I went down to Dallas this past weekend and bought 5 new quote books. I an going to take a quote from each one over the next 5 days. Today’s is from ‘Language Is a Place of Struggle – Great Quotes by People of Color, Edited by Tram Nguyen.
Facts
I often think about how much people depend on facts and statistics. It’s 3 hours driving to Wichita so we better leave by 1 if we are going to get there by 4. I ran my last 10k in 55:54, a personal record and the first time under 56 minutes. One of those facts is neutral, not a lot of interpretation to it. The other, the one about my run, is also a fact, but it has some emotional or psychological meaning to me, and perhaps to others who hear it.
Unfacts
But what about facts that aren’t facts at all? For example, Rebekah Evans (my daughter) wrote an article in her blog ‘The Cellular Scale’ titled, ‘Do small men think like big women?‘. It’s a great read about flawed science, gender bias and ‘facts’ that aren’t. It’s about the Corpus Callosum, a part of the brain that connects the right and left hemisphere. It’s been said for many decades that women’s are bigger than men’s and that as a result women have a more unified brain, can multitask better, etc.
But the truth is that is not true. Later studies showed that it isn’t based on male or female, but on the actual size of the brain. The larger the brain, the less proportion of the brain the corpus collosum is, leading to the wrong assumption it had something to do with women or men. Check it out and see how a ‘fact’ can be delivered and believed by many people due to many reasons not attached to the veracity of the truth. In this example it lead right into already existing gender bias.
What do you believe, not because it is true, based on facts, but because it feeds into a need to control yourself or others, or fits a bias you have?
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Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman, factual.
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Quote by Nikki Giovanni, 1943 – not dead yet, African-American writer and activist
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