Captive at the Mercy . . .

I'm old enough to remember the days when our reading was at the mercy of libraries and bookstores–and censorship, though censorship had already diminished by my childhood. (The cartoon at left was before my time, as were the dinosaurs–Ken Ham, or no Ken Ham.)

Now, praise the internet, we have access to more reading material than we could ever have dreamed. The trick is to differentiate the information from misinformation.

I remember when the viewing public was at the mercy of movie and television scheduling–and censorship, though censorship had already diminished by my childhood.

Now, praise the internet, we can view entire programs online. The trick is to decide what to watch–so many videos, so little time.

Google video Dawkins . TED . YouTube . Technorati atheism videos, biological evolution videos, science videos.

Avoid authorizing stupidity!

I think that this advise on Sitia Non Grata is worth quoting here:

We will not provide any direct links to blogs run by and for anti-science, pseudoscience-inventing, religious nutters or hate-mongering bigots because to do so would be to unwillingly add to the "authority" of such nonsense. However, we will provide links for anyone interested in googling for such sites.

Search engines, like computers, are blind to the value of content on websites and rank highly those sites that are linked to by other sites. To provide a url to creationist, or any other nonsense, is to inadvertantly appear to be giving that site a vote of confidence.

We suggest that any evolutionist or liberal thinker who agrees with this policy do likewise. It's a start.

Conversely, posting the full Atheist Blogroll within a post, and not merely in the sidebar, lends instant authority to other atheist blogs. The advise stems from the fact that search engines, which cannot assess the value of content, rank most highly those websites that are most often 'cited' with a link within a post or blogroll. Spiders respond more quickly to links within posts. Even if you make scathing remarks about the site, search engines will interpret this as approval. If you don't want to lend authority to stupidity, don't link to it directly.

I take the 'provide links for anyone interested in googling for such sites' to be a suggestion for providing a link to a Google search that will bring up the page. This is easy to generate by punching lots of key words into a search. I usually take the precaution of referring back to stupidity by linking to an online magazine or newspaper that may itself link to the offensive website.

It's a start!

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