Wednesday 18 March 2009

Can you trust the Internet?

I am writing something on Ernst Kasemann (a German NT scholar) and I wanted to find out the date that he died. That is the sort of simple information that the Internet is great at providing - you would think! A quick jump to Wikipedia and I find that it was 17 Feb 1998. Just to be certain I have a look at another site (The Biography Research Guide) which confirms that it was 17 Feb 1998. However, I then come across another article that has his death as 14 Feb 1998. Finally, I find an article on my desk that has his death as 1997.

I guess there are two morals to this story:

Firstly, you can't trust everything you read on the web...but my guess is you knew that already ....

Secondly, you have to be a bit of a Geek to do a Phd...but my guess is you knew that already...

2 comments:

Andrew Mitchell said...

But I see you haven't corrected the Wikipedia article. Does one have to be even more of a geek to do that?

I actually think that Wikipedia is correct and you can believe what you read on the internet. This email appears genuine:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1998-03/23882.html

Anonymous said...

perhaps you are missing a key point.... ehhhhh? woopsy.