Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
What constitutes independence or bias in the context of an issue like Brexit? Can anyone be truly unbiased on such a matter and how do we know how much 'bias' has been applied* to the gathering, interpretation and/or presentation of the 'facts' our 'experts' (on both sides) rely upon? 
* whether deliberately, unintentionally, directly or indirectly. |
It's harder to find absolute certainty and sensible to acknowledge alternative scenarios to those suggested by the experts but that doesn't mean we reject expert advice wholesale because of the possibility they might be wrong. It's a balance of probabilities thing.
There are absolutes in this world. If Brexit is or is not right is not one of them but some of the information we use to make such decisions can be.
There seems to be a movement to position everything into a silo of political bias and thus reject any idea of balance or impartiality. I think it's because when you do that then you can any criticism of a particular position as politically motivated and thus wrong. Partisan expertise do exist of course but the trick is to distinguish them from those who are largely* impartial. So FullFact, a group who don't seem to have any motivation to spin or a particular position they're advocating for, should be taken more seriously than 'Lawyers for Britain' whose very existence is to campaign for a political goal. Understanding the motivations of sources helps in determining their credibility.
*as impartial as you can be. Obviously many of us taken certain concepts for granted given the society we grew up in and so on.