"Lies, Damn Lies and Counterknowledge"

[LesMTS]

Excellent article on the credulity epidemic kind of tiresome rubbish that I talk about all the time.

[MarkMono]

As expected, all it did was confirm my prejudices about it and tell me things I already knew. Somewhat leading to refer to speculation as fiction in a few of the examples given too.

Also strangely doesn't take into account the idea that any person or agency would suppress knowledge.

Why are scientists/christians/people so bloody naive?

Originally Posted by The Above Article

The battle between knowledge and counterknowledge is not just a struggle to protect the public domain from bogus facts. It has profound implications for the safety of the West. And, make no mistake about it: this is a battle we are losing.

Really, do we really need more rationale on why anything that we disagree with is an insidious poison to our society.

[Neil.]

Good Article, although I often think the sort of theories the author talks about are incredibly interesting in that they show a society that trusts traditional authority figures and sources of information less and less, occassionally with good reason.

I think after years of the public hearing about Watergate, the iraq war WMD debacle, various enviromental scares where goverments have been proven to have lied to the public people have become far more sceptical. Although 90% of the theories that article talks about are utter bunkem, there will be a ridiculas theory that may turn out to be true. The public have probably gone from beinng too trusting of governments and media, to too trusting of alternative information sources.

There is definately a happy medium to be found.

[LesMTS]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

As expected, all it did was confirm my prejudices about it and tell me things I already knew. Somewhat leading to refer to speculation as fiction in a few of the examples given too.

Also strangely doesn't take into account the idea that any person or agency would suppress knowledge.

Why are scientists so bloody naive?

The author isn't a scientist.

Edit: Just caught your clarifying edit.

[MarkMono]

Wasn't talking about the author. Though that was also the only possible mistake I could see in my post. You'll see I somewhat widened the remit a few minutes after posting to avoid any misinterpretation.

Really Les, this stuff is practically conspiracy theory in itself, though I'll grant you it is well-written, intelligent, conspiracy theory.

[McLeary]

The directors make basic errors and play outrageous tricks: quotes from experts and official documents are cherry-picked and truncated.

Yet Damian Thompson does the exact same thing with his piece.


It's a lot easier to be a nihilist than anything else.

[LesMTS]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

Wasn't talking about the author. Though that was also the only possible mistake I could see in my post. You'll see I somewhat widened the remit a few minutes after posting to avoid any misinterpretation.

Yeah, I noticed and edited my reply. Taken in context with the paragraph that preceded it, though, you can't blame me for thinking you were talking about the author.

I took the article as targeting the propogation of provable (insofar as anything can be proven) falsehoods, with conspiracy theories falling into, but not being the sole substance of, its remit.

I was dubious about the ever so slight, trace level, pinch of what might be Islamophobia at the end.

Originally Posted by McLeary

Yet Damian Thompson does the exact same thing with his piece.

I'm not disputing this (egg-on-face safety net clause), but could you give a few examples?

[MarkMono]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

Yeah, I noticed and edited my reply. Taken in context with the paragraph that preceded it, though, you can't blame me for thinking you were talking about the author.

Here, I was agreeing with you, claws in. Any trace ire was directed at Thompson.

Originally Posted by LesMTS

I took the article as targeting the propogation of provable (insofar as anything can be proven) falsehoods, with conspiracy theories falling into, but not being the sole substance of, its remit.

I was dubious about the ever so slight, trace level, pinch of what might be Islamophobia at the end.

You should read his Blog.

[LesMTS]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

You should read his Blog.

Yeah, he seems to be a prat but one shouldn't make ad hominem attacks when he does make good points.

Here, I was agreeing with you, claws in. Any trace ire was mainly directed at Thompson.

I wasn't being belligerent, or trying to suggest that you were. Fucking text based conversations.

[MarkMono]

It wasn't your language, simply that you were repeating my point and saying that I can't blame you for agreeing with me. So you can't blame me for thinking etc etc ad infinitum.

I thought he was a prat from reading the article and had completely forgotten who he was until I investigated a little further. Well-written article, and I can see why you latched onto the logic, but in this case it really doesn't seem like Thompsons agenda is the truth.

[McLeary]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

I'm not disputing this (egg-on-face safety net clause), but could you give a few examples?

"More than a third of Americans suspect that federal officials assisted in the September 11 attacks or took no action to stop them" is to me a cherry-picked 'fact' to suport his theory that this mindset is now rife, as let's be fair, there's about 100 miles of difference between what "assisted in..." and "took no action to stop" mean, and certainly about how plausible either is. The latter can imply simply ignoring intelligence, yet the former implies actual active participation in planning, etc. Without having seen the inital study that he plucked this info from I can't say if bracketing them together was done by him or the researchers, but frankly, if it is the researchers, then that's such a dud piece of info that it should have been disregarded.

Similarly, the "But more than 100 million people have watched a 90-minute documentary, Loose Change..." is just one of those 'facts' that you read and immediately just disregard. Quite simply, I don't believe that 100 million individuals have watched that. I'd like to know how that figure was worked out.

At the very least, basically, he could have linked the sources of his stats so we can see them in context.


Plus, as Mark's saying, it's equally dangerous to be saying 'let's just accept everything we're told and assume that no-one ever lies or tries to hide things from us', which if not explicitly said is at least sort of implied. It's good to have people questioning authority, just not to have them buying into anything said that is anti-authoritative in return. MIDDLE GROUND.

[LesMTS]

Originally Posted by McLeary

"More than a third of Americans suspect that federal officials assisted in the September 11 attacks or took no action to stop them" is to me a cherry-picked 'fact' to suport his theory that this mindset is now rife, as let's be fair, there's about 100 miles of difference between what "assisted in..." and "took no action to stop" mean, and certainly about how plausible either is. The latter can imply simply ignoring intelligence, yet the former implies actual active participation in planning, etc. Without having seen the inital study that he plucked this info from I can't say if bracketing them together was done by him or the researchers, but frankly, if it is the researchers, then that's such a dud piece of info that it should have been disregarded.

Yup, that's a good point.

Originally Posted by McLeary

Similarly, the "But more than 100 million people have watched a 90-minute documentary, Loose Change..." is just one of those 'facts' that you read and immediately just disregard. Quite simply, I don't believe that 100 million individuals have watched that. I'd like to know how that figure was worked out.

At the very least, basically, he could have linked the sources of his stats so we can see them in context.

Citations would always be good, sadly they don't seem to be de rigeur for newspaper columns. I don't see the figure of 100 million being outrageous, though, given it was a viral video dealing with a subject of global interest.

However, both points above point to things which are nothing less than the standard we'd expect from a newspaper column. The first is essentially meaningless rhetoric (as you say, both of the stances he mentions are completely different and shouldn't be lumped together in this way), the second lacks a citation but, I'd say, is a reasonable figure. It's not comparable to the wilful and extreme distortion of source material we see in the likes of "Loose Change".

Originally Posted by McLeary

Plus, as Mark's saying, it's equally dangerous to be saying 'let's just accept everything we're told and assume that no-one ever lies or tries to hide things from us', which if not explicitly said is at least sort of implied. It's good to have people questioning authority, just not to have them buying into anything said that is anti-authoritative in return. MIDDLE GROUND.

The article is in no way saying we should accept everything we're told and assume that no-one ever lies to us, in fact I'd say the entire message is the complete opposite. No-one's saying scientists never lie and crystal strokers should always have their opinions treated with derision, the message is don't swallow recieved truth, no matter where it comes from - whether it's an esteemed professor or a man in a tent at Glastonbury playing whalesong tapes. Ask yourself questions about things your told. How do they know this? Where can I access their sources for myself, if I feel the need? Why would someone tell me this? Whose best interest does this serve? Etc etc.
The good thing about science, not that I'm saying it's in any way a perfect path to objective truth, is that it throws, as best it can, all of the answers to these questions into the public domain.

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

Excellent article on the credulity epidemic kind of tiresome rubbish that I talk about all the time.

Its not really an excellent article though is it?

Ideas that once flourished only on the fringes are now taken seriously by educated people in the West, and are wreaking havoc in the developing world.

Is it not just the case that the "lunatic fringe" (to use a loaded term) have greater access to public means of communication, IE the internets (which the existance of a worrying amount of people seem to to think needs a scorched earth approach to science and philosophy.)

I mean its not as if mass disinformation or "counter knowledge" wasn't spread before the advent of the internet. Religion made a good go of it before the invention of even the radio. Even Religion (instead of science as the dominant means of explanation) had to combat "counter knowledge" framed as witchcraft and it combatted this with inquisitional zeal.

but my real problems with the article start with the following quote:-

Yes, the Left has helped to spread counterknowledge by insisting on the rights of minorities to believe falsehoods that make them feel better about themselves.

Here we have a barely veiled attack on the left, admitadly this is the 'torygraph' so the author could be trying to drum up sales from the papers mostly right wing readership... Ironic perhaps that this piece of "counter knowledge" (included for political purposes) is allowed wiothout warrant or empirical explanation...

I'd aslo argue theres an implicit typically British form of casual racism at play in the article aswell. Perhaps made somewhat explicit by the reference at the end to the "safety of the west". The guy may aswell go the whole hog and suggest thought crime legislation if he's going to start using "national security" rhetoric.

I dont think he has uncovered anything new or indeed much worthy of print, going solely by this article mind. I think he's taken a few 'facts' people are unlikely to disagree with (the problems with pseudo medicine and the twin towers conspiracies) and then somewhere appears to be using this to extole Western Enlightenment values. (Despite the fact the Enlightenments greatest contribution to science -positivism - is arguably on its last legs having peaked in the 1950's.)

[MarkMono]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

The good thing about science, not that I'm saying it's in any way a perfect path to objective truth, is that it throws, as best it can, all of the answers to these questions into the public domain.

Insomuch as the public domain is virtually the opposite of what you would consider a reputable source.

The article may seem to be (Superficially at least) arguing for objective truth, but mainly seems to be arguing for his idea of objective truth and insisting that anything not falling within this is deeply harmful to us as a society.

At best: Scaremongering

Worst: Propaganda

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

Insomuch as the public domain is virtually the opposite of what you would consider a reputable source.

The article may seem to be (Superficially at least) arguing for objective truth, but mainly seems to be arguing for his idea of objective truth and insisting that anything not falling within this is deeply harmful to us a society.

At best: Scaremongering

Worst: Propaganda

I pretty much agree with that aye.

I meant to add a bit in about how the traditional means for scientists to disseminate information, through peer reviewd journals, kind of alienates the public. Particularly the insistence against informing the press before the article is accepted for publishing. It leaves a gap in newspaper schedules that most editors seem happy to fill with psuedo-scientific nonsense.