Just The Facts Ma'am

That's all Joe Friday ever wanted. Just the facts. But I think he was asking more of people than they could give. His aim was to take all opinion out of the story being relayed to him. The only thing he was interested in was a description of the events that the witness observed. Just the facts.

That's not how things work however. Distinctions between “fact”ⁱ and “belief” may be difficult to identify, and there are also the problems of “opinion”ⁱⁱ and previous experiences unrelated to the current question entirely, but governing the way one interprets it. Not to mention confabulation and prevarication secondary to potential benefit from remembering an event in a way favorable to one of the participants, or fear of the consequences of an accurate recounting of what was observed.

And all of this presumes that the observer is accurate and remembers what he saw. But that's not at all certain.ⁱⁱⁱ What we see is based on what we expect to see, what we want to see,^iv and what we have seen in the past, as much as what has actually taken place. Numerous studies call into question the accuracy of eyewitnesses. Juries may believe the word of an “honest citizen” rather that of a “criminal,” but eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.

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One of society's big problems nowadays^v is bullying. The most obvious kind relates to physical abuse, but it's not the most common. Chalk that up to verbal violence.^vi One child will belittle the ideas of another as evidence of his own superiority, often using “facts” that he has made up. Whether we agree with his view or not is beside the point. We may not believe there is a Tooth Fairy, but that is not proof that there is none; we may personally doubt the existence of Santa Claus, but as Francis Church pointed out to Virginia,^vii in fact, there is one. Scientific documentation may not always be obtainable, and it is not always necessary.

The most important question then is what constitutes a fact. The word itself is from the Latin factum – something done – and, consequently, refers to something that is true: provable, demonstrable, observable, repeatable, and has predictive value.^viii Most of the definitions are variations on this idea – that a fact is true and verifiable.

But that's not all on the subject. For example, Collins's World English Dictionary^ix includes in its definition of fact: “philosophy a proposition that may be either true or false, as contrasted with an evaluative statement,” and, when it comes to legal issues, “(q)uestions of fact are decided by the jury, questions of law by the court or judge.” And one of the statements of the Merriam Webster Third New International Dictionary^x is that a fact is a statement “purporting to contain something having objective reality.” Purporting. So the claim that something is a fact doesn't make it true, and it doesn't guarantee that it should be believed. Label something as a fact, though, and most people will consider you a fool if you don't accept it. Evaluation is no longer necessary.^xi Once everyone believes something is a fact, it is a fact.

But, as James Randi said, “No amount of belief makes something a fact.”^xii Randi has spent his life disproving beliefs, maintaining that only scientifically approved facts are worthy of acceptance. Facts like the four elements and phlogiston. Facts like the centrality of the earth in the universe. And, of course, facts about matters visible to all and known by all – like the fact that the earth is flat. That's certainly reproducible. But not all of science's past judgments are still believed.

For facts are really beliefs, some of which have mathematical or scientific basis and some of which are demonstrable and observable. But there are other facts for which there is no scientific foundation. That doesn't mean they are untrue. There were electrons before they were first demonstrated, and the sun was the center^xiii of our solar system even before Copernicus, but we couldn't prove it. And there were cells before Hooke, and laws of physics before Newton. There was even Truth before there was mathematics.

But we consider facts to be theories until we have the tools to “prove” them. Whether the proof is by direct visualization or an inference from mathematical theory, it takes a tool^xiv to make something into a fact. And it takes belief, Randi notwithstanding.

For some, the written word constitutes fact. Will Rogers averred: “All I know is just what I read in the papers.”^xv Unfortunately newspapers have their own agendas, and most reporters adjust their dispatches to coincide with the publication's philosophy. And many – “advocacy journalists” – present their own biases intermixed with the hard news. Even stories of scientific advances are notoriously unreliable.

Others prefer to make their own decisions without direction from journalists who may be biased. All they want to see are the pictures, whose content they'll judge for themselves. No captions are necessary. They ignore the fact that the pictures may be censored by some regimes, and those that do appear in the papers are chosen by the same people they don't trust for text. And Photoshop has ended the reliability of photos forever.

What, then, are facts? The best I can do is to view them as strongly held beliefs which may or may not have evidence to support them. Skeptics like Randi will often dispute the evidence anyway, but no one is required to accept his definition of truth any more than he accepts that of others. Before Einstein, Newton's laws of physics were indisputable. Who knows if Einstein's will be disproved. What we now believe science proves, may ultimately be shown to be wrong, but we are not compelled to use the scientific playing field in any case. The spiritual field is just as valid, as is the perspective of a particular culture. Facts are not as cut and dried as Sgt. Friday would have us believe.^xvi Nor are beliefs.

One thing is clear however. No amount of fact invalidates a belief. Even Randi's belief in the incontestable credibility of science.

Next episode: “Proportionality” – The measure of all things can't be measured.

I        As will become clear, I don't always place what people call “facts” in high esteem. I usually view them as having scare quotation marks, but using those at all times would be unwieldy in an essay of this sort. So don't look for them, but understand that I often don't take them seriously, and neither should you.

ii        Some might even say bias.

iii        You can fool some of the people all of the time.

iv        And we remember what we want to remember.

v        It's not a new problem at all, but all of a sudden it's become one of our major concerns. We should have dealt with it a long time ago.

vi       The persistence of this form of abuse into marriage is beyond the scope of this endeavor.

vii      Editorial in the New York Sun, September 21, 1897.

viii     Actually that's not completely accurate (though it will do for our purposes). “Fact,” comes from “factum” derived from Latin facere, and describes something that has happened. Already. So it's not really a fact that “the sun will come up tomorrow” – despite Annie's protestations. Based on our experience, however, we believe it to be true. But fact and truth are not synonyms.

ix       www.collinsdictionary.com

x        Springfield, Massachusetts, 1971.

xi       You can fool all of the people some of the time.

xii      http://www.atheistrepublic.com/gallery/no-amount-belief-makes-something-fact-james-randi

xiii     Well not really the center, but close enough. Certainly all the planets rotate around it. As far as we know.

xiv      Like a magnifying glass or electron microscope.

xv      Rogers only feigned his simplistic trust. He knew the papers were full of nonsense and used them as a comic prop. In fact, he viewed “just what I read in the papers” as “an alibi for my ignorance.”

xvi      You can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Enough Already

I heard on the radio recently that the International Bullying Prevention Association was holding its annual meeting in New Orleans. That sounds like a good place to hold it. Stella Kowalski would certainly approve, even if Stanley wouldn't be amused. New Orleans must be the ideal place for the IBPA to meet.ⁱ

But it set me thinking. When I searched for “Associations” in Yahoo! I got a return of 243,000,000 results. Google had 246,000,000, but I don't think the additional three million will make much of a difference.ⁱⁱ Both engines gave me too many results. And that sent me in two different directions. First of all, there's altogether too much information out there. Too many people are putting stuff on line for the search engines to find. Which makes it all but useless to try to study a subject exhaustively.

More to the point, though, there are too many associations, and organizations with special interests. Things have gotten out of hand. When I was growing up there were a few major American charities that pretty much covered all problems, while the English were accused of being eccentrics – of having too many organizations with weird agendas. Often they were interested in preserving some form of animal life (though it never seemed that they were equally committed to preserving humans). Now there are various American conservation organizations that are devoted to more species than I knew existed. In fact, since the internet and Facebook have appeared, there has been a penchant for forming groups of all kinds. I'm convinced that a large part of the impetus for such activity is ego.ⁱⁱⁱ I suspect that the new organization man (or woman) is thinking: “I know what's important, so just join my group, follow me, and I'll lead the rest of you to the GOOD.”

One of the most prominent manifestations of this effort is the formation of foundations for research into all manner of diseases – some of them virtually unknown to the public. It often appears to be a quest for the immortality of a lost loved-one. For every disease there appear to be several foundations named after people who suffered with it or died from it.^iv (The same is true of laws, only those statutes seem to be named after children who were victims of kidnaping, abuse or sexual crimes.)

I don't mean to suggest that any of these foundations is unworthy – that its aims are anything less than virtuous, or that the problem that it was established to battle isn't deserving of public aid and attention. I'm cheered that there are so many who are eager to help their fellows. But at a time when voluntarism is less than it has been in the past, and when the state of the economy doesn't contribute to generosity, the multiplicity of organizations that will increase the burden on these resources may act in a way contrary to our interests. Too often a new organization is created whose aims parallel those of one or more bodies already in business.^v Either the new founders are unable to identify existing organizations,^vi or would prefer to start their own – perhaps to obtain the immortality of their loved one (or of themselves). In doing so, however, there is duplication of administrative support structures as well as a competition for resources and publicity. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that if the same amount of money and effort were devoted to fewer organizations, far more could be accomplished in accomplishing the goals which they all proclaim.

Mae West is famed for (among the other attractions) saying “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”^vii I could be wrong, but somehow I don't think she was referring to helping others. It's not up to me to decide which is the best organization in a particular field, but before starting a new one, I suspect that it would be beneficial to see what institutions already exist that deal with the problem you'd like to address, and then to use your resources to support one of them.

Unless, of course, your goal is to immortalize your own name or that of a friend or relative. It's a bully great way to do so – in New Orleans or elsewhere.

Next episode: “One Liners” – Humor and politics.

i     Lest anyone misunderstand the level of brotherly love in that city, it should be noted that “The Big Easy's homicide rate (52 homicides per 100,000 residents) is 10 times higher than the national average and almost five times that of other cities of its size.” Douglas McCollam in The Wall Street Journal, November 12-13, 2011.

ii    I probably won't read all the references.

iii    In that way it's a lot like writing a blog.

iv   It's hard not to view the establishment of so many foundations – so many philanthropic memorials – as overkill.

v     In fairness to the International Bullying Prevention Association, at its founding in 2002, only a few such organizations existed.

vi    A “Google” search using “breast cancer organizations” listed more than 68 million “hits.” While these do not indicate separate organizations, the actual number must be quite high. And that is the case even if we allow for actual differences in their missions.

vii    She said many other delightful things, but I leave it to the reader to find them.