MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION AND HOW TO GO ABOUT IT

MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION AND HOW TO GO ABOUT IT

Getting facts correct is an essential thing in disseminating information. Casual information-dispersal with inaccuracy in date and data has become the national characteristic, sometimes intentionally so and oftentimes out of ignorance coupled with the compulsion to speak on issues, nonetheless. The scientific attitude demands that one be well-versed in the subject one speaks on with facts and figures at one's fingertips or available as handy notes for ready reference. The audience, equally uniformed, feeds on this misinformation and disinformation or partial representation of truth, and comes to erroneous conceptions upon which it bases its future judgement on history gone by.

Where lies the solution then? It is in this. Laziness has to be shed. Information must be duly gleaned. Authentic books must be read. Online sources are either flawed or biased. Hence, any feature of history must be judged only after laborious study of it from a multiple of contrary sources. Only then a balanced conception will be arrived at and truth in totality can be known as approximating the absolute truth of events gone by. To sum it up, education of the teacher and of the student is necessary -- real, fact-based, unbiased education.

Written by Sugata Bose