quote:

In my book, a legitimate source isone that is academically written, and peer reviewed.

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duplicatable evidience that can be found and validated by outside, unbiased sources

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What is "reputable" to you? What would you call a "reliable" source? What are the contributing factors to thigns that you call believable and worthy of citation?

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ORIGINAL: Sissyslave71

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY disagree.

"peer reviewed", "legitimate" sources often have their OWN AGENDA in mind.

quote:


Dismissing information just because it fails to meet "academic criteria" is shortsighted,
closed minded, elitist and downright snobbish IMHO.

quote:

As I see it, ANYTHING can be part of the 'great governement conspiracy' (which I do buy into a little bit) However, what I'm reading from your posts is that, basically, no one can be trusted. The media is an agent of the government, schools are an agent of the governemtn. It seems as though anyone who doesn't agree with your opinion has been brainwashed. Why are your sources the credible ones? How am I to know that -you- have not, in fact, been brainwashed by a different organization, with different goals?

quote:

I won't get kicked off the forums over someone elses hatred for me. More than likely,the moderators already have their trigger fingers on the BAN button and me in their crosshairs as it is

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sissyslave71
You know what?

I'm not going to answer that because thus far since I have been here, when I open my mouth about how I feel
about governments, elite institutions, wealthy hereditary psychos, predatory global corporations or otherwise..I am ostracized, labeled and called this or that. I won't get kicked off the forums over someone elses hatred for me. More than likely,the moderators already have their trigger fingers on the BAN button and me in their crosshairs as it is

I gave you my 2 cents. Its UP TO YOU to read into what I am saying and judge wether it is "sh!+..or shinola".

quote:

Anyway, if Columbus had believed all the experts in his time he would have known the earth was flat and there was nothing beyond the horizon; all the academic experts in Galileo's time knew the earth was the center of the universe. So what we know now will probably sound silly in the future.

quote:

Still, having the weight of opinions is no guarantee of fact.

Without getting into the veracity of dani's quoted sources in the posts on his thread, which sissy completely skipped over at the time and so has no opinion as to their true level of "hokeyness" or not, there is plenty of very verifiable real evidence staring you right in the face to tell you that all is not straight and above board WRT to the official explanation for the 9-11 chain of events. All you have to do is have the COURAGE to question it, rather than run with the herd and hide with the crowd, pointing fingers at the modern day Galileos and Columbuses and labeling them "conspiracy theorists."

Just because someone questions the veracity of the claim that multiple cell phone calls were made from an airliner flying at 10,000 feet doesn't make him a conspiracy nut ... but rather, it makes him a seeker after objective knowledge. Good science tends to question the truth of what the majority accept without question, or don't give any thought to ... or are too scared to give any thought to. Questioning the Catholic church back in Galileo's day took a lot of courage. Questioning the Bush administration - in a society where the majority of people appear to watch Fox News in order to receive their perspective on life, or are proud to be Rush Limbaugh "ditto heads" and be told by that demagogue what they should be thinking - might be as equally scary today!

In dani's particular case, sissy feels that he is being somewhat indiscriminate in what he is citing as evidence for his beliefs ... he seems to collect "proof" that supports his own pre-conceived held views no matter how strong or flimsy the evidence is. That is not scientific procedure at all. All of science starts off as hypotheses which scientists do their utmost to prove wrong. The more the hypothesis puts at risk WRT possible falsification the better that hypothesis is ... and the longer it withstands all efforts to discredit it the stronger the hypothesis becomes within our accepted body of thought. The ramifications of gravity as originally hypothesized by Newton are quite extensive and go way beyond accounting for falling apples. With each failed attempt to show that gravity is incorrect the hypothesis became a theory and then a law of nature. In fact, today gravity is accepted as one of the four fundamental forces of nature and is key to understanding not only all planetary motion, but also the creation and destruction of stars.

What most people that are not scientific in their background or training tend to do when they want to try and represent their own ideas as having the same kind of veracity and import that we normally only attach to scientific theories, is to mistakenly invert the actual process that occurs in real science. They see that sciences captures evidence in order to prove theories so they do the same ... they set out to capture all manner of things that might add some kind of credence to their ideas, no matter how far-fetched or ridiculous some of that evidence might be, on the basis that "more is better." At the same time, they dismiss and ignore everything that could possibly be considered as being contrary to their idea, no matter how well-argued or established that data may be, since it might possibly discredit or falsify their idea.

It is exactly this latter type of data that good science embraces NOT shirks ... in effect, hit me with your best shot and i'll still prove you wrong. Always questioning yourself and rigorously trying to prove yourself wrong is the hallmark of a good scientist ... the more you fail to prove yourself wrong the stronger your hypothesis (... then theory ... then law) turns out to be. A body of scientific evidence for an idea (hypothesis or theory, etc.) is simply the list of accumulated failures at attempting to try and prove that idea wrong. One NEVER proves anything correct in science ... one only repeatedly fails to prove something as incorrect, thereby increasing one's confidence in it.

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... and even relatively unbiased "experts" in that field tend to overstate their case and in doing so discredit their position instead of strengthening it as desired.

What immediately identifies false thinking or unscientific thinking - sometimes called pseudo-science - is the focus of the adherents to gather only facts that support their ideas while ignoring and hiding those facts that don't neatly fit their beliefs. It struck sissy that dani's approach to proving that there is something fishy about the events of 9-11 is to accumulate everything he's ever seen written on the topic that questions the official view of 9-11, in the same way that a squirrel collects nuts. Science is, and has to be, much more discriminatory than that. happypervert is effectively referring to such pseudo-scientists when he states that they, "tend to overstate their case and in doing so discredit their position instead of strengthening it as desired."

That sums up exactly what is wrong with dani's approach to selling his belief that something other than officially stated happened on 9-11 ... he focuses on and measures only the quantity, not the quality, of his evidence for foul play, and thereby undermines his case rather than building it. A couple of choice arguments clearly identifying obvious contradictions in the 9-11 story would have had a lot more impact than pages and pages of links to somewhat dubious source evidence from others. But as sissy stated above, that thread was yanked before sissy had any chance to go through what dani posted, so he cannot prove his argument any further than this.

But just because there are a lot of cranks that support totally wild theories WRT what really happened before, on, and after 9-11, this does not mean that everyone that questions some fact or detail to do with the official version of 9-11 events should be labeled as a "conspiracy theorist." There are legitimate people asking searching and embarrassing questions WRT anomalies and contradictions in the official story of 9-11, and these people should not be confused with others residing in foreign countries that post doctored photographs of the hole in the side of the Pentagon and claim that a missile rather than a plane hit it because the hole is to small. To scientifically question (or even test) the veracity of information that you are fed by your government, rather than swallow it hook, line and sinker without another thought, is indeed - as dani claims - the mark of a good Democrat or patriot. But that is not the same thing at all as disagreeing with everything that the government puts forth simply for the sake of doing so.

Regards,

sissy maid lola




_____________________________

If i don't seem submissive to You, it may be because i'm NOT submissive to You.

(in reply to happypervert)

quote:

Are there, in y'alls opinion, -no- sources worth trusting?

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ORIGINAL: perverseangelic
duplicatable evidience that can be found and validated by outside, unbiased sources

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ORIGINAL: onceburned
This seems to be key to reliability: facts and conclusions can be independently verified by impartial observers. The peer-review process is intended to do exactly this.

sissy Doesn't disagree with what either you or perverseangelic is saying here, and this approach clearly applies to the kind of issue we were discussing WRT the JAMA study over on sissy's poll thread, chris. But the process of verification that both of you are describing, and that all three of us would buy into as intelligent, educated people, doesn't really apply to the issue that initially triggered this discussion ... namely 9-11 conspiracy theories, or any other kind of advocated mass conspiracies, and the way in which the average person gets his news in order to form his opinions.

Many people get their news from a single biased source such as Fox News or CNN or USA Today, etc. Even some of the better newspapers (e.g., the New York Times) can put out the most absurd rubbish. sissy Admires greatly the work of Thomas Friedman, for instance, but despises the kind of political lies and biased reporting that came from the NYT during the Clinton era. Look at the way that same newspaper falsely railroaded Wen Ho Lee for its own right wing political ends. Truth took a back seat to false rhetoric and an over zealous political agenda in that case. Look at the tremendous scandal at the NYT in the last couple of years WRT Pulitzer prize winning journalists putting their names on stories they didn't write (Rick Bragg?) and even completely fabricating stories in order to maintain their reputations for always coming up with good copy (even when they can't!). It appears that much good and much bad can come out of this one well-respected newspaper.

A year or so ago a similar issue arose at the BBC WRT Andrew Gilligan and his reporting on the falsified documents put out by Tony Blair's government to argue the case that Saddam Hussein had WMD, the resulting scandal from which unfortunately cost Dr. David Kelly his life, and the jobs of the top two executives at the BBC - Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke - plus a whole slew of other senior BBC news production managers. sissy Considers the BBC to be one of the world's most objective news sources but even it was thrown into total turmoil as a result of the Hutton Enquiry Report findings WRT this matter which has seriously tarnished its reputation. Consider also the recent (ongoing) scandal at CBS and Dan Rather and clear lack of procedures that should have been in place to prevent what went on WRT the George Bush story.

sissy Could go on and on and cite many more examples. The issue is that much of our competitive media that has established a reputation over the years for excellent journalism has now fallen (through consolidation and buyouts) into the hands of a few media moguls (such as Robert Maxwell, Conrad Black, etc.), and in the case of an once reputable news organization such as CBS, possibly many cost cutting measures implemented over the years have removed some of the more basic checks and balances for story verification and validation. These are the very SOPs (standard operating procedures) that used to guarantee that a story could not be aired without the establishment of duplicatable evidence, reliable second sources, etc. - all the good theoretical stuff that you, sissy, and all of us believe in, and would like to believe all the media companies put as priority one in their organizations.

But unfortunately many of these media companies no longer put adherence to these SOPs and other ethical journalistic practices as their first priority any more. So who are we to believe and rely on in this new era for mainstream media ? Quite frankly, nowadays sissy trusts some of the news coming out of Al Jazeera more than he does the hype that is fed to us by the likes of Fox News and CNN and other large corporate media companies with a vested interest in faithfully distributing what is little more than U.S. government propaganda in many cases. It's alright for perverseangelic and yourself to talk about "duplicatable evidence that can be found and validated by outside, unbiased sources" but how do you find an unbiased source today ? If you follow the money ... there are no unbiased sources! And in an age where most media companies are global, what is an outside source ?

Is Rupert Murdoch's $50 billion global broadcasting empire an outside source ? This man is as at home in his Fox News or Twentieth Century Fox offices in New York City, or his new world headquarters for News Corporation in Delaware, as he is at the offices of his News International group (which owns the News of the World, the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times newspapers) in Fleet Street, as he is across the way at the HQ of Sky Television, as he is at his old world headquarters for News Corporation in Melbourne, Australia. The man is considered a native in all three countries. Born in Melbourne, he was groomed in and took over his father newspaper and publishing business, before moving to Fleet Street and taking over and dominating the British press in the sixties and seventies, until finally moving to the U.S.A. in the eighties and becoming an U.S. citizen in 1985 in order to comply with America's media ownership laws. This man's personal media empire makes that of the fictional Charles Foster Kane look like a small family business, and the humungus news organization of the real life press baron William Randolph Hearst (on which the Citizen Kane character was based) look even smaller!

But Rupert Murdoch is only one of the handful of media barons that control the news we all receive today. The whole point behind sissy's little bio of Murdoch above was to provide the context for the following question. How much of a conspiracy does it take to create a false story when you can leak it to, say, Conrad Black, Steve Forbes, Ted Turner, Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch ? That would put the story into 50% - 60% of the newspapers in the world from Beijing to Brisbane to Buenos Aires to Baltimore to Basingstoke and Berlin.

If the debate on this thread is to move forward, you and perverseangelic (or anyone else that wants to take up this cause) need to cite some of dani's sources and say what was wrong with them, and also you need to state some sample alternate news sources that either of you would implicitly trust and why ?

Regards,

sissy maid lola




< Message edited by sissymaidlola -- 4/12/2005 11:05:10 AM >

_____________________________

If i don't seem submissive to You, it may be because i'm NOT submissive to You.

(in reply to onceburned)