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Do facts matter?
#1
This is almost humorous, but it is too close to the current reality.

Quote:After the Fact In the history of truth, a new chapter begins.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/0...d-of-facts

… "Somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century, fundamentalism and postmodernism, the religious right and the academic left, met up: either the only truth is the truth of the divine or there is no truth; for both, empiricism is an error. That epistemological havoc has never ended: much of contemporary discourse and pretty much all of American politics is a dispute over evidence. An American Presidential debate has a lot more in common with trial by combat than with trial by jury, which is what people are talking about when they say these debates seem “childish”: the outcome is the evidence. The ordeal endures.
Then came the Internet. The era of the fact is coming to an end: the place once held by “facts” is being taken over by “data.” This is making for more epistemological mayhem, not least because the collection and weighing of facts require investigation, discernment, and judgment, while the collection and analysis of data are outsourced to machines. “Most knowing now is Google-knowing—knowledge acquired online,” Lynch writes in “The Internet of Us” (his title is a riff on the ballyhooed and bewildering “Internet of Things”).” …
… "People who care about civil society have two choices: find some epistemic principles other than empiricism on which everyone can agree or else find some method other than reason with which to defend empiricism. Lynch suspects that doing the first of these things is not possible, but that the second might be. He thinks the best defense of reason is a common practical and ethical commitment. I believe he means popular sovereignty. That, anyway, is what Alexander Hamilton meant in the Federalist Papers, when he explained that the United States is an act of empirical inquiry: “It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” The evidence is not yet in.”
 … whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Phil 4:8 (ESV)
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Messages In This Thread
Do facts matter? - by radind - 05-16-2016, 08:20 AM
RE: Do facts matter? - by pbrower2a - 05-16-2016, 11:49 AM
RE: Do facts matter? - by radind - 05-16-2016, 01:34 PM
RE: Do facts matter? - by Mikebert - 05-16-2016, 07:09 PM
RE: Do facts matter? - by Odin - 05-16-2016, 03:36 PM
RE: Do facts matter? - by radind - 05-16-2016, 04:58 PM
RE: Do facts matter? - by Odin - 05-16-2016, 05:36 PM
RE: Do facts matter? - by pbrower2a - 05-16-2016, 07:49 PM

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