1817) Asking the right question is the pillar of good science, both social and otherwise, as well as a source of endless debate and despair among researchers. In survey work, the perfect question has become the Holy Grail, forever out of reach. Researchers dedicate themselves to the question, experimenting with words to create the perfect inquiry - a question that does not presume, lead or color. But [...] there will never be a truly neutral question.
Researchers know one thing about questions: However precise and neutral they seem to be, they often have unpredictable effects - response effects, researchers call them. Response effects arise from the quirkiness of language and the complexities of human emotion - pride, embarrassment, self-righteousness, contempt or any of the hundreds of other strings that play when one person speaks to another. Even under ideal circumstances, when asked to remember something recent and concrete, recall is often different from fact. [...]
The imprecision of language exacerbates the problem. Single words that mean the same thing con convey wildly different ideas. Taxes or revenues? MX missile or Peacekeeper? Pro-choice or pro-abortion? Welfare or public assistance? Department of War or Department of Defense? [...] S.I. Hayakawa called some words "purr-words" and others "snarl-words." A young monk was once rebuffed by his superior when he asked if he could smoke while he prayed. Ask a different question, a friend advised. Ask if you can pray wile you smoke. [...]
[R]esearchers now know that the order in which questions are asked is as critical as the wording of any of them. [...] The wording of questions, their order, their intonation, the pacing - are all so subtly persuasive that they can look innocent even thought they have been consciously manipulated. The pitfalls of the researcher's craft have become the tools of its corruption.
Cynthia Crossen Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1818) The thinner the data, the thicker the dogma.
unnamed researcher quoted by Cynthia Crossen in Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1819) Pecuniary Truth: Truth is what sells. Truth is what you want people to believe. Truth is that which is not legally false.
Jules Henry Culture Against Man (1963) quoted by Cynthia Crossen in Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1820) Deception is often undertaken by those who know or assume that they have a more objective view of the situation than those to whom they speak. [...] [They] sincerely believe that they manipulate facts in order to convey a "truer picture".
Sissela Bok Lying (1978) quoted by Cynthia Crossen in Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1821) Overseeing advertising claims is a relatively modern phenomenon, another consequence of our increasingly complex world. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, people typically had a "craft knowledge" of most things they bought - they understood how the product was made and how to judge its quality - and advertising rarely outweighed it. But as the number of products and their technological sophistication grew, people could not maintain a craft knowledge of most items they bought - their blender, their lawn mower, even their cake mix. Today a few people retain knowledge of cars or of items used for a hobby, such as fishing or skiing. But most have neither the opportunity nor the expertise to inspect technologically sophisticated goods coming from around the globe.
Cynthia Crossen Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1822) When the people have no other tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one.
E.G. Bulwer-Lytton Alice; Or, The Mysteries (1838) quoted by Cynthia Crossen in Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1823) [T]hat great compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs which is called public opinion.
Sir Robert Peel letter to John Wilson Croker (3/23/1820) Croker Papers (1884) quoted by Cynthia Crossen in Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1824) It isn't polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It's right and wrong.
Harry S. Truman quoted by David McCollough in Truman (1992) quoted by Cynthia Crossen in Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1825) In public policy debates and deliberations, words like decency, right and wrong, fairness, trust and hope have lost their force. Numbers, which can offer so much illumination and guidance if used professionally and ethically, have become the tools of advocacy. Even if their cause is worthy, people who massage data undermine the power and purity of statistics that may be crucial to future decisions. There are numbers we will never know, and we should admit it. It is essential to understand the homeless before making policy about them. But [...] understanding is not the same as counting.
Cynthia Crossen Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1826) The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told at all times. If we do not penalise false statements made in error, we open up the way, don't you see, for false statements by intention. And of course a false statement of fact made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.
C.P. Snow The Search (1959) quoted (in part) by Cynthia Crossen in Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1827) The idea of seeking truth through advocacy is tested most often in America's courts of law. At the heart of the legal system is the belief that truth lies among the self-interested claims of competing parties. The ethics of [social] research are quite different. Self-interest, though acknowledged to be inevitable, is seen as something to be staunchly resisted. Although scientists and social scientists who appear in court insist their work meets their profession's highest standards, in fact their work always supports their clients' positions, or else it and they are simply dropped from the action.
The bald self-interest at the heart of litigation research is only one of the many ways it differs from the academic search for truth. A court constructs its view of truth from the materials before it. If a witness says black is white, and no one contradicts it, then for the purpose of the court, black is white. Legal adversaries stake out extreme positions, making consensus unlikely. In research, however, consensus is an indicator - though an imperfect one - of truth.
The methods by which the two disciplines seek truth also differ. In uncorrupted research, the ideal is to search for an unknown, probably hypothesized, truth; in law, it is to assemble facts to support a predetermined position.
Cynthia Crossen Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
1828) Since it has become standard procedure for many kinds of cases to produce two sets of competing data, judges and juries often fall back on the more subjective judgment of credibility: which expert had better credentials, was more articulate or held up better under cross-examination.
Cynthia Crossen Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (1994)
Note: "3089/898" is the designation I've given to the project of posting all my collected quotes, excerpts and ideas (3089 of them) in the remaining days of the Bush administration (of which there were 898 left when I began). As of today, there are 441 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
compassionless
con artists
conniving
conscienceless
conspiratorial
corrupt
craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
dangerous
deadly
debased
deceitful
delusional
despotic
destructive
devious
disconnected
dishonorable
dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
insincere
irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
mendacious
misleading
mistrustful
non-rational
not candid
not "reality-based"
not trustworthy
oblivious
oligarchic
opportunistic
out of control
pernicious
perverse
philistine
plutocratic
prevaricating
propagandists
rapacious
relentless
reprehensible
rigid
scandalous
schemers
selfish
secretive
shameless
sleazy
tricky
unAmerican
uncaring
uncivil
uncompromising
unconstitutional
undemocratic
unethical
unpopular
unprincipled
unrealistic
unreliable
unrepresentative
unscientific
unscrupulous
unsympathetic
venal
vile
virtueless
warmongers
wicked
without integrity
wrong-headed
Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
guest-blogging
All the fine sites I've
guest-blogged for:
Be sure to visit them all!!
recent listening
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
E-mail
All e-mail received is subject to being published on unfutz without identifying names or addresses.
Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
Substantive textual changes, especially reversals or major corrections, will be noted in an "Update" or a footnote.
Also, illustrations may be added to entries after their initial publication.
the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.