28 March 2008

Forged Documents

What does rap-music producer Sean Combs have in common with the President of the United States?

Probably not a whole lot. At least, not a lot as to stuff that either has any actual control over.

But the world is funny. Sean Combs has now become a victim of a news story based on forged documents.

The New York Times' story on the unravelling of this forgery is careful to mention that the reporter, Chuck Philips, has apologized for his part in the matter, and that Mr. Philips is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Well, gee. This sure helps burnish the esteem in which that prize is held, doesn't it?

Philips doesn't seem (so far as we yet know) to be a forger. He was at fault, it appears, in accepting the validity of documents that confirmed his own theory, and his desire for a hot scoop, without looking into them.

Check everything, Chuck.
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Pragmatism Refreshed

Knowledge is warranted belief -- it is the body of belief that we build up because, while living in this world, we've developed good reasons for believing it. What we know, then, is what works -- and it is, necessarily, what has worked for us, each of us individually, as a first approximation. For my other blog, on the struggles for control in the corporate suites, see www.proxypartisans.blogspot.com.