Is What You Are Told True?

Cecile posted a wonderful quote this week from Carl Sagan that was never so apt as when applied to those scammed by the medical profession into thinking that vaccinations were the result of the drop in infectious diseases:
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
There is a quote to the same effect, attributed to Mark Twain but allegedly unproven as penned by him.
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
Despite the disputes over it’s authenticity, it is, unfortunately, observably true!
So next time somebody presents you with data conrary to what you have previously been told, it might pay to stop and fact check the contrary data. And relying on daya presented by an “authority” as being more valid is very often a lazy and incorrect choice. Especially if they are asking you to trust their authority rather than actually looking for your self.
You cannot live long enough in one lifetime to learn all you need to know by direct observation, so you have to take in a great deal of data second hand, that is written by someone else who observed. But you do have to exercise more judgement with second hand data than you do with that you directly observe. One thing you have to ask is, “Is there a slant being given, is there a vested interest being forwarded with this data.”

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