The State Of American �Fact-Checking� Is Completely Useless

[Cow Poke]

[carpedm9587]

I have mixed feelings. Yes - I think a lot of fact-checking has become hyper-detailed and nitpicky. When I look at pages like this one I find that they mix actual outright lies with nitpicking with "disagreements." As a consequence, they have become useless to me to post as "look at these" because the "Trump defenders" will jump on the disagreements and nitpicks and use it as an excuse to dismiss the entire list. And I don't have the time/inclination to sort out the actual lies from the nitpicks. So...

- 31% versus 1/3 - I agree it's a ridiculous nitpick.
- socialism is the greatest threat - I generally agree - it's an example of Trump hyperbole and an unprovable/unrefutable statement
- killing live babies - it disagree - it's an outright lie (or at least amazingly negative assumptions) that seems to be a main theme of many on the right at this time.
- more women serving in Congress - a marvelous example of implied credit-taking. He would have been more honest to say, "and the Democrats have put more women in Congress."
- 58,000 non citizens voting in Texas - a lie he is repeating from the right-leaning media
- There's never been so many border apprehensions in our history - a lie, as determined by data from the CBP itself.
- At the request of democrats, it will be a steel barrier instead of a wall - a lie, no such request was ever made.
- We had the exact same (family separation) policy as the Obama administration - a lie (widely pushed by many on the right) - Neither Obama nor Bush ever had such a policy.
- Democrats oppose any effort to secure our border - a lie (widely pushed by many on the right) - they oppose his wall; they are for border security in pretty much all other forms

I could go on - but you get the idea. Trump's lies and hyperbole are a function of who he is - he has done both as long as he has been in the public eye. I find him to be a consumately dishonest man - far more dishonest than any politician I can remember in my lifetime.

[Starlight]

Fact checking has become relatively pointless in modern America because for the most part only liberals are interested in truth. For much of the conservative audience it is irrelevant whether a statement is truthful or not, so fact-checking it isn't something that appeals to them. As Stephen Colbert famously noted, they prefer "truthiness" (what feels right to them in their gut) to fact-checked truth.

Studies I've seen of conservative and liberal groups on facebook found that a false news post into a liberal group would average about 4 comments before someone fact-checked it and pointed out to others it was false, while false news posts on conservative groups were typically never fact-checked by the commenter in the group if it aligned with their ideology because fact-checking just isn't something US conservatives are typically interested in doing or place value on.

Alternatively you can see their disinterest in truth in the fact that they've chosen to nominate, then elect, then support and approve of, a man who tells multiple lies per day, at a rate unparalleled by another other political figure in any country in modern history. If they had any particular concern about factually false statements/claims being an issue they obviously wouldn't have done that. So telling people who obviously aren't interested in truth or falsehood that Trump's statements are factually false, isn't going to get you very far.

[carpedm9587]

Fact checking has become relatively pointless in modern America because for the most part only liberals are interested in truth. For much of the conservative audience it is irrelevant whether a statement is truthful or not, so fact-checking it isn't something that appeals to them. As Stephen Colbert famously noted, they prefer "truthiness" (what feels right to them in their gut) to fact-checked truth.

Studies I've seen of conservative and liberal groups on facebook found that a false news post into a liberal group would average about 4 comments before someone fact-checked it and pointed out to others it was false, while false news posts on conservative groups were typically never fact-checked by the commenter in the group if it aligned with their ideology because fact-checking just isn't something US conservatives are typically interested in doing or place value on.

Alternatively you can see their disinterest in truth in the fact that they've chosen to nominate, then elect, then support and approve of, a man who tells multiple lies per day, at a rate unparalleled by another other political figure in any country in modern history. If they had any particular concern about factually false statements/claims being an issue they obviously wouldn't have done that. So telling people who obviously aren't interested in truth or falsehood that Trump's statements are factually false, isn't going to get you very far.

I was going to call you on the emphasized part as an overstatement - but I did a bit of digging and what you are saying aligns with a lot of what I am finding in terms of studies. But there was one comment in one article that caught my eye. It noted that liberals tend to be less religious, generally, than conservatives. As a consequence, they lean more heavily on science and the scientific method. Conservatives have a greater dependence on "revealed truths." So if science calls a long-held religious belief into question, the liberal will tend to discard the religious explanation for the scientific one. Conservatives will tend to discard the scientific explanation for the religious one. After all - can god be wrong?

I suspect that is a significant over-simplification - and I'm sure there are a lot of nuances from person to person. But I also suspect, as you move further out on the spectrum - it becomes more and more of a characteristic. It provides a possible explanation for many positions held by evangelicals, and certainly provides an explanation for the affinity of so many for Trump.

[Starlight]

I was going to call you on the emphasized part as an overstatement - but I did a bit of digging and what you are saying aligns with a lot of what I am finding in terms of studies.

Exaggeration is my favorite rhetorical device, but I do try to base my statements in fact (I am a liberal, after all )

It noted that liberals tend to be less religious, generally, than conservatives.

There's a lot of things that correlate. One of the major correlations is a core personality trait called "Openness to [new] experience". On one extreme of this trait lies the autistic person who curls up in a ball rocking back and forth muttering "too much change" if anything at all in their life changes, and on the other extreme are thrill-seekers who travel constantly from countries to country to experience new things. But on the more normal/central parts of the openness-to-experience spectrum lie the people who are psychologically less well equipped to cope with and desire change and tend to on the whole fear and avoid change and prefer that things generally remain the same or don't change too much too fast, whom we call "conservatives", and the people who are psychologically fine with or enjoy a quite a bit of change and enjoy new experiences and new challenges in their lives, whom we call "liberals".

This personality trait of openness to change/new experiences, correlates with a large number of things including intellect, education level, food preferences, and religious views.

As a consequence, they lean more heavily on science and the scientific method.

As an aside, something I have very much learned from doing science is that people's assumptions and guesses about how the world "should" work are often, or even usually, not accurate. If I had a nickel for every time someone in my scientific research group has said "I predict the outcome will be A" another said "I predict B" another "I predict C" and the outcome was Z and we say afterwards "hmmm, we hadn't even thought of that as an option", I would be a rich man. What I have learned time after time is that people on the whole are not actually all that great at predicting/guessing truth, and so instead we have to empirically study the world to find out what is true and what isn't. That is one reason I have so much contempt for philosophies like libertarianism who say effectively "I have this great idea for what I predict will be a wonderful society based on my really simplistic understanding of economics, and though I admit that pretty much no society in world history has ever used this system, I just know it's going to be great!" Similar it's why I fact-check basically everything I see and read.

Conservatives have a greater dependence on "revealed truths." So if science calls a long-held religious belief into question, the liberal will tend to discard the religious explanation for the scientific one. Conservatives will tend to discard the scientific explanation for the religious one. After all - can god be wrong?

This is true, but I think irrelevant. Nowhere in the bible does it say "thou shalt vote for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 American election", yet white evangelical voters turned out in record numbers for Trump and 81% of them that voted, voted for him. Similarly, "thou shalt hate Democrats", "Lock Her Up!", "nobody should be allowed to have an abortion" aren't in the bible, yet it seems an overwhelming percentage of white evangelicals support those views. So I don't think you can appeal to their tendency to believe "revealed truths" as an explanation for why they believe things that aren't revealed truths.

[Cow Poke]

Exaggeration is my favorite rhetorical device

What an understatement!

[Starlight]

What an understatement!

I mean it kind of goes without saying that I'm not half as bad at saying "All conservatives are X" as a lot of conservatives on this forum are when it comes to them saying "All socialists/liberals/leftists/libtards are X", but I do enjoy feeding back some of their hyperbole to them occasionally with them as the target. It's amusing to see how much their throw their toys out of the cot when someone does once to them what they daily do to others.

[lilpixieofterror]

Fact checking has become relatively pointless in modern America because for the most part only liberals are interested in truth. For much of the conservative audience it is irrelevant whether a statement is truthful or not, so fact-checking it isn't something that appeals to them. As Stephen Colbert famously noted, they prefer "truthiness" (what feels right to them in their gut) to fact-checked truth.

Studies I've seen of conservative and liberal groups on facebook found that a false news post into a liberal group would average about 4 comments before someone fact-checked it and pointed out to others it was false, while false news posts on conservative groups were typically never fact-checked by the commenter in the group if it aligned with their ideology because fact-checking just isn't something US conservatives are typically interested in doing or place value on.

Alternatively you can see their disinterest in truth in the fact that they've chosen to nominate, then elect, then support and approve of, a man who tells multiple lies per day, at a rate unparalleled by another other political figure in any country in modern history. If they had any particular concern about factually false statements/claims being an issue they obviously wouldn't have done that. So telling people who obviously aren't interested in truth or falsehood that Trump's statements are factually false, isn't going to get you very far.

As opposed to lying Hillary Clinton, who lied every time her lips moved. The lack of self awareness among many liberals is always amusing.

[mikewhitney]

I was going to call you on the emphasized part as an overstatement - but I did a bit of digging and what you are saying aligns with a lot of what I am finding in terms of studies. But there was one comment in one article that caught my eye. It noted that liberals tend to be less religious, generally, than conservatives. As a consequence, they lean more heavily on science and the scientific method. Conservatives have a greater dependence on "revealed truths." So if science calls a long-held religious belief into question, the liberal will tend to discard the religious explanation for the scientific one. Conservatives will tend to discard the scientific explanation for the religious one. After all - can god be wrong?

I suspect that is a significant over-simplification - and I'm sure there are a lot of nuances from person to person. But I also suspect, as you move further out on the spectrum - it becomes more and more of a characteristic. It provides a possible explanation for many positions held by evangelicals, and certainly provides an explanation for the affinity of so many for Trump.

I'm sorry. I missed where you have shown that you are relying on science in anything in this thread. Are you talking about use of the scientific method with its control of all parameters and with its repeatability or are you talking about opinions repeated so often that you take them to be scientific truths ?

When you joined the forum, I expected more sensibility from you than now being demonstrated.

[lilpixieofterror]

I was going to call you on the emphasized part as an overstatement - but I did a bit of digging and what you are saying aligns with a lot of what I am finding in terms of studies. But there was one comment in one article that caught my eye. It noted that liberals tend to be less religious, generally, than conservatives. As a consequence, they lean more heavily on science and the scientific method. Conservatives have a greater dependence on "revealed truths." So if science calls a long-held religious belief into question, the liberal will tend to discard the religious explanation for the scientific one. Conservatives will tend to discard the scientific explanation for the religious one. After all - can god be wrong?

I suspect that is a significant over-simplification - and I'm sure there are a lot of nuances from person to person. But I also suspect, as you move further out on the spectrum - it becomes more and more of a characteristic. It provides a possible explanation for many positions held by evangelicals, and certainly provides an explanation for the affinity of so many for Trump.

[lilpixieofterror]

I'm sorry. I missed where you have shown that you are relying on science in anything in this thread. Are you talking about use of the scientific method with its control of all parameters and with its repeatability or are you talking about opinions repeated so often that you take them to be scientific truths ?

When you joined the forum, I expected more sensibility from you than now being demonstrated.

[carpedm9587]

Exaggeration is my favorite rhetorical device, but I do try to base my statements in fact (I am a liberal, after all )

There's a lot of things that correlate. One of the major correlations is a core personality trait called "Openness to [new] experience". On one extreme of this trait lies the autistic person who curls up in a ball rocking back and forth muttering "too much change" if anything at all in their life changes, and on the other extreme are thrill-seekers who travel constantly from countries to country to experience new things. But on the more normal/central parts of the openness-to-experience spectrum lie the people who are psychologically less well equipped to cope with and desire change and tend to on the whole fear and avoid change and prefer that things generally remain the same or don't change too much too fast, whom we call "conservatives", and the people who are psychologically fine with or enjoy a quite a bit of change and enjoy new experiences and new challenges in their lives, whom we call "liberals".

This personality trait of openness to change/new experiences, correlates with a large number of things including intellect, education level, food preferences, and religious views.

As an aside, something I have very much learned from doing science is that people's assumptions and guesses about how the world "should" work are often, or even usually, not accurate. If I had a nickel for every time someone in my scientific research group has said "I predict the outcome will be A" another said "I predict B" another "I predict C" and the outcome was Z and we say afterwards "hmmm, we hadn't even thought of that as an option", I would be a rich man. What I have learned time after time is that people on the whole are not actually all that great at predicting/guessing truth, and so instead we have to empirically study the world to find out what is true and what isn't. That is one reason I have so much contempt for philosophies like libertarianism who say effectively "I have this great idea for what I predict will be a wonderful society based on my really simplistic understanding of economics, and though I admit that pretty much no society in world history has ever used this system, I just know it's going to be great!" Similar it's why I fact-check basically everything I see and read.

This is true, but I think irrelevant. Nowhere in the bible does it say "thou shalt vote for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 American election", yet white evangelical voters turned out in record numbers for Trump and 81% of them that voted, voted for him. Similarly, "thou shalt hate Democrats", "Lock Her Up!", "nobody should be allowed to have an abortion" aren't in the bible, yet it seems an overwhelming percentage of white evangelicals support those views. So I don't think you can appeal to their tendency to believe "revealed truths" as an explanation for why they believe things that aren't revealed truths.

So about that relevance. Consider this: "revealed truth" is an authoritarian model. It depends on the "supreme being" to reveal the truth, which is then adopted wholesale. Of course, I (and you?) believe that "supreme being" is a combination of words written by men long dead, the song of the herd, and the "inner voice" I suspect we all experience as some part of our subconscience gives us an "alert." There is a strong correlation between conservatives and authoritarian models. It is how many view parenting, structure their religions, derive their morality, etc. Trump seems to me to be a strongly "authoritarian" figure. So perhaps the gravitation is a natural fit for many on the right? It also explains the admiration for "strongmen" types.

[Mountain Man]

I was going to call you on the emphasized part as an overstatement - but I did a bit of digging and what you are saying aligns with a lot of what I am finding in terms of studies. But there was one comment in one article that caught my eye. It noted that liberals tend to be less religious, generally, than conservatives. As a consequence, they lean more heavily on science and the scientific method. Conservatives have a greater dependence on "revealed truths." So if science calls a long-held religious belief into question, the liberal will tend to discard the religious explanation for the scientific one. Conservatives will tend to discard the scientific explanation for the religious one. After all - can god be wrong?

I suspect that is a significant over-simplification - and I'm sure there are a lot of nuances from person to person. But I also suspect, as you move further out on the spectrum - it becomes more and more of a characteristic. It provides a possible explanation for many positions held by evangelicals, and certainly provides an explanation for the affinity of so many for Trump.

Not that your "analysis" here is biased and self-serving or anything.

[carpedm9587]

Not that your "analysis" here is biased and self-serving or anything.

Feel free to find the studies that refute it.

[Sparko]

yep, it's like that list of Trump lies that is on the web. I think Oxmixx linked to it once.

Most of it is hyper-literal nitpicking on figures of speech, hyperbole or numbers of things mentioned, or pure opinions.