Cite Your Sources?

Before you start using internet references to back up your argument, please check the reliability of those references.

Not all internet sources are equal.

I just read a post by a "friend" on Facebook that quotes a website saying that all measles outbreaks here in the US were caused by foreigners traveling here, so therefore immunization is not workable, as we can not insist that foreigners be immunized.

First, we CAN insist on that.

Second, most of the outbreaks were caused by Americans traveling abroad.

But the worst part about all of this is the website that the "friend" cited.

It is the type of website that makes Breitbart look like real factual news.

It is the type of website that makes the National Inquirer look like the Times of London.

It is the type of website that is so full of outlandish and ridiculous conspiracy theories that one would have to be totally ignorant of all factual knowledge to believe anything it says.

Yet this person cites it as fact to bolster her anti-vaxx beliefs.

The articles cite all sorts of references -- references to totally discredited websites, or fellow-conspiracy "nutjobs" -- which makes them LOOK scholarly.  But if all the references are pure crap and garbage, then the article, whatever its topic, is totally less than reliable.

Now people will come along and say, how do you know that YOUR sources are correct and accurate? 

Well, I'd sooner rely on the old time standards for my facts, you know, broadcast media like ABC, CBS and NBC; cable media like CNN or (to a lesser extent) MSNBC, and certainly the world's major newspapers -- The New York Times, The Times of London, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, or any of a dozen other papers here in the US -- St Louis Post-Dispatch, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, DesMoines Register.

If you can't verify that your sources are accurate and factual, and not based on outlandish conspiracy theories, then don't post crap on Facebook -- there's enough of that already.