I periodically like to check out the wisdom tooth page over on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_tooth
Recently I came across the talk page which has an interesting comment near the bottom written on September 3, 2012,
“There is very little discussion of how common it is to have wisdom teeth, and how often wisdom teeth pose no problems if left alone. Nor is there adequate discussion of how often extraction is necessary when they do pose problems.
Some lip service is paid to it in the “controversy” ghetto, but in the end the discussion of the “controversy” is equivocating and unclear.
As a whole, the article conjured up the image of an eager, pushy dentist insisting that, “Yeah, buddy, wisdom teeth are a huge problem! It may not seem like it, but it’s bad – trust me, I know these things – I mean, would I lie to you? We’ll have to do an extraction, but don’t worry! Here, just sign your agreement to all these expensive medical procedures…”
No offense meant to the contributors. At least the discussion of the pathology is extensive.”
I personally think the wisdom tooth page on Wikipedia could use some work as it seems a bit biased to me and has been for many years.
I have, numerous times in the past on this blog, discussed how many of things we read are full with inaccuracies and/or bias. See for example the post Is What We Read Accurate or Sort of Accurate? and Astroturfing And How Your Thoughts Are Being Manipulated by Corporate Interests.
I have also discussed previously in the post Let’s Give our Kids a Chance to Succeed how many young people have difficulties determining whether or not what the read is true. In fact some surveys have even shown that many young kids even think everything they read online is always true.
Clearly the first item to be addressed here includes education but many other issues are at work…