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Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Duckweeds and Other Aquatic Aroids
Dear Walter and All,
Just a quick note to back up what Steve explained well here--Wikipedia is pretty usless from a scientific point of view, ANYONE can post anything, and even if you know better, and do some well intentioned editing of the posting, the original poster of false information can and usually will edit it BACK to his original false information. This is not only in their Botany section either!!
Ask Steve for other more reliable (but not as yet foolproof!) sources of information on aroids.
Julius
Walter, I'm not familiar with thespecies so I can't comment there. However, many times I've found grosserrors on Wikipedia that appear to sound scientifically accurate. Idid some research on that "encyclopedia" and actually found that anyonecan post anything on Wikipedia and it is rarely edited unless byanother contributor who also may or may not have scientificbackground. I actually know of a teacher who did an experiment andedited a Wikipedia post on the brain just to see if anyone would changewhat she wrote and to this day her purposely false information is stillon the site (as far as I know)!
I research aroids almost every day of the year and constantly findmade-up or bad names on plants on that site all the time. Theinformation on there is often horribly wrong if compared to ascientific journal. As for me, I don't trust Wikipedia for much ofanything and always try to find other sources before even lookingsomething up on Wiki. I once edited a post on Wiki with a direct quote,word for word, from one of Dr. Croat's journals and it wasn't a weekuntil someone edited my post back to the way it was before. I gaveup!
There are so many "plant experts" out there that don't give a rip aboutscience, they only care about plant myths which is exactly why Istopped posting on UBC or any other plant discussion forum other thanAroid l. There is one guy on UBC who has made over 10,000 posts andwhen I bothered to read them I found bad info all the time. WheneverI'd ask for a source he'd point to A.B. Graf which any of the botanistson this forum will tell you his books Exotica and Tropica are filledwith errors. Mr. Graf's books haven't been edited for many years it isscary. But people often believe what he wrote above the scientfic infowritten by our most knowledgeable and gifted aroid botanists! If youuse Wiki, triple check the info!
Steve Lucas
www.ExoticRainforest.com
Walter Turner wrote:
Ted and others,
After reading your discussions, I was looking at the Wikipediaentry on Lemnaoideae. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemnaoideae
Is this the current thinking? The article seems to have beenwritten by someone knowledgeable, perhaps writing under the nameZeamays (I don't have enough experience with Wikipedia to be sure). Isthat a member of our group?
Walter
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