"Butter Ban" Not a Laughing Matter

As has probably been deducted from my readers who have read my first Power of Epistemology piece it is clear that I reject the Standard American Diet. I do so in favor of the "Paleo" diet. I thought it might of interest to incorporate some dietary politics into this blog given my interest, though, to stay relevant to the overall theme of epistemology, ethics, and politics, I will not do such things as examine the merits of nutritional findings or display recipes (I might do the latter for Musing Aloud).

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According to Daily Mail Dr. Shyam Kolvekar is calling for a ban on butter and is suggesting "healthier" substitutes such as margarine for the purpose of reducing incidents of heart disease.

The absurdity here is obvious and does not require lengthy discussion given the context of this blog: this doctor is proposing an impractical, immoral law that would utilize physical force in its enforcement, all on the basis of the evidence-less theory that fat consumption causes heart disease. The cruel irony is that the doctor's suggestions for healthier substitutes would actually increase heart disease rates, as the human body isn't meant to handle such large amounts of vegetable fats as would be present in a tub of margarine, thereby leading to adverse effects (obesity, dense LDL cholesterol, etc.). If such a proposal were enacted it would be promptly contested by a black market and would result in greater heart disease rates in law-abiding citizens.

But as absurd as this proposal may seem -- enacting a law prohibiting a food substance absolutely! -- we must be extremely careful not to brush it away nonchalantly. Here we must keep two sayings in mind to remind us of the danger. The first is by Ayn Rand: The uncontested absurdities of today are the slogans of tomorrow. (Quotation marks omitted in case of inaccuracy.) For number two I do not know the originator, but paraphrased: No idea has ever been so absurd that some philosopher did not take it seriously. The point of these two sayings is that ignoring an absurdity may be all it requires for it to become culturally accepted, and nothing is so ridiculous that at least one person won't seriously entertain it. If we dismiss and laugh at this "butter ban" then we could put ourselves at risk for seeing it come to pass.

And we do have evidence that such a thing could come to pass if uncontested, even in the United States. In the same country where this proposed ban originates, the United Kingdom, there was an incident where an egg company had one of its commercials censored ("Go to Work on an Egg") because the government agents thought it promoted an unhealthy way of living and judged it morally appropriate to silence them. In my very own America the selling of raw milk would be banned almost entirely if it were not for the random states that keep it legal and for the legal loophole that allows a person to drink milk from their own cow (thereby leading to the development of "cow share" programs). Naturally fed meat (e.g. grass-fed beef), although this may be unintentional, has largely been driven into unnecessary scarcity by way of the government subsidizing grains, thereby making it an artificially cheaper stock feed. And so on.

From these we observe that some governments are actively willing to exert force in the name of "public" health, that there are laws already banning some food substances, and that even random bad economic policies (grain subsidies) can have a dramatic impact on diet via unintended consequences (grain-fed beef becomes more common than grass-fed). So it is in all seriousness we must take this proposal, for the laws of the same nature already exist and there are people present to take it seriously.

Most of all, the philosophy is there, the systematic worldview that gives ideological justification for such actions. In today's culture -- worldwide, not just in the United States -- Altruism is the dominant code of morality, and within that code of morality lies the tenant that it is proper to deal with men via physical force in order to uphold morality. Knowing that every law is backed up by physical force, take for evidence when a politician enacts a law and gives it an explicit moral endorsement. It is here we must wage the battle to win not only against this proposal, but against all proposals of this nature.

The reason why I bring this topic up to begin with is to put forth that while on the road to statism some very absurd proposals may pop during the meanwhile, but it does not change the fact that it's a symptom of statism. Aside from this "butter ban," I have also noted other absurdities. Dan Kildee proposed that destroying property would help Flint's economy, but no evidence was given for why this would be. Senator John Kerry proposed giving bail-outs to the newspaper industry, but a shallow examination of basic economic principles reveals that such an idea could never be helpful, thereby indicating Kerry's intention may be to influence the speech of the papers (censorship). And so on. I'm not sure if this is a credible source, but apparently there are laws that go beyond extremes in absurdity, such as it being illegal to peel an orange in a hotel room or to walk on your hands on a crosswalk.

All of these laws may make us smile and laugh when they pop up, causing us to dismiss them as unserious, but if we ignore them for so long and find ourselves without control of our lives -- then we won't laugh.

"Enshrine Mediocrity -- and the Shrines are Razed"

Over at my Posterous account -- which is for my college course and exists solely for homework -- I have managed to write a post that may be of interest to the readers here. Most of the posting at that account will more or less be aimed only at fulfilling technical requirements, so I do not recommend actually following that account. If I write something that may be of interest, I will be sure to link to it from here or Musing Aloud, whichever blog theme is appropriate.

I thought about pasting the whole article here, but I think that could get me in trouble since the article may be property of my college, so I'll link to it instead.

An Epistemological Exercise for Your Approval

Here's a problem I could really use some input on. Ever since reading Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology I have been concerned with making sure my conceptual equipment is explicitly grounded in reality; that is, that I am fully aware of what the concepts I use mean and that I know how I can be certain that I have inferred the correct meaning.

The means I have established to that end is a rather complex vocabulary exercise that I assign to myself as a part of my grammar studies. I do the assignment in two parts, taking one day to write up the homework and another -- though not days next to each other -- to reread, review, and think about what I have written. It has done well for the trip down the road to certainty, but I think it could still be optimized, so I would like to submit its specifics for your approval. I will explain the exercise step by step and then give two examples from my homework assignments. First, what the process is:

1. First, look up the word in the dictionary and copy verbatim the appropriate definition.


2. Second, identify whether or not the concept is perceptual (i.e. whether the concept denotes something that is part of physical reality). If the concept is not directly perceptual then identify what unfamiliar concepts serve as its units, and if one is familiar with the concepts then instead move on to step three.


3. Third, write what the concept actually denotes. For instance, if the concept were "tree" then one would write "A physical entity," or if the concept were "green" one would write "An attribute."


4. Fourth, list any extreme contrasting or closely related concepts for comparison purposes. For example, for "rage" one could write "angry" as being a similar concept and "euphoria" as being a direct antonym.


5. Fifth, write a sentence employing the concept.


6. Sixth, record whether or not the concept is entirely meaningful. I do this so I know at all times what confuses me and what I'm certain on.


7. Finally, jot down any notes, concerns, or whatever. This is an optional step that can be incorporated anywhere in the process, multiple times if need be.

Some examples, first starting with a perceptual concept. Notes in square brackets indicate editorial content not in original homework:

1. Vituperation > /Noun/ Bitter and abusive language. [Concise Oxford American Dictionary.]


2. Height: Perceptual. Language is an audio-visual format of concepts. [Human language is accessible by the five senses, which is what makes this a perceptual concept.]


3. Denotes: Language with an emotional attribute and intention to harm [emotionally].


4. Similar: swearing, cursing.


5. [Sentence omitted.]


6. Fully meaningful?: Yes


7. Note: Duplicate of concepts already existing; differs only in connotation.

And an abstract one:

1. Addendum > (Plural: -da, -dums) An item of additional material, typically omissions, added at the end of a book or other publication.[Concise Oxford American Dictionary.]


2. Height: Abstract. Requires understanding of the abstractions involved in the information in the publication. [This concept is abstract because there is no physical existent or phenomenon known as "addendum." One may object by bringing forth a book and tapping the bottom of a page where there is an addendum, but that would be incorrect. What would exist in physical reality is ink and paper, not a physical manifestation of the concept addendum.]


3. Denotes: Additional information added at the end of a published work. [Simplied definition.]


4. Similar: Additional


5. Sentence: How frustrating it is to have sat and read a blog post for an hour only to read in the addendum that the article is factually wrong.


6. Fully meaningful?: Somewhat.

So are there ways that the reader thinks I can improve this process?

The Power of Epistemology II: Institutionalized Education

Some authorities are warning that Obama's plan to lengthen school days could possibly lead to increased stress in children. In fact, some are even going so far, such as Mavis Brown in the article, as to suggest that kids should be kept in school year-round.

While some may be grading the plan "A plus", the truth is that there is no pen red enough to write an F upon it. Mr. Obama not only ignores what is causing the epistemological crisis in children, he intensifies the causes.

Now where have we seen this type of mentality before? If you will recall, a few months ago I wrote an article titled The Power of Epistemology: The Fat Controversy where I examined the controversy about the objective nutritional value of fat and cholesterol, about how it was corrupted by a single scientist who refused to acknowledge (i.e. he evaded) contrary or refuting evidence. As a result of one man's bad epistemology, suffering and death has been hoisted upon millions for following false nutritional guidelines.

I must add emphasis to this: Because one man practiced bad epistemology, millions paid the price in death and suffering. Confronted with contrary data or conclusions, Keys and his disciples would ignore them, and when reality would show that their theory is wrong they would merely deny it and calls would be made for an intensification of the practice of their theory.

Here again we have the misfortune of seeing the same mentality and responses recurring in another branch of practical science: educational theory. Confronted with the reality that children and (college) adults are emerging from their schools less and less educated, the policy-makers ask not for a reexamination of their methodology, but instead for an intensification of the application of it. In other words, like Ancel Keys, they are evading the evidence reality is providing them and trudging forth. Only, this time we have a higher price to pay. As evil as Keys was, there is already significant amounts of educational resources on why his theory is wrong and what guidelines the evidence favors, and prestigious spokesmen, such as Gary Taubes or Tom Naughton, being active advocates for such views. If government funding of scientific research were to be pulled out of the picture, then Keys's theory could perish in a matter of a handful of years.

It is otherwise, however, for education. There is widespread ignorance that the problem with education is epistemological at root rather than a matter of concrete problems, such as whether a teacher should teach mathematics or have his students teach each other (I believe it is called "Whole Math"). In truth I can only summon into mind one school that recognizes the problem and pursues to remedy it: Vandamme Academy. With so much ignorance and disputes over concretes, educational reform is surely to move in a direction only for the worse.

And what price do we have to pay? Everything. If you abandon or destroy the mind then you lose the products of the mind. Children are born in the state that of savages, and it is horrifying to think that the incredible failure of governmental education has brought us adults that go through life with the unformed epistemology of a child. If the whole culture is brought down to that epistemological level then we could have a coming of another Dark Age.

Knowing what we have to lose, now we have to ask: What exactly is the nature of the problem, and how do we solve it? Well, I am not an educational theorist nor have I done any extensive study on such a field, so I can only make observations based on my personal experiences and what little reading I have done. While my observations may be correct, I must make sure my readers know that my range is limited. For a more thorough analysis, I would suggest partaking in the various articles on education available at The Objective Standard (one article is free, others can be previewed for free and then purchased for a few dollars. I recommend "The Hierarchy of Knowledge: The Most Neglected Issue in Education" the most) and of other writings available by the authors on that page.

As for my own experiences and knowledge, I think the problem breaks down into two parts: motivation and hierarchy.
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1. Motivation: Children not only have to face the difficulty of properly learning a subject, but also of maintaining the constant motivation to continuously exert effort in that endeavor, now and throughout the entirety of their lifetime. Many things in school work to undermine this. For one, kids are often not told or even denied answers when asking questions as to why they should learn the subject at hand or how they will apply such knowledge in practical life. The end result is that kids forget what they "learned", begin to become averse to, and even detest "learning" (which is really brute memorization in this case); or both. I myself have had my respect for institutionalized education crushed by a math teacher who was unable to answer my question as to how the concept of factoring applies to concrete reality, but ordered me to sit down and "learn it" anyway.

But a greater killer of motivation would be methodology. An absolutely false theory of epistemology is worse than useless not in that it does not facilitate actual learning, but in that it prevents and may make impossible actual learning. What is a greater way to kill motivation than to exert months and months worth of effort in a class only to lose a majority of the information within weeks of being out of it?

2. Hierarchy: The human mind has a certain nature, and so must have a method of learning of a certain nature as well. One of the crucial aspects of proper learning is hierarchy, the order in which things are to be learned. No greater example can be had than from mathematics: first one must learn to count, then to add and subtract, then to multiply and divide, and so on. It would be absolutely absurd, and impossible, to teach a child mathematics by first starting with calculus then skipping to arithmetic and then skipping to fractions, all before he has learned to count. And yet this is exactly what happens in other subjects.

The existence of atoms, for instance, cannot be taught to a baby who has yet to learn about the entities of which are composed of atoms (e.g. inanimate objects, animals, etc.), i.e., he cannot perform a process of abstraction without having a perceptual base.

The result of ignoring such a simple fact is that children today engage in a process of memorization, not learning. To learn is to understand the relationship of a concept(s) or phenomenon with reality and to integrate it with the entire context of one's knowledge; to memorize is to simply retain something mentally. Kids today memorize while in class and then let the floating abstractions float away when they are finished.
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Combine these two factors together and you have the makings of a potential disaster: "educated" adults emerging from their schools having learned little, if anything; with a bad and misinformed attitude towards exerting mental effort, and being put in charge of a world which demands that you use your mind to its limit, or perish.

The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.-- Thomas Sowell

Worse than stressing kids out, if Obama's plan passes it can bring us many steps closer to destroying the world.

Before They Can Even Think....

It has been announced that Obama plans on addressing a special speech to students on September 8th, Tuesday. There seems to have been quite an upset over this, so much so that some are calling that day to be a national "Keep Your Kids Home Day". The charge being leveled is that this address amounts to indoctrination, but is it?

First, let us make our terms clear. Indoctrination is the process of instructing a person in a doctrine or an ideology. While this definition is harmless enough and does not set off any alarms, it is the who that it applies to that matters. If one were to indoctrinate, say, a thinking adult, then that would be fine as he would possess the capability to critically assess what he is being presented with and would be able to reject or accept it accordingly. A young child that has not learned how to think, however, is an inappropriate target for indoctrination as he cannot properly do a critical evaluation of the information before him, and will therefore have few other options than to accept the presented doctrine on faith.

The proper function of a school is to train a child in how to use his mind. Certainly the intellectual content is very important in that training, but the intellectual method holds primacy. Instruct a child in the proper methods of gathering data and thinking and you will have a child that will continue learn throughout the entirety of his lifetime, as opposed to the kids today who are being instructed in brute memorization and coming out of schools explicitly stating they hate learning.

Also, how morally bad a particular case of indoctrination in a school is to be regarded depends on what level of schooling is being considered. On a college campus the students should have developed to the point where they at least *should* have had some basic instruction in proper thinking methods, so indoctrination in a college classroom should be considered in bad taste rather morally wrong. In an elementary school, however, it is to be considered morally despicable. Indoctrination at that age is not to be considered wrong merely because it may happen against a parent's consent or because it may enforce unjustified prejudice, but because doing so hinders the minds of the children. Since they do not possess the ability at that age to rationally think about the doctrine they are being presented with, they have few other choices but to accept it on irrational grounds and thereby learn methods of non-thinking which could hinder or stunt the growth of their mind for the rest of their life. To fail to teach a child how to learn is the most condemnable failure any teacher could allow to happen.

Now, what evidence do we have that Obama may be presenting a speech which is a shielded attempt to indoctrinate students? First, we have evidence directly from official White House sponsored documents. From the prek-6 PDF file listed under the heading "Classroom Activities" in the link presented above:

During the Speech

• As the president speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note‐taking graphic organizer such as a “cluster web;” or, students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children could draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:

What is the president trying to tell me?

What is the president asking me to do?

What new ideas and actions is the president challenging me to think about?

• Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes, or place notes on a butcher‐paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, such as citizenship, personal responsibility, and civic duty.

• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:

What do you think the president wants us to do?

Does the speech make you want to do anything?

Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?

What would you like to tell the president?

[All emphasis is mine except for bold on heading above bulleted list]

As Michelle Malkin has noted, this has a rather heavy activist type of wording to it, especially that which I have put in bold. Why should an American President be telling anyone to "do" anything? Given the nature of a proper government, it is highly inappropriate that he instruct children in "civic duty".

But we still have yet more evidence. Take into consideration this four minute video, which some schools have already showed in classrooms (although not at the behest of the Department of Education):



The use of celebrities in this video indicates that it is directed at the youthful crowd. Many of the pledges made in this video are obviously tinged with politics, and the last portion where they state "I pledge to be a servant to our president and all mankind" in unison drips of the philosophical doctrine of altruism and of slavery.

So, to conclude, yes, the probability is that Obama is going to use his address as a means of indoctrination. Regardless of whether or not one thinks the content of Obama's ideas is true, it is still not proper to present them in this format, let alone present them at all, to children.

Furthermore, this would not be proper no matter which President wished to do it and what his intentions were. It is not the job of the government to instruct its citizenry, using involuntarily extracted funding (taxes) from which the original owners may not approve of its usage.

What of opting out?, one may ask now. Surely if a parent disapproves of a certain activity he can submit his refusal and have the educators accommodate with an alternative activity. Not in all cases, states Michelle Malkin:

Reader Ernest emails a link to the notice on the Broward County FL school district site, which informs parents that they cannot opt their kids out of the president’s speech on Tuesday because the administrators are committed to “encouraging civics education in the broadest sense.”

Who controls your kids?

This amounts to physical coercion in public schools. It is a law that children must receive education in some form, whether it is via home schooling or attending an educational facility. Taxes for education may make it so that parents cannot afford to home school their children, as they may have to work, nor afford to send them to a private school, so the government forcibly limits their options down to government-run public schools.

Let us call it then: Tuesday shall officially be Keep Your Kids Home Day.

"Buying Local"

It has recently come to attention that the UAW, at least in Michigan, prohibits cars of foreign make from parking in union hall parking lots and that any violators of the rule are to be towed away. Such sentiments are not limited to the UAW: in the past few weeks I have noticed that the editorials continuously call for people to purchase goods and services produced only within the local economy. The premise underlying all of this, of course, is that keeping money within the local economy improves the local economy.

This, however, fails to establish the context. While so many are quick to condemn businesses for daring to outsource work and to import foreign materials, none ask the most important question: why are these businesses choosing to outsource? By not answering this question we risk merely making the economy worse, so let us examine the possible reasons.

I am not aware of any explicit reasons as to why the companies based in Michigan would want to outsource (e.g. harmful legislation, favorable conditions overseas, et cetera), but we can conclude that their reason(s) fall within two categories: 1.) the cost of running business is cheaper in particular foreign locales, and/or 2.) the quality of production is greater in particular foreign locales. Few businesses uproot their operations "just because".

Michigan editorials are calling for either people to purchase things only locally or for companies to relocate their operations locally, but by not answering the question above, what do we risk losing? If businesses are relocating because the cost of business is cheaper elsewhere, then we will have to face higher prices than we otherwise would have to pay; if businesses are relocating because the quality of production is greater elsewhere, then we lose that superior quality. If it is a combination of both factors, then we have lost much.

The point is that we must have in mind the full context before choosing to take a course of action. If we do not, then we are merely making guesses, even if educated ones.

"Buying local" as a principle does no good or harm; it is meaningless without the context of appropriate factors. People, for instance, bought locally in The Great Depression. The Smoot-Hawley tariff mostly, if not entirely, cut off U.S. trade with other countries. "Buying local" improved the economy none since people were subject to such excruciatingly high taxes back then in order to fund New Deal programs.

When thinking about these issues we must chant the mantra context, context, context within our minds.

Establishing the Context

I am not aware as to what the status is currently vote-wise of Barack Obama's medical care reform legislation, but I do know it is a threat and worthwhile focusing on. Paul Hsieh of We Stand FIRM has posted some interesting links and commentary as to why the free market is not to be blamed for the current problems of medical care. I also recommend reading, for a more thorough and exhaustive understanding, Moral Health Care vs. "Universal Health Care" if you have the time, for it explains how certain aspects of universal medical care have already been implemented in some states and have failed horribly.

To add an epistemological postscript to these articles, the blaming of the free market for the failures of universal medical care is a spectacular example of the epistemological poison known as "context-dropping". To drop the context, in this instance, means to improperly disassociate information or someone's stated words from the context that gives it its appropriate meaning, thereby forming a distortion. While one may be tempted to argue so, it is not always the case that when someone isolates a certain piece of data or a statement of someone's speech that it is automatically dropping the context (it is certainly "removing from the context"); "context-dropping" isolates instances when the meaning is *distorted* by the act of removing information from its context. An example for clarity: say politician X is speaking about the holocaust and in his speech he quotes Hitler on his contempt for the Jewish. Then politician Y comes along, politician X's opponent, and then publicly quotes only X's quote. This would be dishonest context-dropping, as this new quote distorts the meaning by making it seem as if politician X holds contempt for Jewish people when in reality he is merely quoting someone else who did.

To relate this back to universal medical care, the context-dropping that is taking place is in regard to the totality of the factors affecting medical care quality and prices. This is the fault of pragmatism. Pragmatism denies that there are such things as principles, or at least that principles are practical, and therefore, by corollary, denies the purity of principles. By "purity" I mean "absolute". Anything introduced to a guiding principle that is irrelevant or inapplicable to it means that that guiding principle is no longer being used. A laissez faire free market, for instance, entails that the government does not intervene in the economy is any way whatsoever. Even the most minuscule regulation, say a penny tax on cigarettes, is enough to change a laissez faire market into a mixed economy.

But our politicians think they can eat their cake and have it too.

Thus we see the practice of politicians continually adding taxes and regulations to the economy while at the same time calling it a "free market". This is as dishonest as saying chocolate milk is bone white plain milk. In reality, America has neither a controlled economy nor a free one: it has a mixed economy, an economy that employs a mixture of freedom and controls (the ratio of freedom to control is the measurement omitted).

The result of this context-dropping is that we have national confusion as to what constitutes a free market, causing economic problems to be far too often misdiagnosed. To demonstrate, there were within the last few months two contradictory polls. One poll asked about how favorable certain economic models were and indicated that fewer Americans are supporting capitalism, but then another poll by the same organization indicated that Americans mostly favor the free market. Capitalism and free markets are synonymous, so it makes no sense as to distinguish between them except to show that Americans are confused as to what capitalism actually is.

To prevent this epistemological poison from seeping into our systems and establishing confusion and dishonesty, we must employ its antonym; we must "establish the context". Establishing the context means finding out what constitutes essential information in a particular context and then actively retaining it as one works with it. When we quote someone's words we must make sure to include in that quote all the essential sentences which give that portion meaning and when we isolate a piece of data we must also isolate all the factors that give it meaning.

In the medical care debate over cost, quality and service, establishing the context would mean to take into account the following factors which may or may not be relevant: cultural, environmental, things affecting other industries, governmental, and that which is left up entirely to the discretion of a provider. As of far, only the last factor on the list has been popularly focused on, and in a dishonest fashion too, for people far too often attribute to freedom choices made by medical industry workers that were actually coerced choices. To establish the context, I again echo my deepest recommendation in inquiring the links mentioned at the beginning of this piece.

It may be redundant to say this, but if we misdiagnose this problem, it could be fatal for millions.

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.

Edit: Formatting

The Power of Epistemology: The Fat Controversy

This is rather "old news", but I would like to point out this lengthy article by Gary Taubes regarding the fat/cholesterol controversy, amusingly titled What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?. I bring it to attention because I think this is one of the greatest demonstrations of the power of epistemology, how bad epistemology can be fatal.

In short, nearly everything we have heard about fat and cholesterol is wrong. To paraphrase Taubes in his book Good Calories, Bad Calories, the whole fat-and-cholesterol-is-bad-for-you thing was started by a scientist named Ancel Keys who based his theory on the assumption that Americans were switching from a diet high in carbohydrates to a diet high in fat and cholesterol and that heart disease incidents were increasing as a result. But no such evidence existed. At the particular time he formed the hypothesis, agricultural data was unreliable and heart disease was just becoming easier to diagnose (making it appear as if rates were increasing). While one may forgive him this error, what makes Keys an evil (not speaking hyperbolically) scientist is that he would rationalistically dismiss evidence that was contrary to his theory or refuted it absolutely. When our Sisyphean politicians were confronted with his hypothesis, it consisted of nothing but data that supported it, when no evidence supported his theory (keeping the context of the entire body of evidence), and thereby won by default. The results of the doctrine can be seen today in the nation's current unhealthiness: the obesity and diabetes epidemic.

What we can observe is how damaging and outright fatal a bad system of epistemology can be. To be clear, epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of human knowledge, how humans acquire and validate knowledge. A good system of epistemology will lead one to the truth and, as a corollary, will allow an immeasurably greater probability for successful action; a bad system of epistemology will steer one away from the truth and allow an immeasurably lower probability for successful action. Ancel Keys held a bad epistemology in the sense that he was not *truth oriented*.

It is true that in order to be a scientist he had to hold a somewhat healthy psychological-epistemology or else he would progress his career none at all, but he allowed a single poison that made the whole system worthless: emotionalism. By the time he had formed his hypothesis, he became prejudice to it and would not dare face the fact that he could have been wrong. When confronted with contrary evidence he dismissed it by saying things such as the evidence was not relevant or significant, or that the scale of the study was not big enough to establish causal links. When confronted with evidence that agreed with his hypothesis but *could have the same objections assigned to them so as to dismiss them*, he accepted it. It became too late to repent when ignorant politicians ran with the theory.

But, of course, the damage cannot be considered irreparable until the human race goes extinct. You can rejudge your own nutritional prejudices by checking out Taubes's Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health and see how nutritional knowledge has retrogressed and the bad scientists behind it. I also recommend the blog Mark's Daily Apple.

The knowledge of a several-decades' long deception may concern some people: if Ancel Keys was dishonest and unreliable but able to keep people ignorant of proper nutrition for several decades, how can one trust testimonies at all? Such a worry is not without merit considering how common dishonesty is.

Simply put, to protect oneself one must pay attention to both reality and how a particular source states its conclusion. If a person were to tell me that he witnessed a bullet magically turning at a right angle as soon as it touched a cop's nose, I would ignore him out of hand since his assertion contradicts reality. If a person were to convince me of a position by supporting it with data but I found out later that the data was falsified, distorted, or out of context, I would permanently discontinue consulting that person, correct the conclusions I had based on his position, and notify all persons that I had unintentionally mislead (so as to maintain my own reputation as a credible source). If a person were to state to me that he advocated lying in order to achieve political ends, well, he makes it easy, does he not?

All in all, the most exhaustive and proper solution is to study formal epistemology, especially formal logic. Seeing that Ancel Keys probably caused the death and suffering of many who followed his bad advice, is it not enough to convince that there needs to be a proper method of learning?