One reason I like sources is to check any attached chat board responses for other information and sources, if they exist. The cited source may not be reliable but attached quotes/responses can be useful for chasing down information.
How is that trouble? You believe or you don't believe it. No harm done. This is a discussion forum, not a news site. The fact that we see unsourced lies from actual news sites and credentialed sources is the bigger problem. I generally cite my sources, so I clearly don't have a problem with citing sources. I have a problem when discussions are derailed by demands for sources, usually by people who are going to summarily dismiss them anyhow. Given that credentialed sources have been lying to us constantly, there's some sense in that. If someone says something that I don't believe to be a fact, I'll look it up if I'm interested, but if the same person has given me information that I found to be not credible repeatedly, at some point, I probably won't bother with what they have to say anymore. I won't demand that they do my homework for me. On the other hand, if someone has a question about something I say, I may or may not respond with a source, depending on my own judgment as to whether that person is really interested in knowing or not. Usually, I'll make a reasonable attempt to satisfy their request, unless I've dealt with them before and found them to be not really interested in the discussion, but I don't always have time to even do that.
Focusing back on the original post concerning a reply to a post saying, "cite your sources," I was reminded that before the internet such didn't happen since most writers of articles for magazines would make footnotes of sources they made reference to in the article. If it was their own research, then no sources The internet changed all that with instant responses and forums where very few will read lengthy articles with footnotes. Considering social media where terms like "calling someone out" started, especially with teen girls and young women, the idea was based on destroying and exposing the other party they disagreed with or didn't like what they posted. This term came from the old western movies and shows where one gunslinger "called the other out" in the street for a quickdraw shootout where only one would be left standing. Requesting "one cite their sources" instead of offering a counter post on why you disagree or question the post, is meant to destroy the other poster (same as calling them out) and expose them as being full of it since you don't think reliable sources exist. If a reader suspects that reliable sources exist and links and videos would support the poster's viewpoint, they most likely will never post a request to cite sources. A request for sources is usually requested because the requester thinks they can discredit anything the "sources" reveal or they have nothing to add to a discussion but want to disrupt it. When the source is the poster's own knowledge and experience, these ones that love to call folks out, thinking they are the winner of the fast draw when in fact they were dead to the discussion before they uttered, "cite your sources." Example of post: "Oswald was one of two shooters of JFK." A lazy worthless and rude response: "Cite your sources." A response that leads to a worthwhile discussion: "According to the Warren report Oswald acted alone." Then the original poster might provide info that they had that, in their reasoning, disproved the Warren report, and then a worthwhile discussion evolves.
The guy i am talking about takes great pains to say when things are not reliable from either side, but if there in information that is reported by BOTH sides, he considers it to be true. I will send you the site if you are interested in really following the war. You would be a very unusual woman to do so, @Mary Stetler.
That is what I liked about Dr Campbell and covid. He reported the facts that were available. And when they started getting fuzzy, he said so.
I think it’s more important now than at many times in the past to be accurate in speech. Even though this is just a forum, many people read forums like this as a source of information about all kinds of things, granted, they should not, IMO. If we want a country that speaks the truth, it needs to be “grass roots”, not just the MSM and talking heads. We are experiencing a full tilt propaganda war waged by academics, leftists and the MSM. Repeating their BS as a popular opinion should be challenged. $0.02.
I am teaching my daughter about approaches to health. She started saying how foolish people are eating prepared foods etc after what she had learned. I said, yes, but a lot of info needs to be researched. I asked her, If I told her that spinning around three times would help cure diabetes, would she do it? All info, cited or not, needs to be verified. But how do you do it? I speak the truth. But sometimes I learn new things. Here, there are people who call me a witch doctor. I have pulled natural cures out of my knowledge learned over the years.
If it's important to you, then you should look for other sources, but it shouldn't be up to another forum participant to provide those sources.
It is hard to know. Knowledge is a slippery thing and can change depending on new information which is why it always so important to question things, to seek verification. It’s a fascinating topic on its own. There’s a great example from my own field I like to mention at times. For folks interested in microscopy, the 800 lb. gorilla was Abbe’s Law of Diffraction. It governed the attainable resolution of a light microscope for over 100 years. Then along comes Stefan Hell, and wins a Nobel prize by breaking the diffraction barrier. Even scientific laws can fall.
Well, we can agree to disagree. If someone makes a statement, for myself, I expect them to be able to stand behind it. But, whatever, if a person doesn’t want to engage that way, no one can force them. Free will and all that.
When someone says something here that is new to me, if it's someone whose information has checked out repeatedly, I might trust him (or her), and not bother looking further unless it's about something critical, such as my health. Conversely, if it's someone whose information rarely turns out to be valid, I won't even bother looking into it further. For those in between, or with members who I am not so familiar with, if the information makes sense to me, I might believe it, but otherwise, I'll check it out if I'm interested enough. Often, I'll just let it pass. If I'm not sure about something but am too lazy to look for myself, I might ask where I can find more information about that, and if that's done politely and not as a challenge, there shouldn't be any problem with that. However, we often obtain information in ways that don't come with a link that can be offered, such as on television, radio, in books, personal observation, or elsewhere, so why should I expect them to go looking for a link just because I'm too lazy to do that for myself? For that matter, if I watch someone shoot someone across the street from my house, I don't have to wait for the newspapers to report it in order to tell the story. That would be unreasonable, and when you demand a citation, you are calling that forum member a liar, particularly when this is presented as a challenge. It is disruptive as it makes the other party in the discussion feel that he or she has to prove what they said or shut up. That is, in fact, typical trolling behavior.
If you are the source, then you simply say it's your opinion. Posting the link means only that an article that MAY support a position exits, and it will be up to each reader to go there, read it, and see if it is persuasive. The mere posting of a link means nothing, in itself. It merely indicates that the author of the linked article might agree with the statement. It may be that the author is completely unconvincing.
So, one can cite Abbes law in reference to a discussion of diffraction. But citing no longer makes it exact. Not picking on you. I just think this board is a bit more laid back than some. When I mentioned an atlatl, some people looked it up. Some didn't care if they didn't know what it was. I am good either way.
Not sure I agree. When I ask for a source for a claim someone has made, it basically means that: a) it does not say what they think it does; b) there is no supporting evidence anywhere, and what is claimed as valid is merely opinion. Opinion is to be taken on trust and credibility, if it is to be taken, at all.