I rarely talk about skepticism directly, but I’ll make an exception today. Please be skeptical. And please, please, use sources like Snopes.
I still see atheists sharing that stupid photo where Trump calls Republicans the dumbest group of voters. It’s not true. And it is annoying. Occasionally I’ll see it as a joke, but usually it’s not (in case this is unclear what I mean here is that typically the people who share it don’t know it’s not true, or at least currently unproven). It’s annoying and it shows people that atheists don’t by definition love skepticism. I don’t think we NEED too, but we should (in my opinion). We need to be skeptical of more than just religious claims.
It’s not enough to be skeptical of religious claims and act like we value skepticism. If we truly value skepticism let’s be consistently skeptical. Not that all atheists do value skepticism, and that’s fine enough, but for those of us who DO value skepticism we need to be skeptical of more than just claims about deities.
I don’t think Snopes is the end all be all tool for skeptics (That’d be hilarious, any skeptic using exclusively Snopes… I actually laughed writing that sentence), BUT I think if you are skeptical of something going viral it’s a good first place to check. We live in an age where it is REALLY easy to lie to someone, and for it to explode on social media. Don’t be fooled by photos on the Internet. I’ve seen everything from statements saying Honduras outlawed guns (it hasn’t, nor will it), to claims about Hitler’s first move being to ban guns (it wasn’t). On the Internet lies can and will go viral. Please, please, please, be skeptical. Independent of religious beliefs, and of political views, when you see something that you recognize is ridiculous, fact-check it.
The ability to see through untrue and oftentimes bold propaganda is a surprisingly rare talent. Do not be afraid to call out something as untrue. And never believe something just because it was shared by someone you care about. If you care about people, you should work to make sure they share information based in reality or at least appearing to be true. Skepticism is a good attitude towards historical, political, scientific, and religious claims. We need to show that to people.
If you want to share something and it feels untrue, fact-check it. Sometimes the truth is surprising. But in all seriousness, please use Snopes. Please be skeptical. If we are consistently skeptical, and we rejoice in the truth (when it is appropriate) we can show others the value of skepticism.
Remember: Always be skeptical. Never accept things that ring alarms in your head, until you’ve been shown or have found that they match reality.
As Abraham Lincoln said, 89.3% of statistics found on the internet are made up on the spot.
It’s easy to believe things that you want to believe, i.e. the supposed Trump quote. I’d love to think he said that, but he didn’t. Use Snopes and other source searches especially for things you want to be true.
Exactly! I am not perfect when it comes to this, but I try. In the future I’ll probably emphasize encouraging skepticism. I feel like it is something more nonbelievers need to do.
Some people (particularly conservatives) are fond of saying “Oh, you can’t trust Snopes, they’re biased.”
Well, it may or may not be true that they’re biased. But what I say to people when I hear this is, please send me a link to any page on the entire internet that DOCUMENTS a case where Snopes gets it wrong. After all, Snopes has literally thousands of stories now — surely someone who doesn’t believe the site must know of at least one story that is demonstrably untrue.
Other than some typically ridiculous birther rants, I have never seen a conservative site that even attempts to make a document-based takedown of a Snopes story. That’s enough evidence for me to trust the Mikkelsons.
I agree. Snopes is a great resource. My realest problem with them is that their aren’t enough stories they’ve covered. I know it sounds like I have greater beef with them than that, but that’s really it. I wrote what I wrote to dissuade people from relying solely on it, but even if that’s your only source it is INFINITELY better than not using Snopes at all.
This is tangentially related to why I unfriended the majority of my family members on Facebook. Many of them are religious/conservative, and I just couldn’t take the constant deluge of bullshit, nonsense memes and copy/paste stories that could easily have been dismissed with a single click on Snopes.
And it wasn’t just religious/conservative stuff, either. It was everything down to the “READ THIS UNBELIEVABLE AND MIRACULOUS STORY, IT WILL BRING YOU JOY”, wherein the “story” was some easily debunked anecdote about the baby that, you know, was flung in a tornado and was found unharmed 200 miles away, or whatever.
Just – ugh. People are so gullible.