I heard it again the other day. “A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.” It was stated as fact — trivial fact, but fact nonetheless. Wow. That’s pretty amazing.

    It’s also not true. Think about it... a “duck’s quack doesn’t echo.” Which duck? There is a wide variation between ducks and their quacks. So do they all not echo? And what possible sonic quality could this quack have that would make it impossible to echo? All sounds have the potential to be reflected... this claim is like saying a duck can’t be seen in a mirror. Patently ridiculous, of course.

    And yet it gets repeated. Over and over again. Forwarded email, bulletin article, sermon illustration, or discussion over donuts and coffee — this “fact” and others like it are shared.

    “Did you know the position of the legs on a park statue tells you how the person died?” No, they don’t.

    “Did you know the phrase ’the whole nine yards’ came from...” We can cut that off right there, since no one knows exactly where that phrase came from.*

    Example after example could be brought up. Untrue, and yet repeated. Oh, and let’s not even get started on all those bogus virus reports and urban legend stories cluttering up our email in-boxes.

    People have lost the ability to discern the truth, and no one knows why.

    Ok, that’s probably too harsh — and probably untrue, as well. But we’ve all done it (including me). Hey, we’ve had Heartlight authors unwittingly repeat legends in their articles. Why? What causes us to temporarily suspend the part of our brain that asks questions long enough to hit the send button to our entire address list warning them of a horrific virus (which doesn’t exist), or some pending legislation (that died 10 years ago), or an upcoming scandalous television show (that aired 3 seasons ago)?

... and no one knows why.

    Part of it is certainly our trust in the authority of print. “I read it, so it must be true.” While none of us are that blindly trusting, it does affect us to a certain degree. We’re much more likely to trust something written than just spoken to us; especially if it’s written in an apparently respectable forum, or even more if it’s written to us by a trusted friend.

    Couple that trust with the Internet, and you have something powerful. Maybe because it’s a new technology, or a new electronic culture, I’m not sure why, but we frequently suspend our critical thinking skills when we’re on the Internet. Dusty old urban legends and wild-eyed rumors have found a new home on the Web, and we’re just reading and nodding and forwarding. With the near-instant speeds of our networks, these legends and untruths can spread across the globe like wildfire.

    So when a friend sends us an email, these two forces converge — trust in something written from a reliable source, and the Internet’s almost mystical ability to paralyze our doubt.

    It’s harmless enough I suppose with duck quacks and statues and the whole nine yards... but what about when it goes further? Have we lost our ability to discern the truth about what really matters? Have we stopped asking questions? Are we passively absorbing the messages of the world, without even being consciously aware of where they are coming from?

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ. (Philipians 1:10 NIV)