Skepticism

I recently received an email from a friend regarding the “Stella Awards”. These awards are supposedly named after the lady who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the restaurant. The awards serve as a testament to the frivolous and sometimes warped nature of our legal system. And they have no basis in fact.

What? How can that be? I saw it on the web! When I received the email I was initially (and understandably) irked at how today’s juries tend to reward stupidity. But then my inner-skeptic took over and I did a little investigating through the same format that provided the information to begin with: the internet. Lo and behold, another site dedicated to debunking the urban myth surrounding the latest Stella Award winners. Apparently, there is no record of such people involved in such lawsuits in such courthouses. Go ahead: do a Stella Award search and you’ll see what I mean.

My first idea for this column was going to deal with the aforementioned frivolous awards for frivolous lawsuits. While that may still warrant some discussion, I will leave it for another day so I can address the value of skepticism. A healthy dose of skepticism was once thought to be essential so as to avoid being duped by would-be con artists, shady salesmen, and any others looking for someone who would listen to their spiel. Newspapers and other media sources were generally given the benefit of any doubt because they were all monitored by editors and other proofers who were tasked to ensure reliable reporting.

The internet changed those tenets of reporting, though, because, while the traditional reporter / editor was confirming the story, the web had it posted and was on to other breaking news. No vetting, no editing, no confirming: someone saw something and put it out there for all to see. To keep pace television, radio, and newspapers were forced in publishing or airing with the same speed and keeping their fingers crossed that the stories proved to be true.

And we all know that this has not necessarily been the case. At the same time, we have come to believe what we see on our monitor as gospel absent any of that skepticism that once kept us relatively safe from flim-flammery. So, when we read of the Stella Awards, we get pissed off at ne’er-do-wells getting rich through outrageous settlements. I’d say that the last thing we need is a further lowering of our confidence in today’s legal system.

In today’s world, we may well be in more need of skepticism than ever before. This holds especially true when dealing with the world wide web. The reader / listener needs to weigh the plausibility of an article before deciding that it deserves further consideration, but figuring out how to accomplish that is a tougher nut to crack. Well, let’s start by learning to recognize “key words”.

Marketing departments love key words: “free”, “new and improved”, and the like are employed to garner your attention and to entice you to part with your money. The news industry has adopted key words, too: “shocking”, “unbelievable”, “breaking news”, and other hyperbolic adjectives. (“Unbelievable” has always puzzled me. I’m watching the news because I believe what they report and they tell me that the following story is unbelievable! Well, hell, why then should I believe it, or them?) Don’t get me wrong, I get some of my news from the web, but I limit my bookmarks to established news reporting entities. They may not be perfect, but they offer the best insurance of reliable facts. And, regardless of the source, I'm sensitive to key words that have little to do with facts and more to do with sensationalism.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, you can’t buy the Brooklyn Bridge, and, nowadays, you can’t instantaneously believe what you read or hear. Our skeptic’s eye needs to be exercised if we stand any chance of avoiding knee-jerk reaction to invalid or inaccurate information. One warning: it is a fine line line between heathy skepticism and nay-saying negativism. As a matter of fact, you can find similar definitions for both. In common practice, though, I’d say the former serves us well while the latter squelches any discussion, debate, or progress.