Another hearty good morning as we head into the winter! But never mind that, today I begin a series of as yet indeterminate length on thinking critically:

Be wary

We’ve all heard that you can’t believe everything you read. It is true! If reading were just a matter of deciphering the letters, words and sentences, it’d be a lot easier. But to be truly well informed and smart, you have to read critically too. That means going beyond the mere basic reading skills into thinking and research skills. If you can’t believe everything you read, although you can believe much of what you read, then how can you tell what to believe and what to dismiss or take with a grain of salt?

Basics

There are many ways. Start with your own knowledge. If you think you know for sure that something is true but somebody is saying something different, then it’s time to a) double check that you are correct; and b) check other things the writer is saying. It won’t take long to find out if the writer is trustworthy.

What if you don’t know either way? Reputations help sometimes. Are they trustworthy, is the publication usually trustworthy, are the credentials of the author credible? These don’t guarantee correctness, but they are positive signs.

Truly important is attribution. Is a writer explicit about his or her sources or vague? If vague, be alert! “As everybody knows. . .” or “it is common knowledge. . .” and similar phrases are often used to hide a lack of research. Such writers often have no facts, just an opinion. Do you know whatever the author says everyone knows? Do your friends or co-workers know? Be suspicious! Look it up if it matters. Generalizations are not always a bad thing, but they can be, and often are, abused.

Specifics

Be alert for specific citations to back up cited facts or contentions: “in experiments that we reported in the journal Science, we found. . .” tells you the writer is one of the experimenters, that a proper report of results exists and it can be found in a respected scientific journal. You can go to the journal and check it out! Such citations help keep writers honest.

The key word is “specific.” Academic footnotes require citations right to the page number and are common in good books. In the media it is often more vague. Still, the information ought to be enough so you can look it up. “As Pierre Trudeau once said. . .”, is too vague to easily verify, but “as Pierre Trudeau said as he welcomed the constitution home. . .” gives enough information for it to be checked. In the media, much is also direct attribution (he said. . . she said. . .) from a reporter who got it first-hand. Just be aware that sometimes people are accidentally misquoted. Check to see if there was a subsequent correction or denial.

Check it!

Still suspicious? Check the citations. That’s why they are there! Most times the citations will support the writer, but I’ve seen more than one that actually says the opposite when you check it out, the writer having taken one small line out of context to make it look like impressive support when in fact it was no support at all. Such writers hope that by giving a citation most readers will assume they are being honest with the facts and won’t check.

The Internet’s Snopes.com site is indispensable to those questioning the veracity of information. It isn’t perfect, but it works very hard at verifying or debunking urban legends, misinformation, and separating the true from the false. When it is unable to do so, it says so. It also cites its sources and explains its reasoning.

There is also much to be said for being aware of what’s what in our modern society and the various trends, fads and “movements” out there ranging from whacko fringe to fully legitimate. Beware of the fringe, whose literature and information is most deceptive and misleading, although frequently highly readable and seductive.

Myths live

It isn’t just the fringe that gets things wrong, though. All movements tend to have, and promote, certain myths or beliefs that are either not true or not totally in line with reality, and these take on a life of their own. The environmental movement provides a fine example: it is the commonly seen myth about a magnificent speech “Chief Seattle” allegedly gave in 1854 when he was considering selling what is now the land the City of Seattle sits on to the U.S. government. Environmentalists will quote this passionate speech about the sanctity of the land, air and water and the need to take good care of it. Others will just make passing reference to it (yes, it’s that well known).

Trouble is that it’s a fiction! But it is still widely published as fact, even by Al Gore in his book Earth In The Balance. It has been cited so often, it seems researchers and writers just assume it is true. It isn’t. Check it out at Snopes.com mentioned earlier.

The words were written in 1971 by Hollywood screenwriter Ted Perry for the 1972 film “Home,” a movie about ecology. And as Snopes.com notes, with citations, there are portions of the speech that are truly unlikely to ever have come from Chief Seattle. But people want to believe it because it suits their purpose so they’ve never actually checked it out. That’s a blunder. It makes one wonder how credible the rest of their “facts” actually are. And that’s a good reason to be a careful researcher yourself if you want to be taken seriously.

The last word

Here is John Adams, second president of the United States:

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of the facts and evidence.”

* Lex Talk! is researched and written by Times & Transcript editorial page editor Norbert Cunningham. It appears in this space every Monday.

Source: Times and Transcript, Canada
http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/476094