Factual errors in the literature

IsaacJ22

Hello all. I've been chipping away on a writing project--basically, an essay/web article. I thought I could ask for some input from the group while also creating an interesting thread. If it hasn't already been done to death someplace else, that is.

I'm working on a particular point regarding factual errors in the literature. The point I'm working on, which could be of interest to others, is that the Society's research standards (and possibly their honesty) aren't up to snuff in the books/magazines they publish.

I was wondering how many factual errors we could come up with. Bear in mind, I'm not looking for errors that are wrong in our opinion, so I would ask that you not post things like, "They have the true religion!" or "Jesus is Michael the Archangel." I'm thinking strictly of statements that are flat out wrong on a "proven" factual basis, not ones having to do with personal beliefs.

A few I can think of are:

1) We only use 10% (or 5% or 1%) of our brain capacity.

2) The cells in our bodies regenerate every 7 years.

3) Men have one less rib on one side.

Would you guys like to add some more?

Aussie Oz

When i was in, the watchtower and awake were in my mind gospel.

If they said something was true, even against scientific proof or other facts, then i would roll with the magazines.

Now i just see them as sloppy journalism with an agenda

so lets have some factual errors presented!

Black Sheep

Just look up any quoted source on any subject where you smell a rat, and you will find something shonky about it.

On occasion, you could pass it off as sloppy research, but in something like their Trinity brochure, there is so much of it, you can only call it deliberate, systematic, dishonesty.

The first quote I bothered to look up in their new creation booklet turned up a blatant misrepresentation of the author's intent. There is no way you could brand it a 'factual error'.

Cheers

Chris

wannabefree

1) Certainly, 100% of our brain is necessary, I think this refers to how much potential the human mind has relative to how it is used. Such as, having a computer with a quad core processor, 64 bit operating system, 192 GB RAM, 2 TB hard drive ... and then using it only to run Word.

2) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/science/02cell.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

3) Seriously? This must have been some very old literature. Did they say this?

IsaacJ22

At first, I thought the NY Times article was contradicting what I had read about the body's parts regenerating at different rates--and sometimes not at all--instead of every 7 years as the Society claims. Then they mention this during the 2nd half of the article anyway. When I read about this in the past, these were offered as info that contradicts the Society's claim. Now, it seems that maybe the Society wasn't completely wrong, but was taking the point a bit too far.

I thought I remembered being told the old wives tale about a missing rib back when I was going to meetings, but maybe it wasn't something the Society said if no one else knows of anything like that.

That's the kind of input I'd like to see as well. :^)

IsaacJ22

I started looking up the 7 years thing again and seeing what others had to say or if I could find the same articles I'd read in the past. Seems that it depends on your point of view whether it's a fair statement or not.

There's this article to consider.

And this too.

This is all good to no, though. Wouldn't want to cite errors that aren't really errors.

IsaacJ22

Heh heh. Good to know, not to no.

Here's a group of people who seem to disagree on the subject of cell regeneration. Sigh.

Leolaia

Here are some others:

4) The literal heart is the seat of emotion, not merely a pump for blood.

*** w71 3/1 p. 134 par. 6 How Is Your Heart? ***

With but few exceptions, the use of the word “heart” in the Bible is limited to the operations of the heart of man as the powerhouse of one’s desires, emotions and affections, the place that comes to include the capacities for motivation. The Bible does not speak of a symbolic or spiritual heart in contradistinction to the fleshly or literal heart, just as it does not speak of a symbolic mind, and thus we do not want to make the mistake of viewing the literal heart as merely a fleshly pump as does orthodox physiology today. Most psychiatrists and psychologists tend to overcategorize the mind and allow for little if any influence from the fleshly heart, looking upon the word “heart” merely as a figure of speech apart from its use in identifying the organ that pumps our blood.
The heart, nevertheless, is intricately connected with the brain by the nervous system and is well supplied with sensory nerve endings. The sensations of the heart are recorded on the brain. It is here that the heart brings to bear on the mind its desires and its affections in arriving at conclusions having to do with motivations. In reverse flow, the mind feeds the heart with interpretations of the impulses from the senses and with conclusions reached that are based on the knowledge it has received, either at the moment or from the memory. There is a close interrelationship between the heart and the mind, but they are two different faculties, centering in different locations. The heart is a marvelously designed muscular pump, but, more significantly, our emotional and motivating capacities are built within it. Love, hate, desire (good and bad), preference for one thing over another, ambition, fear—in effect, all that serves to motivate us in relationship to our affections and desires springs from the heart....
Some medical scientists and psychiatrists believe that the heart does considerably more than pump blood....It is significant that heart-transplant patients, where the nerves connecting the heart and brain are severed, have serious emotional problems after the operation. The new heart is still able to operate as a pump, it having its own power supply and timing mechanism independent of the general nervous system for giving impulse to the heart muscle, but just as it now responds only sluggishly to outside influences, the new heart in turn registers few, if any, clear factors of motivation on the brain.

5) Transfused blood is used by the body as nourishment.

*** w58 9/15 p. 575 Questions From Readers ***

Each time the prohibition of blood is mentioned in the Scriptures it is in connection with taking it as food, and so it is as a nutrient that we are concerned with in its being forbidden....The injection of antibodies into the blood in a vehicle of blood serum or the use of blood fractions to create such antibodies is not the same as taking blood, either by mouth or by transfusion, as a nutrient to build up the body’s vital forces. While God did not intend for man to contaminate his blood stream by vaccines, serums or blood fractions, doing so does not seem to be included in God’s expressed will forbidding blood as food. It would therefore be a matter of individual judgment whether one accepted such types of medication or not.

steve2

You could check out Edmund Gruss's (I don't think the surname spelling's correct) book entitled "The Scholastic Dishonesty of The Watchtower" written somewhere around the late 1970s - early 1980s. Its focus is on Biblical and historical reference misquotes.

blondie

Van Buskirk, Michael. The Scholastic Dishonesty of the Watchtower [A Desonestidade Académica da Torre de Vigia]. Santa Ana, CA: Caris, 1976

Factual errors in the literature

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