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Lies, Damn Lies, and...
May. 5th, 2008 | 12:25 pm
Mark Twain once wrote that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. There are also lies, damn lies, and cites. One of the first things I learned when I started discussing issues online is that when someone offers a cite that can be tracked down, eight times out of ten it:
A) doesn’t say what the person claims it says,
B) directly contradicts what the person claims it says,
or,
C) consists entirely of an opinion piece that merely echoes the opinion cited by the original poster without offering any factual backup that can be checked.
Keep in mind, by the way, that I started online in the early 1980s, back when computer bulletin board discussions tended to be longer, more detailed and frankly, a lot more intelligent. Even then, there were people who either didn’t understand what a “cite” was, or did and assumed that the other person wouldn’t bother to check it. Before links and online resources were common, that was not an entirely unwarranted assumption. The fact that I had access to a good library and learned early on how to use hardcopy resources like periodical archives, statistical abstracts, and the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature gave me a definite leg up.
Today, even with online databases and archives and quick access through links, an inability to grasp the importance of facts is even more endemic. The abstract, non-physical community of the Internet apparently makes it easier for a poster to announce “The sky is brown” and not only stick to it, but count on a bevy of other posters who will repeat in chorus “The sky is brown” until people stop being startled by it and just accept it as another opinion upon which sane and intelligent people can disagree.
A) doesn’t say what the person claims it says,
B) directly contradicts what the person claims it says,
or,
C) consists entirely of an opinion piece that merely echoes the opinion cited by the original poster without offering any factual backup that can be checked.
Keep in mind, by the way, that I started online in the early 1980s, back when computer bulletin board discussions tended to be longer, more detailed and frankly, a lot more intelligent. Even then, there were people who either didn’t understand what a “cite” was, or did and assumed that the other person wouldn’t bother to check it. Before links and online resources were common, that was not an entirely unwarranted assumption. The fact that I had access to a good library and learned early on how to use hardcopy resources like periodical archives, statistical abstracts, and the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature gave me a definite leg up.
Today, even with online databases and archives and quick access through links, an inability to grasp the importance of facts is even more endemic. The abstract, non-physical community of the Internet apparently makes it easier for a poster to announce “The sky is brown” and not only stick to it, but count on a bevy of other posters who will repeat in chorus “The sky is brown” until people stop being startled by it and just accept it as another opinion upon which sane and intelligent people can disagree.