Information or allegations reflecting negatively on individuals or groups seen less sympathetically by the intelligentsia pass rapidly into the public domain with little scrutiny and much publicity. Two of the biggest proven hoaxes of our time have involved allegations of white men gang-raping a black woman-- first the Tawana Brawley hoax of 1987 and later the false rape charges against three Duke University students in 2006. In both cases, editorial indignation rang out across the land, without a speck of evidence to substantiate either of these charges. Moreover, the denunciations were not limited to the particular men accused, but were often extended to society at large, of whom these men were deemed to be symptoms or 'the tip of the iceberg.' In both cases, the charges fit a pre-existing vision, and that apparently made mundane facts unneces. Thomas Sowell
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Statistically speaking, there is a 65 percent chance that the love of your life is having an affair. Be very suspicious. - Scott Dikkers

  2. A recent survey or North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey. - Banksy

  3. I couldn't claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys--but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly! - Richard Feynman

  4. All statistics have outliers. - Nenia Campbell

  5. There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics. - Benjamin Disraeli

More Quotes By Thomas Sowell
  1. It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.

  2. People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.

  3. There are only two ways of telling the complete truth--anonymously and posthumously.

  4. What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.

  5. Nothing is easier than to get peaceful people to renounce violence, even when they provide no concrete ways to prevent violence from others.

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