So as the story of Shiba Pillai-Diaz and her fight with the school district wears on, I’ve seen a number of people make the incredibly foolish mistake of finding a contradictory item and taking it as fact. There are a lot of examples of this, as I’ll show in just a minute, but let me first point out how stupid this is.
What has been tending to happen is people will follow the story in news articles and then, despite the fact that it’s been out since Sunday, people will find the Superintendent’s press release and take it as fact. The question is this: why?
There’s really no reliable evidence presented in the article — only a few assertions that Pillai-Diaz made some extremely inappropriate statements to her students, and even those have been obtained from “student interviews.” We know, above all else, that children lie — even more than adults do — and we have no idea HOW Dr. McCartney got the information from the students, or how many corroborated the story. When he says, in the second paragraph: “comments to students … have been verified through student interviews.” We don’t know if that means that he heard the allegation from a parent and one student confirmed it, or that every student in the class confirmed it. One would imagine that the superintendent, wanting to make a strong a case as possible, would say something like “a majority of the students in the class confirmed it” if, in fact, they had… this, however, is ALSO purely speculatory.
The bottom line is that what we have is not an untrue accusation by Pillai-Diaz refuted by the gospel truth from McCartney — the bottom line is that we’re not sure WHAT happened, and (in my opinion anyway) everyone involved is playing things a little too close to their chest to be squeaky clean. But let’s get to some examples of this “oh look, something I agree with — it must be true!” nonsense:
First off, a post referenced in a comment yesterday by The Moderate Voice: More Details: The Teacher Who Put Up Bush’s Photo Did Not Tell The Whole Story. She was WRONG uses the Superintendent’s memo as “the truth” to refute Pillai-Diaz’s claims. One might note that the same thing could be done in reverse — taking sections of the memo and refuting it with quotes from Pillai-Diaz. Both are equally foolish. The “Moderate” Voice seems to be spinning this issue hard left.
Several posters to the forums tracking the issue (including The Straight Dope forums) seem to have caught whatever disease this is:
the real situation was the second one. The first was Pillai-Diaz’s version of events, and she was lying. Many people thought as you did, and were on Pillai-Diaz’s side. There was a Pit thread on it yesterday with only Pillai-Diaz’s version.
Complete text of the comment
There’s more of this around — but it’s all silly. There are two sides the the story, why believe one out of hand while assuming the other is false? Is there a study somewhere that School Boards and Superintendents are infallible beings that never lie or distort the truth?
Not that I’m aware of.
If there’s a study that says School Boards are infallible or tell the truth, New Orleans was definitely excluded from the sample
Our school board blew goats, so we kicked them to the curb last month.
Well, maybe they’re perfect and infallible NOW.
It’s probably safe to assume that they’re both lying. Of course, it’s possible that one side is giving an unbiased, absolutely truthful statement, even including all damaging evidence to themselves, but that’s pretyy unlikely. If you want the truth, you have to infer it by looking at as many sources as possible, seeing where there is coroboration, and determining what logically follows. This is the glory of he said, she said.
Hey…I just noticed the headline. Shouldn’t it be WHOM to believe?
Bama students…oy
Yes… It should. But that sounded stupid, and because this isn’t english class, I went with the headline that didn’t sound retarded.
It’s interesting, Pete, that you now excoriate people for accepting the Superintendent’s statement when you showed no doubt whatever about the teacher’s story when it broke.
There was ample reason to suspect the story from the get-go, and it’s her story which has crumbled, not the school’s. Metaphysical certainty? There never is, except for people who later find themselves clinging to the wreckage and calling for healthy skepticism from everyone else.
I go based on the information available — I picked up the story before the Superintendent had anything to say about it. When the statement was released, I used that information as well.
In fact, if you actually took the time to look at all of the related documents (don’t bother acting like you have — I’ve got the server logs to show otherwise) you’d note that my stance has changed as more information has become available.
Nobody’s story has “crumbled” as you’d like to believe… then again, I don’t exactly expect a person like you to assimilate facts that contradict your worldview.
Sorry…I know it sounds better that way, but I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to rag on
UATUA“I go based on the information available”
So do most people. Same with everyone who now believes the Superintendent’s side of things. All information is incomplete information–you’ve missed the point of your own critique, or you’re just dodging the fact that the story you liked so much is now untenable.
I didn’t accuse you of ignoring further evidence, Pete (maybe that was one of the other people like me). The whole point was that while you now tell people they aren’t justified in believing the Superintendent’s story because there’s “two sides”, you jumped all over it initially with no shred of doubt. We’re left with two unsatisfying conclusions: either it’s only people who have read one side of a story who are entitled to form opinions, or we are obliged to doubt only those stories someone else tells us are in play.
So, thanks for your gracious hosting, I hope my lack of tact hasn’t abused it. You want to salvage that good righteous Them Damn Liberals indignation that half the story gave you. No skin off my nose. Just trying doing it without assuming a virtue you don’t have.
There’s a healthy dose of skepticism in everything I do — I don’t expect you to know that, being a newcomer around these parts, but it’s there. I don’t have to write it into my posts for it to exist.
Everybody’s entitled to an opinion. When there’s only one account of events, to assume that something else happened is really fairly silly — there is, however, nothing against having a silly opinion.
Same situation here — we have two stories… to believe EITHER without further evidence would be silly. Again, nobody is saying you can’t have a silly opinion.
When the Superintendent Released his statement my response was, and I’ll quote it for you:
Regardless of whether you think this post makes me a hypocrite (or what have you), that doesn’t make it any less true.
Assuming that the Superintendent’s Statement is the absolute, unadulterated truth is foolish.
Wishing something doesn’t make it so.