Wikipedia entry for Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg

Observant Esther

Wikipedia ® © is not a true encyclopedia in that there is no requirement that people who write Wikipedia "articles" (called "editors" by Wikipedia) have any expertise in the material discussed, knowledge of published documents, nor access to any unpublished archival documentation.1 In fact, Wikipedia states this themselves. The Wikipedia article about Esther Lederberg cites this website for a small portion of archival information, but it is by no means complete. For example, the Wikipedia article about Esther Lederberg captured in June 2008 does not discuss any of Esther Lederberg's collaborations with other research scientists2, it does not even provide a complete list of her published research papers. Moreover, while the article may be expanded by later Wikipedia 'editors', there is no guarantee that other information that is correct will not be removed, or changed and made to be incorrect.

Wikipedia articles cannot be relied upon to be authoritative or complete.

To make matters worse, other Wiki-driven knowledge sites, such as Ask.com, TheFullWiki.org and TrueKnowledge.com, draw directly from Wikipedia, capturing the HTML text from Wikipedia articles verbatim and redisplaying it on their own sites in slightly different format. Thus, the information gathered by Wikipedia's amateur "editors" is disseminated all over the world wide web, and any mistakes, erroneous statements or incomplete statements, are broadcast to countless web readers.


1 See Wikipedia's General Disclaimer or click here.

2 Esther Lederberg's 25-year collaboration with M. Laurance Morse, her work with Barbara J. Bachmann, and her work with Karen A. Fahrner, are not mentioned.

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