Try Telling the Truth

It’s simple but not easy

Story update 12/06/2013: Wow did we mess up. When this story originally published we, the editors, introduced an error into the story regarding the Alaskan oil spill (which the author hadn't mentioned in his original) and didn't realize it. When readers pointed out the error we compounded the mistake by correcting an error that didn't exist to begin with. Our apologies to David Schwinn for the error, which was completely ours.

My wife, Carole, and I recently saw the video, Promised Land. In it, a gas company salesman tries to get the residents of a relatively poor town to sign away their property rights and permit the company to drill down to hydraulically fracture, or frack, shale to release natural gas. The salesman lies to the people to get them to release their rights. An environmentalist then shows up to show the residents the risks of fracking. He, too, is shown to be a liar. A lot of lying is going on.

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Comments

Thanks for your interesting article! I like to call lying "intellectual dishonesty". To me it is more descriptive of what is going on within the perpetrator's mind. Whenever I run into intellectual dishonesty I ask another question: "Could you send me the raw data?" OUCH!!! BUSTED!!! Because I have a reputation of solid data analysis AND I show my work/methods, people know that when I get hold of the data, the analysis will be thorough and correct. One or two of these instances, and intellectual dishonesty disappears. The downside is that people often come to you first with their data!

I think you meant Exxon. It made me laugh. Both companies were in a race to the bottom.

Mr Schwinn made a fundamental error in his article - It was an Exxon vessel that spilled oil in Alaska in 1989.  Part of telling the truth is verifying your data.  Having said that, the rest of his article is spot on.

One: John Grisham's "The Appel" novel, that tells much the same story.

Two: Benjiamin Disraeli's "Three kinds of lies: lies, damn' lies, and statistics".

One: John Grisham's "The Appel" novel, that tells much the same story.

Two: Benjiamin Disraeli's "Three kinds of lies: lies, damn' lies, and statistics".

Three: Collodi's Pinocchio - there's no added value in telling lies, sooner or later Truth will come to surface, and it'll be like a tsunami wave. 

As for the Disraeli quote on lying, I think what Fred Mosteller said is also worth noting: “It’s easy to lie with statistics, but it’s easier to lie without them".

" Collodi's Pinocchio - there's no added value in telling lies, sooner or later Truth will come to surface, and it'll be like a tsunami wave. " OBAMACARE IS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF COLLODI'S PINOCCHIO!

Submitted by MJK on Tue, 11/19/2013 - 13:52

Even though you changed the name to Exxon, it seems as though the comment is still incorrect. 

"Remember the 1989 Exxon oil spill in Alaska, when the company’s executives lied to their stockholders, walked away with millions, and left their stockholders and employees penniless?"

Exxon is a thriving company and I don't believe that the shareholders and employees were left penniless.  That seems to be Enron.

How many lies have come out of this current administration? 

1. If you like your healthcare, you can keep it.

2. My administration didn't know anything about the IRS targeting conservative organizations.

3. The Benghazi incident was caused by an American filmmaker.

Lying starts at the top and it becomes easier for everyone when our president lies to the American public.  Funny that ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times seem to hear no evil, see no evil or speak no evil.  Not really funny but sad.

 

 

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