Lessons Learned the Hard Way

It is human nature to desire instant satisfaction or gratification. We want what we want when we want it and don't care what it takes to get us there. Ergo, we tend to draw conclusions from little evidence and have no interest in considering the facts or causes behind such conclusions. Chapter 6 of UnSpun is all about this behavior and how our disregard for process or evidence can trap us into propaganda. Not only are the tricks of advertisers a concern, but our own sheer laziness puts us at risk of being spun.
The authors encourage us to learn that our own personal experience "isn't necessarily very good evidence"(106) since it really only offers one point of view. (A point of view or observation which can also be tainted when filtering it through the thoughts of other people or in retelling, such as exaggeration.) It would be ignorant to believe that one scenario automatically makes something a fact, but many people actually think that anecdotes serve as appropriate data or evidence! Case in point: those who believe crows are using cars as nutcrackers. Sure, it would be fun to believe that these birds are so savvy, but the truth is that the observations of Maple and Grobecker were momentary and the product of chance. They "caught" the crows throwing nuts at cars but never thought to observe crows throwing nuts on other hard surfaces. Where's the fun in that?
Jackson and Jamieson also bring up another strong point: that bogus studies generate in politics all the time. The general public is just too lazy to look for support for the studies. We'd rather believe that what we are being told is true. I know that I personally rationalize that politicians wouldn't be allowed to state a statistic if it weren't true...and that's exactly what they hope the public believes. In actuality, as the authors point out with their abortion example, politicians can state downright incorrect stats and pass them off as facts. I cannot believe that Howard Dean reported that abortions went up 25% since Bush was elected. (116) Doesn't he check his facts? Why are they making me weed out the lies?! I'm too lazy for this!

Alas, I have to learn to become more critical of the media, for reasons like these alone. It is in my best interest to quit being lazy and start asking questions like the authors suggest: "Are these facts really connected?" and "What's the evidence?" (125.)