Stargazing Guy

– Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

The last of Sagan’s twenty most common and perilous pitfalls — many of which are rooted in our chronic discomfort with ambiguity — are available here – one and two (blog 1 of 11), three and four (blog 2 of 11), five and six (blog 3 of 11), seven and eight (blog 4 of 11), nine and ten (blog 5 of 11), eleven and twelve (blog 6 of 11), the thirteenth and fourteenth (blog 7 of 11), fifteenth and sixteenth (blog 8 of 11) and seventeenth and eighteenth (blog 9 of 11).

The nineteenth and twentieth of these pitfalls is covered below, with Sagan’s examples.

19. suppressed evidence, or half-truths (e.g., An amazingly accurate and widely quoted “prophecy” of the assassination attempt on President Reagan is shown on television; but — an important detail — was it recorded before or after the event? Or: These government abuses demand revolution, even if you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Yes, but is this likely to be a revolution in which far more people are killed than under the previous regime? What does the experience of other revolutions suggest? Are all revolutions against oppressive regimes desirable and in the interests of the people?);

20. weasel words (e.g., The separation of powers of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the United States may not conduct a war without a declaration by Congress. On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected. Presidents of either political party may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else — “police actions,” “armed incursions,” “protective reaction strikes,” “pacification,” “safeguarding American interests,” and a wide variety of “operations,” such as “Operation Just Cause.” Euphemisms for war are one of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public”).

Here are some other examples:

19. suppressed evidence, or half-truths:

Also, see Cherry-picking!

For example, when explaining how a “Great Flood” would explain the fossil record:

As the water level began to rise, the more advanced creatures would move to higher ground for safety, but more primitive creatures would not do so. This is why you find less complex creatures further down in the fossil record and human fossils near the top.

or

That type of car is poorly made; a friend of mine has one, and it continually gives him trouble.

This might seem like a reasonable comment, but there are many things that might be left unsaid. For example, the friend might not take good care of the car and might not get the oil changed regularly. Or maybe the friend fancies himself as a mechanic and just does a lousy job.

Both these examples are courtesy of Thoughtco.com.

20. weasel words:

Instead of further examples I have added a link to an article in the Journal of Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgeons from 2018, entitled Hedging, Weasel Words, and Truthiness in Scientific Writing. ‘Truthiness’, great word.

The paper ends as follows:

Trusting truthiness coming from your gut is subscribing to something less than the truth. Hitchens’s razor asserts that what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Or the equivalent Latin proverb quo gratis asseritur, gratis negatur — what is freely asserted is freely dismissed. Words and expressions that are conditional, vague and undefined, introduce doubt, are imprecise, hedge and weasel, masquerading as facts. Hedging and using weasel words avoid being forthright, suggesting validity to an unproven statement or claim or an almost answer when it is actually inconclusive, vague, or outright wrong. Sentences with weasel or hedging words create their own biases and truthiness. These are mental bubbles and manipulating filter edits of writing that make scientific discourse suspect and unreliable. Caveat lector — let the reader beware.

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This is the penultimate blog in this series and the next blog (11 of 11) will bring everything together with a summary, from Sagan, from some other sources and maybe one or two comments from me.

After that back to quotes for a while – I know you missed them.

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PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and time and we can share it, remotely, at the same time, and think about the Cosmos.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else, too, because as Adam Smith said, “we naturally desire not only to be loved but to be lovely”.

Remember, hope lives here.

Contact Stargazing Guy for any copyright-related requests or queries @ stargazer1@stargazingguy.co.uk