Believe half of what you see

Apr 13th

Posted by shambo as Culture, Reality, Religion

Goliath after meeting David

Let me say this about that.

“People say believe half of what you see, oh and none of what you hear …. “

This line is lifted from the 70′s Gladys Knight & the Pips hit “I heard it through the grapevine”. And in today’s blizzard of communication media spawned by the internet, truer words have never been spoken.

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail today that contained an article and photographs of an archeological dig in Greece that contained skeletal remains of a human species of giants. The person that originated the e-mail presented it as photographic evidence that the Old Testament of the Bible should be interpreted literally. More specifically, that David actually slew (is that a word?) Goliath, who apparently was a member of this tribe of giants.

Being the skeptic that I am, I researched the story through “snoops.com”, a web site that verifies the validity of stuff that gets dumped onto the internet. And yes, the photos were digitally altered. As it turns out… the photos were entries in a photo editing contest hosted by a company called “Worth1000″. These guys run a website that sponsors ‘creativity contests’ in the world of photography, photo-editing and illustration. The photo of the ‘giant’ was part of a contest to digitally alter real photographs to appear as if an exciting new archeological discovery was being revealed.

It was all kinda fun. But even in the face of hard evidence, I doubt the author of the original e-mail feels any differently about the validity of the David and Goliath fable, so no harm – no foul. But the episode did get me to thinking about the gullibility of Americans and what we will believe if shown “Photographic Proof”. The world of ‘PhotoShop’ and digital photography is so new that we have a hard time letting go of our old belief that – ‘if we can see it, it must be true’. Not any more, Baby!

I plucked a few digitally altered photos from the “Worth1000″ website (thanks guys) to illustrate what I’m talking about – and not a damn one of them is real:

And, that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo