Where is the truth?

This is a very important social concern as we live not in isolation but together. As we cannot have necessarily a better world out of our own predictions, so we cannot have necessarily a better world out of our own new technologies.

What does the truth have to do with predictions or new technologies?

Yes, I am mixing apples and oranges, but so what, in a complex world what is wrong with it? I have learned that in the thirties and forties American social scientists advanced the field of statistics to new thresholds in the discovery of the truth, such as finding out the relationship between facial characteristics and delinquency.

Later, better technologies were invented and applied and we got the polygraph test to detect if people lie. Now, the polygraph test, in conjunction with the use of informants and professional liars, has been applied to the prosecution of alleged killers.

It has been recently discovered that the justice system has been a failure as former Illinois Governor George Ryan pardoned four men on death row and granted clemency to all 167 condemned inmates in that State's jail system. In affirming his opposition to the death penalty Governor George Ryan stated: "We had executed 12 people since capital punishment was reinstated here in Illinois in 1977. With the 13th exonerated inmate in January of 2000, we had released more innocent men from death row than those hopefully guilty people we had executed."

Rather than rely on new technology, playwright and poet Bernard Weiner states that "Art has power. Art unmasks. Art tells lies in the service of truth... Whereas governments lie in order to conceal truth."

This morning I learn that the terror alert of the past few days has been partly based on fabricated information made by a captured Al Qaeda member and that "It was only after the threat level was elevated to orange -- meaning high -- last week, that the informant was subjected to a polygraph test by the FBI, officials told ABCNEWS"

So as to say that the polygraph test has been instrumental in finding the truth, yet the light of the terrorist traffic light hasn't changed a bit as the Bush military machine gets ready to roll on in the Middle East. We are left with the question: where is the truth?

References

Ryan, George Prepared remarks delivered by Gov. George Ryan Friday at the DePaul University College of Law January 10, 2003 Injusticebusters, http://www.injusticebusters.com/2003/Gov_George_Ryan.htm

Weiner, Bernard Artistic Sign Language: Signs of the Coming Bush Fall February 13, 2003 http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/signs.htm

Brian Ross, Brian and Tepper, Len and Rackmill, Jill False Alarm? Terror Alert Partly Based on Fabricated Information February 13, 2003 ABCNEWS, http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/US/terror030213_falsealarm.html

Guernica: Testimony of war http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guerfrm.html

Winters, Chris,Guernica - The event and the painting, A three page detailed explanation of both, outstanding detail. http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/study/guernic1.html