Opinion versus Fact

Editor,

I don't remember when it started exactly, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, but all of a sudden polls of uninformed individuals' opinions assumed more political weight than rigorously derived scientific knowledge. So, naturally, vested financial interests set about swaying citizens' opinions with misinformation, disinformation, lies, and other subterfuge.

Another thing I've noticed, pretty much along the same lines, is that if I mention a book I've read by a serious scholar who has spent his or her entire life studying everything there is to know about a particular subject, the person I mention it to immediately starts spouting media-propagated nonsense as a substitute for reading the book and is incapable of listening to more than a dozen words or so of the argument the author has laid out.

I find it hard to find individuals with whom to have informed conversations outside of a narrow slice of academia, and this includes people who read newspapers and magazines.

It seems that certain over-simplifications -- and poll numbers -- take hold and dominate daily discourse. Net result is a lot of people are walking around thinking that they understand what is going on, and for all intent and purposes they do not know a thing.

Persecuting whistle blowers and journalists who report crimes the government is trying to hide, of course, is part of this mix.

Re: "Welcome to the Age of Denial" (8/22/2013)