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Factual Disputes

BI Article
Factual Disputes
Many conflicts involve disagreements over facts. This essay discusses the nature of factual disputes and how to deal with them.

BI Article
Distinguishing Facts from Values
Facts and values are fundamentally different, but often confused. This essay examines the confusion clarify the two terms.

BI Article
Technical Facts
Many scientific and technical conflicts involve technical facts that are difficult, if not impossible, for the public or even political decision makers to understand. This essay discusses this problem and give examples of how decision makers can find useful facts.

BI Article
Historical Facts
The saying, "history is written by the victor," refers to the fact that historical facts are often biased or inaccurate. Yet long-running conflicts are often based on these controversial "facts." This essay explores the impact of history on current conflicts.

Subsidiary Folders
Lack of Access to Reliable Objective Information
The line between fact and opinion has become increasingly blurred. Supposedly "objective" news sources paint very different pictures of events -- again making it hard for people who weren't "there" to figure out who is telling the truth and who is not.

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Manipulated Facts and Politicalization of Fact-Finding
Governmental leaders are increasingly trying to control the media's access to and publication of facts that harm the accepted narrative, while trying to spread facts that tell their preferred story as widely as possible.

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Expert Trust and Trustworthiness: The Gap between Experts and the Public
Spinning of facts, together with scientists' common inability to speak or write in lay-language has greatly harmed the general public's trust in science and "expert knowledge."

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Fact-Finding Amid Irreducible Uncertainties
A particularly challenging aspect of science is that there are often irreducible uncertainties -- things that we just can't know, given the nature of the problem, and the extent of scientific techniques for investigating. Lay people often don't understand this or like it, demanding, as former Senator Muskie was once said to do "a one-armed scientist--one who will not say 'on the other hand!'"

Subsidiary Folders
Accurately Communicating Factual Information That People Can Use
Given the amount of disinformation floating around, people tend to distrust "facts," unless they reinforce what they already know, or at least come from a trusted source. Here is information about how to be such a source and how to communicate facts in ways people will understand and believe.

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Accurately Communicating Factual Information That People Can Use
Given the amount of disinformation floating around, people tend to distrust "facts," unless they reinforce what they already know, or at least come from a trusted source. Here is information about how to be such a source and how to communicate facts in ways people will understand and believe.

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Resolving Fact-Based Sources of Conflict
Conflicts are often dramatically intensified by contradictory images of key objectively determinable facts. Limiting these disagreements with fact-finding efforts that are broadly seen as trustworthy can do much to defuse the overall conflict.

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Distinguish Factual vs Value Differences
Empirical facts about "what is" are very different from moral or value distinctions about what "should be." Clearly distinguishing between those two is essential for good decision making.

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Limit the Influence of "Fake Facts"
"Disinformation" or "fake facts" are everywhere. They are so ubiquitous, that it is almost impossible to figure out what is true, and what is not. But truth matters. Yet facts will come back to bite us if we get it wrong. So making the effort to sort through fake from real facts is essential to good decision making.

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Issue Analysts
We depend upon issue analysts to help us navigate complexities of modern society in ways that identify workable options for addressing problems and reliably assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each option.

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Technical Experts
Technical Experts investigate the extraordinarily complex challenges facing modern society -- things like climate change, inflationary pressures, or infectious diseases that can be very hard for the general public to see or understand. They help develop solutions to these problems, help non-experts  judge the relative risks of different choices, and evaluate the likely results of different policy options. 

News and Opinion
Beliefs Aren't Facts
An exploration of the all-important distinction between objective facts and personal beliefs and values.