UN-SPUN: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation

There is a mention on Page viii of good batters being able to spot the spin on a curveball. This is certainly great eyesight, and was the hallmark of Boston Red Soxer Ted Williams, who had a brain that could register the thread movement on the oncoming baseball.

Our brains do see patterns. Just like humans come pre-programed to see faces in objects, like the Man in the Moon or Jesus on a potato chip.

Good researchers spot patterns, too. One thing I have always looked for was the repeated phrase (usually means some response was practiced...and therefore probably practiced to hide something).

On Page xi is a mention of partisans becoming accomplices in their own deception by rejecting information -- valid or not -- merely because it conflicts with their existing beliefs. This is a major problem with many military leaders......we believe our own demonization of the enemy and fail to recognize human motives behind their actions.

Some expect Israel, the US/UK, Iran, and Arab states to follow certain distinct patters of action. Perhaps when looking at a new area and conflict, like the Niger Delta, we really do not know who is whom but soon see some evidence that allows us to place the actors into neat ideological boxes.

All this was rather easy during the Cold War when there were clients of the two great powers US/NATO-SETO and the Soviet Union. About all we had to do during the long and confusing civil war in Lebanon was look at the weaponry....AK-47s in the hands of some factions, and M-16s supplied by Israel in the hands of others.

Today there are Soviet arms all over the world. We see Indian and Pakistani soldiers with AK-47s along with the Taliban etc.

Page 17, the bin Laden baloney entry and so much of the 9/11 "inside job" lore.

Page 26, if it's scary, be wary. And Page 28 on tales that seem too good. The mention on Page 44 that "Language does our thinking for us" and the all important "Frame It and Claim It" on Page 46.

Eye candy juxtaposition of words and images is mentioned as Trick #4 on Page 51.

The "Implied Falshood" as Trick#8 on Pge 61 we have mentioned about the run up to war campaign against Saddam Hussein.

Cognitive dissonance is mentioned on Page 67 but more attention should be paid to Festinger's idea. That we really try to avoid information which conflicts with our deeply held or fundemental beliefs. Pay attention to this entire section on the psychology of deception. (If my scanner was working, I would put this entire Chapter 4 on the Home Page. The idea of "hostile media phenomenon" and "confirmation bias" are also very good.

OnPage 81 at the end of the chapter is an important mention that "Research shows that when people are forced to "counter-argue -- to express the other side's point of view as well as their own -- they are more likely to accept new evidence rather than reject it" -- and this is exactly what the intelligence analyst and journalist should be doing when looking at the other side.

Pluralistic Ignorance on Pages 93-95 covers the gap between perception and facts. During one semester of JOURNAL 300, I had students conduct an informal sidewalk poll asking if Osama bin Laden was intelligent and clever. While most respondents said NO the follow-up question of WHY brought out answers that he was quite clever. And this is the gap between emotion (respondents wanted to hate bin Laden -- or give the socially desirable negative response) but their explanations of his actions were actually very respectful of his apparent cleverness.
To quote from UNSPUN Page 95: "...in 1968, for example, only one in three white Southerners said he or she actually favored segregation, but nearly two in three said they believed a majority of whites were segregationists. To put it another way, de-segregationist whites were a big majority in the South but thought they were a minority.
This is followed by another example from early 2003 when 76 percent of Americans polled thought Saddam Hussein was providing assistance to Al Qaeda. There is also an exploration of the sinking of the USS Maine and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. And the phony stacking of the deck during House testimony during the Gulf War....and the Page 99 idea of a military duty to lie. "Fortunately, it's not hard to get current, accurate information about other matters that bear on our well-being. Even in a world of spin, ordinary citizens can call up reliable sources of information quickly and easily on the Internet."
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The lessons of the Great Crow Fallacy are very good. Don't confuse anecdotes with data. Remember the blind men and the elephant, which describes military briefings during the Gulf War about "smart" weapons when they were 8 percent of the munitions were guided
Not all "studies" are equal and the FactCheck.org Guide to Testing Evidence on Page 121.
Chapter 7 Osama, Ollie and Al opens with "We've said that staying unspun can save us money, embarrassment, and perhaps even our lives, but that it also requires us to adjust our mental habits so that we look actively for facts that might disprove whatever we happen to believe at the moment, rather than giving in to our hard-wired human tendency to see only supporting evidence.....The solution to spin is the Internet, if you use it carefully."

The Rules, starting on Page 156. You can't be completely certain, You can be certain enough, Look for general agreement among experts, Check primary sources (this is very important when using Wikipedia....scroll down and read some of the source material for the encyclopedic entry) and the idea that courts refuse to accept hearsay evidence.

Know what counts and Know who's talking. Seeing shouldn't necessarily be believing...and the mention that by 2007 some "189 persons have been exonerated after DNA tests showed they had been wrongly convicted...and more than 70 percent of those were convicted on the basis of mistaken eyewitness testimony.
Understand a "push" poll on Page 171.