Fact or Fiction - How Can You Know?

by Groff Schroeder

If a person repeats a falsehood in good faith, are they lying? Such a situation is a good example of why it is important to think critically about the information we receive.

Information can be either objective (verifiable) or subjective (unverifiable) and usually consists of facts, opinion, speculation, or fiction. Objective information includes things like professional documentation, scientific publications, and recordings and real time video of actual events. In contrast, subjective information stems from personal feelings or work rather than scientific research, statistics, or physical evidence.

A fact is a who, what, when, where, or how piece of objective information that can be either true or false. Although a fact can be proven true or false, pieces of information are usually only accepted as fact after they have been verified as correct through some repeatable means.

Opinion is subjective information based upon a person's point of view, and speculation is a subjective guess about a situation or the future. While the validity of opinion and speculation often depends upon the correctness and completeness of the facts upon which they are based, even 100% correct opinion and speculation are of limited value in the objective assessment of reality.

Fiction is film, speech, or writing that is not presented as being true. For example, novels such as The Hobbit are labeled as fiction because they are stories created by the author rather than accounts of actual events. However, fiction necessarily includes factual or at least believable descriptions of reality - such as small people with large hairy feet participating in amazing adventures – even though the story itself is a fabrication.

Just as the intentional falsehoods of fiction can create a very believable subjective impression of reality, it is possible to create a subjective reality through the use of propaganda, the practice of presenting falsehoods (or subjective information) as facts (or objective information). Propaganda creates a very believable, but ultimately false impression of reality, usually in order to manipulate public opinion, electoral processes, and societal behavior.

It appears increasingly difficult to find sources of information with high objective to subjective information ratios, perhaps because the expansion of corporate political power has created information providers with significant conflicts of interest in their own reporting. If it is hard trust the information we receive, how can we ensure that we do not incorrectly repeat falsehoods in good faith?

Consult multiple sources of information: do multiple sources support a fact's validity? When sources disagree, what information supports each point of view?  

Evaluate the quality of the information: is the information objective or subjective? Is the source of the information verifiably identified, excerpted, quoted, and cited?

Assess how the information is presented: is the subject covered completely and objectively? Does there appear to be a dependable bias or prejudice? Do headers match content? Are inconvenient events, facts, or information omitted?

Evaluate the quality of the source: is opinion presented as fact? What is the ratio of factual information to opinion and speculation? Does the source agree with other sources? Is the presentation correct, complete, honorable, and logical? Is incorrect information corrected?

No matter what the source, quality, or completeness of the information you are consuming, it often appears that the most important piece of information is the one that you do not have.   

Appeared in the Colorado Springs Independent, November 12-19, 2013 with the quotation below. 

"The essence of an independent mind lies in how it thinks not what it thinks."   Christopher Hitchens