|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
Phony-Baloney Detection Lesson #2
Appeals to Authority Listen to this quote by a guy I am sure some of you have heard of: "Our society is dominated by experts, few more influential than psychiatrists. This influence does not derive, however, from our superior ethics or goodness or from any widespread consensus that we are especially admirable?"[1] Don't you just love that? He goes on to say, that Americans have become a people too dependent on so-called "experts" who "for better or for worse, exert an influence that far exceeds the actual wisdom (I might add here humility and grace) we demonstrate."[2] Now, listen to this person's credentials: "Dr. Satinover is a former National Merit Scholar (W. H. Taft HS, 1965, Woodland Hills, CA) and holds degrees from M.I.T. (S.B.), Harvard (Ed.M.) the University of Texas (M.D.) and Yale (M.S.) He completed psychoanalytic training at the C. G. Jung Institute of Zürich. He is a former fellow (resident) in psychiatry and child psychiatry at Yale where he was twice awarded the department of psychiatry's Seymour Lustman Residency Research Prize (2nd place). He was the 1975 William James Lecturer at Harvard. He was until recently a graduate student and teaching fellow in the department of physics at Yale University as part of the Condensed Matter Theory Group where he received a master's degree in physics in 2003."[3] The last I heard he decided to "pick up" a Ph.D. in Physics. Phony-Baloney Detection Rule #2 is this: "Nothing is true because some guy or gal with more degrees behind his or her name than the weather says it is." Let's say that you have a "cause". There is an issue that hundreds if not thousands have embraced. Within that cause, which has now become a "movement", those who have embraced this cause or issue have gathered their "experts" who come to the conventions they hold where these "experts" tell these crusaders all they want to hear. These "experts" line up at the stage entrance with truckloads of evidence. They have manuals, books, graphs, charts, movies, and slideshows, of statistics that will be presented as "indisputable evidence" the position or ideology of the new movement is correct. The result? "Our cause is right and just", cries the members of the new movement, "just look at all the new "facts" I can now throw in the face of the world". Nothing is true not even if a million so-called "experts" say it is true! This is a huge problem in American society today. We are a people who blindly trust so-called "experts" (who may not even be "experts" at all) who self-proclaim themselves as "authorities" and who gladly accept their self-proclamation and the following it has earned them. What is even scarier is that some of these so-called "experts" come to believe, in a kind of self-delusion, they are the authorities their followers regard them to be. These "experts" begin to believe they must be "right" just because they said something was so. What if, when you wake tomorrow, there are suddenly a gazillion "experts" with academic credentials too long to possibly list, who are now saying the sun not only does not rise in the East and sets in the West-it never has! Would that make it so? Would the fact that these "experts", some of whom would believe themselves to be "world-renowned" authorities, deluge you with so many facts that your head explodes, make their position on this issue any more "right"? It would not! In the emotions and blustering of any cause or issue, humans have the almost innate desire to be "dogmatic", and in their dogmatism, forget how to cut through the bull to learn what is right and what is not. It is the test of experiment which cuts through the "cock and bull" of anyone, self-deluded or not, who makes a claim that something is true-NO MATTER HOW MUCH "INDISPUTABLE" EVIDENCE that is thrown into your lap. Anyone, no matter how beloved, no matter how many books he has written, no matter how many conventions he has been the keynote speaker at presenting his truckloads of "proof", must have someone, somewhere hold his feet to the fire of the test of experimentation in the form of the following process: 1) Observation, 2) hypothesis, 3) prediction, 4) testing, and the attempt to 5) reproduce steps 3 and 4 used to form a theory (the last step of the scientific method). Without the test of experimentation, without an objective third party (peer review) being able to reproduce the so-called expert's proof then all the "expert" is presenting to you in his truckloads of "statistical proof" is SPECULATION! It is not proof. It is nothing more, nothing less, than SPECULATION! No matter the credentials, no matter the reputation, no matter how much the much-loved guru of your movement quotes as proof, without the test of experimentation, you have no tool to discern whether what he is telling you is the truth or not. Those who spew facts, figures, and stats, would not too often go wrong if CONCLUSIVE scientific testing was always possible. Unfortunately, it is not. In situations where limited testing can be done and even when the test results conflict, it is the ethical responsibility of the "presenter of the facts" in any issue to say so! It is then, when the so-called "experts" who at least attempted to employ the test of experimentation, have to say, "This is inconclusive but it would appear from what we presently know that ___________". Even the "experts" have biases. Some of those will spew as "facts" what is instead "speculative biases" (and they know the difference) and not tell you so. From the dishonest to the sincerely deluded "experts", some spew what is mere "speculation" under the disguise of "indisputable evidence". That is the difference between "politics and truth". As a columnist who is supposed to be trained to keep a story at 650-words, I am committing a sacrilege-this one is over a 1000. May my editor' forgive me! If an "expert" is spewing a string of facts and stats, and is not citing the "tests of experimentation" from which these stats were derived, then that is how you know you are being fed SPECULATION (cock and bull?)! What cuts through it all-THE TEST OF EXPERIMENTATION! The next "Phony-Baloney Detection lesson #3" is Straw Man Argument. [1] Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth; Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.; Baker Books; page 31 Doug Bower is a freelance writer, Syndicated Columnist, and book author. His most recent writing credits include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Transitions Abroad. He is a columnist with Cricketsoda.com and the Magic City Morning Star, and more than 21 additional online magazines. He lives with his wife in Guanajuato, Mexico. His newest books, Mexican Living: Blogging it from a Third World Country and The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico can be seen at: http://www.lulu.com/mexicanliving
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Choice and Social Acceptance in Human Organizations Let's discuss choice and social acceptance. I had the most interesting conversation the other day with a friend at a coffee shop. I was working on a quote and read it out loud and then we discussed it for hours. First here is the quote: Reducing Human Population Growth Due to the indoctrination of World Religions and their control over the masses, prior peoples were told to procreate the next generation to serve their god or gods. They were told how to live their lives and taught about sinful thoughts. Most of which are the very reason our species evolved to the top of the food chain. However now we see those who have superior intellect readily debunk the notions and tales of those religious leaders and their stories. What is happening now is that non-believers in Allah, God, Santa Clause or other Creator are not reproducing as much as those who do believe in superstition, voodoo dolls or World Religions. Humans Who Are Disrespected Seek Revenge The easiest way to gain enemies is to disrespect people. Inherently for some reason; humans who are disrespected more often than not seek revenge. This should be a warning of what happens in business deals, corporate brainstorming (with regards to hard earned and developed Organizational Capital) or even an outcast member of society. What is the most unfortunate situation in all of these instances is that the whole of the group loses from the possible ideas and innovations of these individuals. A corporate executive who starts to attack their peers at work starts and unending spiral of negativity, thus killing productivity, innovation and higher thought which is what a company most needs to succeed. In the case of an individual in society we end up with those who withdraw their talents to the whole or plot the demise of the fiber holding the civilization together. We see this with vindictive writers, uni-bomber, small fringe groups promoting their agendas. Emerson and Plato You might be surprised by the breadth and reach of the influence of Plato. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of his progeny. Emerson also had a lot of Swedenborgian Rosicrucian leanings and was heavily influenced by Thomas Carlyle whose biographers have still not figured out what his secret was that made him tell them they would never get him or his life right. That secret ties Carlyle and Goethe to Swift and other literary and scientific members of the Hibernians who oversee the Priory of Sion and Royal Society. Here is what Columbia Encyclopedia on the web has to offer. Conspiracy Theorist Rudyard Kipling on Masonry: "the closest thing to a religion that I shall ever know". Animus Mundi and Intelligent Design Animus Mundi: Man Is Not An Island Our thoughts do not take leave of absence. Teilhard de Chardin FATHER PIERRE TEILHARD de CHARDIN: The Galileo Conspiracy: 5 Questions Your Science Professors Hope You Never Ask As a young lad, I took on my first scientific experiment simply because I could. Like most curious youngsters who own walky-talkies, I could only resist for so long the urge to bury one of them (well behind enemy lines) in the bread aisle at the local grocery store, to see what startled shoppers might make of extroverted wheat. This, my first foray into the field of agorology -- the very scientific study of shopping, shoppers and shoppingcarts -- told me just what I needed to know. Illuminati in Kentucky Illuminati in Kentucky: Checked Into Nirvana. Where Is Joy? Eckhart Tolle lived upto his twenty ninth year in a state of almost continual anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. Then he woke up one night with a feeling of absolute dread. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train - everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in him a deep loathing of the world. "I cannot live with myself any longer." This was the thought that kept repeating itself in his mind. Suddenly he became aware that if he could not live with himself, there had to be two - he and the "self" he could not live with. He was stunned by the realization. He became enveloped by powerful feelings. Nostradamus Saw The Luciferians are the inner cabal of the Vatican according to Malachi Martin (And have been for a long time as I have demonstrated in other books.). They created that fiction about 'for the good of mankind' which led to Salvation after Jesus was crucified. They have grown rich beyond their wildest imaginations as the benefits of special dispensations and confessionals have poured in to their coffers. They have been given large amounts of the land as well as special tax status that their Divine Kings share. The Keltoi The CIA's motto is "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." That is hard to swallow to say the least. Culture and Knowledge In eastern Cultures the passing of thought was considered valuable, so much in fact that even to this day members of those cultures respect their elders and listen to their advice. The passing of such thoughts and concepts and philosophies is of extreme value. The Christianity religion and its followers take those stories in the bible literally, almost to an absolute truth. Much of which is an incredible gift from those who came before us and experienced their lives and had something to say and tales to help the understanding of those who would come later. Jesus in the bible talks about important concepts and thoughts of what should be done and how to live with love towards your fellow man. Platos Atlantis: Fact, Fiction or Prophecy? Atlantis is often described as paranormal or mythical, but is it really? In two of Plato's great works, the Timaeus and the Critias, Plato describes an Athenian civilization in diaglogue between Critias, Socrates, Timaeus and Hermocrates. (Predating Plato by 9,000 years, or 9,600 BC) Atlantis, according to Critias, was a great Athenian city which, by the hand of mankind, met with cataclysmic destruction. By his (Solon) grandfather's education, Critias retold the story of an Athenian civiliation. Critias claimed that Solon (not only his grandfather, but a Greek traveler and historian from Egypt), stayed and interrelated with great Egyptian priests. The recordings from Solon were then given to Plato by Critias. Because Plato's works are considered historical fact, one can only assume that Atlantis DID indeed exist. What Is Destiny? Is There Some Thing Called Free Will? One of the greatest and everlasting debates of humanity has been about the role of destiny in the lives of human beings. There was a time when it was almost an accepted fact of life that each and every event was governed by destiny of human beings. Astrology was considered a science. Then with the advent of modern times the importance of role of destiny as a concept started losing weight. Today, belief in destiny is considered a superstition by majority of people. And rightly so, since there seems to be no evidence for the irrevocability of destiny. Fire Walkers DERVISH: - Whirling and ecstatically altering their conscious and soul full interconnections with all around them. These people of the Middle East are a lot like Native dancers and dream dancers from the whole of the world and deep into the dark recesses of human existence on earth. Needless to say their behavior has little relevance for the western academics of such soul-denying professions as those who do NOT know how to actually cure people or why the soul is important in that process of wholistic balance in human lives-and JOY! The quotation from the book 'Wonder Child' is the kind of thing we should read over and over again until we know why it makes 'common sense' versus the constant bombardment of manipulative messages and fear-mongering to divide the human family. The Pertinence of Nudity Every kind of nudity is an abstraction. A man without clothes submits himself to immediate opinion. Nudity emphasizes coarseness devoid of culture, clothes advocate culture without coarseness. Culture and coarseness are subjective omissions. We wear our personalities, we also wear their failings. When romancing opportunity, man despises possibility. Nudity is the greatest opportunity that yields the nearest possibility to human perfection. Human perfection is an abstraction, too. The concept of drenching oneself with something that selfishly annuls this, is known as clothing. Topically, it is redeemed as Fashion. All That We Are... Are Labels Within the confines of the known universe, a madness is present that taints all of the knowledge which every human being has aquired within their life, and within the lives of others. William Butler Yeats There are adepts outside of what is called alchemy who have achieved great things in these areas and there are alchemists before Socrates and Aristotle, or Da Vinci and Newton; who all true experts know were alchemists. For any author or journalist who would produce a TV documentary on the subject and not even interview a hermeticist (much less an alchemist) it is obvious their intent is not to educate. So when you see Time/Life videos doing that kind of show I hope you know you are being fed lies. In February, 1925 Yeats wrote this in Capri.
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |
