Primary Sources 101 and why Wikipedia should be renamed “Pseudopedia”

Following up a lead recently—the common Leftist claim that the “religious Right” (to which most American Christians, if not most world Christians, are supposed to adhere) commonly bans art and movies, and more specifically, that several states banned Monty Python’s 1979 cinematic spoof of Jesus and his original Biblical milieu, Life of Brian—I Googled and Googled and Googled, but could not find anything of substance, except that website of pseudo-substance, wikipedia.org.

Finally, having run out of any alternatives, I went against my best instincts and clicked on the Wikipedia entry for Life of Brian which apparently mentioned the purported bans of it in “some American states”. True to its pseudo-scholarly pretensions, the article supplies a scholarly-looking footnote number at the end of its claim that “the film was banned outright in some American states.”

Clicking on that footnote number, one finds this footnote:

“Wilmut, Roger (1980). From Fringe to Flying Circus. London: Eyre Methuen Ltd, pp.247-250.”

There are numerous problems with such a footnote:

1. It is not a primary source; it is a secondary source (at best—and could even be a tertiary source, for the author adduced, “Roger Wilmut”, himself could have gotten his information from a secondary source, just as the Wikipedia entry author did).

2. It is a citation of a source difficult to acquire: is the researcher seeking basic evidence about something as major and public as the purported fact that American states banned a famous movie supposed to ferret out some obscure book published nearly 30 years ago, one that probably never sold many copies? In this day and age of the Internet, surely if there had been a major sociopolitical event as the banning of a famous movie in a certain number of American states, the specific, official and relevant information would be available on-line. Granted, there are types of information that are only to be found in obscure books, thus requiring the researcher to trudge off to the library; but basic information about the banning of a famous American movie in 1979-1980 is not one of them.

3. The source chosen, “Roger Wilmut”, is—as his own website shows—mainly a fan of music and music recording, with a corollary interest in theater and British comedy groups. He is not an expert in sociological trends regarding religious fundamentalism, nor in legal issues involved in banning various types of art, nor in the recent history of the United States with regard to anything relevant to the aforementioned. Thus, not only is he a secondary source for the Wikipedia claim; he is a poor choice for a secondary source with specific regard to that claim.

4. As the previous three listed deficiencies ostensibly demonstrate, one can reasonably conclude that the author of the Wikipedia article either did not try very hard to find a source for his claim, or that in fact this pathetic source he did come up with was all he could find—and if it’s the latter, then that casts doubt on the claim itself, no matter how much traction it has been able to gain in the Leftist rumor-mill on the Net. One doesn’t normally consult an encyclopedia in order to augment one’s doubt.

Conclusion:

One of the arguments adduced to defend Wikipedia from its critics is that any claim which any given entry has, if footnoted, can be checked as to its veracity—and if it’s not footnoted, then it doesn’t have to be believed. Fair enough. However, if one finds enough dubious footnotes, of which my essay here is only one example of many I have found over the years—which is why I no longer bother to go there anymore—the whole raison d’être of Wikipedia kind of falls apart.

For the particular Wikipedia claim around which my essay today revolves, what would a primary source look like? It would be at the very least a citation of a major and credible news source reporting on the banning of the movie in various states of the USA. Better would be the citation of at least two such sources. And even better would be the supplementation of the aforementioned with a citation of the actual state government edicts from state legislatures delineating not merely the “proposed” banning, but the actual accomplishment thereof, with legal and criminal penalties outlined.

Unless I were to start seeing Wikipedia entries sufficiently footnoted with credible, easily verifiable primary sources, I would have to dub it Pseudopedia.