12/21/16

Heroes Part II

Yellow stars and the Danish King

Adversity can make heroes of any of us.  Here's a great example:

The King of Denmark, Christian X, had had some serious struggles with democracy early in his reign, but during WWII, he became a hero to his countrymen through his daily demonstrations of personal courage.  One of his most famous acts of bravery occurred during the German occupation, when the Nazis insisted that all the Danish Jews start wearing the yellow armbands required in the rest of the conquered lands. Here’s a popular version of what happened next.

"From the German occupation headquarters at the Hotel D'Angleterre came the decree: 

ALL JEWS MUST WEAR A YELLOW ARMBAND WITH A STAR OF DAVID.

King Christian X

That night the underground transmitted a message to all Danes. 'From Amalienborg Palace, King Christian has given the following answer to the German command that Jews must wear a Star of David. The King has said that one Dane is exactly the same as the next Dane. He himself will wear the first Star of David and he expects that every loyal Dane will do the same.' The next day in Copenhagen, almost the entire population wore armbands showing a Star of David. The following day the Germans rescinded the order."           Snopes.com

It’s a great story! I bet you’ve heard it, too. 

But it’s not true.

Not a word of it.

What the Danes actually did was much, much cooler. 

There were almost 8,000 Jews in Denmark at the start of WWII, all well integrated into the culture and society of the country.  When Hitler ordered the Danes to turn over their Jewish countrymen, they hid them instead, at considerable personal risk.  At the same time, the Danes secretly negotiated with the Swedish government to accept these refugees.  Then, one by one, in small boats and secret crossings, the Danes transported their Jews across the Øresund Strait to safety in neutral Sweden  Less than 500 were eventually captured by the Nazis. And even then, the relentless insistence of the Danish government on their safety led to almost all being returned alive at the end of the war.

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust

This is a great story too, but it has the advantage of actually being true.

So we have to wonder why the fake story got traction while the real story didn’t.

During the war, Norwegian political cartoonist Stig Höök (Ragnvald Blix) published a cartoon in the Swedish papers in which the Danish prime minister, Thorvald Stauning, and the King discussed what to do after the Nazis invaded. In the caption, the prime minister says: "What are we going to do, Your Majesty, if Scavenius (the foreign minister) makes all the Jews wear yellow stars?" The King responded, "We'll all have to wear yellow stars."

And so a story was born. Playing off this, Danish patriots in New York circulated a propagandist piece that juxtaposed the notion of the King wearing a star with a photo of the monarch on his brave daily rides through the streets of Copenhagen. That gave rise to a version in which the king actually wore a yellow star while out riding. Then the very popular Danish comedian and pianist Victor Borge (I adored Victor Borge!) picked up the story as part of his routines.  And finally, Leon Uris told the story in his 1958 novel Exodus. The subsequent hit movie put the last nail in the coffin of the true story.

OK, that’s an exaggeration. I'll bet some of you already knew the real story, but the fake story has everything going for it – a heroic king, a stirring example of opposition to oppression, and a happy ending.  But I’m also happy to put the real story out there. It may be harder to make heroes of a flotilla of unknown boatmen, but so they are. I salute you!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and the best of seasons greetings to all. 

And, as an extra holiday present, here's a funny, funny bit from the talented and hysterical Victor Borge. Borge is the guy in front.

12/11/16

And that’s the truth!  Part II

My fake news website, Need2Know News, was a modest success.  I had almost 3,000 views within a week.  Some folks got that it was fake.  Others not so much.  Which is scary because if you look at the banner, it clearly says that a flying saucer has landed on the Mall in Washington, D.C. And that leads me to this second blog on what’s true and what isn’t.

Here’s the punch line. I’m putting it first because it’s the most important thing in this post: I want you to know how serious I am about the accuracy of what I print here.

It’s come to my attention that some of the readers of this blog believe that what I write is my opinion. If it’s my opinion, I’ll say so.  If I state something as a fact, I have at least one scientific study and probably more to back it up.  Just because I don’t always put in the link to the original study, don’t think I haven’t checked.

People have lots of different ways to determine what is real or true.  For the purposes of my writing here, I’m almost always going with science.  That means I’ve set my bar pretty high. It also means that if I say that say conservatives test higher on measures of conscientiousness, I’m not making that up to make liberals feel bad.And if I say that conservatives are more likely than liberals to test high on authoritarian personality measures and that they're less open to new experiences, that's not to make conservatives feel bad either.  

What it means is that I have evidence, based on real science, that says it’s true. I mean, look at their desks! OK, that’s opinion. The actual study looked at dorm rooms and offices of liberals and conservatives and found them distinctive in predictable ways. Guess which one is the liberal's...

http://2012election.procon.org/sourcefiles/the-secret-lives-of-liberals-and-conservatives-personality-profiles-interaction-styles-2008.pdf

Real science, in its most basic form, works like this:  You make a guess about what might be true.  Then you set up two conditions, one where that thing happens and another where it doesn’t.  Then you compare the results.  And there are techniques and rules to figure out if the results were just from random chance or if it’s likely they are really meaningful.

Same thing if I think there’s a relationship between two things, like political viewpoint and personality. The math is a little different, but the results can be treated the same.

Now here’s the big point: Science is falsifiable.  That means that a fact is only a fact until a better fact comes along.  And if that better fact has better evidence, then it replaces the old fact. That’s the way it works. When you find out you’ve been wrong, you stop being wrong. Yes, it can be uncomfortable.  I was originally trained as a behaviorist.  Now I’m writing about social cognition.  I can’t begin to tell you how big a shift that is!

Here’s an example: The other day I accidentally dropped the F Bomb in front of my 2 year-old granddaughter, only to hear her repeat it. Instantly.  Oops.  Can I blame this on the nanny?  Probably not.  So I got to thinking about profanity. I’ve always assumed people cussed because they didn’t have a vocabulary extensive enough to express what they really feel.  Plop in the F Bomb, and you don’t need to dredge up real words.

But is that really true? Apparently not.  I just finished reading this study that says a big vocabulary of taboo words is an "...indicator of healthy verbal abilities overall rather than a coverup for their deficiencies," and backs it up with evidence.  LINK.  

So now I will change my mind because the evidence says I was wrong. That’s how science works.  You generate a testable hypothesis, test it, and adjust accordingly.

In a perfect world, of course.  Scientists are human and get just as enamored of their theories as anyone else. But when push comes to shove, we go where the data lead us, even if it takes a while.

However, it’s not really feasible to apply that high standard to mainstream media.  So here are two more ways I’m going to use to figure out what to believe.

1.  If it looks strange or sensational, it probably is, so I'll check with snopes.com or truthorfiction.com for verification.  Both have excellent records. I find politifact.com to skew a little liberal, so I'm less likely to believe them.

2.  Instead of particular websites or newspapers, I’m learning to rely on particular people. Folks whose work and fact-checking I trust. These include, at this point, Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham (but not The Washington Post in general and not FOX News, though I'm working on liking Bret Baier) and at least two folks at fivethirtyeight.com: Nate Silver and Clare Malone.  I like that these people deal with ideas they don’t always agree with and that they’re willing to track down information and then change their minds when new information comes in. Oh, and the Pew Research Center, which is the gold standard on survey data.

So that's my goal. I'm far from perfect. If I screw up, call me on it.  I’ll listen to you.