> Do you fact check every single thing you say that you heard ...
You're comparing ordinary conversation with advertising copy. They aren't comparable. Advertising copy must meet a higher standard -- misrepresentations are sometimes severely punished, and such statements always hurt the company's reputation.
A different standard is at work, and it should be.
No. Do you treat every thing you say like it was a widely viewed online appeal for significant amounts of money that might otherwise go to another project helping people in the 3rd world? If your answer is yes, I'd guess you are lying. If your answer is no, then your point is irrelevant.
I believe it depends on where he got this information. If he had heard that information from a scientist in the field, then I believe that a reasonable person could believe what the scientist said. After all, that is that person's field, they deal with it all the time.
That said, now that we've discovered something inaccurate, as long as that information gets back to them, what matters is what they do with the new information. If, after having been informed of what's correct, they continue to say what they had been saying, then we have a real problem. Otherwise, I don't think we have enough information to say anything.
Really, my problem with your statement was calling what they did the "next worst thing". I think that's a bit extreme for what was said, given the little we know about the situation.
All Stapel's papers were published in refereed journals. It will be years, possibly decades, before Stapel's many retracted papers are no longer referenced in the scientific work of other psychologists.
My point? Advertising copy must be vetted by knowledge, not appeals to authority. It only took me 15 seconds to find a source that falsified the claim about mosquitoes, and it's not my field. It can't hurt that I knew it was false at the outset.
The problem with claims about mosquitoes and light is that there are a lot of dishonest vendors who lie about this, and a copy writer with insufficient training will almost certainly repeat the lies of others. I think that's what happened in this case.
Yes, I agree, but this won't help a company that claims technical expertise about their own product, but whose advertising copy contains such an elementary error. My use of "lying" was hyperbolic, but imagine how the investors -- or the SEC -- would react to such a "misstatement of fact" in a larger company.
For me, the other issues -- deceiving the public, public safety, and due diligence -- lead me to use what might not be the best word to describe it, but lacking a more convenient term, I often use "lying" in a case like this, where the future of the company may well hinge on the initial impression this page creates.
