The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, contrived and
dishonest, but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without
the discomfort of thought. John F. Kennedy
dishonest, but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without
the discomfort of thought. John F. Kennedy
The internet is a remarkable source of both information and misinformation. It would be our guess that the amount of misinformation exceeds good information by at least two orders of magnitude. That enables proponents of even the wildest of claims and conclusions to find some source to supports their arguments. Confirming a source takes effort and time, which sometimes is considerable. Our evaluation of the Bell Witch Legend provides a good example of what might be involved.
When we started collecting data about the Legend, we ran across the statement by Jack Cook that the Bell Witch story was one of the most document events in paranormal history. Its not hard to understand why Cook would say that. Just google Bell Witch.
Our first task was to create a bibliography of all the "sources." Next we filtered the list by sorting out what was first-hand evidence and what was hearsay. That was easy. The event occurred between 1816 and 1820. Everything on the list was, at best, hearsay.
We then eliminated those reports that did not provide attribution or reference to the source material of the hearsay. Not knowing the basis of the evidence we could not determine how any of the data was gathered nor assess the independence, or potential biases, or the expertise of the researcher. This test nearly eliminated everything in our bibliography. In this line of work I prefer the statement, "Don't Trust; verify."
Next, walk all the source material back to the original test or evidence gathering. Are the root sources first-hand research and independent reports or fictional creations.
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