Back in July 1985, the magazine "The Whole Earth Review" published an article by Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly, and Jan Kinney titled "Digital Retouching: The End of Photography as Evidence of Anything". I read it when it came out and one can access a PDF of the article here: http://www.oss.net/dynamaster/file_archive/040324/f98095dd2c6a93a397662cfd97a246e5/WER-INFO-69.pdf
The point of the article was that photography, through the use of digital manipulation, could not serve as evidence of anything unless one was sophisticated enough to detect changes in the photograph. That magazines, newspapers, and other mass media outlet routinely "touched-up" photographs using pre-Photoshop technology is almost besides the point -- how many images have you seen in your life that were altered but you were not aware of the alteration? Brand et al pointed this out 25 years ago yet today we still have people who think that a photograph is evidence of something. Jon Stewart on the Daily Show last night had a photoshopped image of bin Laden holding up yesterday's NY Post newspaper and his "birth certificate" -- is this proof that Bin Laden was still alive? No. A photo of a dead bin Laden is only as good and trustworthy as the people who took the picture. And even that is not enough; evidence from a variety of sources needs to be coordinated and verified in order to show that the preponderance of evidence is in favor of a particular interpretation, in this case, that bin Laden has been killed. For some people no amount of evidence will be enough. One needs to critically evaluate the evidence that is available, understand it, and base inferences and conclusions on the evidence. Though some may still believe in the old saying "seeing is believing", it have to be pointed out to them that maybe DNA evidence, even if it difficult to understand, is better evidence. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=10399 or send a blank email to leave-10399-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
