When in doubt, doubt.

Almost anyone can put up almost anything on the Web for almost any purpose. Look for ambiguity, manipulative reasoning, and bias. Examine assumptions, including and perhaps especially, your own. Accuracy is not easy to confirm. Information on a site cannot be evaluated unless you compare it to other sources. As with any research, you must test one source against another. Unfortunately, sometimes facts can be misleading. Who coined the phrase Question Authority!? Look at five or six different Web sites and you might get six or eight different answers. Many Web pages credit the bumpersticker, but Hippieland Glossary also indicates it's from the sixties. Another site suggest it arose during the '70s. A site suggesting an even more recent vintage has disappeared -- what does that say about that page's authority? Several sites attribute the quote to Timothy Leary. However, Web page with the claim that Timothy Leary was a CIA agent indicates that Dr. Leary was quoting Socrates. Perhaps it's a bumper sticker summation of Socrates' idea. Some pages insist or at least hint at a Unitarian-Universalist connection. To complete the circle, I suspect this page has been used as an authority to answer the question [at least I was the one who came up with the phrase "bumper sticker summation of Socrates' idea" that is found on that page without attribution]. My advice: question the authority of all Web sources. Don't accept an author's word without checking for supportive evidence. Look for such things as bibliographic citations or links to resources. Questions to think about: Do you have good reason to believe that the information on the site is accurate? Do authors provide any supportive evidence for their conclusions?

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Last modified: June 26, 2007