Sure, we typically discount everything that a single unreliable individual says. But a newspaper is not one person — it’s a collection of articles from different authors. If the science articles are inaccurate, that doesn’t mean the political articles will be!
The idea is that it means there’s no reason to trust anything the paper says. However, that doesn’t go far enough.
If you read an article in a paper about something you have direct knowledge of, and you can confirm the article is factually correct, that still doesn’t mean anything else in the paper can be trusted.
You can’t really trust anything. For all you know, I’m a guinea pig who managed to steal a cell phone to post on the Internet. I’m not, of course. That would be impossible. However, how would you know?
It’s a fun concept but a little bit “just so”.
Sure, we typically discount everything that a single unreliable individual says. But a newspaper is not one person — it’s a collection of articles from different authors. If the science articles are inaccurate, that doesn’t mean the political articles will be!
The idea is that it means there’s no reason to trust anything the paper says. However, that doesn’t go far enough.
If you read an article in a paper about something you have direct knowledge of, and you can confirm the article is factually correct, that still doesn’t mean anything else in the paper can be trusted.
You can’t really trust anything. For all you know, I’m a guinea pig who managed to steal a cell phone to post on the Internet. I’m not, of course. That would be impossible. However, how would you know?