I thought this an excellent article on what our world is coming to with all these alternative facts, fake news, etc., going around. I am interested in your thoughts on it.

It is a good article and for all the good it will do it might as well have never been written. People will go on believing bullshit for ever. Nothing you can say, show or do will ever convince them that they are wrong. Effectively their belief system - be it about believing Trump over everyone else, denying vaccines or claiming school shootings are Government false flag operations - becomes a form of faith almost indistinguishable from religious faith.

Whatever evidence you have that it is wrong doesn't diminish their faith it strengthens it. The logic is simple.

1. I know I am right.
2. You have evidence that I am wrong.
3. Therefore your evidence must be fabricated.
4. The stronger your evidence seems the more trouble you must have gone to to fabricate it.
5. You would only go to that much trouble if I am right.
6. Therefore I am right.

It's a circle of "logic" that is unbreakable.

A blogger (who is a historian) said he got into a discussion with a woman who insisted that states rights were the real reason for the Civil War. She insisted that slavery was not an issue. He said slavery was indeed a primary cause and said he could prove it. He opened a link to the official Texas state archives and called up the document seceding from the US. But she wouldn't look at it, denied its existence and stormed off Just like Bob predicted.

quote:

Originally posted by goofy:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

Thanks, goofy! I shared this link.

"It's turtles all the way down."

I think the article you posted is a little on the alarmist side. This one takes a psychological slant, says public grasp of [scientific] 'fact' always leans to the 'alternative fact' side, & suggests why that is.

Here's another article I like on the subject, showing that even scientific method itself-- the supposed arbiter of 'fact'-- is a matter of debate among scientists.

What I think is great about all this is the unintended brilliance of Kellyanne Conway's 'alternative fact' meme [i.e., how can a FACT be 'alternate' to a FACT?]. It has highlighted the habit of the political/ideologically motivated to cite their own 'facts', & sparked an ongoing public debate on what constitutes 'fact.' A sort of public education in progress.

Trump's Cabinet appointees may accomplish something similar-- that is, heightening the interest & participation in public debate on public policy. I follow ed policy/politics. When Betsy DeVos' name was first circulated, many pro-public-ed folks like myself welcomed the suggestion: here would be a plain-speaking, no-holds-barred anti-public-ed spokesman purportedly representing the 90% of families whose kids attended public school. Ever since Reagan, our Secy's of Ed, whether Rep or Dem, have sought to constrain/ minimize/ underfund/ privatize public-ed while using backwardspeak [alternative facts] to suggest they were promoting civil rights, higher stds, 'choice' et al. Under DeVos-- no longer sub-rosa-- the true colors of the conservative-libertarian position is made clear, & a public debate on the merits of privatization has begun.

Something similar has been happening since Trump reversed Obama's stream-dumping measures & w/drew from the Paris Accord. State govrs/ legislatures are stepping up to put in their own stream-dumping measures & reinforce their states' air-pollution controls.

Here's an alternative fact: Donald T. Rump secretly loves the New Your Times. He copied the "T"s in its masthead for his toupee: https://www.nytimes.com/

PS: Goofy, great link!

Geoff, who still thinks it's Atlas, not those stupid turtles!

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