Andrew Schlafly
(→Using Conservapedia) |
(→Using Conservapedia) |
||
| Line 43: | Line 43: | ||
At some level, it is hard to explain to you how a wiki works - the software, and the conventions, without giving you a twelve hour course - but essentially it is a collection of online documents that may be edited by anyone visiting the site. These "editors" sign up (we recommend you do so yourself to experience the wiki - it is free and no personal information is required) and see if you can contribute something to the resource. If you find something on a page you know something about and feel you can contribute, or you see a point or fact that is unreferenced (which would allow opinion into what is intended to be an encyclopedia), or just plain incorrect, just click the "Edit" button at the top and add your information, remembering to click on "save" when you're done. Now, the information you have added is visible to any other visitors, and other editors who may be interested in the topic. | At some level, it is hard to explain to you how a wiki works - the software, and the conventions, without giving you a twelve hour course - but essentially it is a collection of online documents that may be edited by anyone visiting the site. These "editors" sign up (we recommend you do so yourself to experience the wiki - it is free and no personal information is required) and see if you can contribute something to the resource. If you find something on a page you know something about and feel you can contribute, or you see a point or fact that is unreferenced (which would allow opinion into what is intended to be an encyclopedia), or just plain incorrect, just click the "Edit" button at the top and add your information, remembering to click on "save" when you're done. Now, the information you have added is visible to any other visitors, and other editors who may be interested in the topic. | ||
| − | There are so many details about how Mr. Schlafly runs Conservapedia that are telling, and watching it unfold is the best evidence. We encourage you to work through the learning curve if you are considering exposing your children to this - an hour or two | + | There are so many details about how Mr. Schlafly runs Conservapedia that are telling, and watching it unfold is the best evidence. We encourage you to work through the learning curve if you are considering exposing your children to this - an hour or two spent at this for a few days should be enough for you to see the nature on the online community there. |
===Typical usage patterns=== | ===Typical usage patterns=== | ||
Revision as of 07:22, 5 August 2008
Andrew Schlafly is a Princeton-educated engineer and Harvard-educated lawyer, and the son of noted American conservative author and activist Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum. He's the founder of an online encyclopedia project called Conservapedia, which promotes staunchly conservative values, a strictly creationist view of Earth history, and many other views shared with the evangelical Christian movement.
An unabashed Christian Conservative, espousing evangelical Protestant and strongly pro-US views, Mr.Schlafly runs a homeschooling program in his home state of New Jersey, where it is estimated he teaches up to 100 students of mostly Middle School and pre High School age. He founded his online encyclopedia project, Conservapedia, in an effort to not only educate his students about computer, internet and 'wiki' technologies, but also in an attempt to counter his perception that the online collaborative encyclopedia project, Wikipedia only permits a liberally biased worldview.
As an educational resource, Conservapedia has proved highly controversial, resulting in great controversy in various forums, both print and online, over the accuracy of the information contained within, despite its 'tag line' being "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia". As chief editor of this online resource, Mr.Schalfly is working on the site for sometimes up to eighteen hours a day, and spends most of that time fighting what he sees as an encroachment of liberalism on his site.
The reason for this article, which will deliberately maintain a respectful tone, is that our satirical article on Mr. Schlafly has attained a very high ranking on search engines, and we feel that we do parents of his prospective students a disservice to not also offer some straightforward and unbiased information on him.
Contents |
Early life
Born on April 27, 1961, in Alton, Illinois, Andrew Layton Schlafly is the son of John Fred Schlafly (1909-1993), a conservative lawyer, and Phyllis Schlafly (née Stewart in 1924), best known for her activism in the American fundamentalist conservative movement.
He was homeschooled until the age of seven.
Post-secondary education
Schlafly holds a Bachelor's degree in Engineering and a JD from Harvard University, and is currently a home-school history tutor as well as a legal representative for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
Family
On November 24, 1984, Schlafly married Catherine Agneta Kosarek. They have two children.
Private tutor
He has taught classes in World and U.S. History at low cost to homeschooled high school age children for several years.
Conservapedia
History
Mr. Schlafly founded Conservapedia in November 2006, with the help of his homeschooled history students, to counter what he perceived as a liberal bias in the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Initially, it was an interesting attempt to build a conservative, Christian-friendly, pro-American encyclopedia, with his students helping write short articles on various topics ("American History", for example) as part of their coursework in his class. Things spun somewhat out of control in about March of 2007, when various internet commentators picked up on his project and created a rush of traffic to the site. Many individuals were appalled at the factual inadequacy and inaccuracy of the content and at some of Mr. Schlafly's assertions, and signed up in order to discuss these issues with him (they were almost all banned from the site by late May 2007). At the same time, several refugees from Wikipedia (and other websites) turned up, sensing an opportunity to have a voice, and gain positions of power.
- Editor "RobS" created many articles reflecting his deep fascination with the Cold War and McCarthyism.
- Editor "Conservative" created scores of articles about homosexuality, and an incoherent series of articles on atheism.
- Editor "'Uncle' Ed Poor" arrived at Conservapedia after a series of ediorial mistakes on Wikipedia led to his loss of power there. He now creates random short articles on Conservapedia, and deletes any articles on mathematics that he doesn't understand.
- Editor "TK" was promoted to "sysop" for no known reason, and terrorized other editors at Conservapedia for most of 2007, including fomenting dissent among other sysops, before finally losing power - basically due to calling Mr. Schlafly a rude name in a private email. Schlafly was oblivious to TK's power-mongering and tactics the whole time, it took a a personal affront for him to notice that something was amiss.
One result of this has been that instead of some decent kids building an encyclopedia and having fun, the site has become the battlefield of a series of power struggles between these disaffected grown-ups, and a censorship zone.
Using Conservapedia
If you are considering employing Andrew Schlafly to educate your children, we recommend that you visit conservapedia, and do a few easy things to see how things work there. First, click on "random article" (on the left in the panel) ten times and see what is on offer. Second, click on "recent changes" and see which "talk" pages are being edited a lot. Click on one of their "diff" links. A "diff" link is Wiki-jargon for a special version of a page showing one single edit at the top and the resulting page below it. Also, at the top right, it will indicate whether there is a "next diff" - an edit following the one you are looking at. By clicking on "next diff" again and again, you can clearly follow not only the "conversation" on the talk page (this works for articles too, of course), but you will see when people's comments are deleted or ignored (ignore the occasional intrusion of internet "trolls" and vandals).
At some level, it is hard to explain to you how a wiki works - the software, and the conventions, without giving you a twelve hour course - but essentially it is a collection of online documents that may be edited by anyone visiting the site. These "editors" sign up (we recommend you do so yourself to experience the wiki - it is free and no personal information is required) and see if you can contribute something to the resource. If you find something on a page you know something about and feel you can contribute, or you see a point or fact that is unreferenced (which would allow opinion into what is intended to be an encyclopedia), or just plain incorrect, just click the "Edit" button at the top and add your information, remembering to click on "save" when you're done. Now, the information you have added is visible to any other visitors, and other editors who may be interested in the topic.
There are so many details about how Mr. Schlafly runs Conservapedia that are telling, and watching it unfold is the best evidence. We encourage you to work through the learning curve if you are considering exposing your children to this - an hour or two spent at this for a few days should be enough for you to see the nature on the online community there.
Typical usage patterns
Mr.Schlafly (and the other sysops) do not well tolerate facts or information that disagrees with their own views. Editors sign up, and if they disagree with Mr. Schlafly (or his acolytes) are often told they are "clueless" - regardless of whether or not they are an expert in the field and are actually providing correct, simple factual information. They are told that they don't understand logic, or science, or history, and that if they just "open their minds" they will see the truth. He frequently introduces non sequitur issues in to discussions, such as whether someone who is disagreeing with him is for or against prayer in school. All too often, in the middle of a discussion, they are banned from the site by one of Mr. Schlafly's "acolytes".
Mr. Schlafly tends to claim that he is an expert on any field under discussion, and that anyone who disagrees with him simply is wrong, misinformed, or - worst of all - a liberal. So far, in roughly eighteen months of observation, we have seen him admit that he was wrong about something once.
Reading the site (especially the essays and talk pages) can give you a good feel for Mr. Schlafly's teaching style: Authoritarian, dogmatic, often ignorant, and with an obvious agenda to purge history of all "liberal bias", by which he apparently means "anything that suggests that a liberal (or non-Christian) might have done anything good, anywhere, ever", or the converse, "anything that suggests a conservative (or Christian) might have ever, ever done anything wrong".
Attitudes relevant to his status as an educator
Denial of reality
- Mr. Schlafly denies that Leif Ericson ever founded a short-lived settlement in the new world
- Mr. Schlafly denies that Richard Dawkins is a "professor"
Obsession with liberals
- Mr. Schlafly has created numerous "articles" on his "encyclopedia" demonizing liberals
- Mr. Schlafly systematically opposes inclusion of even single examples of conservative errors at articles like "deceit"
Rewriting the Bible
- Mr. Schlafly chooses whether or not a given Biblical passage is genuine based on whether or not he thinks it is "liberal" (See the Adultress Story)
Girls will never do as well in math and science as boys
Mr. Schlafly has expressed the opinion that girls are biologically unable to achieve academically at the same level as boys in the fields of math and science, as can be seen from this statement on Jul 26th, 2008. These opinions contrast with the view of an American Psychological Association study, which found zero difference in achievement across the gender gap in 7.2 million schoolkids nationally. While there is an agreed imbalance in the number of women in these fields, many studies, such as this one from Stanford University prove that the reason for the imbalance is because women are in the minority and societal norms are being perpetuated by opinions like Mr. Schlafly's
Clearly, if you plan to place your daughter under Mr. Schlafly's tuition, his opinions in this matter may be of interest.
See also
- Andrew Schlafly (a heavily satirical article which lampoons Mr.Schlafly)