[toasterlovin]

Yeah, but people utilize the reputation of institutions (like the NYT, Wikipedia, universities, churches, public figures, etc) all the time to add legitimacy to their ideology. If we want to spread a rational understanding of the world, then we need our own trusted institution. I think Wikipedia has shown that a user edited source can be a positive influence in this area. It's not sufficient, but it would help. Right now you have people flinging one-off scientific articles at each other and almost nobody who does this has any clue how actually important (or, more often, not) these articles are.