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Front PageHard facts?
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We want a good news article rather than a Christian meditation when we are in the mood for “hard facts” rather than speculative religion. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, our preconceived notions aren’t always borne out.
We now know the United Nations overstated the AIDS epidemic by six million people. What was a fact for me on November 18th was no longer a fact when I woke up on November 19th.
On the same day, I read that “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa” is in Somalia, but has gone uncovered by media. U.N. spokesman Eric Laroche says: “If this were happening in Darfur, there would be a big fuss. But Somalia has been a forgotten emergency for years.” What that tells me about “hard facts” is that news bureaus decide for us which happenings in the world are more important than others.
It was a “hard fact” that human embryonic stem cells had been created by cloning — until last year when Korean researcher Hwang Woo Suk admitted faking his results.
Then there are the “hard facts” Chalabi’s Iraqi exiles and defectors fed to our credulous journalists a few years ago.
Speaking of which, remember the “hard facts” about the D.C. sniper served up by The New York Times’ Jayson Blair? Desperation to survive in a shrinking newspaper market may tend to spawn facts that are less than hard.
So, a little caution is in order in drawing hard and fast distinctions between “hard” news and “soft” Christian reflections. Bible truth is valuable unto eternal life. Newspaper news is valuable in a less consequential way — when it is even true.
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Keywords: AIDS-epidemic, Chalabi, cloning, embryonic-stem-cells, humanitarian-crisis, Hwang-Woo-Suk, Jayson-Blair, media, Somalia |  |
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what I find wonderful in your post here is that you have begun the process of clearly identifying different types of truth:
“Bible truth is valuable unto eternal life. Newspaper news is valuable in a less consequential way — when it is even true.”
and that you are making some observations on where certain types of truth are valuable.
Nice observation.
Lord, make me ever more eager to ponder your truths, and careful what else I believe in.
Then there are the “hard facts” Chalabi’s Iraqi exiles and defectors fed to our credulous journalists a few years ago.
Wow, I’m sure glad the Bush administration didn’t fall for those…. oh, wait …
RE: the DC sniper. It seemed to take forever before the MSM began acknowledging that the lead sniper was a muslim, John Allen Muhammad or that his young protege was in USA illegally.
Those inconvenient facts came only thru Ann Coulter
Oh, good, we didn’t have to wait long at all for the anti-Bush comment. And this without ZZ’s help …
Look on the bright side RR. At least you can count on SteveG to be consistent.
I find it amusing to listen to the empericists talk about hard facts….
They say 97% of facts are proven to be wrong in the scientific rhelm by later scientists who come up with new ones only to have them shot down by even later scientists. Only 3% of these facts manage to last the test of time.
I suppose that is why there is an old saying about not taking thongs at face value that you read and hear and never ever believe anything coming from the lefty socialist.
This is a very silly and self serving article, Andree.
And llama, in my opinion, one should always take thongs at face value.
llama post 6,
actually you should probably not arbitrarily and uncritically believe anything from anyone or any sources until you have thoroughly checked it out.
Which opens up the question of how does one establish a process to:
1) reliably assess facts
2) reliably catch errors in facts
“We now know the United Nations overstated the AIDS epidemic by six million people.” Why should this new “fact” be any more reliable than the old one? We tend to believe what we want to believe don’t we? It’s a matter for confession.
There are so many variables to “facts.” That’s why knowing the sources is so important, but that hardly accounts for the blindness that begins in our hearts.
The humorists have a lot of fun with our sense of the facts. It seems to have been Ben Franklin who said “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.” Or, apparently from Will Rogers: “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.”
Does that mean “Noah’s Ark” is a “hard” fact. To me, that seems “hard to swallow”.
Don’t forget the “hard fact” of anthropogenic global warming and the “hard fact” that humans can stop it! Consensus will not be denied.
My chuckle for the day is “thongs at face value.”
Then there are the “hard facts” Chalabi’s Iraqi exiles and defectors fed to our credulous journalists a few years ago.
And did World magazine do anything to expose those falsehoods? No, they didn’t. One might argue that they didn’t have the budget to send someone to Iraq to get the truth, of course. But did they evince any skepticism toward these “hard facts” at the time? No, they didn’t. They accepted them at face value and parroted them. And now Andree is ridiculing her own magazine for irresponsible journalism.
Get that thong out of my face…
“A little sincerity is a dangerous thong, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
I don’t know why, but I have never believed everything I’ve read or heard. One must remember that even the most concrete “facts” are coming from other fallible human beings. Fact is, people make mistakes and people are biased. Decimal points get misplaced. Someone says something that another person misinterprets or misunderstands. They pass it on to someone else, who passes it on, and so forth.
So when I hear or read things like the number of people with AIDS or the percentage of people that favor x politician, I never take it as gospel truth. I just use it as a general guide. That way I’m not disappointed (or devastated) when new or revised information comes to light.
Perhaps I’m just a natural born skeptic.
97% Llama?
“They” also say that 94% of all statistics you read are just made up. Like that one.
What statements or contributions to Worldmag blog have you made that have not been self-serving, Night Train?
RR at #5: Oh, good, we didn’t have to wait long at all for the anti-Bush comment. And this without ZZ’s help …
What I said wasn’t anti-Bush, it was pointing out the inaccuracy of referring to the media as if they were the only ones taken in by Chalabi. Obviously so was the administration, much of the Congress and many among the respected think-tank intellectuals.
Blaming “credulous journalists” for it is just silly.