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The Spectacle Blog
My thoughts, last week, on the media “fact checkers,” and on society’s increasing confusion about what even constituteds a “fact” in the first place.
Acouple of snippets:
First, something can be “accurate” or “factual” while being misleading or while being used dishonestly. Second, a statement can be inaccurate without being a “lie.” Third, a statement may be open to interpretation without being inaccurate. Fourth, an interpretation of a statement or event can be “balanced” but still untruthful – or, vice versa, might be truthful while being utterly unbalanced. Fifth, failure to live up to an aspirational promise is not necessarily a lie, or even dishonest (unless the one making the promise never intended to live up to it).
…
Example of situation one: It is “accurate” to say that “every time a space shuttle has blown up in the air, a Republican was president.” If, however, you are using that incontrovertible fact to insinuate that Republicans cause shuttles to explode, you are being dishonest. You could likewise say that whenever the Detroit Tigers win a World Series in a presidential election year, Republicans win: It’s accurate, but one has nothing to do with the other. Correlation is not necessarily causation.
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More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/09/09/just-the-facts
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Big Java| 9.10.12 @ 12:53AM
But, but, Quin, we all know it's Bush's fault!
RJ| 9.10.12 @ 2:28AM
That's because Bush's legacy is the Obama Administration.
RJ| 9.10.12 @ 2:28AM
Every time Obama has won a Presidential election, the US economy has gotten worse.
Quin Hillyer| 9.10.12 @ 10:52AM
Now this IS a case where correlation and causation are the same! :)
JD| 9.10.12 @ 2:45PM
Quin, you lost me with a few points in that article.
If a politician says an incumbent president “caused” an economic downturn, the only thing verifiable about the statement is whether indeed there has been a downturn. A fact checker can disagree until the cows come home about who is to blame for the downturn, but he can’t say the politician was “inaccurate.”
I disagree. The statement is either factual or not factual. More likely there's a degree of truth to it, and whether that degree is significant is the judgement call, but statements like the one you cited are often made when there is no truth whatsoever in them. In such cases, factuality is not a judgment call.
A “broken” promise involves not doing something entirely in one’s control, such as not eating broccoli every day after promising to do so.
I agree with your ultimately conclusion about maligning judgment rather than honesty, but it is NOT true that a broken promise involves not doing something entirely in one’s control. People often DO promise that things will happen, despite lacking control. They are fools for making such promises, but they still earn the title "promise breaker" when the promise does not play out.