tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post6319817724683746046..comments2024-03-15T01:11:32.832-07:00Comments on Bardiac: Truthiness and the Stupid EffBee MemeBardiachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11846065504793800266noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post-35698034665270804342015-09-30T11:46:21.654-07:002015-09-30T11:46:21.654-07:00Great point. Well said. This kind of reminds me of...Great point. Well said. This kind of reminds me of something from the Book of John in the New Testament. I am not religious, but I remember reading in John that there is only one unforgivable sin: Denying the Holy Spirit when you actually believe in the Holy Spirit. This really interested me and has always stayed with me, and I often think of broader generalizations and applications of the idea. It's one (just one) of the reasons I don't like Trump. I think he says and does all kinds of things he doesn't really believe (even the whole birther thing). I know I've made a leap here, false analogies, etc., but there is maybe a little bit of a connection. Anyway, I like what you have to say here. It goes beyond critical thinking. It's intellectual honesty/integrity. I know we don't always act according to our beliefs (it's really difficult to do it ALL of the time; for example, I don't know where ALL of my clothes come from and how they were made), but what you're talking about is easy to avoid. Anyway, back to work. Thank you!Good Enough Womanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16531793545583712309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post-72900708088669108242015-09-30T06:24:47.671-07:002015-09-30T06:24:47.671-07:00I was shocked by the number of people I saw repost...I was shocked by the number of people I saw reposting either the announcement about the privacy statement ("reported on channel 13") or the supposed charge to keep your posts private ("reported in the media"). I did think the vagueness of the supposed sources should have made people stop and think! Especially, as you say, those of us who supposedly teach critical thinking.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post-79522154201961659492015-09-29T16:56:20.761-07:002015-09-29T16:56:20.761-07:00Amen. It irritates me to no end when people who sh...Amen. It irritates me to no end when people who should know better mindlessly repeat things without verifying them. I guess it shows that getting a Ph.D. doesn't require common sense!Brian W. Ogilviehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05045133494402037781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post-12009537247879593692015-09-29T15:49:51.738-07:002015-09-29T15:49:51.738-07:00Thanks, Earnest. Good point. I actually dropped ...Thanks, Earnest. Good point. I actually dropped a link from a new source (msnbc, perhaps? I can't remember) that I found when I did the snopes search and didn't find anything exactly correlating on Snopes. The closest article I did see on Snopes (for a similar meme) had links to facebook's own page and cited several recent news articles.Bardiachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11846065504793800266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17974015.post-44502814698752703062015-09-29T10:12:53.342-07:002015-09-29T10:12:53.342-07:00Bardiac, thanks for this because it finally made m...Bardiac, thanks for this because it finally made me go and investigate a question I've wanted the answer to for a long time: what is the credibility of snopes.com? I find that many people just trust snopes and reflexively checks things on it rather than informing themselves about its practices and thereby reading it critically. I know I do this and yet I've encouraged students for years to investigate the practices of something like Wikipedia. To me this is a species of the same kind of intellectual laziness you're describing that says "this is true because I trust the source whether or not I know that sources to be reliable" And what did I find? Their FAQ says:<br /><br />"Q. How do I know the information you've presented is accurate?<br /><br />A: We don't expect anyone to accept us as the ultimate authority on any topic. Unlike the plethora of anonymous individuals who create and send the unsigned, unsourced e-mail messages that are forwarded all over the Internet, we show our work. The research materials we've used in the preparation of any particular page are listed in the bibliography displayed at the bottom of that page so that readers who wish to verify the validity of our information may check those sources for themselves."<br />Read more at http://www.snopes.com/info/faq.asp#6itvhTGD2RcOIVlH.99 <br /><br />So the Facebook meme post on Snopes references argumentation and source material from 2012 even though the page was updated yesterday. A good critical thinker might well wonder whether there could've been substantive changes since then. <br /><br />Further, they do say that they might list something as a "urban legend" that actually happened or has some element of truth in it, but its frequency or some element of it has been exaggerated: http://www.snopes.com/info/faq.asp<br /><br />Thanks again, Bardiac, for inspiring me to become less intellectually lazy about snopes!<br /> Earnest Englishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01947000435270263070noreply@blogger.com