fact – barbwoolard

Facts Are Facts, and That’s the Truth!

Andy Borowitz, the Jonathan Swift of the Internet, wrote this about how contemporary humans often respond when confronted with facts:

Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.

The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.

“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.” (12 May 2015)

For the full post: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans

Satire is amusing, but anyone who has attempted to make a fact-based argument for or against any political candidate or issue has quickly learned the futility of such an exercise, and it’s not funny. I recently read a post on social media written by an avid Trump supporter. The writer declared that Trump supporters know he’s crass, he swears from the podium, he’s been married three times, he’s cheated on his wives, he’s an egomaniac, he frequently changes his positions, he’s picked public fights with multiple people, he’s filed four bankruptcies—in other words, just a few of the facts his fans have been confronted with for over a year. And the supporter’s response to this list of facts? “We don’t care.” In their minds, the truth is Trump can fix what they see as the problems with our country and the mainstream Republican Party; and their personal “truth”—however baseless it may be—trumps fact.

On the other hand, the “truth” about Hillary Clinton is that she’s a liar and a criminal, and no amount of fact will change that “truth” in the hearts of the true believers. Her humanitarian work on behalf of women, children, military families, and the 9/11 first responders–none of these facts can pierce the thick shell of hatred surrounding her enemies. “Lock her up!” they chant.

Even though PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-Prize winning organization that fact-checks candidates’ speeches, has rated Hillary Clinton (who told the truth or mostly the truth in 53% of 120 claims) among the most honest politicians they’ve checked and Donald Trump (who outright lied in over 60% of 158 claims) among the most dishonest, current polls show voters trust him more than they trust her. A classic case of “Don’t bother us with the facts! We’ll make up our own minds, thank you!”

I won’t even attempt to explain why or how we’ve reached this stage, but the truth is folks don’t care much about facts these days; and that’s a fact. How people feel about someone or something carries far more weight in swaying their decisions than hard fact does.

What is the relationship between truth and fact? Here’s a good way to remember it: All facts are true, but not all truths are facts.

Facts can be proven. They’re not arguable. They’re not affected by opinion. They’re more permanent than truth. Here’s a definition I found on Philosophy Stack Exchange, “a question-and-answer site for those interested in logical reasoning”:

A fact is a reality that cannot be logically disputed or rejected. If I say “fire is hot,” I don’t care how great your reasoning skills are, if you touch fire your skin will burn. . . . Now when I say this, I am not speaking a truth, I am speaking a fact. If you say “fire is not hot,” you are lying, you are incorrect. Facts are concrete realities that no amount of reasoning will change. When one acknowledges a fact, they are doing just that. Facts are not discovered, facts are not created, facts are simply acknowledged.

According to Diana Hacker,

A fact is something that is known with certainty because it has been objectively verified: The capital of Wyoming is Cheyenne. Carbon has an atomic weight of 12. John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. (A Writer’s Reference, 5th edition)

Truth, on the other hand, has to be discovered. Some people devote their entire lives to the “search for truth.” To those who believe in the existence of God, God’s existence is truth; to those who do not believe in the existence of God, God’s non-existence is truth. Each group can point to facts upon which they base their truth, but the facts alone don’t prove their claims. Truth is subjective; it’s subject to interpretation. Facts are objective; they can support an arguable premise, but they themselves can’t be interpreted.

Facts answer the “where,” “when,” and “how” questions; truth answers the “why” question.

Whether God exists or whether there’s life beyond the grave or whether there is life in other parts of the universe are all valid questions and warrant our most diligent and sincere efforts to search out the truth. Whether 2+2=4, whether fire will burn, or whether the Civil War actually happened are not open for debate. These are facts; they need only to be acknowledged, not sought out or proved.

Facts have, of course, been disproved. Look at a science or medical textbook from a hundred years ago. Everything in those books was fact at the time it was written, but much of it is laughably false in the light of new research and development. Yet even disproved facts are different from truth. The possibility of saying conclusively that something is false is part of what makes it fact-based.

You can choose your truth, but you can’t choose your facts. Climate change is fact; it’s backed by a plethora of scientific research. President Obama is a citizen; that’s a fact based on the same documentation the rest of us use to prove our citizenship. President Obama has repeatedly made clear profession of his Christian faith; to call him a Muslim denies fact.

Claims that the president and the Democratic presidential candidate are “coming to get your guns” and to repeal the Second Amendment have not a shred of fact to back them up, yet I can’t count the number of people who have posted such claims on social media as if they were indisputable truth.

I heard an interview on the news last night in which the reporter was stating facts about Donald Trump to one of his steadfast supporters. The supporter didn’t contradict any of the reporter’s statements, since they were clearly fact; but she said those facts don’t matter to her. In conclusion, she said with conviction, “I trust that man.”

I saw a meme attacking Hillary Clinton, the last line of which mentions her accomplishments, then says, “She doesn’t have any.” That statement is neither true nor factual. The fact is she has a long list of accomplishments, going all the way back to her college days. I doubt many of her critics could come close to her list of credits, yet their “truth” is that she’s a failure as a person and as a leader.

I think we’re headed down a dark path when we collectively make decisions which ignore fact and base our truth on feelings or outright lies. The more we ignore facts the further divorced we become from the truth, and that leaves us in a moral wasteland. Truth is not fact, but it must be married to fact. Truth divorced from fact is fantasy.

The Wizard of Oz, which contains many truths but few facts, is wonderful entertainment. Through the willing suspension of disbelief, viewers can enter the world somewhere over the rainbow, enjoy a delightful fantasy adventure on the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy and her traveling companions, and end it with affirmation of the truth that there’s no place like home.

That’s great, but the evening news should not require us to suspend our disbelief while grown-up smart people sit around tables trying to make sense of the latest nonsense syllables spoken by the self-professed wizard who is going to save us all from the mess we’re in. It’s surreal! They may as well be discussing whether Dorothy will be victorious over the Wicked Witch or whether the wizard is real or a phony or what the wizard meant when he said “That’s a horse of a different color.”

Fareed Zakaria became my new hero last night when he said to the panel on which he was participating, “There are no flying monkeys!” Actually, it was more like Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about! We’re sitting here talking about what he meant, and he doesn’t even know what he meant. He’s ignorant, and when asked a question, he has to pull out an answer. We’re trying to analyze nonsense! But it meant the same thing: Let’s stop treating fantasy as if it’s real! “There are no flying monkeys!” or “This emperor is naked; so let’s stop discussing the color, texture, and fit of his clothes!” Bravo, Mr. Zakaria!

The dumbing down of America has reached a frightening stage. Fantasy land is a fun place to visit but a dangerous place to live. We need to make America smart again!

I’m Entitled to My Opinion

I for one am weary of hearing the stale line “I’m entitled to my opinion” as justification for every random, irrational string of words spoken without thought, without logical foundation, and without reasonable supporting evidence. So let’s talk about what constitutes an opinion and then to what extent we’re all entitled to have one.

First, opinions fall into several categories. At the lowest level, there are personal preferences. Coke tastes better than Pepsi (although I used to think Pepsi tasted better than Coke). Chocolate is the food of the gods. Dark chocolate is much better than milk chocolate. Wine is better than beer. Red wine is better than white wine. Tattoos are ugly. All of them. Pants worn around the hips or knees look stupid. (There’s a reason that narrow piece of fabric sewn onto the top of a pair of trousers is called a waistband, not a hipband or a kneeband. There was your first clue!) Blue is not a pleasing color on the walls. Cats are better pets than dogs. Oldies rock is better than modern rock. Nordstrom is the awesomest department store. Florida’s gulf-coast beaches are better than our east-coast ocean beaches. Large, jet-black eyebrows on gray-haired women look scary. Bikinis on older, wrinkly women look a little scary. These are my opinions, and I would say I’m entitled to these opinions because they’re matters of personal taste—or you may say lack thereof. Whatever. We all have such opinions, and I’d argue that we’re all entitled to them.

There are caveats, however, on these opinions. I am entitled to have them, but I’m not entitled to speak them whenever the mood strikes. I am not entitled to judge others according to my personal tastes and preferences. Although I find tattoos unattractive, I have no right to lobby for closing tattoo parlors or to search for trumped-up “evidence” that tattoos are bad or ungodly; I have no right to harass people who have tattoos by making mean comments; and I certainly have no right to discriminate against people who have tattoos. Other people are as entitled to find tattoos attractive and meaningful as I am to find them unattractive. I also have no right to make snide comments to people wearing low-riding trousers, to deny them service if I were a business owner, or to categorize everyone who wears such trousers in a judgmental way. And I have no right to see my tastes as superior to anyone else’s or to think of myself as more sophisticated or intelligent because ob-viously people who prefer dark chocolate are far more savvy than those unrefined people who like milk chocolate. OB-viously!

Another category of opinion is our personal religious and philosophical beliefs. This is a delicate area, needless to say. Many of our beliefs can’t really be justified by logical, tangible evidence; yet we accept them at the very core of our being. We live and die by them. They are true in our minds and souls at a level which transcends logic and scientific data. And I would argue that we are entitled to these beliefs so long as they do not involve inflicting harm on another living being.

Now here’s what I think we are not entitled to when it comes to personal beliefs. I don’t believe I am entitled to ridicule another person’s belief system, even though I disagree with it. There’s a huge difference between disagreeing and judging or ridiculing. The fact that I am a Christian and a Presbyterian means I obviously don’t see things the same way a Muslim, Catholic, atheist, or agnostic does. That’s okay. They don’t see things the same way I do. That does not, however, give any of us the right to ridicule or discriminate against the others. And in the debate regarding the existence of God, both sides are guilty of judgment and intolerance. I would argue that although both sides are entitled to their opinions, neither side is entitled to judgment or intolerance against the other.

Here are two definitions of “opinion” from online dictionaries:

“A view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge”;

“A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof.”

The second definition is also the one offered by my American Heritage College Dictionary.

According to these definitions, opinions do not have to be based on fact, knowledge, or proof. However, argument—the art of persuasion and the core of public discourse—does require fact, knowledge, and proof. So yes, you can make statements which you simply pulled out of your dark space—and probably all of us have from time to time—but if you want to argue those statements, you’re going to need something to back them up. Effective, responsible public discourse requires argument.

Conspiracy theories are not responsible or honest, should not be stated as fact, and have no place in public discourse. Claims that our president was born in Kenya (promoted, as everyone recalls, by the person who is now presenting himself as the American messiah), when he has a birth certificate issued in Hawaii, are irresponsible, dishonest, and dumb. Claims that our president is of the Muslim faith, when he has repeatedly given clear statement of his Christian beliefs, are hateful, dishonest, and irresponsible in the extreme. No one is entitled to judge another person’s faith. It may be fair to say you don’t think a certain person lives by what you’ve been taught are Christian values, but you have no right to state as fact that another person is not a Christian.

Claims that the Holocaust never occurred or that the moon landing was staged are equally ridiculous and indefensible. These are examples of “opinions” to which no one is entitled and which also have no place in public discourse. No one is entitled to an opinion which contradicts historical or scientific fact. I’m baffled by those who deny and scoff at the fact that climate change is occurring when they have no evidence or basis for their denial and when there is strong scientific evidence that it is occurring. Although there may be room for opinion on some of the specifics, denying clear scientific evidence is not an intelligent or responsible position. Where there may be some room for argument is the question of what causes climate change: to what extent is it being caused by human activity and to what extent is it simply part of ongoing natural processes? There may also be room for argument about what needs to be done to slow down or reverse the process. But there’s no room for denial of scientific evidence unless the deniers can present other scientific evidence to support their position.

Claims that one of our presidential candidates has been responsible for a string of murders and should be imprisoned are reprehensible, and anyone repeating such claims is dishonest and irresponsible—especially when that person is her political opponent or one of his rabid supporters. No one is entitled to opinions which are outright lies, and it’s our individual responsibility to verify the accuracy of information before we repeat it as fact or opinion. Everyone who’s spent any time on the Internet, and that’s pretty much everyone these days, knows it’s possible to “prove” just about anything. No matter what you believe, you’ll find someone who agrees with you and who has published “evidence” to support your claim. But as Abraham Lincoln said, “The problem with quotes on the Internet is that you can’t always be sure of their authenticity.”

Freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights, and rational public discourse is one of our most sacred responsibilities as citizens. We are entitled to like dark chocolate more than milk chocolate and to believe as we choose regarding questions of faith, but we are not entitled to make sensational claims which contradict fact or to undermine our political process with irresponsible rhetoric. A lie is not an opinion. It’s just a lie.