Thoughts on "Anti-Intellectualism," is the "truth" becoming unknowable within reason?

[vger]

By "within reason," I mean specifically, the resources required to attain it.

It's something that came up and really made me think about what the real definition of anti-intellectualism is. Someone on FB posted the following link recently. http://www.globalresearch.ca/utah-whooping-cough-outbreak-pertussis-only-in-vaccinated-children/5441385

Quickly I dismissed it as propaganda, because I'm not one who thinks that vaccines are evil. But for some reason, at this moment, that made me wonder if I was technically being an anti-intellectual. I simply assumed it was biased, which in turn means I was acting biased. So I started poking around. Found that many of the other articles there had the stereotypical right-winged political points. So yeah, there's a good chance it's blatant propaganda. That's still giving into cognitive bias though. If someone believes something that is false, it doesn't mean the individual is wrong about everything. So, onward to Google -- I want to see if anyone has ever talked about Global Research News and biased reporting. It took four pages of links (all pointing to global research news or other like-minded sites that simply suggest reading it) before I landed on the first link containing what I wanted. On that link, the bias was being talked about. The website? Democratic Underground. Great. So the first source I come across talking about bias on another site, is a site that is obviously going to contain bias. See what I'm getting at? Now, I could have spent another few days sifting through medical journals and hunting down statistics, but the sad fact is that there's this thing called TIME that most of us simply don't have much of. So I found myself throwing my hands in the air and resorting to my original opinion, giving into my default bias. Doesn't that mean I am being anti-intellectual?

The search for truth, it seems, has become beyond ridiculous, and arguably, not even worth the effort. This is a problem that seems new in our society, ever since the beginning of mass communication. Unfortunately, the amount of time invested for a con-artist to create a work of total bull, is far less than the time required to reveal the work as such. The problem is amplified because EVERYONE can be an 'expert' now, and all they need is a blog. And I'm not just talking about politics, but science as well. If you doubt something, such the moon landings, all you need is your own space program to go up there and see for yourself.

This is a problem that I feel is only going to get worse. We've already reached a point where everything seems in doubt. Even news sources like The Onion, who aren't even TRYING to fool anyone, occasionally get picked up by news portals as legitimate articles. Deception has become easy in a way that nobody ever could have imagined. "1984" is already simplistic and naive now. Even photographic and video evidence will probably soon be considered useless, because the ability to fake them is in the hands of every John Doe with a computer. Some day there will be a criminal case with falsified security video (or perhaps it has already happened and nobody knows it).

Going back to my original thoughts... really, what IS anti-intellectualism? Most see it as intentionally ignoring the truth. But if you don't know what the truth is, what if it's really a lack of resources (time, money, IQ, etc) to discover the truth? We've come a ridiculously long way. If we want to know for sure that objects on Earth fall at 9.8m/s/s, yeah we can all reasonably do that. If we want to know for sure about the LHC? Well... yeah. I'm gonna go play a game now

Just some random thoughts. Granted, I know there are people out there who are just driven purely by cognitive bias and do not want to see truth, but are they really the majority or not? Maybe people just don't have a million lifetimes to spend on research.

[jwenting]

Given the amount of deliberate misinformation being put out by people claiming to be scientists and others who one should be able to trust in such matters, it's quite likely that the truth is by now unknowable.

But it likely always has been. There have always been people with agendas, spreading lies that are easier/more comfortable to believe than the truth.

It's just that now those with agendas, government granted billions in propaganda budgets, and high level posts in things like NGOs and United Nations panels have a far easier time to get their message across to billions of uninformed people, people ready and willing to believe anything told to them with a thick enough veneer of authority.

Same tactics used in the middle ages, far larger audience.

[Kryten]

Science isn't done by press releases. If all you can find are news articles and not an actual study, it's generally ......... Also you'll note the original article is actually just copied from 'naturalhealth365', which, through a quick scim, promotes plenty of objective BS like homeopathy being effective; again, can be safely assumed to be generally .........

[KSK]

Interesting thread - thanks for posting!

Wikipedia defines anti-intellectualism as:

hostility towards and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science, as impractical and contemptible. Alternatively, self-described intellectuals who are alleged to fail to adhere to rigorous standards of scholarship may be described as anti-intellectuals although pseudo-intellectualism is a more commonly, and perhaps more accurately, used description for this phenomenon.

Caveat - this is a quick post and I haven't bothered to find other sources to corroborate that definition.

On that basis, I'd say you're almost certainly not anti-intellectual. At worst you could be a pseudo-intellectual but I don't really think that applies either. I'd regard the fact that you set out to find alternative sources to validate (or otherwise) that FB link - and cited those other sources in your post - as evidence of good scholarship.

In fact, I would argue that most of the issues you point out (which I agree with incidentally) are down to pseudo-intellectualism at worst or laziness at best. It amounts to much the same thing either way - people consuming and propagating one particular agenda without bothering to question it.

[Kryten]

The original article is probably literally true in the basic facts, just not the interpretation. The pertussis vaccine is very widely used, but lasts about 6 years, is about 80% effective and can be bypassed by some new mutated strains; so you'd expect most new cases to be in the vaccinated. It doesn't change the fact that the vaccine has successfully massively reduced the prevalence of and public health risk from the disease.

[Darnok]

The search for truth, it seems, has become beyond ridiculous, and arguably, not even worth the effort. This is a problem that seems new in our society, ever since the beginning of mass communication. Unfortunately, the amount of time invested for a con-artist to create a work of total bull, is far less than the time required to reveal the work as such. The problem is amplified because EVERYONE can be an 'expert' now, and all they need is a blog. And I'm not just talking about politics, but science as well. If you doubt something, such the moon landings, all you need is your own space program to go up there and see for yourself.

This is a problem that I feel is only going to get worse. We've already reached a point where everything seems in doubt. Even news sources like The Onion, who aren't even TRYING to fool anyone, occasionally get picked up by news portals as legitimate articles. Deception has become easy in a way that nobody ever could have imagined. "1984" is already simplistic and naive now. Even photographic and video evidence will probably soon be considered useless, because the ability to fake them is in the hands of every John Doe with a computer. Some day there will be a criminal case with falsified security video (or perhaps it has already happened and nobody knows it).

All you need is to ask right questions if you want to know truth. And to ask right questions you need to rely on the true values and true definitions.

However, the definitions you need to proceed with caution, because some definitions describe things invented by man, and not found in nature such as democracy or any other political system.

But there are also definitions of things and phenomena that occur in nature, and here the problems begin, because our perception of the world has an impact on the definition of what we create. Today probably could try to rely on a number of scientific definitions, but is the science behind 10 years does not change or expand the description of those things or phenomena?

Probably yes, so doubt as to the correctness of the many solutions proposed by science are justified.

Today, many people implicitly believe everything what reads on the condition that the article is a signature of the authority with the academic title. But is not this be against science? After all, if someone wants to challenge Einstein's theory or the theory of evolution is the first must doubt the correctness of the theory, and then ask the right questions that supporters of both theories will not be able to answer.

[-Velocity-]

This is why we have to trust the experts. A person cannot make reasonable judgments outside their own field of expertise. (Unfortunately, many people are too unwise (or dumb) to understand the simple fact of their own ignorance and stupidity, and blindly follow their beliefs as if there is no question that they are true.)

So a wise person puts their faith in the experts of a field, and in doing so, in a way becomes just as smart as the expert. This is the real power that language has brought us as a species. As a collective whole, we are vastly more intelligent than even the smartest individual, because we can pool our knowledge and brains- or at least, wise people can.

(There are many examples of people who have rather low IQs but still understand this concept, and understand their own limits of their intelligence, and so, trust what experts say who are more intelligent than them. They are following wisdom. That's why there's a distinction in my mind between "wisdom" and "intelligence". There are also many examples of people who have reasonably high IQs and still question experts in other fields. I've met some very intelligent people who are young Earth Creationists and/or climate change deniers. These people are smart, but they are unwise. See the difference?)

This faith is not like blind religious faith; the experts have actually led us to many innovations and a far greater and demonstrably true understanding of the physical world. Furthermore, experts can form differing opinions, and we can take those differing opinions into account.

I feel this problem really extends to our system of government, too. The problem with democracy is that it assumes that the common man is qualified to make judgments on extremely complex issues. He is not. The common man is very ignorant, and really doesn't have any business making foreign policy or economic decisions. The only reason democracy works at all is because on average, most politicians can figure out how to make reasonable choices in regards to governance. But the common man is, for the most part, unqualified to determine which politicians are good and which politicians are bad.

This isn't really our fault, even if we had the interest in some topic, we've all got lives to lead and can't afford the time to be experts in, say, Middle East diplomacy or economic theory. However, as the old saying goes, while democracy is pretty bad, but it's still better than the other forms of government we've tried. The ideal governing body would actually be a benevolent superintelligence, but somehow I doubt that xenophobic humans will ever allow themselves to be "ruled" by such a being, no matter how obvious its good intentions are, at least, not anytime soon. We'd rather languish in violence and poverty.

Edited April 22, 2015 by |Velocity|

[Darnok]

This is why we have to trust the experts. A person cannot make reasonable judgments outside their own field of expertise. (Unfortunately, many people are too unwise (or dumb) to understand the simple fact of their own ignorance and stupidity, and blindly follow their beliefs as if there is no question that they are true.)

Right being a part of a herd of sheep led to the slaughter by the experts is my dream.

I do agree about democracy it is for people that wants to be part of dumb herd, you can be very smart as individual, but when you join herd your IQ is lowered to level of herd can accept

And you begin to trust people (experts) you never seen before... you trust them even with your own life.

Have you ever fastened the seat belts on the bus? And on your own car where you are expert?

I've met some very intelligent people who are young Earth Creationists and/or climate change deniers.

Rly? So you are saying someone is unwise because they have different views?

[KerikBalm]

This is the link you want:

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/03/13/cid.cis287.abstract

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/03/13/cid.cis287.full.pdf+html

Of the 132 (77.2%) patients 18 years of age or under at time of illness, 81% were fully vaccinated, 11% under-vaccinated, and 8% never vaccinated.

So now we see at least 8% were not vaccinated. This directly contradicts the headlink claim "Only in Vaccinated Children"

So the article is BS right from the start.

There were 22,798 patients eighteen years of age or younger in our patient population. In this group, vaccination rates were excellent, ranging from 88-94 percent for a given age

So the unvaccinated group is somewhere between 6-12% of the population, but made up somewhere between 8-19% of the cases.... they were over-represented.

The thing here is how poor the vaccination protection was. It wasn't that the vaccine increased chances of getting the disease.

Lets say 99% of the population gets vaccinated against disease A.

Then disease B occurs.

Do you say "OMG, disease B happened overwhelmingly in vaccinated children!!! Vaccines are bad!!!!"

No, of course you don't.

What we have is a strain of whooping cough that the vaccine doesn't protect against. Its likely to happen if vaccination rates are poor - much like antibiotic resistance can spread when people don't properly complete their treatment.

Higher transmission rates -> more genetic divergence -> lower chance the vaccine protects against the current strain, you need to make a new vaccine.

Instead of just reading someone else's summary, evaluate it yourself.

This took me less than 5 minutes.... its not not an inordinate amount of research to show this was BS.

*edit* spending an additional minute to scroll down to the discussion section:

Surprisingly, in the 2-7 and 8-12 age groups, there was no significant difference in attack rates between fully vaccinated and under- and un-vaccinated children; however the attack rate in the 2-7 age group, vaccinated or not, was significantly lower than the 8-12 age group (P =0.002).

The 13-18 age group and the aggregate of all age groups did demonstrate a significantly increased risk for pertussis in the under- and un-vaccinated group, possibly demonstrating the enhanced protection of the booster vaccination dose at age twelve.

That some site tries to represent this as a reason not to get vaccinated, just shows they are idiots or evil.

PS: there are anti-vaxxers on both sides of the political spectrum.

Edited April 22, 2015 by KerikBalm

[Robotengineer]

This is why we have to trust the experts. A person cannot make reasonable judgments outside their own field of expertise. (Unfortunately, many people are too unwise (or dumb) to understand the simple fact of their own ignorance and stupidity, and blindly follow their beliefs as if there is no question that they are true.)

A person cannot make reasonable judgements outside of their own field on their own, however if they draw on the experience and info of experts, they can reason. However I agree that many people think that googling around for a week makes oneself an expert on a subject, and then say that the real experts are liars and/or cheats. I can't speak for other countries, but in the USA there is a feeling that it is impossible to be financially or academically successful without being dishonest, mixed with the fact that Americans like to root for the underdog, you get Anti-Intellectualists preaching that the mean-old scientists who work for Big-Industry(X) are silencing the "Truth-seekers". You see this in issues like GMO's, vaccines, etc.

[Mazon Del]

Not sure if it is off topic or not, but I've thought about this for a while and the closest I can come to thinking up a 'solution' is an attempt to create a location that 'ideally' ends up being a repository that provides information according to the current 'state of the art' by experts.

I'm sure there are many flaws with the idea, but here it is.

The idea is basically a wikipedia-esque site where anyone who wants to be a content provider, would need to provide information about their experience on topics and credentials to back this up. The group performs some amount of checking to verify that the provided information is true. From this, in all areas the content provider expresses an interest in being able to modify, they are provided a rank. Something like 1-5. A level 1 rank is someone that has only passing familiarity with a given topic, whereas a level 5 would be akin to someone with a PhD, 10 concurrent years of experience, etc.

Each page would have two views to it. One is the non-CP view (general user) which can be organized with filters to display information on the topic ranging from highest to lowest ratings. The second view is the CP view, where they can see all the proposed edits to a page (anybody with a ranking in the required topic(s) can make a proposal). The proposals are voted on by the members involved with this page/topic. There would be some sort of ascending scale as you shift from 1-5. Not quite as slow as exponential, but maybe not quite as fast as logarithmic. The idea here being that in the case of something like global warming, where something like +95% of climatology experts agree it is occurring, this would stand out above the statements by unqualified posters somewhat regardless of number. As has been pointed out many times, one of the sources of confusion on where scientists stand on a topic such as global warming, is that you have people with official sounding accolades (PhDs and the like) making statements, when their field of expertise is something completely unrelated like communications theory.

Ideally, what would occur is every so often, (5+ years?) a given topic might be given a forced reboot where anyone who participated would be informed of a new version of the page (unreleased to public view) where they would get to hash things out again to cover any new advances. Anyone from the previous version of the page who chose not to participate in the new page, would simply have their votes not count in the new page. This SHOULD help in the case where new information suddenly appears and you have a shift in understanding, but for various reasons old participants are unable to update (retired, too busy, no longer care, etc).

Will this prevent bias in the topics from the current group of scientists involved in a topic of research? Nope, but that isn't what this system would be for. In fact, providing that bias is actually part of the point, because the system should end up allowing a random viewer to see what the current reigning theory among actual qualified experts is. As time passes and the reigning theory changes, this should allow for it to shift away.

Just a thought.

[Kryten]

That's basically Citizendium... which failed miserably, having managed to scare off all of the actual experts they'd attracted. They also suffered massive damage to their reputation by letting e.g. homeopathy 'experts' write articles on homeopathy, creating articles that were nothing more than fluff pieces.

[ZetaX]

A person cannot make reasonable judgements outside of their own field on their own, however if they draw on the experience and info of experts, they can reason. However I agree that many people think that googling around for a week makes oneself an expert on a subject, and then say that the real experts are liars and/or cheats. I can't speak for other countries, but in the USA there is a feeling that it is impossible to be financially or academically successful without being dishonest, mixed with the fact that Americans like to root for the underdog, you get Anti-Intellectualists preaching that the mean-old scientists who work for Big-Industry(X) are silencing the "Truth-seekers". You see this in issues like GMO's, vaccines, etc.

The problem is more in the mass believing in false experts and demagogues; most won't even google and/or will just believe the first person that a) claims to be an expert, agrees with their point of view. And if you look hard enough, you will find a self-proclaimed "expert" for almost anything. There are actually striking similiarities to religion in there.

[Kerbart]

A person cannot make reasonable judgements outside of their own field on their own, however if they draw on the experience and info of experts, they can reason. However I agree that many people think that googling around for a week makes oneself an expert on a subject, and then say that the real experts are liars and/or cheats. I can't speak for other countries, but in the USA there is a feeling that it is impossible to be financially or academically successful without being dishonest, mixed with the fact that Americans like to root for the underdog, you get Anti-Intellectualists preaching that the mean-old scientists who work for Big-Industry(X) are silencing the "Truth-seekers". You see this in issues like GMO's, vaccines, etc.

Let's not forget that the track record of said experts is not squeaky clean either. Time and time again we see "experts" claiming that things are perfectly safe (Fukushima is a good example) only to learn that those claims were hollow phrases. Why would the public trust experts if there's a track record of lies and deceit?

[magnemoe]

A person cannot make reasonable judgements outside of their own field on their own, however if they draw on the experience and info of experts, they can reason. However I agree that many people think that googling around for a week makes oneself an expert on a subject, and then say that the real experts are liars and/or cheats. I can't speak for other countries, but in the USA there is a feeling that it is impossible to be financially or academically successful without being dishonest, mixed with the fact that Americans like to root for the underdog, you get Anti-Intellectualists preaching that the mean-old scientists who work for Big-Industry(X) are silencing the "Truth-seekers". You see this in issues like GMO's, vaccines, etc.

True, however googling around a bit make it easy to see if something is solid or obvious ......... Even if its no good answers like who used car should I buy having an friend with knowledge of cars is useful.

Every expert has an agenda, its usualy an good idea to follow the waiters recommendation if you don't understand the menu, yes you know he often want you to select something more expensive than your planned but it usually works out well. On the other hand you should not trust banks and real estate brokers so blindly simply as the amount of money involved is way higher.

Last Big-Industry(X) are silencing the "Truth-seekers" is always wrong, Big-Industry(X) has one way to shut someone up: non disclosure agreements with people who has worked for them.

Yes they can buy their silence but in that case they would shut up, yes this is legal, you can give money to say an environmental group and they get pretty silent about you.

Does not stop other from talking. And Big-Industry(X) has an huge advertising budget still don't stop anybody from talking, only that Coca Cola make more noise than the ones saying drinking lot of it make you fat.

[Mazon Del]

That's basically Citizendium... which failed miserably, having managed to scare off all of the actual experts they'd attracted. They also suffered massive damage to their reputation by letting e.g. homeopathy 'experts' write articles on homeopathy, creating articles that were nothing more than fluff pieces.

Interesting. I did not know of this group. I shall look into it. Thanks!

A friend of mine had brought up how the site would handle such situations, and I had hoped it would sort of have some linking system, where if a topic, such as homeopathy, arose as a page, then content within it can be linked to other subject matter as a way of providing a method to let experts in pertinent fields pop in. An example would be that with homeopathy, because it is clearly discussing health effects, then real dietitians and such would be able to take part as their subject matter only ends up being one degree of separation away from the topic at hand. Though how to allow for such an ability without allowing massive cross-talk like I am hoping to avoid ends up being an interesting question.

[Kryten]

If you want to look into them, this and the related pages there are probably the best you'll find, even if they are quite snarky. There are some fascinating lessons in how not to run an online community there, but the rapid drop-off left sites with higher verifiability requirements with nothing to use.

[-Velocity-]

The problem is more in the mass believing in false experts and demagogues; most won't even google and/or will just believe the first person that a) claims to be an expert, agrees with their point of view. And if you look hard enough, you will find a self-proclaimed "expert" for almost anything. There are actually striking similiarities to religion in there.

Which is why science doesn't depend on individual experts, it depends on the scientific consensus. What most experts agree on. It is not always correct, but scientific consensus truly represents the "best guess(es)" of the scientific community. Yes, there can be more than one best guess, as there is frequently more than just one plausible and reasonable explanation for something- there can be competing explanations. Among competing explanations, you can even have the case that multiple explanations are indeed correct, or that NONE of the competing explanations are correct!

GOOD scientists do not "believe" in a theory or hypothesis like a theist person believes in deities. A scientist will believe that a new explanation he/she has proposed might be true. They could spend their whole lives defending only the concept that their idea might be true! It is important to understand this to understand one of the major differences between science and religion. Scientists never believe or claim they are providing absolute truth- they merely believe they are trying to find the best explanation. However, this best explanation may be so good and fit the facts so well that we can treat it as if there is no question it is true (like atomic theory or evolutionary theory).

[Eric S]

Right being a part of a herd of sheep led to the slaughter by the experts is my dream.

The problem is that a lot of people with that attitude wouldn't know an informed opinion from "Hey, I just had an idea." If an expert's opinion differs from mine on something I consider important, I investigate as to why the opinions differ. Following the opinion of an expert just because they're an expert may be bad, but it's better than disregarding the opinion of an expert just because you aren't aware of your level of ignorance on the subject. Which is not to say that's the case with you.

In a perfect world, everyone would have both the basic understanding of the relevant field and enough understanding of critical thinking to be able to evaluate the claims being put forth. I think I'd like living in that world better than this one if for no other reason than I probably would have found the educational system far more interesting, because this one is definitely not that one.

[-Velocity-]

Let's not forget that the track record of said experts is not squeaky clean either. Time and time again we see "experts" claiming that things are perfectly safe (Fukushima is a good example) only to learn that those claims were hollow phrases. Why would the public trust experts if there's a track record of lies and deceit?

Well, unless you live(d) or work(ed) in the affected area around the stricken reactors or maybe eat seafood caught just off the coast of Fukushima, we ARE safe from it.

[ZetaX]

Which is why science doesn't depend on individual experts, it depends on the scientific consensus. What most experts agree on. It is not always correct, but scientific consensus truly represents the "best guess(es)" of the scientific community. Yes, there can be more than one best guess, as there is frequently more than just one plausible and reasonable explanation for something- there can be competing explanations. Among competing explanations, you can even have the case that multiple explanations are indeed correct, or that NONE of the competing explanations are correct!

GOOD scientists do not "believe" in a theory or hypothesis like a theist person believes in deities. A scientist will believe that a new explanation he/she has proposed might be true. They could spend their whole lives defending only the concept that their idea might be true! It is important to understand this to understand one of the major differences between science and religion. Scientists never believe or claim they are providing absolute truth- they merely believe they are trying to find the best explanation. However, this best explanation may be so good and fit the facts so well that we can treat it as if there is no question it is true (like atomic theory or evolutionary theory).

Sorry, but I don't get how this responds to what I wrote...

You realise my post was about the masses, right¿ I was not talking about ideal scientists, but how the man on the street sees them and what he actually believes. They won't care about about what you wrote because, blatently speaking, they are too stupid or stubborn to realise. In other words, they will hear what they want to hear and only seek evidence that supports their view, however wrong or unfounded.

[Fel]

The search for truth, it seems, has become beyond ridiculous, and arguably, not even worth the effort. This is a problem that seems new in our society, ever since the beginning of mass communication.

I think this is actually a misconception. Let's just say that I've been around many of the corners of the web and people will employ confirmation bias to the utmost degree. The problem isn't so much the truth, but the fact that we have far too much information with far too little ability to actually process it... and then we lie to ourselves by saying "Oh, just read the wiki article."

The source of your information is more important than the information itself, not to lend inherent credibility, but to provide the means to dispute. I've read far too many academic articles that are cited in debate only to turn out to be riddled with bias and data tampering. I particularly like this line (paraphrased) "While it is controversial in the academic community to use a student t distribution for the data we used it for, we did so because we thought it better represented the data." Basically, "we are data tampering to confirm our hypothesis."

The problem is, I cannot actually dispute the hypothesis; and I really cannot 100% say that using math in a controversial way is the same as data tampering. The line pretty much makes me believe so, but I am ignorant on the intricacies of statistics; I can read about the distribution, but where is my actual experience? Can I say I am "informed" simply because my interpretation of what someone wrote makes me believe something? And what about the actual material the study wanted to prove? What if it was trying to prove that gravitational acceleration at the surface of the earth is 9.81m/s, disputing the study doesn't really "prove" anything, it only angles my belief system.

Even if you were a doctor, you're still human. Being a doctor gives you much better ability to actually dispute the methods of the study, but was it not a doctor who performed it to begin with? There are points where the truth just may not be known, despite accreditation.

So what is an anti-intellectual?

A person that cannot admit he/she knows nothing; a person that cannot accept that tomorrow up can be down, down can be up, and the laws of physics completely changed.

Do note: Admitting you know nothing is not the same as succumbing to authority for authority may know nothing as well, it only means that you understand that all your knowledge rests tepidly on the BELIEF that it is true and that a widely shared belief still does not make something true.

Even photographic and video evidence will probably soon be considered useless, because the ability to fake them is in the hands of every John Doe with a computer. Some day there will be a criminal case with falsified security video (or perhaps it has already happened and nobody knows it).

Really; this is a broken aspect of society. What I know of digital forensics is that they look for compression artifacts to detect edited video; of course there's nothing illegal about starting an open source project that tries to mask compression artifacts and if they change their algorithm frequently enough it can mask the use of the software.

Of course, various forensic evidence can also be planted; while forensic scientists will look for evidence tampering, if a stray hair of yours turned up on the body of a dead person, perhaps your blood under said person's fingernails, it is never a 100% certainty that there is none. And if someone thinks it is a good idea to discuss how to defeat the tests for tampering, well freedom of speech.

The laws we make to protect us from the government fail to protect us from ourselves.

[Technical Ben]

Do things fall? That's something we can all easily answer thankfully. So can we know the truth?

We can know the truth in seeing and being involved in the things that are real and matter.

With the complexity of a con, comes the complexity of keeping it from falling apart.

Keep looking for the truth, you will find it.

[Fel]

That's basically Citizendium... which failed miserably, having managed to scare off all of the actual experts they'd attracted. They also suffered massive damage to their reputation by letting e.g. homeopathy 'experts' write articles on homeopathy, creating articles that were nothing more than fluff pieces.

What you're talking about is a failure of wikipedia, not a strength. "Warning, this article is scientifically disputed". One small banner, done. If scientists want to go on their soap box and dispute homeopathy, "Homeopathy, Criticisms of."

Wikipedia rarely follows NPOV; if homeopathic medicine's article can be littered with "by the way, this stuff is fake"; why can't modern medicine's article? By the way, homeopathic doctors believe that unnecessary medicine causes illness in the body.

It is not your place to tell others what to believe, if people want to believe in homeopathy then the encyclopedia entry should be educating them about homeopathy, not trying to convince them otherwise.

I think there is an applicable quote here "let me control the textbooks and I will control the state."

Right being a part of a herd of sheep led to the slaughter by the experts is my dream.

I do agree about democracy it is for people that wants to be part of dumb herd, you can be very smart as individual, but when you join herd your IQ is lowered to level of herd can accept

And you begin to trust people (experts) you never seen before... you trust them even with your own life.

Have you ever fastened the seat belts on the bus? And on your own car where you are expert?

The funny part is, you don't even realize you're following the herd. These arguments were taught to you and you came to accept them, you believed in them... how are your ideals, which you adopted from "experts" any different from the ideals that the "sheep" adopted? They're both just beliefs.

Of course, whether your beliefs are "right or wrong" shouldn't change your right to research and learn about them; you shouldn't need to go to third party sources to read, from your experts, information about your beliefs. Nor should you be subjected to constant "soapboxing" where your beliefs get disputed in articles describing them, but you cannot take argument to the "official articles"

Do things fall? That's something we can all easily answer thankfully. So can we know the truth?

We can know the truth in seeing and being involved in the things that are real and matter.

The moon doesn't fall. (Use the 2 year old's definition of fall; pre-newtonian physics)

You're finding truth in a statement you have a fixed belief in; that's akin to saying "I am right because I know I am right."

Edited April 22, 2015 by Fel

[ZetaX]

Wikipedia rarely follows NPOV; if homeopathic medicine's article can be littered with "by the way, this stuff is fake"; why can't modern medicine's article? By the way, homeopathic doctors believe that unnecessary medicine causes illness in the body.

NPOV does not mean that every side of an argument should be given equal representation. To even think one should is already a fallacy by itself. NPOV is intended to allow everything factual to be represented (still not equally: more evidence means more representation in general); it surely is not followed strictly, but not giving homeoquacks the banners is not one of them.