Sunday, October 15, 2006

Liar is a liar is a liar is a liar.....

Posted by olvlzl

That cheating survey in the news today is causing a lot of hand wringing and you can see why. Sixty percent say they cheated on tests, 28% stole things from stores, 23% from a relative... shocking. It’s even more shocking, 27% said they’d lied on at least one question on the survey itself. And 92% said that they were actually better than a lot of the people they knew.

But, wait. That 27% who said they lied on the survey itself, maybe they lied about lying on the survey but told the truth to all the other questions. Or maybe they lied on every other question except the one the one about lying on the survey. What does that mean?

And, more generally, the surveyors were relying on these young liars, cheaters and thieves telling the truth about any of this. The entire survey was based on faith in their testimony. What are the implications of trusting these people to tell the truth on this survey? How can they know if any of them were telling the truth about any of it? Did they take these possibilities into consideration? You would think that the Josephson Institute, dedicated to the highest in teenage ethics, would want to clear up these questions before they issue another of these surveys or perhaps to issue a warning that their results are of unknown reliability.

More importantly, now much more unquestioning reporting of this phony news is there going to be on TV than there was for last week’s Lancet study. The one which actually looked at hard documentation and used standard and recognized methods to compile their evidence and to analyze it?

If you asked the media people responsible for covering both of these stories if they gave a flying fig as to if what they said about them was accurate or responsible, what would an HONEST response show? Judging by their continued actions, it would be pretty discouraging.