It has been a long time I’ve been hearing bad views about Wikipedia , and how it would not compare to the said “classical” sources. The question of the appropriateness of quoting sources such as Wikipedia in scientific publications, and its use in academic activities in general ends up stimulating a much larger and important debate: that of the role of bibliographical references in scientific articles and activities.

Back in page 60 of the last book by Galileo Galilei , Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno a due nuove scienze (1638), the character Sagredo mentions that it is possible sometimes to realize an experiment and conclude that the opinion of some ancient philosophers, “including perhaps even Aristotle himself,” is wrong. The motto of the Royal Society of London also says: nullius in verba (“On the words of no one”). I quote these ancient bastions of science to remind that the true science only happens at those rare moments when experiments are performed, and then perceived to be in conformity with proposed scientific theories. Borrowing from the more up-to-date talking, it’s when you try to falsify stuff. (That if I do understand the idea, and with the excuse of people who don’t like to discuss philosophy of science in the “continental” way.)

A quote from, reference to and reverence for ancient and acclaimed knowledge sources are not necessarily scientific activities: they can also be merely rhetoric resources to try to give credibility to a new scientific work. This kind of action is already understood as such ever since Aristotle himself identified the different forms of rhetoric proofs : ethos, pathos and logos. It is true that Logic and dialectic can be supplemented by rhetoric. But one has to be vigilant in order to avoid the empty rhetoric, or sophism , already denounced by Plato. Citations in scientific articles are frequently not seeking to direct the reader to a certain data source or to techniques employed in the work. These citations are intended only to suggest affinity with other acclaimed works, trying to take for itself a bit of this acceptance.

If during his scientific work a scientist collects some data, or look for the exact form of a certain technique in a reference, and if in his work he is capable of reassuring the certainty of the data or the exactness of the technique, what problem is there in referencing this source in his work, even if it is the Wikipedia, or perhaps a grafitti , or a scribble in the door of a public bathroom, or yet perhaps the advice of a janitor ? When he points to the work of someone else, the author becomes an accomplice of that reference. It is the authors of the newer articles who are responsible for the exactness of their sources, and not the authors of the classic works who are for the newer ones.

The questioning of the adequacy or not of using Wikipedia in scientific articles and in academic activity in general must happen in this broader context, where we question not only the way this specific source is manufactured, but instead the whole process of referencing. The paradigm that demands for the use of strictly “consecrated” sources in a publication is the same that preaches a more passive posture when reading, where the reader does not seek to question the written words he sees. To deny an article because of its authorship without making contact with the material is like refusing to look through a newly-invented telescope to observe a phenomenon that someone is saying he has seen, claiming to be sure that this person must be equivocated.

To accept Wikipedia as a regular bibliographical source is the last and greatest step needed for us to finally get into this new proposed era, where the student and the reader cease to be mere spectators of science to become participative agents, enriching the knowledge bases with a wide-band and low-delay feedback.