Hoaxes!

Today I came across an issue of Archaeology Magazine. I'd never looked at this publication before. This magazine drew me in due to my fascination with potsherds, ruins, dirt, and art history. The pictures are also, well, pretty. I immediately went online to see the electronic form. It's quite nice.

Right away I saw a link that I could not refuse-Archaeology's Hoaxes, Fakes, and Strange Sites. This stuff fascinates me. If you've ever pondered the existence of Atlantis or the Loch Ness Monster, then this might be worth looking at. Keep scrolling down and you'll get to "Seductions of Pseudoarcheology". Did the Mayans come from Atlantis? Is the world's largest pyramid in Bosnia? I'm not going to give any secrets away. You'll just have to read and find out.

This leads me to think about all the informational hoaxes we encounter every day. These could be in the form of weight-loss ads, phishing scams, and virus-loading pop-ups. Such hoaxes are fairly easy to spot. Many info hoaxes are far more subtle. I'm talking about un-cited, un-researched, untested, un-vetted, and just plain dangerously wrong information being passed off as fact. (Please note: I'm not talking about most opinion-disseminating sites, okay?)

Here's a small list of Hoax Sites. This list includes the hilarious (brain transplantation) to a site that is devoted to misquoting and hating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.(yeah, they're not all funny). Even if you're not doing research, it's still important to know where info comes from. Here are a few places with guidelines for evaluating web pages:
University of Washington Libraries-Criteria for Evaluating Online Information
UC Berkley-Evaluating Web Pages
Cornell University-5 Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages

Be careful where you get your info....it could be leading somewhere fantastic or it could lead you directly to the Great Egress.