Nobel "Peace" Prize

On the heels of the news story that reports Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, Doug Reich provides us with some excellent commentary as to how the ideology Obama follows necessarily leads to violence, which thereby discredits the award as having any merit:

And what exactly would a pragmatist seek to achieve in foreign policy, i.e., what would be the standard by which he would determine what "works"? Since "peace" is their ostensible goal, this means that any action in the short run that seems to be a step towards non-fighting would be regarded as good. Therefore, "easing tensions with the Muslim world" or appeasement of our enemies is regarded as worthy of praise and even a Nobel Prize. In the long run, will appeasement of those who overtly seek our destruction result in "peace"? To them, who knows? They must be pragmatic which means making everyone feel good right now.

[...] As Iran continues to build a nuclear bomb, as Chavez seeks Russian help to realize its own nuclear ambitions, as troop morale hits an all time low, what is clear is that Obama's weakness and pragmatic appeasement is making the world more dangerous not less. Obama has given a tacit green light to every enemy of the United States by implying that we will not defend our values either morally or practically.

If a consumer safety company became known for putting its seal of approval on products that more often than not harmed consumers then it would become a meaningless seal which no one would respect. The Nobel Peace Prize has reached this status by not only having been given to a person who has yet to accomplish anything to deserve it, but also by having been given to a person that is actually responsible for the perpetuation of violence. Some reward.

(See also: Commentary by Galileo Blogs and my previous post on foreign policy, Dr. Dolittleism in Foreign Policy.)

Post Script to The Power of Epistemology

In my previous article it was discussed how bad epistemology can actually threaten one's own life, case in point, how emotionalism on the part of one scientist (Ancel Keys) may have lead to the suffering and death of millions. Now we have another example, non-life threatening, of how bad epistemology can possibly lead to the permanent extinction of actual facts:

When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

The sociology major's made-up quote — which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 — flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India.

Again we come upon the case where a single epistemological poison can invalidate the entire system, the poison being, this time, a failure to maintain an active mind.

Every credible researcher should know that Wikipedia should not be used as a primary source. If it be used at all, it is best to go straight to the sources cited section and treat the site as if it were a mere gathering of links to reference material.

Because of the journalists' laziness they unintentionally mislead their readers, and if their error had gone unnoticed then the error could have become self-perpetuating:

"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

What then, referencing the question posed last time, should we do now that we have been confronted with another conundrum of bad testimony? First off, every journalist that went to the Wikipedia entry and copied that quote should lose their credibility for such a failure to exercise proper journalism techniques. As I said before, what takes one minute to do may lead to consequences that take one decade to undo. The lazy journalists do have the opportunity to regain their credibility, but it will take a long time to achieve it in the eyes of those holding a healthy system of epistemology.

The journalists that quoted the other journalists, however, are much more innocent. They are among those who have been duped by those they thought to be credible but turned out to be incredible. If they want to keep their credibility (and, in actuality, enhance it), they should disavow those particular sources and offer a correction to those they mislead.

The bad news is, however, that many news sources try to take advantage of whatever bad epistemology its own consumer base may have as to try and make the situation go unnoticed so that the consumers are never aware of an error occurring. For example, my own local newspaper has/had a section devoted to corrections that is so small and difficult to find within the newspaper that I wonder why they included it at all; the majority of times I could not tell if it was there or not.

So protect your mind. It is being assaulted from bad epistemology much worse than this, all around.

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