A conservative, pro-American, pro-Christian wiki that began as a "class project for a World History class of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students" evokes a common response from visitors: "Is this a joke?"

Plenty of bloggers have asked this question after learning about the Conservapedia, a new wiki for those "tired of the LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears." But the site, which was launched in November 2006, is no joke. It's the brainchild of Andy Schlafly, son of conservative matriarch Phyllis Schlafly.

The backers

The elder Schlafly is an octogenarian with a fascinating past: she helped lead the charge against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, a document which said that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." When in college, she earned money by working the night shift and test-firing rifles at an ordnance factory—this is a woman not to be messed with.

Andrew, one of her sons, is a lawyer with a degree from Harvard Law. According to his biography, Schlafly "publishes widely," though the only listed periodical is the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, a magazine published by a group that opposes mandatory vaccinations and is listed as an unreliable source for medical information by Quackwatch.

Andy Schlafly has also taught more than 120 home-schooled students, and is the driving force behind Conservapedia (he is also a lecturer for the Eagle Forum University, a web site affiliated with his mother's Eagle Forum political action group).

He has set up the Conservapedia to counter the liberal bias exercised by the generally small number of Wikipedia editors who make most of the edits on the site and who tend to be liberals (his claim). Conservapedia will instead forge a new path, one that will make it one of the most "reliable online educational resources of its kind," according to the site (though this goal seems difficult given the wiki's stated main-page mission of "favor[ing] Christianity and America"). It will do this by following six principles, one of which is a ban on the use of "CE" and "BCE" in dates. ("Common Era" is a non-Christian alternative to "Anno Domini," and is commonly used in academic work.)

Problems in "Conservia"

Despite its attempt to root out what it sees as the cause of much bad information, Conservapedia suffers from myriad problems, some familiar to Wikipedians and some not. The entire effort has been roundly mocked, even by conservatives, many of whom aren't pleased to be linked in the public imagination with Conservapedia entries like, "Modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and 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."

The kangaroo entry is a perfect illustration of the fact that Conservapedia will face all of the same problems that plague Wikipedia, including hoaxes and "revert wars." This entry does not appear to be a hoax, as it was included in the original writeup for "Kangaroo" and was actually reinstated by the author after another contributor excised it. (It has since been deleted once more.)

Hoaxes have also become common, as a look at recent edits will tell you. Many of the fake entries appear to be parodies of conservative positions, which means that pointing to particular Conservapedia entries to show "what conservatives think" can be problematic.

But the biggest problem, and one which still dogs Wikipedia, is accuracy. Though Conservapedia has published a long list of the inaccuracies found in Wikipedia (one of which actually references a recent Ars Technica piece on Citizendium), it's absolutely chock full of them itself, and many of the sources cited by users are things like Exploring Creation With Biology published by Apologia Educational Ministries (a source that shows up quite a bit).

Consider the entry for Descartes. In its totality, it (currently) reads: "Renee Descartes was a French philosopher, probably the greatest philosopher of all time (although Kant, Aristotle and Ayn Rand also lay claim to this title). Descartes locked himself in a stove and meditated, arriving at the unsurprising conclusion that nothing existed. He then used Anselm's proof of the existence of God to decide that perhaps he wasn't deluded, and perhaps things did exist after all. He thought the soul lived in the pineal gland, and when you lift your arm it's just an accident because your brain doesn't control your body, God does. This 'god-robot' theory of consciousness got him into ferocious arguments with Hobbes, but then Hobbes loved a good argument and was usually wrong."

Again, one wonders if this is a joke, but the article's contributor appears to be an active and respected member of the community. (Note to author: Descartes did his meditating in a room with a stove, not in a stove.) Wikipedia's article on the same subject is a 2,500-word piece complete with a picture and a list of Descartes' writing.

Ideology and knowledge

All attempts at creating a total encyclopedia face the problems of starting without content, though, and perhaps Conservapedia will one day grow into an important resource for conservatives. But the site and others like it raise a thorny epistemological question: is there such a thing as "conservative" and "liberal" knowledge? And if so, what does this imply about "knowledge"? The resulting questions about "warrant" and "belief" are so tough to answer that they've been fueling philosophy conferences for decades, but they're still worth a bit of individual pondering.

Wikis have also been launched to help defend creationism and liberal media members, so this kind of activity is not limited to one particular viewpoint or end of the political spectrum. The potential downside to all these experiments is that they make it easier for people to avoid talking to each other, instead preaching only to the choir and reinforcing preconceived beliefs. The only thing that they can all agree on is that the attempt to do this (Wikipedia) has failed, and so truth can best be found by retreating into ideological enclaves. In a multicultural world and in a politically-divided country, is this really what we want?