What is truth? "Truth is the confirmation of appearance to reality" Mathematician & Philosopher Alfred N. Whitehead "Reality, when you stop believing it, does not go away." Lucas Mix, Society of Ordained Scientists Plato's allegory of the cave. ”The more perspectives we learn to see from, the more truth we have access to.” Nietzche, existential philosopher. Never trust a single source. Refereed academic papers have a higher level of truth. Fake News Flies Faster Whenever you repeat sensational, emotional FAKE NEWS, you become part of the problem. "Living the truth: being our true selves" theologian Paul Tillich Discover your lovable true self. The danger of a single truth.

1. Finding TRUTH in our
media with its FAKE
NEWS
Paul H. Carr, Ph.D.
www.MirrorOfNature.org
TRUTH & BEAUTY in SCIENCE, SPIRIT, &
SOCIETY, RISE # 2330

2. Jesus, (in John 18:37)
“The reason I was born and came into the world is to
testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens
to me.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate.
“Truth is the confirmation of
appearance to reality.”
Alfred N. Whitehead, Mathematician, Process Philosopher.
“Reality: When you stop believing
in it, it does not go away.”
Lucas Mix, Order of Ordained Scientists.

4. Economic
Interests
Cartoon from the Union of Concerned Scientists Calendar

5. Blaise Pascal, 1623 – 1662) was a
French mathematician, physicist, inventor,
writer and Catholic theologian.
On Pascal's view, human finitude constrains
our ability to reliably achieve truth.

6. Alfred N. Whitehead, Mathematician, Process Philosopher.
“Philosophy is a rewrite of Plato.”

7. Republican Shadow Democratic Shadow
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
Human senses constrains our ability
to perceive truth.

8. PLATO’S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE
What we perceive as reality is only the shadow of the true forms.
Using reason, ascend to the sunlight to become en-lightened

9. In 1969, the reason-discovered eternal truth of the laws of science
enabled us to escape from being chained to our Earth:
(1) Newton’s laws of gravity and motion.
(2)Einstein’s law E = mc2 The transformation of the mass of chemical
propellants into the energy of motion
enabled us to escape the gravitational pull of the earth.
HAVE WE BECOME MORE EN-LIGHTENED? TheFlatEarthSociety.org believes the earth is a disk not a sphere.

10. The Hindu Blind men examining the elephant illustrates limited worldviews.
If they combine their limited worldviews, they could discover the true form of the elephant.
Democracy depends on free press for a dialogue between limited
worldviews to approach the truth.

11. ”The more perspectives we learn to see from, the more truth we
have access to.” Nietzche, 1844 – 1900, existential philosopher.
However, we finite humans feel more comfortable believing what
agrees with our present worldviews.

12. TED VIDEO
THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY (TRUTH)
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many
overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie
tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural
voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story
(truth) about another person or country, we risk a
critical misunderstanding.
https://youtu.be/D9Ihs241zeg
19 Minutes

13. GILBERT — Fake news is a phrase you have probably heard a lot lately. But what is fake news? Nicole Miller, director of the Gilbert Public
Library, is holding a course to teach you how to analyze information and ascertain for yourself.

14. Two-thirds of Americans get their news from
social media.
Traditional media hire editors and professional
journalists.
Traditional media have trouble surviving, as
social media get about 90% of advertising
money.
Cambridge Analytics, before the 2016 election,
got personal data from Facebook for targeted
political advertising.

16. Targeted
Facebook Ad
bought by the
Russians

17. Because of this and similar ads, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg (born
1984) was called to testify before a congressional committee.
Facebook has recently removed conspiracy advocate Alex Jones’ postings.
Alex Jones claimed: airplane jet contrails are damaging people’s brains.
He claimed the mass shooting at Sandy Hook was a big hoax with massacre
victims as actors.
Research from Northwestern University concluded
that 30% of all fake news traffic, as opposed to only
8% of real news traffic, could be linked back to
Facebook.
Algorithms are good at things like identifying fake
accounts and platforms are flagging millions of
them every week. Yet machines could only take
Facebook so far in identifying the most recent
influencing campaign.
Facebook has hired more people to edit
advertisements and postings.

19. WIKIPEDIA,
The free Encyclopedia
Anyone is welcome to
edit.
A team of scholars has
rated Wikipedia as
accurate as
Encyclopedia Britannica.
WHY?
From personal
experience, I have
learned that, contrary
to Facebook, Wikipedia
has editors who have
removed or edited my
postings.

20. The highest level of TRUTH is a refereed publication.
Scholar.google.com is an excellent library for refereed scholarly publications.
Example, to find my refereed publications enter “Paul H. Carr” in the search box.
What is a refereed publication?
WARNING: Google does track your searches and uses them to
serve you targeted advertisements.
The search engine DuckDuckGo.com does not track searches or
store, share personal information.
A refereed publication must be approved by an editor and at
least one expert referee who has carefully reviewed the
publication.

21. Studies show people assume that the higher something
appears in a Google search, the more reliable it is.
But Google’s search algorithms are based on keywords,
not TRUTH.
If you asked about using apricot seeds to cure cancer,
the tool will dutifully find pages asserting that they
work.
“A search engine is a search engine,” says Richard
Gingras , Vice President of news at Google, “I don’t think
anyone wants Google to be arbiter of what is and what
is not acceptable expression.”

22. ”The more perspectives we learn to see from,
the more truth we have access to.”
Nietzche, 1844 – 1900, existential philosopher.
A refereed publication, reviewed by an editor and at least
one referee is closer to the TRUTH than a Facebook
posting from a friend.
NEVER TRUST A SINGLE SOURCE

23. Meteorologist John Coleman, who co-founded The
Weather Channel, said
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../article.../Oct 23, 2014 - 'The
ocean is not rising significantly. The polar ice is increasing,
not melting away.
Is this statement published in the
non-peer reviewed Daily Mail
“fake news” from a climatology
perspective?

24. A darker Arctic is boosting global warming
From1979 to 2018, less reflecting ice, more absorbing water made
North Pole warm twice as fast as the rest of the earth.
http://www.pnaorg/content/early/2014/02/13/1318201111.abstract
Proc. National Academy of Science, Feb 18, 2014.
ARCTIC MELTING IN THE LAST 32 YEARS
SATELITE PHOTO
13

25. • The Sept 2012 minimum area set a record low.
• Sept 2013, 2014 is larger but not climate trend changing.
• http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/ Nat. Snow & Ice Data Ctr.
ARCTIC MELTING

26. Meteorologist John Coleman, who co-founded The
Weather Channel, said
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../article.../Oct 23, 2014 -
The polar ice is increasing, not melting away.
• Is this “Cherry Picking” of the data?
• Is this “fake news”?
• A “White Lie”?
• Is this a “lie”?

27. Meteorologists: Days, Years Climatologists: Decades, Millennia
Truth versus Time

28. TRUTH VS. TIME
NEAR TERM versus. LONG TERM (ETERNAL)
Tax cut
Near term advantage for
Party in Power
How to pay for interest on
increased national debt?
2013 – 2014
Arctic not melting
1979 – 2014
Arctic Melting

29. TRUTH IS
OFTEN
INCONVENIENT

30. CBS/AP July 27, 2018
President Trump on
Friday touted the U.S.
economy's 4.1 percent
growth in the second quarter
as "an economic turnaround
of historic proportions."

31. Another example of “ a cherry picking” Fake News or White Lies:
Claiming that the latest 2018 quarter growth of 4.1% is a record high.

32. THE FAKE NEWS CRISIS
Bots and propagandists are just part of the problem,
the bigger issue is our brains.
By Katy Steinmetz, TIME, pgs 28-31, August 20, 2018
Reasons we’re susceptible to believing dubious claims and
why we play a role in spreading them
TELL A LIE ENOUGH TIMES AND PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE IT.
MIT cognitive scientists David Rand has shown that simply being
exposed to fake news makes people more likely to believe the
claims. This “illusory truth” works even when such claims run
counter to the reader’s political ideology. This may be because
we subconsciously rely on cognitive shortcuts known as
heuristics to make quick decisions about what we trust online.
These habits of the mind can lead people to assume for example
that if something is familiar, it is also safe.

33. SOCIAL CREATURES.
Into 2016, a Pew poll reported 23% of
Americans said they had shared a made-up
news story. While many did so unknowingly,
14% said they were aware it was false at the
time.
Experts suggest that our deep desire for
social feedback, which may come in the form
of retweets or likes on social media, can
trump any hesitation we might have about
sharing in inaccurate information.

34. FAKE NEWS FLIES FASTER
MIT Study: Twitter falsehoods spread 6 times faster than truth.
The researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management also
determined that sensational false claims were more likely to elicit
feelings of surprise and distress.
But taking a break can help us avoid knee-jerk reactions, so that we
don’t blindly add garbage to the vast flotillas already clogging up the
web.
“What makes the false or hyper partisan claims do really well is
they’re a bit outlandish,” says MIT cognitive scientist Prof. Rand.
“The same thing that makes them successful in spreading online is
the same thing that would make you realize it wasn’t true after
stopping to reflect. ”

35. MAN BITES DOG
Is more sensational than
DOG BITES MAN

36. SHAMEFUL TO POLUTE THE INTERNET WITH FAKE NEWS.
Another powerful tool: SHAME. We need to make
sharing misinformation as shameful as drunk driving.
“We need to cultivate an awareness of digital pollution
on the Internet.” Prof Gary says, ”We have to get people to
think that they are littering when forwarding stuff that
isn’t true.
Having a well-informed citizenry in the big picture is as
important for survival as having clean air and water.
If we can’t come together as a democracy around this
issue, it is our doom

37. "I am a great believer in the people.
If given the truth, they can be depended
upon to meet any national crisis.
The great point is to bring them the real facts."
“Honest Abe” Lincoln

38. “If we get in the habit of bending the truth to suit
political expediency or party orthodoxy,
our democracy will not work.
-----
That there are some things that are worth risking
everything for.
Principles that are eternal.
Truths that are abiding.”
President (2009 -2017)
Barack Obama
Eulogy for Senator John McCain
Sept 1, 2018,
Washington National Cathedral.

39. The Greek word for truth means making manifest the
hidden. Truth is hidden and must be discovered. It dwells
in the depth below the surface. The surface of our
existence changes, moving continuously like the waves in
the ocean, and it is therefore delusive.
The depth is eternal and therefore certain.
From Sermon DOING THE TRUTH
Pg 114 of existential theologian Paul Tillich’s “Shaking of the Foundations”
“Be he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God.” John 3:17-21.

40. Conclusion of Paul Tillich’s Sermon, “What is Truth?”
From pg 73 of Tillich’s sermon book The New Being.
LIVING THE TRUTH: BEING OUR TRUE SELVES
Jesus said, “Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”
Being “of the truth” means coming from the true, the
ultimate reality, being determined in ones being by the
divine ground of all being, that reality which is present in
Jesus the Christ. (Let’s discover our true lovable self.)
This may open you up to the truth and it may liberate
you from the bondage of opinions and prejudices and
conventions.
Suddenly, true reality appears like the brightness of
lightning in a formally dark place.

41. “Or you may be grasped by the truth in an
encounter with a piece of nature- its beauty and
it’s transitoriness
The truth which liberates us is the power of
love, for God is Love. The “father of the lie” binds
us to himself by binding us to ourselves- or to that
which is not our true self.
Love liberates from “the father of the lie”
because it liberates us from our false self to our
true self - to that self which is grounded in true
reality.”

42. ”The more perspectives we learn to see from, the
more truth we have access to.”
Nietzche, 1844 – 1900, existential philosopher.
FIGHT FALSEHOODS FROM FLYING FASTER
NEVER TRUST A SINGLE SOURCE
TRUTH & BEAUTY in SCIENCE, SPIRIT, & SOCIETY, RISE # 2330
Finding TRUTH in our media with its FAKE
NEWS
Whenever you repeat sensational, emotional
FAKE NEWS, you become part of the problem.
DISCOVER YOUR TRUE, LOVABLE SELF

43. 9/11. Beauty’s harmony and lack of contradiction as a criteria for truth.
If something is too good to be true, maybe it is not.

44. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”