Gullibility

[Bruin Fisher]

For a long time I've been fascinated by the way people just automatically believe what they read, or hear, from an apparently authoritative source, even if the authority of that source has not been tested and is open to question.

Newspapers are the obvious example but the web is now also a culprit.

There have been two unrelated episodes when members of my family have been caught in a war, and we've lost contact with them, and have had to rely on press reports of the war for our hopes for their safety. In both cases the individuals eventually got out (mostly) unscathed, but when we were re-united and compared notes, they were able to condemn the press clippings we had been relying on as fabrication of the worst sort.

Despite the lesson this taught us about trusting journalists, I notice my family is just as susceptible as most to believing whatever they read. Oftentimes I hear someone say with complete confidence that orange juice is bad for you because they've read, or heard, that some research has just established it, or that Jupiter is dissolving and soon our solar system will collapse as a result, or whatever junk is being fed us that week.

I'm guilty of it myself. I tend to assume if it's on the BBC it'll be right. But I know the BBC can be wrong and the journalists it employs can be tempted 'not to let the truth get in the way of a good story' just like the next man.

Anyway, there's a Youtube video attracting a lot of attention, apparently establishing that Europe will be Muslim in the next few decades. This response, from the BBC denounces it as bunkum, which I don't mind admitting is a great relief, living as I do in the UK. But can I trust the BBC???!

[Rubilacxe]

For a long time I've been fascinated by the way people just automatically believe what they read, or hear, from an apparently authoritative source, even if the authority of that source has not been tested and is open to question.

An excellent delving into lying vs. deceit is in an op-ed piece by Erroll Morris in yesterdays and todays NY Times. Seven Lies About Lying, Part 1 and Part 2. I found his dialogue with magician Rick Jay and his thoughtful use of scripture, art and film to be insightful.

[Rubilacxe]

<snip>

But can I trust the BBC???!

Interesting article from the BBC, Bruin. At least the sources of the BBC's statements are verifiable from the various censuses which are online via multiple genealogical resources. Of course, as the article points out, data has not consistently recorded the religion of the people identified that makes such statements difficult to completely verify.

However, the numbers of the populations and at least some of the most recent censuses seem to corroborate the assertions of this article.

As Morris pointed out in his two-part article on lying and deceit [see my previous post], deceit's role is to let the listener make the leap to the conclusion, a much more insidious way to spread mistruths.

[DesDownunder]

I think you can trust the BBC and the Australian ABC more than most other news broadcasters, but in all honesty I look for further evidence of why these two sometimes seem to be furthering a more reserved, conservative slant on the news, especially in the presence of counter claims by quite serious organisations such as the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

To comprehend their pro-reserved stance, we must understand that most news reporting entities are heavily influenced by what they term as truth in reporting. They often are heard or seen to quote statements about ethical values and professionalism in their methods of gathering and reporting the news, for the benefit of the population or the culture in which they exist. This is where they may at times be accused of protecting the status quo, by not reporting the news, or by reporting it in a way that leads to people jumping to conclusions. They see their job as furthering the protection of their society and if that means concealing the truth of a report or misconstruing it in some way, they feel perfectly justified because they have contributed to safety rather than fuel an uprising or a war.

The sad thing is that the reverse can often be seen where lies are posed as a truth to encourage social outrage about an issue, a supposed and as yet, unproven crime, or even a war or reason for a war. Conspiracy theories rarely get treated with any sense of possibility except for such theories to be published as headlines to sell papers, or make a movie.

I think you might see what I am saying here about exaggeration and misuse of the reporting mediums. None of these would work however if we stopped believing what we heard or read, and that is where language, especially the written word comes into play.

The spoken and written word have an ability to be used as a kind of magic, a magic of communication that bestows truth and reality simply because it is spoken or read or heard. The mob responds to the rhetoric of a dictator just as easily as it responds to a holy-man's message, all without question.

But it is not enough just to question what we hear and read, we must also think about these reports with an intellectual honesty, honesty that we apply to the best of our ability, and based on our awareness of life. If that sounds too difficult, then I can only encourage you to make the attempt to look beyond the reports. See why they might be made in the way they are presented and not in some other way, more or less dramatic as the case may be to elicit a certain reaction from us.

There can be little doubt that religious extremists or if you like, fundamentalists, are capable of building obstacles to free thought, and to limit the availability of information through censorship and other controls.

I often see Wikipedia being criticized for its misinformation, but really it doesn't take too much effort to suss out the truth from the gossip in most of their reports, provided you keep an open, questioning mind.

On the issue of a Muslim Europe (or a Muslim Planet), it is one of great concern to a number of people who are not altogether prone to hysteria. The videos at One Law For All, are worth watching. The gay speaker is particularly erudite and even eloquent.

Of course there are issues like global warming which have such a wide and disparate amounts of evidence that we are left with a huge question mark in our minds as to what to believe let alone what to think.

For those of you who like a bit of old fashioned stirring in telling the truth as you "should" know it, I can recommend viewing the videos by Pat Condell on the Islamic situation, but be warned he is a rabid atheist who some people regard, wrongly in my opinion, as a racist, (and he claims he is a comedian). You can find all of Pat's videos on YouTube a little easier than on his own site. Be warned, he is not for the devout believer, but he does need to be heard. His critics are certainly less than literate much of the time.

Personally, I find the rise of the fundamentalist attitude extremely disturbing and worrying, whether they be from the Bible Belt or the Middle East, or even in my own suburb.

Oh and I just discovered The Young Turks. Now they are cool.

[Cole Parker]

I imagine there are psychological underpinnings to our tendency to believe. We want to be in the know, so when we are reading things, we want to believe them and then feel we have more insight and knowledge than we did before. If we question everything we read, then the reason to spend the time reading it is diminished.

But that we do believe it, even if it makes little sense to do so, is evident. I've been quite surprised to find that whenever I've read news articles about anything that I have some knowledge of, I've found the article to be filled with untruths. Every single time. Rarely is it intentional on the part of the reporter. It's just that life is complex, and to write any sort of article, he needs to rely on what he's hearing in his interviews, and on background knowledge of peripheral events and situations. Frequently than knowledge is flawed. And frequently the people he's interviewing are mixing opinion with fact, and he cannot tell the difference.

The strange thing, however, is that I know this, I've seen it time after time where I know the facts that are being reported, yet still believe what I read when looking at articles on things I don't personally know about. That's the heighth of lunacy, isn't it? I think it reflects on Bruin's thesis: we want to believe what we read.

C

[DesDownunder]

Cole said:

If we question everything we read, then the reason to spend the time reading it is diminished.

I don't see that at all. Because I see the reason to read is to question what I read in order to gain some insight from the information or knowledge. Modern education believes in telling the student what to believe. Classical education teaches the student to question everything, even this statement.

Psychological underpinnings are well understood and analysed by such authors as Rollo May, Alan Watts and Erich Fromm amongst many others.

Basically the social filters of any given culture tend to limit the questioning to defined constraints that do not confront the cultural order. The psychological manipulations are all the more insidious because they are so covertly applied as a matter of social inheritance bathed in its own ignorance. And that leads us to want to believe what we read or hear.

[JamesSavik]

There are so many players in the game with so many axes to grind that it is becoming difficult to believe any of them.

Journalist who called war protesters "heroic" a few years ago are calling protesters against Obama's "get it done by August" health care plan "an angry mob".

[Trab]

Having diverse cultures and educational systems intermingling freely is probably the best thing we can have to reduce the impact of deceit and misdirection. If there is always a friend, neighbor, or someone down the street pointing out that there is a whole different story about a particular incident or situation, your are forced to confront those differences, and think a bit more deeply.

"I think it reflects on Bruin's thesis: we want to believe what we read."

There was recently a CBC TV show on lying, and they pointed out that the most successful politicians (and presumably others as well) are those who tell the lies that everyone WANTS to hear, at the time they WANT to hear them.

Sadly, I think it all comes down to people wanting to belong, to feel a part of a whole, to be loved and cherished, and perversely, belonging to a group of bigots seems to be unconsciously preferable to not belonging anywhere.

[Trab]

We have had a spate of major wildfires here recently, and according to Australian firefighters who have arrived here to help (Thank-you), the situation is nearly identical to those in Australia last year, although the specific trees and underbrush is different.

The news reported: The town of XYZ is in imminent danger of being destroyed, and thousands are fleeing their homes.

The reality: The forest service notified the town council, which implemented an evacuation and everyone, including pets, farm animals, etc moved out, and to a waiting reception center about 2 hours drive away.

The news reported: The wave of violence, and murders panicking Vancouver residents has its origin in the drug wars in Mexico.

The reality: One drug supplying gang is targeting another's members. Vancouver residents are calm and fine, with only the occasional neighbour of such a gang member even really concerned, and not much more than having that neighbour doing drug deals in the first place. Most think "good riddance".

I'm quite convinced the whole volatility of the stock market is based on the same kind of lies, and improper research.

[DesDownunder]

Having diverse cultures and educational systems intermingling freely is probably the best thing we can have to reduce the impact of deceit and misdirection. If there is always a friend, neighbor, or someone down the street pointing out that there is a whole different story about a particular incident or situation, your are forced to confront those differences, and think a bit more deeply.

"I think it reflects on Bruin's thesis: we want to believe what we read."

There was recently a CBC TV show on lying, and they pointed out that the most successful politicians (and presumably others as well) are those who tell the lies that everyone WANTS to hear, at the time they WANT to hear them.

Sadly, I think it all comes down to people wanting to belong, to feel a part of a whole, to be loved and cherished, and perversely, belonging to a group of bigots seems to be unconsciously preferable to not belonging anywhere.

Well said Trab. The sense of belonging to a group is one of the main reasons that social taboos are generated. Of course it is anthropological in its origins: "The people from my cave are better than the people from your cave, so there!"

[Guest Fritz]

Bruin asks, " But can I trust the BBC???!"

Short answer, no and I would go even further and say that I know of no news organization that I think anyone should implicitly trust.

On a deeper level I would say it depends upon the subject and how closely you are willing to read what is actually written. In my opinion all news organizations have their biases and the BBC is no exception. Understand that I consider the BBC one of the better news organizations currently operating, but that does not mean that I think them unbiased. Anyhow, the BBC is much like the NY Times (Or is that the other way around) and is capable of excellent and in depth reporting, but they are both guilty of making the story fit their preconceived ideas of how the world functions and what is right or wrong. For example, the case Bruin cites is about Muslims and unfortunately that is one of the subjects on which I think the BBC is frequently less than honest, or perhaps less than diligent is a better choice of words. All too often the BBC has been more than willing to run stories about the atrocities committed against Muslims by Israel, the US military and so on, yet when viewed objectively some of those stories did not make sense from the beginning and a little investigation revealed them to be false. I don't remember specific stories to back up that claim, so I'll use a typical one. Some time back there appeared in the news pictures of an ambulance which had allegedly been hit by an Israeli rocket even though it had a red cross on it. Don't remember if the BBC carried the story, but most news networks did and you can refresh your memory about the incident here.

http://zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/

The fact is that if anyone had actually done any critical thinking about the pictures it was obvious that the story could not be true as presented for several reasons. Rockets, or any kind of projectiles for that matter, do not make perfectly round holes in a sheet of metal. Once through the roof, any projectile would have have continued on through the floor, or if it exploded enough to destroy itself to where it would not have gone through the floor, it would have done far more damage to the ambulance. This was one of those stories in which one look at the pictures and it was a no-brainer that the story was false, yet many news organizations carried it. As I said, I don't remember if BBC carried the story, but I would remember had they came out saying the story was false from the beginning of the story.

Another thing both the BBC and NY Times are good at is implying something without actually saying it. I would advise anyone to read their stories carefully and make certain you take away nothing except what they actually say and not what they seemed to suggest. Other news organizations are less successful at that because they don't employ journalist of the same caliber. Although I hate reading either the BBC or the NY Times, I frequently end up doing so because they are arguably better than most news organizations . My reason for hating to read them is because one has to concentrate sufficiently to make certain you understand exactly what they said and take nothing from the story except what they said. Understand that I'm not saying that all their reporting is that way, but on certain topics it is and those are the ones you need to read carefully. A short list of those topics would include anything having to do with Muslims, Israel, AGW, and politics.

Cole wrote, "I've been quite surprised to find that whenever I've read news articles about anything that I have some knowledge of, I've found the article to be filled with untruths."

Actually Cole, I think a better choice of wording, in most cases, would be inaccuracies rather than untruths. In defense of reporters I would make the following argument. We ask reporters to write stories about subjects they know little about and then don't allow them sufficient time to become familiar with the subject before they have to submit their work. After all, it is impossible to be knowledgeable about everything. Anyhow, that lack of knowledge leads reporters to make errors that people familiar with the subject notice, just as you did. The thing about it that is bad is that even when brought to the attention of the news organization, any retractions or corrections are not as well publicized as the original piece which means that many people are left with a false understanding. A typical example of that would be something like Hurricane Katrina. Contrary to what many believe, the Feds were in the air and rescuing people two hours after Katrina made landfall. Contrary to what many believe, the Feds had stocked the Super Dome with food and water and those who took shelter there never suffered from a lack of food or water. Yet even though most reputable news organizations have since corrected their original reporting, the initial reporting has left a wrong impression in far too many peoples' minds. For those interested in checking if what they believe about Katrina is true, Popular Mechanics had an interesting piece on it which can be found at

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2315076.html

But to get back to my point, I don't think that the reporters covering Katrina set out to report inaccuracies, but owing to the lack of time they did report many. Any corrections or explanations came later after opinions were already formed and in many cases had no effect upon those opinions because the corrections or explanations were not as well publicized as the original reporting.

To address why we might tend to believe reporting even though we know it has a history of being inaccurate, I would offer this thought. Most of us were taught to do our very best at whatever it is we are doing and we forget that even when trying to do your best it is possible to make mistakes. Therefore we tend to think such errors in reporting are isolated incidents and that they occur far less often than they do. I suspect that we also find it hard to believe that news organizations have biases and that those biases influence what is reported and how it is handled. For example, the BBC has a fairly liberal viewpoint whereas the Financial Times has a fairly conservative viewpoint, to pick a couple of well known British news organizations. Where many people make a mistake is believing that any news organization does not have biases, or that those biases don't effect their reporting.

[Cole Parker]

Aha! A conundrum.

What is the difference between untruths and inaccuracies?

I used the word 'untruth' deliberately because I wanted to avoid the concept of deception. To me, I defined 'untruth' to mean simply not being true, without regard to why it wasn't true. I thought this would be the cleanest way to say what I was intending to say, that I found factual errors in reporting where I has some knowledge was what the true fats were. I wasn't assigning any motives to the reasons for the errors, and thought 'untruths' the best way to depict that.

To me, 'inaccuracy' at least faintly implies or at least allows for purposeful misrepresentation of the facts. I know, it doesn't have to mean that, but there is a taint of that in the word to me, a suggestion of possibility.

So I decided to look both words up. See what the lexicographers had to throw into the puzzle.

The quick definition of 'untruth' was 'a false statement.' OK, but that didn't tell me much. When I looked up 'false', I was horrified to see 'designed to deceive'. I couldn't believe it! Does 'false' carry with it the stigma of duplicity? I hadn't thought so! I just thought it meant wrong.

So I kept reading, and found it has lots of meanings, some benign, some not so benign. My original thought of the meaning of 'untruth' could easily be found in several of the meanings of the word, so what I thought I had been saying was indeed covered.

'Inaccuracy' was less ambiguous. It means 'the quality of having errors.' It doesn't inflict judgment on the errors, just says they exist. It's a less blameworthy word than 'untruth' if you believe some of the meaning of false, which I find strange. I thought it went the other way, that 'untruth' carried less faultfinding than 'inaccuracy.'

Live and learn, I guess.

C

[Guest Fritz]

Cole, I see we were both trying to express the same concept, but simply selected different words to do so. Obviously I have a different take on the penumbra of the word untruth than you did and it is the reason I suggested a different word. Whatever, as long as everyone now understands us, who cares which word was first used.

[colinian]

Rule #1: EVERYTHING is someone's opinion.

Rule #2: See Rule #1.

Colin

[Grant Bentley]

Does that mean it's a good thing I only believe half of what I read and, at my age, forget most of it within an hour?

[TracyMN]

Does that mean it's a good thing I only believe half of what I read and, at my age, forget most of it within an hour?

My dear STB, you are a Godsend.

Good question, Bruin, and very close to the heart of the one I ask myself every day:

WTF is wrong with these people?

Since what we are describing here is basically a process that bypasses the functions of conscious evaluation and discrimination, and the topics tend to be whatever is the currently favored battleground for the right vs wrong, us vs them debate, my conclusions are drawn along the same uncomplicated line of operation:

these folks are comfortable in their biases and have no desire to think for themselves. It has been described as "herd mentality", and according to the occult concept of collective consciousness, at any given point in evolution, approximately 75 percent of the population are in this stage of existance.

Works for me.

Tracy