So Who Can You Trust?

Deceptive practices are everywhere. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), those living in the state of Victoia lost more than a quarter of a billion dollars to scams and fraud in 2007. The ABS found that seven per cent of Victorians responded to scams they received, with the main ones responded to being lotteries, chain letters and pyramid schemes. So who can you trust? Well, I cant think of anyone you can trust entirely. Everyone has their selfish needs - the need for respect, the need for an income etc, that at times lead them to to bend the truth or keep the truth from you. I think the most trustworthy sources are those who are held accountable. Certainly democratic systems - as opposed to dictatorial systems - are better at keeping people honest, particularly if they are held to account by a free, ideologically diverse and sufficiently funded news media.

Here are some examples of falsehoods from various sources, starting with two that I would have hoped would have been more trustworthy than most...

MEDIA FALSEHOODS
==================

It's common wisdom that "you cant believe everything you read", which is usually a reference to the printed news media. But many of us are unsure whether this is just a rule of thumb for reading the "gossip" section of some magazines, or whether it also applies to front page news on mainstream newspapers. The reality is, it also applies to the latter.

In some countries, the government enforces bias or propaganda. But in more liberal countries, sometimes it's primarily the media themselves at fault. Sure they make simple mistakes sometimes. But there are also times when it goes beyond a simple mistake. Sometimes it seems the journos just want to say something that sounds interesting....

Examples - February 2006: Elton John wins a libel case over the Sunday Times, which had reported that John had behaved "in a self-important, arrogant and rude manner" at an AIDS fundrasing event. The story claimed he had issued a "bizzare and absurd edict to guests at his annual charity fundraising White Tie and Tiarra summer ball not to address him unless spoken to". John's lawyer reportedly said that Times Limited Newspapers later accepted that the allegation was untrue. Robbie Williams has also taken the press to court resulting in the publishers then stating the printed allegations were untrue.

Sometimes they write things for their own financial gain...

James Hipwell and Anil Bhoyrul wrote a financial column for the Daily Mirror, and included positive reports on shares they owned in an attempt to make them appreciate. In late 2005 they were caught and charged with conspiring to inflate share prices for their own benefit.

Sometimes they tell one lie after another....

Such as the case of reporter Jayson Blair, who wrote for the New York Times, apparently one of the leading newspapers in the USA. Out of the 73 articles Blair wrote, the New York Times reportedly later found 36 were found to contain fraud, plagiarism or inaccuracies. Another lying journalist, Jack Kelley of USA Today, even consipired to mislead those who were investigating his fabrications.

SCIENTIFIC FRAUD AND BIAS
========================

But many do not fully trust the media. People often place higher trust in other professions; scientists perhaps ranking as one of the most respected arbiters of fact. Science is empirical - tested and proven facts - they say. Really?

So should you trust everything scientists tell us?

In May 2006, a South Korean scientist, who had reached superstar-scientist status, was taken into custody after his research was discovered to be intentionally faked. The doctor, named Hwang Woo-suk, had been so revered that the government had invested 42 million dollars in his reputedly ground breaking research. Three other members of his medical team were indicted for fraud. A key figure, thoroughly trusted by government and community in an "empirical" industry....
Scientist Jan Hendrik Sch�n was also hightly regarded. He was described as the golden boy of condensed matter physics, and it was suggested by some that he may be an upcoming contender for a Nobel Prize. He was employed by Bell Laboratories, undertook cutting edge research and had papers published in what some claim are the two most prestigious scientific journals in the world; Science and Nature. Then in 2002 it was discovered that a lot of his papers contained false data...

Fraud is not new in the world of science. The Committee on Publication Ethics (Britain), which advises scientific journals, estimates that there are about 50 cases of seriously fraudulent research in major institutions in Britain a year. This comes as a surprise to those of us who see scientists as unbiased champions of proven fact and reality. We forget that scientists are subject to the same temptations of money, fame, laziness etc as everyone else. Sometimes the temptations are rather big. For example, the Sydney Morning Herald reported (3/Feb/2007) that after the UN released a major report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientists were offered $10,000 plus expenses to undermine the report. This offer came from the American Enterprise Institute, an Exxon-Mobil funded think tank with enough money to fund searching for the data it wants to substantiate the case for selling oil. One critic, David Viner of the University of East Anglia in Britain, described monetary offer as "a desperate attempt by an organisation which wants to distort science for its own political aims."

Just because those who support a particular viewpoint are able to quote from "scientific studies" to underpin their case, doesnt mean they have a balanced or unbiased argument. Sometimes the bias only becomes apparent after experts investigate both sides of the story, for example, in court. In a 2009 US Court of Claims case covering whether vaccinations are possible causes of autism, court Special Master Denise Vowell reportedly found that "Sadly, the petitioners in this litigation have been the victims of bad science conducted to support litigation rather than to advance medical and scientific understanding" (of autism).

More examples in the world of science:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1553991.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct

=========

And of course the propagation of false information extends to other professions also....

Archaeology: Japanese archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura planted the 'artefacts' he 'discovered', reported the BBC.

(http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s208840.htm)

Art: Up to 10% of the art market may be comprised of fakes, experts have suggested

(http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1361075.htm)

Authors: The second best selling book of 2005, James Frey's best-selling autobiography A Million Little Pieces contains fabricated material:

(http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,18238,00.html)

Encyclopaedias: In December 2005, the science magazine Nature investigated the accuracy of science subjects in two encylopedias. Encyclopaedia Brittanica was found to have three inaccuracies per entry and the online Wikipedia, was found to have four. Nature stated that "Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopaedia."

(http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/print.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10368068)
(http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html)
(http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/index.html)

(Pop) Historians: With many historical events, it's difficult to get a balanced story. Records are often subjective, and differing accounts present differing angles on what happened, sometimes presenting the story quite differently from one another. And sometimes the popular perception of an historical event is not particularly balanced. Without being a Holocaust denier (Im not), can I point out that the Holocaust was not only about the Jews...

http://www.redaction.org/anti-fascism/hegemony.html

Marketers: In 2009, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission described some Coke advertisements as misleading and "totally unacceptable ..." Coca-Cola was subsequently ordered to publish advertisements correcting its initial advertised claims.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/actor-armstrong-breaks-silence-over-misleading-cocacola-ads-20090402-9knu.html?page=-1

National Governments: I guess I first became aware that governments could be less than open and honest when the French government covertly blew up a ship in the harbour of the city I lived in in New Zealand. Internationally, the US examples of Watergate to the "I did not have sexual relationsions with that woman" affair are well known, and still shock me. Im also shocked by the actions of governments in the East, from the silencing of those who oppose them, through to the Chinese Government covering up the extent of SARS in 2003, (a huge international health risk) and enforcing a domestic information blackout on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre (people in China wont be able to read this page youre reading, because it refers to the event). The deception even extends to day to day operations. One MP in Taiwan has stated that the physical fights that occur in Taiwanese politics are actually staged.

Search Engines: Google and some other search engines filter the results if you are searching from within China. Aparently they indicate to the searcher that the results have been filtered, but if the searcher doesnt know what they arent being told, they are effectively still (knowingly) misinformed.

Tiananmen Square Google image search results from within China
Tiananmen Square Google image search results from outside China

The legal system: The law sometimes fail when people lie. The false stories of French woman Myriam Delay led to another committing suicide, children being withheld and put peoples lives into turmoil. Other times, the legal system gets it wrong.
According to the AP, Johnny Briscoe was incarcerated for 23 years before DNA testing proved he was innocent of the crime in question.

(http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/20/1085028465124.html)
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/19/national/main1819696.shtml)

Medicine: Reading about Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, those questioning the mainstream understanding of HIV/AIDS, and the response from the opposition, Ive concluded that controversial or not, one side must be being economical with the truth....

The Military: The nature of warfare dictates that the military cant be an open book, otherwise they become more susceptible to enemies who seek vulnerabilities to exploit. However often the military seems to take this secrecy a bit too far. In Australia, in 1998, four seamen died on the HMAS Westralia. According to a coronial enquiry, the deaths were caused by an explosion and fire which arose from a fuel leak. Nine years later, The Daily Telegraph alleged that three months before the incident, the Defence Department was warned that faulty fuel lines were placing the vessel in grave danger. Reporter Ian McPhedran wrote that this warning was not made public and alleged that this was an attempt by the military to "conceal crucial evidence", and was yet one more example in "a long line of military cover-ups".

Third World Aid Agencies: These guys are misleading when they give you the impression that you handing over money is going to 100% directly help the poor people. Corrupt leadership in the recipient countries sometimes misappropriate the gifts when the traditional approach to financial aid has been used, according to William Easterly, former research economist at the World Bank. In his book The White Man's Burden he says that the aid approach that has been favoured by the World Bank, the United Nations, Bono and Geldof is disappointingly ineffective. He says that sometimes the moneys are used by the recipient governments to prop themselves up and that they resist moves to democracy because this would threaten their income. Easterly advocates a bottom-up approach were the locals use market-oriented projects to help themselves.

(http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/exposing-the-myth-of-third-world-aid/2006/06/16/1149964738204.html)

University Academics: An inter-university study into Iraq civilian casualties of the war appears to have got it wrong by 300%

(http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060104-085709-7440r.htm)

World Class Sports: Key people in Italian football, have been charged with match-fixing. What has been described as "chronic corruption" in sports occurs at a top level in the country that won the 2006 Football World Cup!

(http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/417227/789154)

Who do People Trust?

The public knows that you cant trust everybody. Every year, for a number of years, Australia's Reader's Digest have conducted a survey to ascertain who Australians trust the most. In the June 2006 issue, the magazine found that the top 3 trusted personalities were all medical professionals who had produced medical breakthroughs. In the fourth spot was ex-patriot Princess Mary of Denmark. The top ten did not include any journalists or clergy. Unsurprisingly it didnt include any politicians either. It seems to me that the public trust tends to favour those who have suffered misfortune, with entertainer Olivia Newton John coming in at #7, and cancer-stricken popstar Kylie moving up more than 20 points compared to the previous year. Evidence suggests that some professions are trusted more than others. When ranked, the top 3 trusted professions were found to be ambulance drivers, then fire-fighters and then pilots. Australians trust hairdressers more than they trust ministers of religion. Journalists ranked even lower, after lawyers and on-the-street donation collectors.

Opening Eyes to Credulity

It's not always easy to see fact from fiction. A lot of us believe in "old wives tales". Australia's Maquarie University found that one in sixteen Australian's suffers from hypochondria (Reader's Digest, Aust., June 2006). What is it that allows some more than others to distinuish the truth?

I was surprised when I read the last president of the Soviet Union write that, and I quote; "The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl [around 20 years ago]... was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later." (The Daily Star, Lebanon, 18/04/2006). The Soviet Union had been a Comunist state. This is the sort of regime that tends to be deceptive due to a totalitarian approach utilising propoganda and media control with censorship to present a misleading picture to the public. So the people of the Soviet Union would perhaps have a overly positive picture of their government until the disaster. The disaster happened not long after a policy of openness ("Glasnost") had been established by the government, but still, the leader of the time says it was largely the disaster that brought the regime down. I imagine because the disaster led the people to see fault with the government. This reminds me of the family at the corner of my street - the marriage came tumbling down after the death of the youngest son. So it seems that a disaster can lead people to reassess reality and what they are committed to.

David Southwell, wrote in his book Secrets and Lies (Funtastic / Carlton Books, 2005), that those in power often seek to maintain their positions by restricting the spread of infomation that could be a threat to them. He wrote; "How do you discover [mass] secrets and lies? The most straightforward answer is to be curious and not lazily accept an answer if it seems wrong. ... If you don't ask questions, you will always have secrets kept from you and be fed a diet of lies." He was echoing the words of Albert Einstein, who probably didnt have much of an interest in conspiracy theories, but was none the less good at uncovering new knowledge. Einstein said; "The important thing is not to stop questioning."

Oh, on a related note, I found the following interesting - detecting falsfied photos: http://oemagazine.com/fromthemagazine/jan05/photofakery.html

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