ABSTRACT
Historians may indeed have their own peculiar definiitions of what constitute secondary sources and definitions which offend the anthropologist cited above. Presumably a primary source would be a report of an event received directly from an observer. Eyewitness reports, however, are held to be notoriously unreliable by both lawyers and social scientists. Elizabeth Loftus, a University of Washington psychologist who serves as an expert witness reminds us that "the mind is a mischievous trickster that blends facts with fancy. There are two kinds of information available from newspaper articles. One is what may be described as "factual". The second kind of information available from the press involves "interpretation" of the facts. In America, it is generally assumed that Harvard or Stanford and similar reputable institutions hold their faculties to the highest standards. Creationism, an utterly implausible bit of mysticism pretending to provide an alternative "scientific" view to evolutionary theory.
