[Saya]

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

Saya: Peer review has its merits but should not be relied on in every instance, or it allows opinion to become accepted as fact. There is tons of misinformation in the world that came into existence due to being accepted by the majority (peer review) as being fact. For example, how many people believe that MLK jr was a democrat, when he was actually a republican, as was his father? How many people think that republicans are historically more racist than democrats? History proves the reverse, but most people believe the opposite.

MLK was part of the social justice movement, and never advocated for either party or candidate, because both in the end were racist. He was however a suspected communist, his, friend fellow activist and advisor Rustin was a gay Communist. In his autobiography however, he says he liked JFK, voted for him and had he lived would probably have supported him.

He criticized the Republican party for blocking civil rights legislation, and actually the reason the really really crazy Bible thumping Christians such as Jerry Falwell are Republican was because they were outraged that the Democrats ended segregation. Rewriting MLK as a war supporting Republican seems to be the trend, but it isn't supported. So basically what you're saying is, you want to be free to read anything you want and believe it because its in a book and its not conventional knowledge, so it must be true.

When I research a topic I deliberately try to look for opposing views from the norm to try to figure out on my own which side is actually right. Usually that requires digging deeper into the history of those who hold an opposing view to find out why they hold that view. I rarely ever accept anything that really matters without looking into it first and drawing my own conclusion.

Peer reviewed journals do this too. They review the kind of crap you read and point out what's wrong with it. We do this in class too with our text books. Again, you don't get to vet information to get something published.

For me, infant racism is a good example of behaviors and beliefs stemming from instinct. The accepted idea is that racism is something that is learned, but if you read the studies that have been done on infant racism, you might find that not being racist, or rather, being indifferent to race, is the behavior that actually has to be learned.

Then riddle me this, Batman. Race is largely a social construct. In races that have obvious differences, like between white and black people, yes there's something noticable there, and a young kid is probably going to notice that someone is different than those they normally see. But Jews are sometimes considered white, sometimes considered a body of different ethnic groups, and also since the Holocaust widely believed to be a singular race. Africans we usually lump all together as black see themselves as many different races, and most white people probably couldn't point out the difference between Persian and Arab, Japanese and Okinawan. So how does a infant, who thinks that things cease to exist when they can no longer see it, going to think that black people are lazy?