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From: CONS.ELF@AIDA.CSD.UU.SE (Ake Eldberg)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Academic Integrity
Message-ID: <Mar.7.03.12.42.1991.21480@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 7 Mar 91 08:12:44 GMT
Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu
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Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

Darren F Provine rightly points out the need to check our references
when we quote from books, and to avoid quoting from spurious sources.
 
However, the problems with this are almost insurmountable. Especially
since it's so difficult to know which sources are really reliable.
 
I may read a book that sounds very professional and trustworthy,
and quote the author Professor Ron D Millyway, and then it turns
out that this so-called professor is a fraud who has his degree
from a diploma mill. Or that he belongs to some weird sect and
the book is a deliberate attempt to give that sect's teachings
an air of "science". 

The transcendental-meditation people even have a university of
their own and publish "research reports" on how Maharishi's 
teachings work miracles...
 
One frequent source of errors is when archeologists write commentaries
on the bible, purporting to write as textual experts. How can I know
that this author's ph.d. was in Egyptian Archaeology, not New Testament
exegetics? And that he is a complete incompetent in this area?
 
The only solution is not to trust any quote just because it comes
from a person with the label "doctor" or "professor" or whatever.
Before you go and quote someone as an authority, try to check him
or her out. Who is he? Unfortunately, modern western scolarship is
much riddled with frauds, fools and nitwits, whose ideas are published
in impressive-looking books.

Ake Eldberg