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News Gathering vs. Confirmation Bias
- Remember, if you do not have at least one source of news that you turn to regularly, with which you routinely disagree, then you are not practicing news gathering! You are practicing [confirmation bias].
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Science
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996) at p.32.
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
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Tag Archives: government
Reason: Trump’s Shameful Pardons for War Criminals Undermine America’s Moral Authority
Steven Greenhut, writing at Reason: Earlier this month, President Donald Trump pardoned a former Army lieutenant who was convicted of ordering his troops to fire on unarmed civilians. He granted a pardon to an Army major who had been awaiting trial for killing an Afghan man. Trump reversed the demotion of another officer, who had […]
Trump Administration Rule Allowing Refusals in Health Care Struck Down
American Civil Liberties Union: The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York struck down the Trump administration’s rule that allows health care institutions and providers to deny patients information and treatment based on personal religious or moral beliefs. That’s good to hear. I know people who are afraid of change, generally, and […]
Reason: The Same FBI That Wants To Destroy Encryption Is Still Illegally Snooping on Americans
Scott Shackford, writing at reason.com: As late as last year, agents at the FBI were still violating the privacy rights of American citizens through misuse of federal surveillance tools, a ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has revealed. The ruling is from October 2018 but was only declassified and disclosed this week, albeit […]
Also tagged constitution, law/legal
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Reason: Don’t Destroy the Constitution To Fight Drag Queen Reading Hour
Steven Greenhut writing at Reason.com: The Sacramento public library featured a drag-queen story hour, in which men dressed as women read stories to children. It seems bizarre and agenda-driven, given that a stated goal was to provide kids with “glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models.” I’ve seen drag queens and glamorous isn’t the first […]
Remembering the ‘Faith-based Initiative’ we call 9/11
Those in authority should take appropriate precautions to protect our citizens. But we will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms. (emphasis added) –George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, remarks made during press conference/photo opportunity with the National Security Team, Wednesday, […]
Why the American people still need newspapers
Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University and the founder of the 1 for All campaign for the First Amendment, in a guest column for The Tennessean: It’s important to acknowledge newspapers’ past, but also to express concern about their future. […] too many view this as a business […]
Asset Forfeiture Funding Has Little Impact on Solving Crimes
C.J. Ciaramella, reporting at Reason.com: Law enforcement groups have long argued that civil asset forfeiture, a practice that allows police to seize property suspected of being connected to criminal activity, is a vital tool for stopping drug trafficking, but a new study found that the nation’s largest forfeiture program had little effect on crime fighting. […]
Also tagged law enforcement, libertarian, reason
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Reason Podcast: The Libertarian Case for Term Limits
Nick Tomboulides, the executive director of U.S. Term Limits, on the Reason Podcast with Nick Gillespie: “Congress has given us $22 trillion in debt, the longest war in American history, a broken health care system, a broken immigration system, a tax code written by lobbyists, and an explosion of money in politics. Worst of all, […]
OpEd: Meet the Press? Don’t Bother
Michelle Cottle, writing in the paper of record: Conducting daily briefings was once a core function of the press secretary. The White House put its spin on the news of the day; reporters pushed for more information or clarification. Somewhere in all the give-and-take, the public interest was served. Under President Trump, such sessions have […]
The GOP Is the Anti-Vaxx Party Now
Sophie Weiner writing at Splinter News: Six states now have bills authored by Democrats that would make forgoing vaccines for children more difficult. In nearly all of those states, which include Colorado, Arizona, New Jersey, Washington, New York, and Maine, the bills have faced Republican opposition. Meanwhile, in West Virginia and Mississippi, the GOP has […]