[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

In many instances, Yes.

And how would they know the story was false? They've heard it told as if it was true.

To claim otherwise infers, as I laid out, an irrational trust in human honesty. I gave you an example of another situation (shoplifting) where surveys show that many of us are inherently dishonest. However, you discarded that opportunity to seek the truth on that, seemingly claiming that there is no reason to expect people dishonest in that way from being dishonest in the stories they pass on (and perhaps it did not suit your agenda to do so?).

I see you're playing logical fallacy bingo. Just what agenda might I have? That people aren't always honest simply is irrelevant. My assertion is simply that when the majority of people pass on spurious quotations, they believe that they are accurate. We aren't playing Knights and Knaves.

Furthermore, I gave the example of politicians, activists, journalists, etc. I have the experience of working with those types of people for whom it is not uncommon for them to knowingly tell or write stories with content within them of no fact, or to misquote others in order to embellish the story, the article or their own case. I have then seen that material being represented dishonestly as being unshakable truths by those whose agendas were similarly aligned. It would also appear that large parts of the population agree with me as those professions are shown in surveys to be among the least trusted by others.

For example, while all polls say similar a just published Gallup poll finds only 32% of Americans say they have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust in the mass media (and Americans are not alone in that). I take it you believe that the stories that journalists are writing, or the stories and the "quotes" they pass on are not known to them to often be in part false or misleading; that despite the fact that the majority of the population believe that material to be often in part false or misleading? And as I said, the readers of that material are often not above passing on what they know to be shady if it suits their own agenda to do so.

Fallacy of division. Just because people don't trust the media as a whole doesn't mean they don't trust parts of it. They trust the parts of the media that they listen to, and think the other parts of the media are untrustworthy. Many people believe that crime is terrible in every other neighborhood, but think their neighborhood is safe. OR they believe schools are bad, but their local school is the exception. Or they think Congress is terrible, but their representative is good.

Even if the original source is lying, this doesn't mean that the person who passes that on is lying when they pass it on. That requires irrationally believing that people are far more informed than they really are. To lie, you must know what the truth is (or believe that you know) and make a statement contrary to the truth (or what they believe to be true).

Consider Hanlon's Razor, which is often expressed as "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" although I would replace "stupidity" with ignorance. It's simply more plausible that people are passing on spurious memes out of ignorance than that they know them to be false. Yes, they are sometimes created as deliberate lies, but the creation of a spurious quote is distinct from passing it on. I am not interested in the person who dishonestly creates a spurious quote, I'm only concerned with the person who passes it on.

Saying "I wouldn't put it past them" isn't evidence.

I'll leave it at that.

You nearly have 5 in a row in logical fallacy bingo.