual, even if the "source" itself has no source for the smears made.
• Another form of "sources" are alleged posts/comments from web forums/social media, allegedly by the smeared individuals themselves. However, these posts/comments may actually not have been written by the smeared individuals, but by others using similar or the same name, imposters, and/or trolls.
• Even if the attacked individuals have actually said or done (part) of what is claimed by RationalWiki, this may be quoted out of context, omit important information, or otherwise be misleading or incomplete.

In short, RationalWiki claims to be based on "skepticism" and "critical thinking" regarding the claims of others, but RationalWiki does not apply these principles to itself, and extreme skepticism and critical thinking should be applied to anything alleged by RationalWiki.

Race articles

RationalWiki's article "Racialism" has been given "GOLD status for quality" and is a "Cover story article". This supposedly means that this is the best article quality RationalWiki has and that the "standards are nosebleedingly high!" This despite much of the text being a confused mess of unclear ramblings, often to such a degree that it passes into incomprehensible gibberish.

Regarding the parts of the text that can actually be decrypted, see Wikipedia's and RationalWiki's race articles.

Holohoax articles

RationalWiki's article "Holohoax denial" has also been given "GOLD status for quality" and is a "Cover story article". This supposedly means that this is the best article quality RationalWiki has and that the "standards are nosebleedingly high!"

See Wikipedia's and RationalWiki's Holohoax articles.

See also

• Skeptical movement‎

External links

• RationalWiki

Criticisms

• Lunatics Take Over Asylum: Oliver D. Smith, RationalWiki, And The Wikipedeans
• RationalWiki: American Thinker is a Wingnut Publication
• How Rational Wiki abuses its Google Page Rank for personal attacks, slander and harassment.