My most popular blog post during the past three years has been about lying. I wondered why there was so much interest in that subject. Upon reflection, I have concluded that our preoccupation with lying stems from our inability to access factual information and sift through the vast piles of alternative facts. We are increasingly faced with mass communication that is filled with lies, counter lies and even more lies. So I guess my readers would like to know more about lying… assuming I tell them the truth.
In 1984, in my job as Chief Scientist for President Reagan’s Star Wars program, I learned about the evolution of misinformation. I continually faced the dilemma of representing a program that lacked a fact-based and timely technical foundation, but I advertised it realistically as a research program to uncover the facts. Congress, of course, was not so happy to fund an enigma that Reagan said was a sure thing. Meanwhile, I expressed a desire to answer the myriad serious questions provided that we received the $25 billion we said we needed. I estimated that it would be at least five years before we could say whether or not Reagan’s promises to protect all of us were true. Reagan really hated both nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union’s communism based government, and his logic was to somehow eliminate both of those things.
I have learned that at first most public officials in the world of politics, science, technology and medicine capture the trust of their political allies. Their claims are thought to be truths. Then their political detractors accuse them of telling outright lies, followed by denials and more accusations. Even the widely respected Dr. Fauci has now been accused of lying about wearing masks and recently about funding the Wuhan lab and has had to defend his case.
What I found then and over the years was that the true believers were not interested in considering any facts. I eventually learned that the Soviet military industrial complex was selling their own SDI, and Gorbachev had no choice but to go along with their ill-fated attempt to launch their own SDI killing Death Star called Polyus. Their chief engineer and program leader believed their space-based laser could dominate space. The United States’ advocate of space control, Edward Teller, made similar claims about his pet project, the X-ray laser. Secretary of State George Shultz and Reagan’s White House scientific adviser had serious doubts. Were both the U.S. and Soviet leaders lying to their citizens?
Today, the most widely accused purveyor of doubtful claims is Donald Trump, but many believe Trump’s statements and claims. A majority of Republicans believe Trump really won the election but widespread voter fraud stole the election from him. His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was apparently sincere in repeating Trump’s claims but he was disbarred from practicing law because the court said he was “knowingly making false statements.” A lawyer is not supposed to defend their client by misrepresenting the facts. Even as a technical adviser to the SDI program, I was warned by the legal staff at the SDI to never ever, ever lie to Congress under any circumstances, but also to not volunteer too much of the truth. My approach was to provide extensive technical information that the questioners would find confusing and dull.
When it comes to lying, it is also possible that the communicator actually may believe his claims are true. This may be the case with Giuliani. A person is not lying if that person believes their own claims. If the claim is a blatant factual falsehood and the audience is predisposed to believe it, then it will be repeated and embellished and become an even more outrageous lie that the true believers will repeat and often even invent nonexistent evidence to support the lie.
If the believer observes only the sources of information that are biased in one direction, then it is likely that the lie will get reinforced with no opportunity to consider contrary points of view. Once believers share the lie widely they will have their own self-images and reputations at stake and will ever more forcefully defend the lie, so that even doubters start to believe the blatant lie. The doubter can easily begin to wonder, “Well, maybe there could be something to this story after all, and maybe I was wrong to doubt the storyteller.” The key to convincing the doubters is to repeat the lie over and over again, and it seems that with enough repetition, the lie can become a belief.
My clarinet teacher once told me that the brain can be trained with enough repetition, and the only way to ever learn chromatic scales was to practice over and over again. She said this so often, I believed her, and accepted that it was only my lack of discipline that kept me from becoming the next Benny Goodman. So it seems that through forceful repetition, my brain was trained.
Big lies repeated frequently with no contradictory information have become widely accepted. This is damaging to our democracy—a form of government that demands free speech and informed decision making by an educated and intelligent population. Many of us make decisions without investigating the “rest of the story” as Paul Harvey, the radio commentator, used to say. The solution to this problem is to consider alternate points of view. Watch and read a variety of news sources from different perspectives. Give equal time to both CNN and Fox News. My wife argues that I do not practice what I am now preaching, and it will be really difficult, but I will try. Thomas Jefferson wrote that a well-informed citizenry is a prerequisite to democracy. So, if you are worried about liars, lies and the people who believe them, stay informed, use your critical thinking skills and help expose falsehoods before they become accepted as facts.
SDI Guy 
Pingback: Lies and liars – Materials at Extremes
Gerry
My brother died on June 17 and Jesse and I stayed in Paris through the memorial service on June 22. I am now back in New York City until July 13 when we go to Botswana. I am taking my sister-in-law with us to Botswana.
It was a difficult month but I had time to be with my brother and learned many more interesting stories I never knew and meet some of his friends I’ve heard about for the last 30 or 40 years. Some came from Seattle and some from New York, and from various points in Europe to be with him.
This week I am catching up on my reading and hope to turn to yours soon.
Nancy
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GY: I like your recommendations at the end. To implement, several challenges must be overcome:
* Not sure critical thinking is taught anywhere in the educational system, so short of “the school of hard knocks of life” bringing related experience, such skill is not learned sufficiently early in life for many individuals to keep an open mind; by the time individuals become influential they’re already a member of a domain with fixed opinions, agendas, and desired outcome. The closest training I experienced is the STEM profession where the ground truth of issues is supposed to be preserved. But even many elements of science has become biased and polluted when funded by agencies with political agendas.
* To become a well-informed citizen requires maturity, courage, and perseverance in pursuing ground truths within any issue. I’m not sure society currently is migrating in that direction with the dumbing down of its younger generations and the absence of skin in the game by the intellectual, social, and economic elite.
So how do we (whoever that is) address these?
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Thank you for keeping me on your list!
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Well yeah! Even Pinocchio knew all this about lies. Sadly, Trump’s nose didn’t give him away. Sorry, I will never know the whole truth because I refuse to watch Fox News. Oleta
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Well yeah! Watching Fox is not so easy. I am not doing a balanced viewing job so far.
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I recommend strongly that you and all who receive your emails read the current issue of “American Scientist,” the quarterly publication of Sigma Xi. That issue is dedicated to “Trustworthy Science.” It has several interesting and informative papers on the issues you raise.
George Constanza hit the nail on the head about 20 years ago. When he and Seinfeld were discussing lying, George said, “If you believe it, it is true.”
I am certain that Trump really believes what most of us know are lies. As do many of his followers. Religion is a belief system. People cannot be dissuaded from their beliefs. They might die defending their beliefs or kill others in order to propagate their beliefs. No facts or evidence will change them. They will offer counter arguments or just ignore the facts. Mohammad traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem over night. It was impossible, but it was miraculous, requiring no proof.
As far as I can tell, physical force is the only way to make believers deny their beliefs, at least outwardly. There are many examples: the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Jihads, Priests reinforced by Conquistadors participating in conversions among native Americans. Perhaps even the Trumpish Insurrection.
Remember, “If you believe it, it is true.”
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Like a religion, Trumpism is a cult of people who believe in the superiority of the white race that is led by a narcissist and supported by a political party who’s aim is to overthrow our democracy and limit the right of people of color to vote. Hopefully, the use of judicial force applied by the Department of Justice through the court system and by the People through the election process will defeat this 21st Century tyranny.
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According to a group of reputable psychiatrists, Trump has many characteristics of psychopathy. His followers do not question his sanity, believe his stories, and do not consider contrary points of view. Democracy will not work without an intelligent and thoughtful population.
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To quote the above, “ So, if you are worried about liars, lies and the people who believe them, stay informed, use your critical thinking skills and help expose falsehoods before they become accepted as facts.”
Thankfully the comments so far quickly have revealed the contributors’ complete unwillingness to use critical thinking skills to explore all elements of applicable facts. I’ve been impressed by those afflicted by TDS to believe that every action and every opinion and every policy and every thought ever made by one human have been so utterly wrong. Other than an actual devil incarnate I’m at a loss of any other comparable flawed human in modern times.
I have to wonder if TDS will impact sufferers for the remainder of their lives! Maybe a decade from now history will be able to capture an unbiased chronicle of this era. It’ll be an interesting read.
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