Saturday, July 16, 2022

Fact vs. Emotion, Thinking vs. Feeling

      It's a little disappointing when I post a link to careful research based on verifiable fact, as I did the other day to the Lost, Not Stolen report on the 2020 Presidential election, only to receive heated, muddled comments repeating (without evidence or links) the exact claims the report refutes, comments insisting, "'proof' is a distraction. [...] Nothing has to be 'proved'. [...] The reporting Authority has to 'prove' what they report. A challenger doesn't have to 'prove' anything."

      This is a remarkable statement, particularly in light of an election system with a highly-tracable, closely-monitored counting process that provides its own proof and (in most states) includes audits and routine recounts of close contests.  The assertion that "challengers" don't need to provide proof does not in any way apply to the court system (unless you'd like your case thrown out, or proceed to an absolute drubbing by the side that does provide verifiable evidence), and the "reporting Authority" for elections has usually got proof baked right in.*

      Proof is an essential element in distinguishing truth from falsehood.  Truth -- and how to find it -- is at the heart of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Method.  Kick that over and what you are left with are barbarians, howling in the wilderness.  That's not anything I will cheer for -- and people who do will find their comments do not get published.

      I have published plenty of comments from people with political opinions different to my own.  I have done so within the last week and you can go read them.  I'm not publishing comments from people who have gone to war against reality.

     What I am after finding are facts, not feelings.  When I find facts, I share them.  I share my opinions and I try to label than as opinion.  I'm not in charge of whatever you're after, but I am in charge of my own blog.
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* One of the things that made such a screaming mess of the 2000 Presidential election was a technological failure and a ballot-design failure that introduced subjectivity to what should have been a cut-and-dried mechanical process.  And lo, it ended up in court, with arguments involving facts and the law.

1 comment:

Eck! said...

Emotion is not fact save for the only fact is we
have and express them. Even then saying I feel
or my opinion has the need for the explanation
of why. "What he said" is simple agreement
and has no weight toward proof or fact.

I've long supported the idea of claims need proof,
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Our laws are similar, for criminal law is evidence
sufficient to convince jurors that it was beyond
a shadow of doubt. Civil law has the preponderance
of proof requirement. However, proof has to be
presented in court.

Even in school you can be completely wrong but
if you show your work in a detailed and ernest
way you get the effort made grade.

Yet there are those that simply saying "it" is
sufficient proof. That is just potentially
repeating a lie. Its unsupported work that
doesn't assert anything and hopefully never will.
Show your work, please. And pointing to the
other guy is not work is a footnote to your
earnest work as he could be wrong and its your
job to prove it true or false.
That's doing the work.

Will all that said every time a "electron fraud"
is exposed its usually a republican caught cheating
or an outright assertion of a lie.

Getting emotional and calling names is something
reserved, though not tolerated, for little kids
having tantrums.


Eck!