Truth Takes A Beating

To the Editor:

Over the past few years the “Truth” has taken a beating. We have a President who does not believe in science nor does he believe it incumbent on him or his administration to recognize the same “Truth” as the rest of the universe. The means used to find the truth in science is called “The Scientific Method.” The process used for arriving at the “Truth” in other then scientific endeavors, “critical thinking,” has also been abandoned by President Bush, his administration, and many of his supporters.

In essence there exists a set of people who have taken their cue from the Bush administration and the Republican Party that the “Truth” no longer requires evidence of any type at all. That in order to arrive at the truth there is no need to go through a rigorous process of finding evidence, examining it, and questioning the findings. One need not compare the product with actual reality in order to determine if it does indeed correspond to reality and therefore meet the test of being the “Truth.” It is now merely enough to simply assert it as the “Truth” and if it is questioned then the person who dared to question it must be “unpatriotic,” “anti-Christian,” pessimistic, anti-feminist, helping the terrorists, a Marxist, or possibly from San Francisco.

In specific response to Susan D’Elia who wrote a letter [“The World — But Not Newtown Apparently — Is Full Of Optimists”] published last week critical of me, my reply in addition to the above which you may or may not understand is as follows:

Mr Duffy wrote a letter in a public forum stating what some readers may characterize as woefully ill-informed opinions about controversial issues for which he was unable, despite many opportunities, to support with any evidence at all. It was quite apparent his letters were written unencumbered by the critical thought process, or by any thought process at all. How kind of you to follow in his footsteps. The opportunity to participate in an intelligent debate existed. Mr Duffy chose instead, as did you, to attempt to make fun of people’s names, highly reminiscent of Mr Bush and his administration or several fourth graders whose names I thankfully do not recall. I do, however, thank you for your input.

Sincerely,

Robert Karnoff

66 Great Ring Road, Sandy Hook                         September 9, 2008