Inhuman Swill

UPDATE! 11:44 a.m.  I was right to be suspicious of this story. Turns out that R.D. Rosen in the Washington Post debunked Cheeta's supposed longevity back in 2008. The news media has done an abominable job of fact-checking today. NPR itself acknowledged in a sidebar to a Cheeta story in 2009 that the chimp identity was not what it claimed to be. This clearly isn't as big a fuck-up as the reporting in the run-up to the Iraq War, but it's a difference of degree, not kind.

NPR News is reporting in its headlines this morning that (to paraphrase) Cheeta, the chimpanzee who played Tarzan's ape sidekick in the movies, has died at the age of 80. This makes it sound like Cheeta was the only chimp to play Cheeta, which he wasn't, and that his age was well-established, which it wasn't.

There were something like fifteen or sixteen different apes (including at least one orangutan and one human) who played Cheeta in the films and TV shows, often with more than one in the same production. And while the Cheeta who just died is alleged to have been born in 1931, this has never been established as fact, nor has the claim that this chimp was acquired from the estate of Johnny Weissmuller in 1957—nor, really, the claim that this chimp was one of the original actors from the Weissmuller-era movies.

Chimps in captivity have been known to live into their 60s, but 80? It's possible, of course, but the chain of custody on this chimp is based on hearsay. I don't believe it myself. But whether it's true of not, the story being reported in the NPR news blips leaves a lot to be desired, implies facts that aren't facts, and reports hearsay as straight fact.

I swear, it's like NPR based this news report on an email forward from my mother.


Crossposted from Inhuman Swill

Dear email forwarder—

Please don't mistake my opinion on the email as any condemnation of you or your character. But here's what I see as the danger of forwarding emails like that one: The information in them is only vaguely sourced, and the contents may not be accurate. The email has been forwarded a hundred times already, and may have been changed or added to along the way. The people who receive the email may just hit delete, but they may also read it and decide that it's true without doing any thinking or investigating of their own. I think that before you forward an email like that, you have a responsibility to investigate it for yourself and find out whether or not it's accurate. Otherwise you are spreading something that is no better than gossip, and potentially very damaging.

I did some investigation online and discovered that the account by Rick Mathes has been disputed by credible sources that were present at the event in Missouri where he claimed the discussion took place. You can read all about the doubt that has been cast on his account here:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/allah.asp

When you forward an email like this, how can you trust that the recipients will investigate the truth of it for themselves when you haven't even taken the trouble to? The most likely outcome is that people will just accept what it says without thinking, because the email tries to sound credible, and most people are fooled by credible-sounding messages that only reinforce their fears. I would encourage you to send the link above to all the people on your list who received the first email and offer them an alternate point of view.

Muslims around the world are no more unified in their beliefs than Christians are. (Think about how differently Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists all believe.) Some of the most interesting conversations I've ever had came from sitting down across a table from people with opinions very different from my own, everyone from Anglican ministers to old Egyptian men in Queens to regular joes in Jordan, and talking honestly about our separate beliefs. What I've always come away from those conversations with is a feeling that, however divergent our beliefs, the only way we're all going to get along and stop hating each other is through talking and learning to see that the other person is not all that different from us deep down where it matters.

Sincerely,
Bill