{"id":312,"date":"2006-03-23T15:22:28","date_gmt":"2006-03-23T19:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/metasj\/2006\/03\/23\/fatally-flawed-internal-britannica-rev"},"modified":"2021-08-23T16:15:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T20:15:57","slug":"fatally-flawed-internal-britannica-review-tackles-nature-methods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2006\/03\/23\/fatally-flawed-internal-britannica-review-tackles-nature-methods\/","title":{"rendered":"“Fatally Flawed” — Internal Britannica Review Tackles Nature Methods"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Below is a letter that Encyclopedia Britannica <\/span>sent out today to some of its customers, in response to the December Nature <\/span>article <\/span>comparing the accuracy of articles in Wikipedia and Britannica. \u00a0A more detailed review of the Nature <\/span>study, including responses <\/span>to each alleged error and omission, is linked from the front page of www.eb.com<\/a>; you can also see an HTML version of the review<\/a> here (thanks to Ben Yates)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

In one of its recent issues, the science journal Nature published an article
\nthat claimed to compare the accuracy of the online Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica
\nwith Wikipedia, the Internet database that allows anyone, regardless of
\nknowledge or qualifications, to write and edit articles on any subject.
\nWikipedia had recently received attention for its alleged inaccuracies, but
\nNature’s article claimed that Britannica’s science coverage was only slightly
\nmore accurate than Wikipedia’s.<\/p>\n

Arriving amid the revelations of vandalism and errors in Wikipedia, such a
\nfinding was, not surprisingly, big news. Perhaps you even saw the story
\nyourself. It’s been reported around the world.<\/p>\n

Those reports were wrong, however, because Nature’s research was invalid.
\nAs our editors and scholarly advisers have discovered by reviewing the
\nresearch in depth, almost everything about the Nature’s investigation was
\nwrong and misleading. Dozens of inaccuracies attributed to the Britannica
\nwere not inaccuracies at all, and a number of the articles Nature examined
\nwere not even in the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica. The study was so poorly
\ncarried out and its findings so error-laden that it was completely without merit.<\/p>\n

Since educators and librarians have been among Britannica’s closest
\ncolleagues for many years, I would like to address you personally with an
\nexplanation of our findings and tell you the truth about the Nature study.<\/p>\n

Almost everything Nature did showed carelessness and indifference to basic
\nresearch standards. Their numerous errors and spurious procedures included
\nthe following:<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 \u00a0 Rearranging, reediting, and excerpting Britannica articles. Several
\nof the “articles” Nature sent its outside reviewers were only sections of,
\nor excerpts from Britannica entries. Some were cut and pasted together
\nfrom more than one Britannica article. As a result, Britannica’s coverage
\nof certain subjects was represented in the study by texts that our editors
\nnever created, approved or even saw.
\n*\u00a0 \u00a0 Mistakenly identifying inaccuracies. The journal claimed to have
\nfound dozens of inaccuracies in Britannica that didn’t exist.
\n*\u00a0 \u00a0 Reviewing the wrong texts. They reviewed a number of texts that
\nwere not even in the encyclopedia.
\n*\u00a0 \u00a0 Failing to check facts. Nature falsely attributed inaccuracies to
\nBritannica based on statements from its reviewers that were
\nthemselves inaccurate and which Nature’s editors failed to verify.
\n*\u00a0 \u00a0 Misrepresenting its findings. Even according to Nature’s own
\nfigures, (which grossly exaggerated the number of inaccuracies in
\nBritannica) Wikipedia had a third more inaccuracies than Britannica.
\nYet the headline of the journal’s report concealed this fact and
\nimplied something very different.<\/p>\n

Britannica also made repeated attempts to obtain from Nature the original
\ndata on which the study’s conclusions were based. We invited Nature’s
\neditors and management to meet with us to discuss our analysis, but they
\ndeclined.<\/p>\n

The Nature study was thoroughly wrong and represented an unfair affront
\nto Britannica’s reputation.<\/p>\n

Britannica practices the kind of sound scholarship and rigorous editorial
\nwork that few organizations even attempt. This is vital in the age of the
\nInternet, when there is so much inappropriate material available. Today,
\nhaving sources like Britannica is more important than ever, with content
\nthat is reliable, tailored to the age of the user, correlated to curriculum,
\nand safe for everyone.<\/p>\n

Whatever may have prompted Nature to do such careless and sloppy
\nresearch, it’s now time for them to uphold their commitment to good
\nscience and retract the study immediately. We have urged them strongly
\nto do so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Nature<\/span> responded with a polite declination.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Below is a letter that Encyclopedia Britannica sent out today to some of its customers, in response to the December Nature article comparing the accuracy of articles in Wikipedia and Britannica. \u00a0A more detailed review of the Nature study, including responses to each alleged error and omission, is linked from the front page of www.eb.com; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metrics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVvB-52","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4447,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/4447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}