World Checklist of Monocotyledons

Max Withers maxwithers@gmail.com
Tue, 12 Dec 2006 10:14:24 PST
I am sure Kew links to Google images only as a convenience for its 
users, a common practice among online plant databaes, e.g. the 
California Native Plant Link Exchange (http://www.cnplx.info/). And in 
fact Google images is incredibly convenient, if sometimes inaccurate.

I suspect that computer scientists, notwithstanding their favorite 
phrase "garbage in, garbage out" are often distracted by the volume of 
information they deal with from its quality.

As far as Wikipedia goes, although it is also often useful, the editors 
of Brittanica have pretty convincingly rebutted Nature's claims about 
accuracy:
http://72.14.253.104/search/…

It is an amusing irony that this rebuttal shows how prone to error is 
the peer-reviewed journal itself. (For the sake of accuracy, I should 
note that the Nature piece was "news", not a "letter", and therefore not 
necessarily reviewed by people who know what they're talking about).

Max
Oakland
> Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:02:16 -0000
> From: "JohnRCrellin" <jrc@crellin.org.uk>
> Subject: Re: [pbs] World Checklist of Monocotyledons
>
>
> "If it's on the Internet it must be true" syndrome, I'm afraid. Coupled with
> the fact that Google Images is very definitely not their (Google's) finest
> hour.
>
> I was never more horrified than listening to a radio program from a primary
> school extolling use of the internet for class work - and at least one pupil
> effectively saying "I know I can believe the facts I find on the Internet" !
>


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