Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Stephen Walski on August 9, 2011 at 1:13pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-inter...

The actual source of the news kinda paints it with less bias.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Walski on August 9, 2011 at 1:30pm

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Christians-angered-by-Stephen-Hawk...

 

This is a fun example to the other extreme. 

 

Particularly hysterical quote.

 

''Hawking is happy to discuss the M-theory, in which the universe is said to have 11 dimensions, why then could the universe not have a 12th spiritual dimension?'

The complete lack of understanding of the theory is shown clearly and it emphasizes the reason why we laugh when religion tries to impose its viewpoint on discovered science. The whole idea of tacking on their beliefs to the natural world to justify a fairytale is obviously demonstrated.

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Permalink Reply by Alice Browne on August 9, 2011 at 1:53pm

That's the kind of question that gives me grey hairs. It's as if human reasoning doesn't leave some room for God (which one?), then it is deeply and inherently flawed and we shouldn't trust it. Also, "science" = "pulling speculations out of thin air". I just want to shake those people and sentence them to a year's hard labor counting bacteria or something.

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Permalink Reply by Boatman on August 10, 2011 at 8:22am

Not strictly on topic, but too good to ignore...

 

I clicked on the above link, then spotted this

 

http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/howd-the-moon...

 

And people WATCH this drivel?  I shake my head in disbelief.





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Permalink Reply by Robert Karp on August 9, 2011 at 1:57pm

The Daily Show is my only source of unbiased and fair news!

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Permalink Reply by Rick on August 10, 2011 at 11:38am

Robert, I agree and add to that The Young Turks on Youtube.

To answer the question, it’s extremely difficult to remain unbiased. Even if that’s the goal one sets out to achieve, there’s a good chance some bias will creep in.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Hevenstone on August 12, 2011 at 3:07pm

Daily Show definitely, but Young Turks is hardly unbiased. If you're liberal (which I am), you just happen to agree with them.

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Permalink Reply by AbuMaia on August 9, 2011 at 4:28pm

With so much happening around the world, I think it would be near-impossible for news sources to avoid having to ignore some events in favor of others. This having to pick and choose what to report will always appear to show some sort of bias, no matter how impartial the news source is.

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Permalink Reply by Arcus on August 9, 2011 at 4:45pm

Politics/Economics:

The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Slate, The New Republic

Science:

Nature, Science

Newspaper:

Washington Post

These are very trustworthy sources with a very low level of bias. If you search for them on Facebook and hit "Like!" you'll get all the top stories directly to your stream.

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Keep away from Fox News and WSJ (right leaning) and Huffington Post (left leaning), as well as anything else which is in tabloid format or overly politicized.

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Permalink Reply by matt.clerke on August 9, 2011 at 8:23pm

In particular, the peer reviewed papers should typically be very unbiased and fair. Pity they don't do that with regular newspapers.

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Permalink Reply by Albert Bakker on August 9, 2011 at 5:15pm

I have a general rule that says when in a text some unnamed official is quoted or paraphrased the entire text is a load of crock. And I have a lot of very trustworthy sources. Trustworthy in the sense that they always lie. This for example David Sanger of the New York Times or anyone associated in any way or sympathetic to neoconservatism. But they are very open about the virtues of lying and swindling to guide the public to the right conclusions.

12th spiritual dimension?  Would that perhaps be a virtual dimension that spirals off in an imaginary direction curling up in such a way as to always secure the value of pi is 3, give or take a hand's breadth?

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Permalink Reply by Bakari Chavanu on August 9, 2011 at 6:05pm

No. When media is motivated by and depends upon profit, it can't be objective. Plus, anyone who has ever spent some time doing journalism, even as a blogger, you know that we all shape stories, consciously or unconsciously, to fit a particular perspective. That's why it's important that we read critically, and teach young people to do the same. Reading critically of course involves recognizing bias words and perspectives, being aware of sources used for an article, and reading as many different sources, if need be, on issue as possible. 

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