Gullible Factor

Speaking to a group of high schoolers, I once said, "people are stupid." When I saw their mouths drop open, I added, "individuals are smart, but if you bring individuals together, they're stupid."

This is how people are convicted regularly by juries when all the evidence says they couldn't have done it, and contrarily are set free when all the evidence says they're guilty as the day is long. We watch those episodes of 48 Hrs and Dateline and say to ourselves "that jury was stupid. How could they not have seen the truth?"

The truth of the matter is that people are very gullible. My job has illuminated that for me ten-fold. I respond to letters and e-mails all day where people ask very dumb questions based on the chain e-mail their best friend's younger sister's boyfriend's uncle's third child sent them.

I'm dumbfounded every time. In our day and age we can find information on anything. Really. And we also all know that everyday someone forwards on a non-factual e-mail. Hence the creation of Snopes (and I sure do use snopes all the time). And yet we read ridiculous stuff in our e-mail inboxes and we run with it.

This epidemic doesn't stop with e-mails. Phone calls, text messages, conversations. Because we heard it, we trust it to be true. Perhaps there was a time when you could believe everything you hear, but in 2009, good people, that's just no longer the case.

CHECK YOUR SOURCES!

In all my years of researching and writing papers, I've never been able to turn in anything, call it factual, and have no supporting evidence. Hell, even in the blogosphere, we link stuff to prove our points. We reference things constantly. Instinctively we know things need sources so why don't we apply that to other parts of our lives?

I'm not saying we all need to turn into Skeptical Sallys, but take what you hear with a grain of salt. Do a little investigative research before you repeat it or at least have the good sense to acknowledge that the hard-to-believe, foul, or otherwise sketchy stuff you're about to repeat, at any given time, may not be true.