Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Your putative epistemology, if not calculated for the purposes, conveniently allows you to dismiss all sorts of inconvenient facts. How nice.
Certain sorts of things will only be reported through anonymous sources. Categorically disregarding such reporting is tantamount to closing your eyes, ears, and nose to the world, and feeling your way around blindly.
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No, I am not dismissing them, I am just pointing out that statements made from anonymous sources should be treated with skepticism. I am not dismissing any inconvenient facts because I am not talking about facts; I am talking about unsubstantiated allegations.
You refer to my putative epistemology. I assume that you mean by putative that I have made some erroneous assumptions about how to discern the truth.
Do you really think that I am wrong when I say that statements made from anonymous sources should be treated with skepticism? Yes, it is true, only some information can be gleamed that way, but that does not mean that such information is reliable.
Do you really think that information reporters have alleged they have obtained from anonymous sources is always reliable? What possible argument can you make that such statements should not be viewed with extreme skepticism?
The problem with the current state of punditry is that these pundits pretend to know more than they do so they can give credibility to their statements. There is all sorts of information that is not available to the public but the pundits pretend it is there so they can sound like they know what they are talking about. How can you talk intelligently about the Bush administrations policies if you don't know what their intentions are and what they are thinking? The problem is you can't (at least a great deal of the time you can't), and so you can't talk intelligently about it, but the pundits pretend that is not the case. I worked on the Bush campaign in 2000 and the presses disregard of the truth was unbelievable. Every day I heard reporters stating what was going on in the Bush campaign, what Karl Rove was saying to so and so, what was being done, and eighty percent of it was not true. Yet is always stated as fact.
All sorts of assumption are made, treated as facts and then debated endlessly. Half the time the press and the pundits are debating about the pink elephant that doesn't exist. Yes there is a commercial reason they do this, but someone with a law school education should be able to see through the fantasy and understand what reliable information is and what unsubstantiated allegations are.
