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Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

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Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#311

Post by javert »

technothrasher wrote: post #293
javert wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a critical thinker, the baseline facts come from the person's own direct experience. They have to. For example, I probably wouldn't 100% believe that hundreds of people can cross the sky in a metal tube (i.e., modern jet airplane) if I had only been told about it. But I've seen it myself. Another example: I've learned enough about technology to think the moon landings were feasible, and I've learned enough about…

Won't relying on direct experience as a basis for critical thinking lead to all kinds of problems due to faulty perception and cognitive biases that we all share? Additionally, how are we to evaluate situations were are not likely to have any experience with? None of us have any experience with, say, the big bang or anything close to what the universe was like then, but can't we still come to many likely conclusions…

Rationality is a process, but it has to have data to work with. That data comes from perception of the world (sight, hearing, etc.). There is no such thing as "pure" rationality without sense data to work with.

Evidence for the big bang ultimately comes from sense data. You have to integrate a lot of sense data into scientific theories, which then are integrated with other scientific theories, and so on. Science has gotten so far - but it all started out with simple experiments, eventually microscopes and weak telescopes, etc. and built from there.

Critical thinking allows you to overcome cognitive biases. Faulty perception is pretty easy to detect. A stick in a glass of water will look bent, but it's easy to figure out that it actually isn't bent.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#312

Post by tablespoon »

nitrogen wrote: post #267
tablespoon wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> See for yourself on the link to a google search below, results are filtered between 2018 and January 2021, but every single article for the first five pages is about the incident that occurred two weeks ago, mistakenly backdated years. Is that the news website's fault, or Google's fault? The first two links are to what look like keyword/topic pages with many articles, and it wouldn't be surprising of Google pulled…

Personally, I don't consider Google date searching to be very reliable, IMHO. They're making a promise with it they can't really keep. It might work better if they searched on first-indexed date, rather than server modification timestamp headers or dates embedded within the page.

> It might work better if they searched on first-indexed date, rather than server modification timestamp headers or dates embedded within the page.

But that assumes they index things in a timely matter, which is likely not true a huge amount of the time.

And I don't think that would help in this case, because in many of the cases it appears they got the article date right, but the article page is dynamic and now includes snippets of stuff that post-dates the article.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#313

Post by jeffbee »

tablespoon wrote: post #303
j_m_b wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one time, Snopes was part of the fact-checking team at Facebook. This comment goes to show that having an arbiter of truth is a bad idea considering it's hard to accurately know everything. Imagine Doctors trying to debunk the official fact-checker statements and being labeled as misinformation simply due to the fact that they disagree with the fact-checker!

> Imagine Doctors trying to debunk the official fact-checker statements and being labeled as misinformation simply due to the fact that they disagree with the fact-checker! Though it's worth noting that MDs (and all other kinds of doctors) can be incompetent and/or batshit insane. For instance, I had the pleasure of viewing a video where a psychiatrist leaned on his MD credential to "debunk" COVID and the efficacy an…

The whole COVID "skeptic" circus is full of quacks with irrelevant credentials, like urologists and orthodontists. As a prominent example, I give you Rand Paul. If you take advice on infectious diseases from an ophthalmologist, you're going to have a bad time.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#314

Post by shadilay »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #111
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PayPal recently partnered with the ADL to ban accounts and prevent the wrong people from making transactions. Should be beyond concerning that not only they did that, but celebrated themselves for it. The ADL has ever widening definition of “problematic“ that extends to political topics far outside of their mission statement. I would really have to think about who is less biased, the SPLC or the ADL.

PayPal is pretty embedded in the institutional power matrix, so it’s not really that surprising. They want to be a bank, if they aren’t already one.

They want to be as much like a bank as possible but without any of the regulation.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#315

Post by smnrchrds »

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #306
qkqk wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, the article where they say "Trump did not explicitly tell people to 'storm' or 'breach' or 'break into' the Capitol" and instead “peacefully and patriotically” march does't fit the mold of "pure, unadulterated bias." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-tell-supporters-stor... I'm so confused!

Engage with the given example, which proves the claim.

If a source makes questionable claims to the left or right, it is biased. If it makes questionable claims to the left and right, it is not biased, it just lacks quality.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#316

Post by gowld »

kstrauser wrote: post #210

I really want to like Snopes, but I'm not convinced that they weigh evidence correctly. For example, they debunked the myth that Marilyn Monroe had 6 toes. First, I don't believe that she did . Or even care, for that matter. But at the time, one of their "facts" was that if she'd had a toe removed, she'd basically have to learn to walk all over again because it would throw her balance completely off. (Note: the artic…

They also did a faux-debunking of the Trudeau-Castro theory, that didn't even check Justin Trudeau's mother's Wikipedia page to find out her location on the date they calculated for the conception date.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Trudeau

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/justin-trudeau-is-fidel-ca...

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#317

Post by kragen »

I find it really grating to see David Mikkelson described as the "cofounder of Snopes", because snopes is Barbara Hamel (then Barbara Mikkelson), his ex-wife, the well-known poster to alt.folklore.urban. David Mikkelson is definitely not a founder of Barbara Hamel, just her ex-husband. The website is named after her because it was her site. But at this point she has been unrelated to the site for several years, similar to the case of Ernesto and Julio Gallo.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#318

Post by jdavis703 »

jeffbee wrote: post #313
tablespoon wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine Doctors trying to debunk the official fact-checker statements and being labeled as misinformation simply due to the fact that they disagree with the fact-checker! Though it's worth noting that MDs (and all other kinds of doctors) can be incompetent and/or batshit insane. For instance, I had the pleasure of viewing a video where a psychiatrist leaned on his MD credential to "debunk" COVID and the efficacy an…

The whole COVID "skeptic" circus is full of quacks with irrelevant credentials, like urologists and orthodontists. As a prominent example, I give you Rand Paul. If you take advice on infectious diseases from an ophthalmologist, you're going to have a bad time.

My ophthalmologist requires masks and social distancing in his office. He also recommended against wearing contacts for the duration of the pandemic (he says glasses offer more protection.)

Why am I going to have a bad time for following his rules and advice?

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#319

Post by RickJWagner »

Snopes is a great resource if you want truthful articles with an extreme political bias.

I don't believe they'll ever tell an outright lie, but they'll go to extreme lengths to say only negative things about one side of the political spectrum and only positive things about the other side. It's an incredible way to control the narrative.

The only problem I find with Snopes is that it plays strongly to people's biases. They'll come to think only from one side of the scale, universally to their detriment.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#320

Post by dragonwriter »

max46 wrote: post #189
dragonwriter wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can just omit the references and reasoning that go against your narrative. You can, but it will then be obvious to anyone familiar with the references or who has the power of reasoning that you have failed (innocently or not) to consider them, not that you have found something that debunks them.

>You can, but it will then be obvious to anyone familiar with the references The whole point of "fact checkers" is to be used by people who are not expert on the subject

> The whole point of "fact checkers" is to be used by people who are not expert on the subject

A fact checker is a (usually tertiary, like an encyclopedia, providing references to primary and secondary sources) source that is distinguished by focussing on current, controversial claims. There is nothing more a "fact checker" can be. That's not a failing, that's an inherent limitation given the nature of facts.

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