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Friday, January 13, 2012

Jumping to conclusions

There is a lesson to be taken from my previous post about jumping to conclusions and about hidden biases. Though neither I nor the news source I was relying on made any actual claims about who was responsible, there was an implicit suggestion that the claims made by Zahara Rahimzadegan's husband and by an evangelical Christian pastor that Islamic extremists were responsible for the woman's disappearance were plausible. As it turns out, the case seems to have nothing to do with Islamic extremists. (After the discovery of a body at the family home, the woman's husband has been arrested and charged with her murder.)

I am no fan of religion and certainly no fan of Islam, which is the source of many evils and much violence.

However, Islam is not going to disappear any time soon, and so one can only hope it will evolve - as Christianity did - and gradually adapt to modernity. And this process will not be assisted by bloggers or anyone else giving credence to unjustified accusations.

Mea culpa.

2 comments:

  1. I read your previous post first, and I thought it balanced, especially in contrast to other reports in blogs and news sites. What you said was that this had been reported, and we would need more information.

    I have been following this story.

    The Age gave a surprising amount of coverage to the "Islamic extremist" allegation. Yet, any journalist who has worked for more than a week in crime stories knows that the disappearance of a woman from her home is usually down to the husband.

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  2. Thanks for your comments. My critical faculties were a bit slow off the mark on this one.

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