6 Comments

  1. I’m really impressed along with your writing talents and also with the structure on your blog. Is that this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Anyway stay up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a
    great blog like this one these days..

    • Thank you for your kind words. The theme is Inuit Types, it is a free theme with a few tweaks.

      One issue with the Blog format is that there is expected to be a constant stream of postings. Quality takes time. I worked on this article on and off for a few months while working full time. I had to write the program, tweak/debug, compile the data (over 10,000 set records), scan the data for anything interesting, make a few drafts, and then publish. I have some other articles in development but who knows when they will be finished to my standard.

    • erkaer

      Aww darn! I commented on the wrong post! It was supposed to go to the one about prices of LEGO!

  2. Regarding Politifact being biased…

    Bias doesn’t have to be in the Politifact organization itself, to create bias. Any fact-checking organization is only as reliable as the sources it considers authoritative on the subject it’s attempting to validate a statement.

    For instance, if Politifact bases their decision of truth or falsehood in a racial issue on a study by a professor who focuses on race issues, and the professor himself is biased or relied on other data which was biased, then the bias can carry over. Many studies rely on an assumption that other studies are true, and thus can be skewed by bias in the original study even if the later researcher is well-intentioned and even-handed.

    It gets even worse, of course, if the source in question is an activist willing to intentionally lie to support their particular agenda.

    It’s always worth remembering that a PhD is obtained by either agreeing with other PhDs in your subject area, or disagreeing in an impressive manner. Agreeing is much the easier route. Far too many circles in both science and history are unwilling to entertain questioning of the accepted consensus. It’s a natural human tendency to dismiss data or opinions which disagree with our accepted views.

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