I’d like to thank Reddit for alerting me to an LA Times article discussing Conservapedia, which is apparently a conservative version of Wikipedia. Apparently a teacher disliked the kind of facts people were pulling from it. The article starts off with possibly the best thing I’ve ever read.

Andy Schlafly was appalled. He was teaching a history class to home-schooled teens and one student had just turned in an assignment that dated events as “BCE,” before the common era — rather than “BC,” before Christ.

Home-schooled. Kid had the temerity not to mention Jesus. Andy Schlafly. Yes, the son of Phyillis Schlafly. This is off to a fantastic start!

A mild digression first. Is it just me, or does the right seem to consider facts as debatable, and then insist that their “side” needs represented? The news wasn’t what they wanted to hear, so they made a network that, rather than reporting facts, panders to what the viewers want. But I digress. I poked around on Conservapedia, and here are some fantastic gems.

From the page on Hillary Clinton:

Hillary Clinton may suffer from a psychological condition that would raise questions about her fitness for office. A recent book entitled The Extreme Makeover of Hillary Rodham Clinton examines the Senator’s instability, incoherent speeches as both student and First Lady, casual disregard for the law, and ever-changing opinion on the Iraq war. These character flaws, analyst Bay Buchanan writes, make Hillary overly dependent on gurus and outside experts, with no internal compass to guide her, displaying all the classic symptoms of “clinical narcissism.” The American Psychiatric Association describes this condition to include feelings of superiority, self-importance and “fantasies of unlimited success, fame or power.” The author further states, “We are not talking about self-infatuation, we are talking about a clinical condition that could make her dangerously ill-suited to become President and Commander in Chief.”

Naturally, Bay Buchanan is a source. How about George W Bush? Surely they’re rough on him as well, there’s no way they can be that soft-handed on the president.

The deal cut with Democratic leaders in exchange for their acquiescing to fund the troops calls for the President to sign legislation raising the minimum wage. [3] One commentator remarked, “Despite all the talk of standing up to George W. Bush, despite all the bravado about taking control of Congress, despite the so-called mandate to change direction, Democrats caved….They claim that the majority of Americans are with them on the Iraq issue, but…President Bush, at the weakest moment of his presidency, still bested his Democratic rivals.”

Amazing. In an article about Bush, a quote that lambastes Democrats is quoted in full. Michael Moore?

Some of his work includes the pseudo-documentary films Fahrenheit 9/11, Roger and Me, and Bowling for Columbine, and the books Dude, Where’s my Country, Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American. and Stupid White Men.

Later, in discussing SiCKO, the word “documentary” is placed in quotes, and a picture is offered showing Moore “ranting.” How about social security?

African-Americans would be among those with the most to gain from transforming Social Security into a system of individually owned, privately invested accounts, similar to IRAs or 401k plans.

According to a study by researchers at Harvard University, virtually every woman-single, divorced, married, or widowed-would probably be better off financially under a system of personal retirement accounts, the earnings of which could be shared by spouses.

…at least they acknowledged that it wasn’t cited. Rather than go into gay marriage, which seems to only consider James Dobson a reliable source on the topic, I’ll move right along to science. What’s it got to say for creationism?

Accordingly, creationists point out that there are over one hundred million identified and catalogued fossils currently in the world’s museums.[11] Creationist insists that if macroevolution happened, then there should be “transitional forms” in the fossil record that show the intermediate life forms. Another term for these “transitional forms” is “missing links”. If creationism is true then there should be a lack of transitional forms or at the very least there should be merely a handful of disputed transitional fossils.

There is little consensus among scientists about how macroevolution is said to have happened as can be seen below:

The entire article spends its time arguing against evolution. But hey, it’s an article on creationism, I suppose that’s par for the course. Obviously the article on evolution will fight for the other side. Since, after all, it’s fair and balanced like FOX.

There is little consensus among scientists about how macroevolution is said to have happened as can be seen below:

No, I’m not repeating myself. The same damn section is in the article on evolution. It gets better.

Dr. Henry Morris, in order to illustrate that the macroevolutionary position is not verified by experimental data, quoted a leading evolutionist regarding this matter. Dr. Morris wrote the following:

Opponents of the macroevolutionary position assert that evolutionary scientists employ extremely implausible “just so stories” to support their position and have done this since at least the time of Charles Darwin.

In addition, the biological world has the strong appearance of being created as can been below:

Every section in the article fights against evolution. There is nearly nothing in the full screed that is arguing for it. At this point I think it’s fair to remind everyone that “fair and balanced” in the conservative mind seems to mean “give my opinion plenty of coverage”.

I only scratched the surface on all of this. Conservapedia is a joke, and has nothing to do with being even-handed or fairly representing the facts. Its entire purpose is to offer a conservative viewpoint on everything. As Schlafly put it:

The whole point of his encyclopedia, he said, is to provide a different angle on the facts — ones that a student researcher wouldn’t necessarily find on Wikipedia, or in the school library.

Yup. A different angle on the facts. That’s what they’re calling it now.

Rechan found this lovely bit in the article on, of all things, kangaroos.

According to the origins theory model used by creation scientists, modern kangaroos are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah’s Ark prior to the Great Flood.

…and of course…

After the Flood, these kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land[5] with lower sea levels during the post-flood ice age, or before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart[6], or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters.

By the way, if you run into any real gems in the ‘pedia, put it in the comments and I’ll add it to the main article. I only did the basics here.