The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect is, simply put,<\/p>\n
I believe everything the media tells me except for anything for which I have direct personal knowledge, which they always get wrong.\u00a0 source<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Formulated by Michael Crichton<\/a>, is named after Murray Gell-Mann<\/a>, an astrophysicist.\u00a0 (said Mr. Crichton, “I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.”)<\/p>\n
Mr. Crichton explained it further in a 2002 speech, “Why Speculate?<\/a>”<\/p>\n
\nBriefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray\u2019s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward – reversing cause and effect. I call these the \u201cwet streets cause rain\u201d stories. Paper\u2019s full of them.<\/p>\n
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.<\/p>\n
That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I\u2019d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus<\/i>, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn\u2019t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
RIP, Mr. Crichton.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect is, simply put, I believe everything the media tells me except for anything for which I have direct personal knowledge, which they always get wrong.\u00a0 source Formulated by Michael Crichton, is named after Murray Gell-Mann, an astrophysicist.\u00a0 (said Mr. Crichton, “I refer to it by this name because I once discussed … Continue reading “Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[137,416,415,255],"class_list":["post-1863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-stuff","tag-dad-forgot-his-meds-again","tag-gell-mann-amnesia-effect","tag-michael-crichton","tag-quote","post_format-post-format-quote"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4o3FW-u3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1863"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1866,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}