The factually impaired "news consortium" Catholic Online has once again resorted to what is commonly referred to as a lie-by-omission. In their short piece entitled "Holy Bible edges out Darwin's 'Origin of Species' as most valuable book to humanity'" they imply and even outright state that the British people have chosen the Bible as the most valuable book ever written. Slight problem with this characterization: it's false. If you read various other sources the intent of the survey conducted by the Folio Society is made quite clear. They did not ask about the actual content of the 30 books they asked individuals to rank. They actually wanted to know what books people thought have been the most influential on society as a whole. That is a huge difference. The directions make it clear that they were not being asked to evaluate the books on their merits. Two examples of reporting that did a far better job include:
The BBC's "The Bible tops 'most influential' book survey"
and The Independent's "The Bible voted more valuable to humanity than Darwin's Origin of Species in Folio Society poll
As a side note: I found it rather entertaining that conservative Catholics tend to be the loudest whiners when it comes to the perception that the society has become far too materialistic. Their short piece was very difficult to read but not because it was so poorly written, though it was that as well. It was difficult getting through because of the massive number of ads inserted throughout the page. Seems the revenue stream definitely trumped the message they were trying to peddle.
No comments:
Post a Comment