[Rhodes22-list] Politics: Facts

[Bill Effros]

Ed,

I have been frequently hired as a professional "fact checker".  People want to know if their authors "got it right" before they put books on the market.

That doesn't make my facts any better than yours.

What baffles me is that lately people with different opinions have become unable to agree on what the facts are.  We are not blindfolded people touching different parts of the same elephant. We are sighted people who cannot agree on what we are looking at.

And I don't understand why.

I'm sure you would be amazed to learn how many opinions you and I share in common.  What I am trying to understand, on a professional level, is why we are unable to agree on the facts, and what we can do about it.

I think this is important, and any insight you have to offer will be seriously regarded.

Bill Effros

PS -- With regard to the New York Times reporter, his stories were totally unbelievable.  The real scandal is not that it happened, because, yes, it does happen all the time; but that it took a newspaper of the New York Times' caliber so long to spot it at the highest levels despite being repeatedly warned.

The same is true of the New York Times' reporting about Weapons of Mass Destruction.  They were totally convinced that Iraq had them, despite having virtually no evidence to back that up.  You and I could not possibly know whether or not Iraq had WMD.  What we could know was that no one in the world was able to conclusively demonstrate they had them, and that no one who claimed to know they had them had been able to produce evidence to back up their claims.

I read just about everything I can get my hands on that I can fit into a day's reading.  I can read even faster than Steve can type.  I do not believe everything I read.  I try to sort it all out as best I can.  The strength of the New York Times is that they get it right over time, even if the right answers sometimes show up only in a footnote on page 279.  If you read the New York Times from cover to cover every day you get a firm foundation from which to check for the accuracy of what you believe are facts.

Brad was actually the first to cite the New York Times in this thread, and from the depth of his reading by 7:00 am it would appear he reads it early every day.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: ed kroposki 
To: 'The Rhodes 22 mail list' 
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 10:17 AM
Subject: RE: [Rhodes22-list] Politics: Facts


Bill:
The problem is what you assert to be a fact is really just others
opinions or assertions which can not be proven by generally accepted
standards.  You cite New York Times reporting as fact.  When often all they
are reporting is assertions and comments by others which were not recorded
at the time by independent unbiased sources.  When I read newspapers like
the New York Times, or my local paper, I keep in mind that New York Times
reporter who was fired for just making up facts.  Have you forgotten?  Use
the following for an overview for "fact".

The noun "fact" has 4 senses in WordNet.

1. fact -- (a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events
that have occurred; "first you must collect all the facts of the case")
2. fact -- (a statement or assertion of verified information about something
that is the case or has happened; "he supported his argument with an
impressive array of facts")
3. fact -- (an event known to have happened or something known to have
existed; "your fears have no basis in fact"; "how much of the story is fact
and how much fiction is hard to tell")
4. fact -- (a concept whose truth can be proved; "scientific hypotheses are
not facts".)
When I use the work fact, I generally want a observation recorded by
more than one person.  I want to be able to sort fact from opinion.  It is
important to keep in mind the experiment of asking blindfolded people to
describe an elephant by touching just one different part.  Same elephant,
very different observations. 

Ed K

From: rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org
[mailto:rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org] On Behalf Of Bill Effros
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 7:59 AM
To: R-22
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Politics: Facts

 "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." 

Attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Senator, New York (D)

PS--Does anyone know when or whether he really said this?

Bill Effros
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