James Randi, Dan Rather and a brief lesson in logic…

Last month, I read an interview with Dan Rather, late of CBS News. In the new interview, Rather stated that he still stood by the story he green-lit that cast a critical light on President Bush’s National Guard duty. Well, if you were unaware, that story in 2004 set off a blogstorm that is well documented here. The main thrust of the criticism was the primary evidence against Bush were documents that were purported to have been typed in the early 70s, yet were apparently created using Microsoft Word.
 
Rather stated that “no one has even proven those documents (the ones used to reinforce the story) were fake.”
 
This comment set me off, and reminded me of a very appropriate story, told to me over 15 years ago by magician and noted skeptic James Randi.
 
Way back then Randi, the great debunker of all things hooey, made a speech at my college where he explained it this way:  you get a hundred reindeer, and, one after another, you through them off the top of the empire state building. They all crash to the ground and make a huge mess for New York sanitation to clean up. Have you proved that reindeer can’t fly? NO. You have demonstrated (not even “proven”) that these reindeer either could not, or chose NOT TO, fly – the point is not proven because the one flying reindeer may have been suicidal and, of course, we are not mind-readers.
 
There may still be reindeers who can fly somewhere in the world – just as there may be evidence to what Dan Rather claimed in that story. BUT the burden of proof is not on the critics of the story, it is on the claimant, to prove the documents were accurate and not fake. In that the documents were not “disproven” he is exactly right, as I mentioned – you can’t prove a negative.
 
But you can provide evidence that withstands scrutiny, which Rather, in all reasoned views, did not. Again, check the above links cited if you were not watching the events when they first occurred,
 
How is it that scientists have peer reviews and reporters (and their claims) don’t (and react rather angrily when informal peer reviews occur?) Oh well…
 
– Joe