Researchers and Investigators spend their life culling the world for answers, searching for minute to large details and evidence that will lead us to discover that "elusive truth". The skill set that separates the experts from the hacks in that game is an understanding of how to maintain integrity in your findings, be objective, balanced, thoughtful and benign. Emotion, politics and even natural prejudice has no place in the process of investigational research. The final result must be objective, repeatable and verifiable.
So let's look at a simple example of how to perform quality investigative research; I recently was caused to revisit the topic of colloidal and ionic silver solutions. My Mother purchased a new Silver solution generator from one of the best known companies in the USA who heavily promotes Silver. The company claims dominance in the area colloidal silver and heavily touts its health benefits. My Mother and I have used ionic silver solutions for over 15 years and have experienced positive results in topical as well as oral applications. On the same day that the new "colloidal silver" generator arrived I went to a friend's survival meeting. He had a guest speaker there to talk about the use of colloidal and ionic silver. The speaker was very positive with much anecdotal supporting commentary on the "power of the silver".
Admittedly I have always found the hype around the Colloidal Silver benefits to be discomforting. See my articles Silver and Health and Realistic Application of Silver. The problem that I have any of these "alternative" solutions to common stubborn problems is that people are either desperate for a savior or that they are always looking for a green or anti establishment solution. They don't even realize that they do it. They allow their prejudices / biases to override good fact checking.
The picture to the left demonstrates how the mind can be easily tricked by triggering trained responses which report false perspectives.
Politicians use the same idea to manipulate us to respond with votes or support laws that hurt us or take away our rights under the guise of protecting us.
My current pet peeve is the charlatans, who like snake oil salesman of the nineteenth century; manipulate people with half truths, skewing your perspective with fear, guilty, or predisposed prejudices. This is often accomplished by feeding you facts out of context and or order. The manipulation is capable of making even the most seasoned of us fall prey to reactive or panic behavior. They take truths, leave out other facts (taking them out of context), and put them in an order that guides you down an apparently obvious path that they have chosen. Rather than layout all of the facts and allow you to make your own educated decision, they chose for you and parse that which does not support their cause. It is Flashlight Guide
In the images above you can see how the angle triggers a basic brain function of calculating perspective. Your brain using hints from the image to paints what you percieve as reality in the mind's eye. They are the same image, the one to the left, stripped of the proper context paints an entirely different perspective and subsequently a completely different set of expectations and reality.
Every day we are bombarded by information from countless sources, most of whom you know little or nothing about. Some of the information is meant to get your attention through shock or titillation of some sort. That information is utilized to manipulate your actions toward a specific outcome. Sometimes the manipulation is as simple as getting you to watch a TV show or listen to the radio programming. Often the "facts" have been carefully selected and though not tainted; they are placed in an order and focused specifically with the intent to cause you to act accordingly. Now that agenda could be as simple as moving you to eat at McDonalds or Wendy's, or it could be to buy a product or service. The advent of computers and other technology have increased the level of information saturation; the ease by which you can be bombarded by "facts" is often overwhelming.
Those overloads of "facts" often cause people to feel overwhelmed and just "give in". This is where we get in trouble. If we are to survive in this modern world of information overload we must take responsibility for filtering and validating information, we must learn to be skilled at handling it.
If you do not check and verify every fact that you accept, you will be destroyed by them. It is not as simple as just listening or reading and accepting. You must train yourself to fact check everything especially those things that support what you already believe. This may be the most important lesson that we can learn. I always fall back to the approach that Ronald Reagan asserted over and over to Mikhail Gorbachev "Trust Through Verification". Learn to avoid making reactionary or emotional decisions, in either direction. Never forget that at times of crisis there are many people with no integrity waiting to take advantage of or even worse rob or hurt people who are trying to help. Everything that is "absolute fact" can be repeated over and over by disparate people identically. Someone asked me the other day, "Isn't it funny how it's always the last place that you look that you find something? (when you are searching for it)". Hmmm, well yes! Seriously, would you keep on looking for something after you found it? Well, as obvious as that point seems in context to looking for a physical object you need only look at the two photos above and the one below to realize that what you see is not always reality, or should I say your perspective could be skewed.
Fact Checking, Perspective, Balance, Wisdom, Fairness
As humans we have many means of obtaining, processing, testing, verifying and vetting information. Human communication skills allow us, if we are trained, being careful and respectful, to attain a much higher level of understanding, awareness of our environment and even some of us may become enlightened. (See Useful Information Top Page)
The key to processing raw data reliably and effectively is to glean the raw data, log it and plot a course forward; a process of vetting. You can't remain at the beginning; simply excepting the data and parroting it. You must learn, absorb, and develop supporting facts and experiential data that allow you to refine your initial perceptions with logic (not emotions) and facts in order to assure your direction is accurate and reliably balanced. Thorough research prior to embarking upon a course is advisable; i.e.: make sure that what you picked on the side of the road was really a pretty flower and not poison ivy.
Every day there is another example that crosses my path of how people have never developed the ability to maintain a balanced perspective. Every challenge and piece of information that people are presented in life tests their skill of critical thinking. Those who have some level of skill generally have a much better experience in life than those who have not. The ability to be broadminded, not stupid, but balanced enough to know that there is more than one way to do something right, even if some are better than others can save you much aggravation and broaden your skills and knowledge. What is comfortable and possible for you is not always the same for someone else. Having the skill to understand that there are many points of view that create differing assessments of the same scene depending upon the person's perspective.
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