Truth – purveyance of

I’ve long come to the conclusion that our species will not address the issues before it. It will deny, obfuscate and mangle the science (as with Climate Change) until it convinces itself that no action need be taken. It would be blindingly obvious, if the investigative media was doing its work, who was instigating, driving and funding the aforesaid. That is missed. Also missed, is the enormous lead-times required to deal with these global problems, and the point that you have to be precautionary – that it’s Russian roulette with the planet – or sooner or later, one will be a live shell. From which there will be no way back.

Don’t expect the media to tell you this.

I’ve tried – privately, not lambasting in the public arena – to get these folk to get informed. (Better mention here, that I’m a National Radio listener, an ODT reader, and I go online for the Huffpost, Age, Washington post, and so on. I don’t do television, commercial radio, or tabloids. Once, I bought the Sunday Star Times, not since the recent changes. Once, I bought the Listener – now only after a skim, and rarely).

The ODT, in my opinion, has an endemic bias, which precludes it purveying the truth. I’ve hassled the editor about it, and a few of the reporting fraternity, at various levels. Suggested where the information could be gleaned. That had an interesting response – on senior (on being pointed at a lecture I thought might fill in his gaps) said he might send a reporter……another said “no doubt, all will be revealed”  – it wasn’t, he didn’t go. Nor did I expect it.

We do get it in Op/ed’s – which is good, but the reporters drop the lot, or it is gate-kept.

I’m talking, oddly enough, about science. Fact. The real. Truth. All words I’ve used trying to get them to get researched. I’ve even offered several – recently Chris Morris – that I’m happy to bring them up to speed. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Ironically, a couple of days after I made a comment to their online issue (the third such, and the third abridged – I’ve taken to saving the sent message, anticipating this 100% inability to accept criticism – I would have no trouble with an explanation for actions, a defense of the statement, or a reasoned rebuttal) the published a good Op/ed on the subject. It’s dry, but worth the read – google ODT online, then go to ‘Opinions’, then The Science of World Affairs’ by one Daryl Copeland.

Here’s an excerpt: “At  its best, science be seen to represent the closest thing we have to universality, and perhaps even truth”.

Why he bothered with perhaps, I don’t know.

Here’s Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:   “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Here’s the unabridged comment I sent re a recent ODT Editorial: