Two Rules

In a world increasingly dominated by people who are "on the make" and who only use words to manipulate others and not essentially to convey meaning, it becomes important to figure out how to make judgments. I was thinking about that this morning and concluded that two rules would help to clarify things:

The First Rule is one that scientists accept (at least in what are called the 'hard' sciences) and that is the rule that: Data trumps all arguments. If you want to deal meaningfully with reality you have to know what reality is and that isn't a matter of clever words, but of actual facts. This is in my mind today because of the information on the cooked hockey stick data in the global warming dialogue that I've been observing the past few days. If it stands up, global warming looks like history and rather sordid history at that.

The Second Rule is listen to what people say but pay particular attention to what they do. If their actions do not correspond to their words then add them to the list of probable manipulators. What people do tells us more about what they are then what they say. I had a boss who used to go around saying "perceptions are reality" — I don't happen to agree with that sentiment, but I understand it and understand that for a lot of people it amounts to "gospel." They spin stories and create illusions, while in fact they are doing very different things. Most of them are not good enough at it to go undetected. Remember that to be an effective liar you have to have an incredibly good memory, especially if you are spinning different lies for different folks. Pretty soon it gets too complicated and you mess up.