The Facile Eclectic

Recently I got involved in an in-promptu discussion with my doctor about the current debate over health care. During the course of this my doctor asked where I had gotten the information I was using to support my argument. My facts did not agree with what he thought he knew about the issue. I responded that if I had known we were going to have a debate I would of prepared a bibliography. The sources I access are too numerous to recall off the top of ones head. I've found over the course of my life growing up in the information age that this has become a serious problem. It seems that what we think we know to be true is increasingly nothing but a fiction. The internet has given us access to huge volumes of information but as yet we do not have the tools to gauge the quality of that information. Previous generations where able to do this more easily when all information was in the form of the printed word. Even the traditional method of using reputable sources is becoming less effective in determining truth. As an example, if I want medical information I might go to a well established medical journal as a source to inform me on the best diet to eat. What I find is thousands of studies from molecular nutrient interactions on up to population studies showing various links between diet and disease, nutrients and disease, etc. Many of these make conclusions that may or may not be causal which means thousands more studies are required to understand the various mechanisms involved just to prove carrots are actually good for you. You could sift for a lifetime and not find a definitive answer to any question you pose.

Another disturbing phenomenon is how incorrect information spreads so quickly that it lodges in our group mind before any correction can hope to root it out. A recent example was the "Jena six" story which I started following a full week before it bubbled up to the national level. In early local reporting teachers and students said that students of both races had gathered under the what was later dubbed "the whites only tree" for many years before the noose incident. The nooses where probably not hung there because it was a "whites only" tree, they where more likely hung there because it was in fact the only tree on campus. This small fact does not signifacantly alter the overall story of the "Jena six" whatever your opinion of the situation. But it amazed me how quickly once the story broke how many times I saw "whites only tree" repeated in hundreds of reports and blogs. In all the reports I read from across the world it was repeated and no-one backtracked the story to correct it. It would be pointless now anyway. It is an established fact that Saddam Hussein had no part in the 9-11 attacks but to this day, like most americans, my wife thinks that fiction is true. The ancient Greeks discovered the earth is round but most continued to think it was flat for another 2000 years. The information was never lost, it just took that long to change the old point of view. How many flat earth fictions are we carrying around in our heads now that the internet makes disseminating them so easy and rapid? More importantly, how long will it take for us to root them out?