When I first read "Why People Believe Weird Things", it was an epiphany for me. So many things I felt intuitively were suddenly put in clear concise form.

Thanks for the link on the Sokal Affair. I look forward to reading up on it.

As for Wikipedia, although there can be errors, such a collective work is likely far more accurate than the sole work of a single researcher. "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" comes to mind. I mostly use it as a reference to remind me of the details of things I already know. My physics teacher taught that we shouldn't memorize everything, but we should at least know how to look up the answers we don't instantly recall.

If the subject is sufficiently important and I know little about it, Wiki is usually my first stop, but I back that up by following the links to supporting references and with subsequent searches for corroboration.

Brian