Who here is as in love with Wikipedia as me? It's amazing, that's how I found this site!
> Unless >>71 is thinking that every text written should have a disclaimer that lists the author's professed biases, which I find hard to believe.
that's exactly what i'm thinking.
>>86
And what if people are biased about their biases?
I think a fundamental problem is that people are generally distrustful of the communist aspects of open-source editing. Capitalism might have taught us that something has more authority when it's privatized. People distrust motivations that don't involve money.
Nevertheless, thinking Wikipedia is useless due to biased opinions, etcetra, is to deny the human condition. You can't write an encyclopaedia with an arbitrary robot, even though people strive to achieve this end - even encyclopaedias require some amount of romantic fiction in order to turn any entry about an organism into something more than "Yet more biomass".
Intelligentsia-elitism doesn't like the fact that "anyone should be allowed to participate in this discussion". Because "peer review" literally means review by people considered your equals, and nobody wants to admit that anyone from the lowest common denominator that knows how to edit a wiki entry could possibly be considered his "equal".
You know how the American Constitution says "All men are created equal?". Britain had a good laugh at that one too.
>>88
sing it, brother!
I see great value in Wikipedia just like I find great value in using the internet for information. The difficuly I have is I live 20 minutes away from the nearest library and it's part of a college so I can't check out books there. There's a public library a bit further on but it's about 1/20th the size of the college library. To get to a decent library I would need to travel about an hour and a half by car or about 2 and a half hours by bus to Salt Lake City. What the internet does is it allows for the free access of information to everybody regardless of location. I imagine my cousins that live in Alaska appreciate their internet connection even more.
That is completely and utterly silly.
>>86
Don't they already have that? Just look at their profiles: "I am a female," lol.
At least the science articles on Wiki are roughly on par with those in Britannica. That's saying something. Even ones on "political" (in the States, that is) issues like evolution and climate change are current, well-written and factual.
So intelligence and knowledge are immaterial when writing a factual article, is that what you're saying?
Well, if you really want to create a strawman argument, the answer is "maybe". Here's the problem:
Intelligence and Knowledge aren't empirical.
Get it? Let's say we have two partisan opinions. The camp that thinks god exists, and the one that thinks it doesn't. To one camp, the other camp might appear "Factually inaccurate and stupid". Who ultimately is correct?
The usual way of determining intelligence and knowledge is by popular consensus. If everyone else reading the article is an idiot and thinks that a post by an idiot is a work of genius, it doesn't matter if you disagree. This is the flaw of peer review.
If you want a few examples to prove this point, you could do some research into why it took so long for people to accept continental drift, the decimal system, the theory of evolution, the person that ORIGINALLY came up with the idea of the periodic table before Mendelev, etcetera.
So is "Intelligence" a necessity for writing a factual article? Not necessarily, but it helps. It doesn't help to innately distrust Wikipedia due to the fact that anyone can post, unless you're incapable of using your own personal judgment.
Generally i think the idea is that ultimately this doesnt matter because someone of greater understanding of a topic can always refine the definitions of someone who may be be 'less inteligent' or simple does not have a deep enough knowledge of the subject. So eventually through this process, we should arrive at the most refined description of what is being discussed.
Notice how I said "factual article". A discussion whether god exists or not is not a "factual article", as the question by tradition is not based on facts.
> The usual way of determining intelligence and knowledge is by popular consensus.
What does this even mean? Are you claiming the scientific method is nothing but popular opinion?
> If everyone else reading the article is an idiot and thinks that a post by an idiot is a work of genius, it doesn't matter if you disagree. This is the flaw of peer review.
This is why, in general, idiots are not selected for peer review.
> continental drift
Lack of evidence, and lack of a plausible mechanism prevented the theory from wide-spread acceptance. Once a proper amount of supporting evidence was found, the theory was accepted. This is the scientific method working properly.
> the decimal system
Is not a fact, only a convention, and has nothing to do with this discussion.
> the theory of evolution
Did not spring fully formed from Darwin's mind. Darwin's original theory had its faults and was incomplete. It took a long time to develop the theory to the point where it was sound and complete, and it's still being worked on. Scientific method working as intended, again.
The usual criticism raised by experts against Wikipedia is that even if they write a more refined version of an article, somebody will come along and edit it back into a less refined version due to a lack of understanding on the topic. Most experts do not have the time or energy to hang out on Wikipedia all the time to fix an article everytime someone ruins it, especially since this is usually done by Wikipedia regulars who spend a lot of time defending their edits.
>>97
Here we go again! Let's have a debate and discredit everything the opposition says in an attempt to get the last word and feel vindicated!
>Notice how I said "factual article". A discussion whether god exists or not is not a "factual article", as the question by tradition is not based on facts.
Lots of people who live in the bible belt would beg to differ. This is why they cite theories such as the watchmaker theory and the completionist probability theory. Your opinion in this case is irrelevant.
A fact is a statement of truth. This does not mean that the fact is truth. "God exists" is a fact, that some people have come to through the process of experience/observation. This does not mean it has to be universally true.
>What does this even mean? Are you claiming the scientific method is nothing but popular opinion?
The scientific method has little to do with the scientific process of peer review.
And that, yes, is nothing but popular opinion.
You've never studied science at university level, have you?
>This is why, in general, idiots are not selected for peer review.
Who defines idiocy? Aren't you assuming that idiocy is empirical? Wait a minute, isn't it also defined by society? Whoa.
>Lack of evidence, and lack of a plausible mechanism prevented the theory from wide-spread acceptance. Once a proper amount of supporting evidence was found, the theory was accepted. This is the scientific method working properly.
Up until the 1980's, certain textbooks were still citing continental drift with a label stating that it was "just a theory" and some very important scientific people did indeed believe it was all false. You make it sound as if everyone experienced a spontaneous epiphany -Hallelujah- and became immediately receptive of the theory. This MOST definitely did not happen.
Getting a theory accepted by the scientific community doesn't just require the persuasiveness of the theory, it also requires a beauty pageant of sorts. This is the process of peer review.
>Is not a fact, only a convention, and has nothing to do with this discussion.
The point is that people made arguments about how the old system of currency under British rule was "Easier to understand". This is a classic example of society dictating truth. It was a mistake to lump these with the others without explaining the point here. I apologize.
>Did not spring fully formed from Darwin's mind. Darwin's original theory had its faults and was incomplete. It took a long time to develop the theory to the point where it was sound and complete, and it's still being worked on. Scientific method working as intended, again.
And this explains the labels on textbooks stating that "Evolution is only a theory and shouldn't be taken seriously" in the Bible belt? How true does that theory hold in that area of society? Truth has never been an absolute quality.
The point here is that Wikipedia's system is no more flawed than scientific journals, except it uses a wider peer base, rather than being exclusivist. The verity of Wikipedia could be debated on for hours, but the real value of the facts it presents is ENTIRELY DECIDED by yourself and the audience you present those facts to. It's similiar to currency exchange rates.
Most of your arguments there seem to be based on the American fundamentalist religious right, who oppose various scientific theories for political gain (and also do their best to redefine religion towards their own best interests). This is certainly a topic worthy of discussion, but really, it has as much to do with the scientific theory and the value of truth as faith healers have to do with biochemistry. Also,
> Who defines idiocy? Aren't you assuming that idiocy is empirical? Wait a minute, isn't it also defined by society? Whoa.
You're the one who said the people peer reviewing might be idiots, so I assumed you had a working definition for the term, seeing as how you were using it.
>>97 is so naive.
I think >>97 is on base, with one gigantic, glaring difference.
When a paper is submitted to a physics journal, it's reviewed exclusively by actual physicists. That's not J. Random internet nerd, it's a person who's been active in the field for decades, and who is actively involved in researching physics themselves. They generally have at least a master's degree in the subject, and many have ph.D degrees. The standars assumption of peer review is that by having physicists read research articles about physics, they're much more likely to catch an error in the paper than ... well nonpeers, who know nothing about physics. They'll have a "bullshit detector" based on an understanding of physics, so that if a proposal violates laws of physics or requires a constant to have a value other than its empirical value, the peers reading it can send it back for further testing/revision.
When an article gets submitted to Wikipedia, all bets are off. The article is edited by anybody, reguardless of the person's actual knowledge of the field. If you dropped out of high school and formed your entire view of physics from Star Trek, that doesn't stop you from "correcting" the article on general relitivity written by Proffessor Smith, particle physicist from MIT.
The problem is obvious, the WPdia system doesn't look at credentials, and not everyone's knowledge about every subject is equal. That's going to lead to errors, especially in subjects where the actual truth runs contrary to common sense, or fields that require a lot of study to understand. I'm not a physicist, and therefore I don't understand quantum mechanics well enough to be explaining the subject, let alone writing an article that nieve High Schoolers will turn to when they have to write a report on Quantum Mechanics.
That's what makes WPdia useless for serious research (school papers and the like). Basicly, with WPdia, you get concepts explained to you by people who don't unserstand the subject much better than you do, and in fact probably are either confused or mislead into believing some things are true that aren't.
Britannica may not be much better, but at least Britannica has editors who are educated on the topics they write about. Chances are good that the article on Evolution, for example, was writteen by a person with at least a BS in Biology.
Credentials and expertise don't seem as valued anymore, but really I'd still rather fly in a plane built by engineers, not one built by anyone who happened into the hanger.
>>102
But who knows? The plane built by "anyone who happedned into the hanger" might be better constructed, more interesting, or have better features, being based on knowdledge and ideas that the engineer may not have tried or known about.
>>103
Perhapds, but would you fly on it?
>>104
If we all checked it and agreed it was afe, yep.
>>99's point is that truth/reality depends on ultimately the people. If a bunch of Physicists decided to tell everyone that the Earth was flat and show superficially sufficient data, then to most everyone, the world would be flat.
And that's how it was some odd hundred years ago. It was a FACT that the Earth was flat.
In this sense, Wikipedia is accurate because it reflects everyone's perception of reality.
On another note, who's to say those Physicists know what they're talking about? How do YOU know? Because a bunch of other people agree that these Physicists do indeed know what they're talking about? So in the end you're just taking someone's word for it anyhow.
Man even scientists disagree with scientists. Look, the point I made is wikipedia allows free access to information regardless of where a person lives. I can live in Kathmandu and look up wikipedia so long as I have internet access there. Just because it's less perfect then a $500 encyclopedia doesn't mean crap to me.
Oh, hey, better yet! I can go to my local library with a total of like 500 books from 1960 and look up obscure scientific terms like the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism.
Good idea you all got there. Brilliant.
Most of us have no idea what makes a plane safe or not. No matter how many times we check, we couldn't say. Furhtermore, you have no real idea as who of us knows, who is pretending to know, and who is lying.
Besides, >>102 is a pretty invalid analogy, and even when taken at face value, "people who happened into the hangar" couldn't build a plane no matter how hard they tried - they simply don't have the knowledge and skills required.
Your anti-intellectualism there is kind of frightening.
Nobody said Wikipedia is completely useless. But claiming it is better than everything else is just as invalid as claiming it is worthless.
>Most of us have no idea what makes a plane safe or not. No matter how many times we check, we couldn't say. Furhtermore, you have no real idea as who of us knows, who is pretending to know, and who is lying.
So called "Professionals" can pretend and lie as well.
>Besides, >>102 is a pretty invalid analogy, and even when taken at face value, "people who happened into the hangar" couldn't build a plane no matter how hard they tried - they simply don't have the knowledge and skills required.
Says you. They might.
>>106 pretty much summed up the point I was going to make. The only difference between "Professionals" and us is that someone "officially" called them that.
The plane analogi is off for another reason, though. Wikipedia is all about submitting information. Everybody pronably has some information on one subject or another.
To build a plane would require special training and study. (One would hope.) Most people would know nothing about this.
This thread is really descending into anti-intellectual loony land now. Are you even listening to yourself?
> The only difference between "Professionals" and us is that someone "officially" called them that.
Yeah, that and the completely superfluous matter of decades of study and practice. That obviously doesn't count for anything.
I mean, who cares about spending a lifetime learning about and actually doing something? You could just read a couple of pages on the internet, and you're just as useful!
>>110
Depends on what the subject is.
I'm probably as good of a singer as a lot of "real" singers out there, but I'm self taught and haven't really released anything to the public yet.
I've probably spent two years improving myself based on other singers, books and lessons I've bought and downloaded, and keeping in touch with other singers/teachers I know.
Now tell me, am I not as good as a "real" singer just because I haven't been called that, don't have any sort of degree in music, and no one can vouch for me? Could a probably correct wrong wikipedia articles involving singing based on my knowledge? yes.
The same can be said about (good) unlicensed doctors, people who start computer programing/web designing/working with media editing apps as a hobby, and a lot of car mechanics, just to name what comes to mind.
People who either have experience with the area, or have accessed the same education resources that people who actually gained a title did (or more), with the sole exception that these people did it un-officially.
Do these people have the required knowledge to write about the subject on Wikipedia? Most likely. Could these people have decades of study and practice as well? Hell yeah.
(Actually, I'm probably biased on this topic. I home-schooled practically up to college, and usually got rather high scores on any knowledge verification tests I had to do. I think I actually learn best when I'm doing it on my own.)
PS: I wrote >>109 while in a hurry and falling asleep. Sorry if I didn't express my thoughts clearly.
Irrelevant to that, but I've known Teachers and Tutors who've have students that knew more about them on the subjects that they taught/tutored on. The students didn't hold any kind of degree, but that didn't make their knowledge any less valid.
> The same can be said about (good) unlicensed doctors, people who start computer programing/web designing/working with media editing apps as a hobby, and a lot of car mechanics, just to name what comes to mind.
Sure, if you pick your areas of expertise, you can find examples where self-study will teach you a lot. However, I would most definitely not include doctor in that. "Singer" isn't even an intellectual field of study, and neither is "car mechanic".
And you're basically saying that if you put in an equivalent amount of effort by yourself in certain fields, you can be as good as licensed expert in that field. This is certainly true for many fields, but has pretty much no bearing on the discussion at hand, because most people who edit Wikipedia haven't put in that kind of effort.
>>113
You're a Teacher, aren't you?
>However, I would most definitely not include doctor in that.
Neither would I, but I was sort of kidding. :p While typing I was reminded of Black Jack and Monster, two anime about unlicensed Doctors.
In the first one he never got his license because he refused to take the test as a protest against Doctors just doin it for money. The second one is about a guy who lost his license after disobeying orders.
>"Singer" isn't even an intellectual field of study, and neither is "car mechanic".
Well thanks a lot. :(
Not like I knew we were only talking about intellectual fields of study, though.
>because most people who edit Wikipedia haven't put in that kind of effort.
An assumption that may be true or false. I know most people I know who edit/start articles on Wikipedia actually have some level of expertise in the area they're writing on.
Even if it's not some, or most of the people don't, the ones that do usually help balance it out. Source citations and whatnot help also.
Umm... I originally only glanced at a few replies before I posted. I am still arguing against or for something, right?
>>114 Er, Tenma was a licensed doctor.
> You're a Teacher, aren't you?
Why would I be? Do you have some prejudices that are acting up?
> Not like I knew we were only talking about intellectual fields of study, though.
When discussing an encyclopedia, that's usually what you are talking about. It's not like an encyclopedia can sing, or fix a car. It is nothing but knowledge.
> An assumption that may be true or false.
You'd have a pretty hard time trying to prove that any large fraction of Wikipedia editors without formal degrees are actually secretly self-taught experts in their fields. It's really not a very common thing.
I think the analogy of the airplane is accurate. That's the way encyclopedias work -- for a piece of fiction or entertainment, it doesn't matter whether the facts are exactly right, if fact sometimes you need to fudge a bit to make things work. In effect, as long as it looks like an airplane, it's probably OK.
The problem comes when you try to use the airplane. If the engineering is off, you crash. The same is true when you try to use information -- having bad information can cause lots of problems. Changing a + to a - in an equation changes everything.
That's where WPdia breaks down -- when you have to use that info to make a decision, chances are that you aren't basing it on the information that is know by experts, you're basing it on the "consensus" of what J. Random Citizen believes about the subject. While experts may be wrong on occasion, or may not no the absolute latest theory, he knows what he's talking about. He's dedicated years of his life to it -- as evidenced by his pH.D in the subject. He's had to prove over and over and over that he knows his stuff.
As to self-taught, it's possible that a self-taught expert may have a lot of knowledge about a subject, but one of the big advantages of getting the degree in the field is that you can check his credentials. As an example, it's perfectly legal and possible to purchase a Black Belt and open a Karate school. You don't need to ever have studied Karate or anything else, as long as you pay the insurance and pay for the studio, you can teach Karate. However, the students of a school like that are likely to get hurt. The only way to check to see if your Karate school is taught by someone who knows Karate is to check credentials -- Who taught him, what style did he learn, what year did he earn the Shodan rank? Then you can contact his master, and see if the sensei is who he says he is.
Same with a physicist. A self taught physicist can't be checked out because no college has checked to see if he understands physics. At least with Prof. Smith, you can find out that he got his pH.D from U of Illinois in 2005. You can check out those credentials, even find out if he was top of his class or a b- away from washing out.
That's what credentials are for. Sure I could (and actually I have) read some books about physics, particularly string theory or whatever. But since I don't have a degree in physics, you don't know.
1.) Did I actually read all the books I'm claiming?
As with the purchased Black Belt, it's perfectly reasonable to claim to have read a book even though I haven't. You have only my word on the subject.
2.) Did I really understand any of it?
It's possible that you did skim these books, but physics, chemistry, psychology, and biology, etc. are difficult subjects to grasp at times.
3.) Are the books I read even relevant to the subject?
"A Brief History of Time" is completely irrelevant when you're talking about Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, or other more practical realms of physics. Also not a useful book when talking about a cure for cancer.
That's the problem with self-taught experts. No way to check up, all you have is their word on the subject.
When it comes to encyclopedias, WPdia for this reason falls to the level of Truthiness, not Truth. It's whatever the vast majority of people believe is true about a subject, rather than varified facts about the subject.
>Why would I be? Do you have some prejudices that are acting up?
lol, I was just curious. Partially by the way you wrote, and partially because I was wondering if you had any prejudices that were acting up.
(Most Teachers that I've known or talked to usually talk about the trend of more and more students using Wikipedia and a source on papers, and how they don't like it for pretty much the same reasons.)
>When discussing an encyclopedia, that's usually what you are talking about. It's not like an encyclopedia can sing, or fix a car. It is nothing but knowledge.
...yeah, encyclopedias can't sing or fix a car, but they can't do Physics, build a plane, or launch a Space Shuttle either.
You can write about all that stuff, though. Including singing and car repair. And you can't say that people don't need knowledge for singing and car repair, or that those people couldn't write their knowledge down for others. Do you have some prejudices that are acting up?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_mechanic
>You'd have a pretty hard time trying to prove that any large fraction of Wikipedia editors without formal degrees are actually secretly self-taught experts in their fields. It's really not a very common thing.
Not necessarily experts, but they must be pretty sure about what it is they do write, and hold some kind of interest in it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people that contribute wrong information thinking that it's right or without checking the facts beforehand. But I would like to think that most people like that wouldn't be able to figure out how to edit the wiki page in the first place, and probably won't return if they did re-edit it wrongly if they somehow did.
Thus far in my wikipedia experience, I haven't seen many entries that were wrong by my knowledge (unless my knowledge is wrong as well, haha), but have ran more into entries that were lacking important facts and information.
>>117
Lot's of valid arguements here.
>The problem comes when you try to use the airplane. If the engineering is off, you crash.
Wikipedia-wise, if it was something as important as engineering, somewhere along the lines one of those J. Random Citizens would raise the question of if the engineering was safe. If would then either be checked against blueprints, or at least have a warning that it may not be safe to actually fly.
>The only way to check to see if your Karate school is taught by someone who knows Karate is to check credentials -- Who taught him, what style did he learn, what year did he earn the Shodan rank? Then you can contact his master, and see if the sensei is who he says he is.
The school he went to might be unknown (which might be good or bad), fake (which still might not necessarily be bad), or he might have went to school, and was taught by a relative that was better than most teachers.
So yeah, you can check credentials... but you can really only tell if they're good.
Well, yes, you can be taken by fakes, but the chances are a lot smaller when you deal with Credential Granting Institutions (CGIs). A CGI can often be checked, in fact most of the time it's fairly simple. You just need to do the basic background research to find out which CGIs are legit and good for a basic field. In Karate, there are differnt schools (Shotokan, Goju, Wado, Shorin, etc.), so that if a person made a claim to have studied Shotokan, the school he studied at should be able to trace back to the original master of the style. Failing that, both schools should be recognized by the USA Karate Federation or a similar group in your country. It's not impossible to fake such things, but it's difficult if the student is willing to do his homework when choosing a teacher.
Same idea with academic studies -- Find out the name of the CGI that granted the degree to our wannabe science expert. Then go and check to see that the college is accredited, and that the school in question has a record of the "expert", and maybe that they teach the topic in question. Again, these things won't be impossible to fake, but they will be fairly difficult.
The problem with "self-taught" or "family-taught" experts, is frankly, you can't check up. There's no accreditation, there's no paper trail, no lineage beyond that family. There's nothing that required them to demonstrate knowledge to outsiders. Just hang up a shingle and start working or explaining your pet theory.
Now as it regaurds the airplane -- the big assumption you're making is that the nonexpert will know enough to double check. They may not, especially if the problem is in a less well known part of our airplane. Sure J. Random Citizen may question if he sees his plane has no engines, but what if the propellors spin too slowly, or the plane is too heavy for the wing design or the engine thrust? What is the wrong type of bolts are used and they break under the pressure of take-off? Would you know enough to figure out those types of questions? One plane was brought down because of a wire in the fuel tank, something that I'm sure most nonengineers would have overlooked completely.
There are plenty of questions that should be left to experts. Wikipedia may be great for some things -- sci-fi and pop culture being one example. No one will be harmed if Bart's Blackboard quotes are a bit off, or if Spock is misidentified as Klingon. People can be harmed if bad information is used to make policy decisions or for science purposes.
re: this whole damn discussion
Wikipedia's policy is only to make claims that they list a source for. So as long as that policy is followed and the source has some credentials, there's no problem, right?
>People can be harmed if bad information is used to make policy decisions or for science purposes.
And I agree whole-heartedly. Who the heck would do tha?
> Partially by the way you wrote, and partially because I was wondering if you had any prejudices that were acting up.
I never once asked you if you belong to some specific generalized group, you know.
> You can write about all that stuff, though. Including singing and car repair.
But just because you can sing, does not mean you can write about singing. A practical skill is not the same as the ability to reduce the same skill into words and put it on paper. That was my point. Just because you can sing, does not mean you are an expert on musical theory.
> Not necessarily experts, but they must be pretty sure about what it is they do write, and hold some kind of interest in it.
Why must they? I refer you to the IgNobel prize winning paper, Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments:
http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf
Funny!
> I think the analogy of the airplane is accurate.
No, it is not, for the simple reason that anybody but a highly trained engineer or an amateur with years of self-study and practice does not have the first clue how to even use the tools required to build an airplane. Nor do they have the understanding of materials science, aerodynamics, propulsion, et cetera, et cetera to even begin making something that could roll even a meter down the runway without falling apart.
It doesn't matter how many people you collect and try to squeeze nuggets of wisdom out of - you can't find this knowledge bit by bit. It has to be learned as a whole.
>>124
Good point.
Althought one person could write a whole wiki article by himself, not even a high trained engineer would know how to make a plane by himself.
Because it may be true in policy but sure as hell isn't in practice?
>>127, okay, fine, but then it's Wikipedia's execution you have a problem with, not the concept. I believe this discussion is misdirected.
You're right, that policy is often ignored, but not always. In my experience, for articles on uncontroversial math and science, it tends to be followed pretty well usually.
That policy doesn't get rid of bad writing or misunderstanding the sources.
However, >>128, you normally don't need to be an expert to fix those problems. You just need to be able to read and write.
I assume you are talking to me. If you are, then no, you are wrong. Obviously to understand the sources, you have to be knowledgable in the field in question, if the topic is anything more than the absolute basics. Futhermore, with "bad writing" I don't just mean grammar and spelling errors, I mean writing that is unclear, misleading, or just otherwise unhelpful. To write clearly and easily understood on a topic, you need to understand that topic very well.
That's the exact point of the airplane analogy. The point is not just anyone can build an airplane. It takes specific knowledge of physics and mechanics, thrust/weight ratios, engines, etc. It does take an expert to build airplanes, bridges, and skyscrapers.
You also have to have a pretty thorough understanding of physics to explain much beyond the very basics. Probably also true of Chemistry for example. It would take an expert to explain some chemical reactions and processes, like the Krebs Cycle. Leaving it to enthusiastic amatuers means that it's highly likely that they'll misunderstand the material completely, if not misrepresent the material because they believe in some pet theory.
Now, even with the WPedia policy of only standing by sourced material, there is the potential for misunderstanding it. Most of the time, they paraphrase the articles. Trouble is that frankly if you don't have the background to understand the material in the first place, your paraphrase isn't going to be accurate.
It's not like wikipedia is lying to your face and if it would lie, you would probably know it.
Wikipedia articles may be badly written with little info on stuff, but that doesn't make it an awfull place to search for information. I have used it forever and i never got any problems with using it.