When I was in law school, I took a required course in evidence. I didn’t realize at the time how important that course would turn out to be, not only for my later career as a trial lawyer, but also in providing me with the critical thinking skills needed to navigate life in general.
Opinion
The evidence course taught me not only how to evaluate claims that lawyers make in trials, but also how to evaluate claims made by people in public discourse. Is the testimony based on eyewitness accounts, or is it hearsay? Is the document presented true and accurate, or has it been altered or wholly fabricated? Does the speaker have a bias or a grudge? If so, can the speaker’s words be corroborated with reliable independent information? Is the speaker presenting facts or opinions?
The concepts I learned in evidence not only helped me be an effective trial lawyer, but also a responsible citizen. I often tell people that I don’t believe anything I’m told unless the claim can be proven in court with admissible evidence. And then I go looking for that evidence.
Stated another way, the course in evidence has helped me sharpen and fine-tune my personal Bull Excrement Detector, or BED. Every thinking person should have a well-tuned BED so that public discourse can be based on reliable, factual information, rather than what is now very commonly put into the world by people who could be classified as overperforming Bull Excrement Purveyors, or BEPs.
It distresses me greatly how the proliferation of BEPs has nearly destroyed public discourse these days. Everywhere you turn, one encounters numerous false claims spewed out in high volume from the BEPs: The 2020 election was stolen! The hush money trial was rigged! Biden’s justice department is engaged in a political witch hunt! There is no such thing as a transgender person, there are only males and females!
None of those claims, or any of the other nonsense spewed from the far-right BEPs, can be proven in a court of law through admissible evidence. Rather, it is all gaslighting: If you repeat lies loudly and often enough, even in the face of all of the competent evidence stacked against the claim, you can get people to believe it.
Gaslighting is not only dishonest, it is dangerous to democracy. Good public policy decisions depend on good, honest debates between people with sincere but different points of view. If we can agree on what the facts are, we can bring our different perspectives to bear on those facts and debate what they mean. But until we can agree on what the facts are, we have no common foundation to even begin a discussion.
I encourage everybody to renovate and tune up their personal BEDs. Before making a public statement, run it through your BED. Is your statement based on competent evidence that would be admissible in a court of law? If so, lay out that evidence for your audience to see and evaluate. Then engage in respectful discourse with people whose statements also pass the BED test. We can all learn from each other, and reach good decisions if we do this.
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