from Angry Bear

“A lie is an assertion, believed to be false, made with the intention to deceive.”

That’s essentially Bernard William’s definition of a lie on p. 96 of “Truth and Truthfulness.” It probably fits with how most of us think about a lie. But what about statements that use true facts to deceive?

August 31, Juan Cole was shrill about administration and media statements that GI deaths in Iraq were down for the year. His point was that temperatures get to 120 degrees, so summer means low combat. He produced a table contrasting 2006 with 2007 by month: deaths are higher in 2007 than 2006. He asked for a visual display and many responded. I’m posting mine here.

But this is just part of a pattern of communicating, where true facts are presented within a limited context, so that the resulting asymmetry of information creates a false impression. Most of us don’t know that Iraq temperatures reach 120 degrees in July so that physical activity like combat is down. On the other hand, if an official announced that lowland US snow fall in July was the lowest it’s been all year — duh. The difference is that here in the US we all know about July snow fall, so there’s no asymmetry.

Since there’s some dispute about the August combat casualties, for the following I will shift back to July. That doesn-t change the substance of the argument.

read more HERE

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