This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 8:20am and is filed under Media and information, Agriculture, Food Production. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
There was a recent NYTimes article about how our brains can lead us to remember false statements as being true, if they are heard often enough. In addition, (as I posted earlier) we are prone to selectively accept and remember statements that reinforce beliefs we already hold. We tend to remember news that accords with our views, and discount statements that contradict it.
Recently, I was disturbed to receive a fwd:fwd:fwd’ed e-mail from a man whose integrity and values I generally respect. In it, we are warned against electing a “Black, male, Muslim extremist between the ages of 17 and 40″; listing that as the profile of a terrorist. Although they named the candidate for whom we would be “stupid” to vote, he is a Christian and he’s 3 years older than me, (and although I’d love to be in that age bracket, I can’t pull it off).
Two of our basic freedoms are freedom of choice and of speech. I enjoy political debate and believe the internet to be a wonderful tool through which we can all have a voice. We’ve certainly got enough pressing national and international issues on which to base our vote. I hate to see fear, hatred, bigotry and falsehoods be used in a country that is supposed to be fighting against such things.
Outside the political arena, the NYT piece hits home with me as the editor of this blog, too. This blog is based on being non-propagandal. Our aim is to sift through the misconceptions, rhetoric and sometimes outright falsehoods regarding food safety, production, agriculture and technology. Some of what is “common knowledge” is not accurate, some of what is written is slanted to prove a point, some is written to attract attention by being sensational. As the NYT says:
“In a replication of the study … researchers found that even when subjects were given a specific instruction to be objective, they were still inclined to reject evidence that disagreed with their beliefs.
In the same study, however, when subjects were asked to imagine their reaction if the evidence had pointed to the opposite conclusion, they were more open-minded to information that contradicted their beliefs. Apparently, it pays for consumers of controversial news to take a moment and consider that the opposite interpretation may be true.“
I again challenge you on this 4th of July (and through the year), to be aware of your information filter, challenge your biases and take a look at the other side, especially when your reactions are strongest. Truth will stand up to the light of investigation.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:59pm
I also think as a parent the hardest thing to say, and I try to say it often though it’s likely not often enough, is ‘well, that’s my opinion too … it doesn’t make me right always but at least I may can give you a place to start so when you are ready you can gather information for yourself - just *please* remember that _everyone_ presents information with some bias so do your best to interpret it for yourself and not just through their eyes … even if that means looking around /my/ biases…’
Gah.
Nicely said, Sara. I’ll be forwarding this blog article to my Dad too, I think. =)