Keller @ Large: Why Evidence Matters
BOSTON (CBS) -- "What is the direct evidence that implicates Mr. Brady?" Judge Richard Berman kept asking the NFL's lawyer yesterday during the you-know-what-gate hearing in New York.
And of course, the mouthpiece couldn't offer any, because they don't have any. Sketchy circumstantial stuff that excites jealous team owners and tabloid Patriot-haters? Yes. Real evidence, no, and it's nice to know that at least in federal court, someone still cares about that.
In just about every news cycle, we are reminded once again of how low our standards of evidence have sunk, when they haven't vanished altogether.
On Tuesday, I laughed out loud when I saw Donald Trump tell the press that while he would be laying out some specific policies on the important issues facing our nation sometime soon, but not to expect too much because "you really have to be flexible on jobs and everything else."
How convenient!
On the internet, especially on Twitter and in the unfortunate public-comment cesspools, no evidence is necessary to support positions, claims and smears. Everyone just lets it rip, and if some of the evidence-free mud sticks, it's a good day's work.
Sadly, this is sometimes also true of the so-called mainstream media, where some ethically-challenged practitioners prefer to make evidence fit their story idea.
And even in the most serious work of our government, evidence can be loosely-defined.
We saw it in the declarations about those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; we see it again in the hopeful declarations about Iran's willingness to disarm its nuclear program.
Who cares?
Evidence is the basis of truth.
If we don't care about the former, we can't ever expect to get the latter.
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