Gell-Mann Amnesia theory is interesting

[Brookswood]

I ran across this the other day and it hit a warm spot with me because I have seen and experienced it myself.

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

My father had a saying from his town in Italy - “I thought you knew what you were talking about, until you spoke on something I knew about.”

I think we have all read or heard something that sounds convincing, and and forget that the same person has made some very big mistakes in the past. For example “Fireman cause house fires. The proof is we see them at every house fire in town have”. Or “the tree leaves cause wind since every time they shake, the wind is blowing. The faster the leaves shake, the more powerful the wind.” Gell-Mann tells us we forget the person’s goofy errors and take whatever they say as factual. Or at least we are tempted to do so since it’s the easy way out.

 

[Paco Dennis]

I ran across this the other day and it hit a warm spot with me because I have seen and experienced it myself.



My father had a saying from his town in Italy - “I thought you knew what you were talking about, until you spoke on something I knew about.”

I think we have all read or heard something that sounds convincing, and and forget that the same person has made some very big mistakes in the past. For example “Fireman cause house fires. The proof is we see them at every house fire in town have”. Or “the tree leaves cause wind since every time they shake, the wind is blowing. The faster the leaves shake, the more powerful the wind.” Gell-Mann tells us we forget the person’s goofy errors and take whatever they say as factual. Or at least we are tempted to do so since it’s the easy way out.

Really good point. We should examine our own experience to find what is truthful. It IS all we have.

 

[Jules]

Anytime I’ve personally known the facts in a report, I know they’ve been sculpted, mostly inaccurately, to create a story to sell. It tends to make me somewhat cynical.