Truth v. Truthiness


Merriam Webster's Dictionary defines truth as:
1. a archaic : fidelity, constancy b : sincerity in action, character, and utterance
2. a (1) : the state of being the case : fact (2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : actuality (3) often capitalized : a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true <truths of thermodynamics> c : the body of true statements and propositions 
3. a : the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality b chiefly British : true 2 c : fidelity to an original or to a standard. (1)

Stephen Colbert defines Truthiness(2)

Colbert mentions in that clip that truthiness is what "feels" right, and what people know to be right from their heart. He also mentions that the truth comes from your gut. In this clip Colbert uses great humor to explain what truthiness is.

Colbert also defines truthiness in this way: "Truthiness is what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are. What feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support."(3)

Colbert motivational poster (4)


Bill Nye believes in mad-made Global Warming(5)




Glenn Beck: Global warming greatest scam in history.(6)



According to a claim from the The Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change in England, the claim from Beck that said that weather related deaths have declined by 95% since the 1920s is true.
http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_23.pdf (7)


The Daily Show(8)


According to Factcheck.org, Climategate is where “more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded:
  • The messages, which span a 13 year period, show a few scientists in a bad light, being rude or dismissive. An investigation is underway, but there’s still plenty of evidence that the earth is getting warmer and that humans are largely responsible.
  • Some critics say the e-mails negate the conclusions of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the IPCC report relied on data from a large number of sources, of which CRU was only one.
  • E-mails being cited as "smoking guns" have been misrepresented. For instance, one e-mail that refers to "hiding the decline" isn’t talking about a decline in actual temperatures as measured at weather stations. These have continued to rise, and 2009 may turn out to be the fifth warmest year ever recorded. The "decline" actually refers to a problem with recent data from tree rings. “


http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/(9)
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