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Consider the Source.
Monday, April 30th, 2007 by admiralHow many Magi saw the baby Jesus in the manger? I almost said ‘wise men,’ but I cannot be sure who would have counted as wise. The correct answer to the question is none. Actually, the uncounted astrologers arrived when Jesus was two years old and living in a house. However, that is not where I am going with this.
Many of the things that we think we know later turn out to be wrong. I was unhappy with the realization that I have false memories. All of my memories are now being checksummed to validate the crc on my head. Before you look at me like I have two heads, the third head is on vacation and due back in a week or so, you might find that you also have memories that are not entirely accurate. We really need some affordable error correcting memory.
The point of my current stand up philosophy is that we really should be checking with the source when we are taking things on faith. Experts are not much better than any of us. They went to see the wizard and he gave them some fancy paper saying that they know what they are talking about. Has the wizard never been wrong? It is time that we admit to our own fallibility and started looking things up for ourselves.
Liberty can only be purchased on an installment plan. The cost of those installments is eternal vigilance. That means not taking the words of our esteemed peers as the gospel just because they have been granted fancy documents for writing huge checks to institutions that give out such documents. Any demon will tell you what you already think is true, a bit of what you will verify and then exactly what you want to hear. Why should common knowledge, and the word of experts, be any different?
A few random searches will give you a clue to the reliability of sources around you. Never take the word of a single witness as infallible unless the witness is infallible. Even a large number of witnesses can be wrong, so get the best sources available to you. Look things up for yourself. We, the people of the book, must have a foundation in logical reasoning and what good is that foundation if we do not use it?
