I don't like facts of fact-based research.

There is an underlying problem with thinking in terms of

facts, science, rationality and pursuing imperical evidence. While people who have this type of
mind believe that once a claim is backed up by facts, it is then to be considered irrefutably true.
"See, Jaq? My claim is supported by facts! Facts are never wrong! Facts are factually correct, by
their very definition! How can you argue against the facts?!" What factually-minded people (who
I will henceforh refer to as "rationalists") fail to realize is that facts do not mean anything other
than themselves, and that they can only be used to draw conclusions when combined with
speculation.

Take Severus Snape, for example. At the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The facts
seem to point to the conclusion that Snape is working for Voldemort. These facts include the fact
that Snape killed Dumbledore, that he assisted Draco Malfoy, that he helped those malicious
individuals enter and plunder the Hogwarts castle, e.t.c. Those are all brute, raw facts that point
ot the conclusion that Snape is working for Voldemort.

However, in reality, the fact that Snape killed Dumbledore isn't proof of anything other than the
fact that he killed Dumbledore. The fact that he assisted Draco Malfoy isn't proof of anything
other than the fact that he assisted Draco Malfoy, e.t.c. How does one take a raw fact (e.g the
fact that Snape killed Dumbledore) and use it as proof of a different "fact" (i.e in this case, this
would be the "fact" that Snape was working for Voldemort)? This is why I said that the fact does
not mean much by itself (other than itself, of course) but can only be used to conclude another
fact when combined with speculation, e.g "The only reason Snape would kill Dumbledore is if he
were working for Voldemort".

Rationalists can get all of their raw facts correctly, but when they draw conclusions based off of
these raw facts while believing their conclusion to be factually proven, they fail to realize how
they are incorporating speculation into their evidence. In the above example, in order to get to
the conclusion that Snape was working for Voldemort based off of a few known facts, one had to
speculate. However, that speculation was so subtle that the rationalist can be excused for not
noticing that he relied upon it. A similar parallel will occur with every fact that a rationalist (or
anyone, for that matter) tries to conclude based off of other facts. It will always necessarily be
the case that the raw facts do not demonstrate anything other than the raw facts, and that some
amount of speculation must be incorporated into the rationalists reasoning in order to draw a
separate conclusion.

Sometimes this speculation is so logic that is so obvious that it can be safely ignored. E.g if we
have the facts "Socrates was a man", and "all men are mortal", we can use these two facts to
draw the conclusion "Therefore, Socrates was mortal", but technically, doing so would involve
speculation, since although Socrates being a man and all men being mortal are both known
facts, drawing the conclusion that this means Socrates was mortal involves incorporating the
speculation that a contradiction cannot exist in the universe. Although, as I said, that is so
obvious it can be ignored, and the rationalist can reasonably claim to have "proof" that Socrates
was mortal - however, in many cases, things are not so obvious.
Take the Harry Potter example above, for example. If Harry Potter were a real life story, just after
the events in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when Snape seems to be working for
Voldemort (although in reality, he is working to gain Voldemort's trust in a scheme to destroy
him) a rationalist who was exposed to the brute facts (i.e that Snape killed Dumbledore, that he
assisted Malfoy with the tasks that Voldemort assisgned to Malfoy, e.t.c) that rationalist would
then say "See? The facts prove that he is working for Voldemort! How can you argue against the
facts?!". But in doing so, they failed to realize they were actually speculating, because it wasn't
so obvious as it was in the Socrates example.

The raw facts can be correct, and I am not aguing against those - although it can also be true that
what seems to be factual is in fact, factually incorrect, but this is realtively rare. It does happen
sometimes, such as with manipulated economic statistics, but is rare enough that for the
purposes of this discussion, it can be assumed to not be the case. So the raw facts can be
correct, but even if the raw facts are correct, if one gets the speculation wrong (and as I said
before, there necessarily MUST be speculation involved if one is to use these facts to draw a
conclusion) then the conclusion which is drawn from these facts can also be wrong, even if the
raw facts were correct. Similarly, if one gets the speculation correct but the raw facts wrong,
then their conclusion they draw can also be incorrect. It is important to get both right.

The first mistake rationalists make is thinking that their conclusion is factually proven when in
reality it is still heavily dependent on their speculation being correct. However, with people who
are more prone to speculative thinking, at least they themselves known they are speculating,
which is why I find them to be a little less complacent, but that is just my own opinion.

The second mistake rationalists make is, once they form a conclusion that they believe to be
factually proven to be true (even though they are necessarily wrong about it being factually-
proven, as per the philosophy which I have explained above) they then disregard any claims that
contradict that conclusion, unless such claims are factually proven, and when it comes to an
individual making such a claim, the rationalist then becomes very good at noticing speculation,
calling it out, and dismissing it. "That isn't proof! That's just speculation!" Of course, since the
rationalist himself was using speculation (in combination with some known facts) for his
conclusion, it would be both hypocritical and unfair for him to insist that anyone challenging his
conclusion must use ONLY facts, without any speculation. That would be unfair because he is
making a claim using a certain standard of evidence, and insisting that anyone who wants to
rebuke it must do so while satisfying a much stricter, harder, and even impossible standard.

What the rationalist fails to realize is that there is no such thing as "proof", because no
conclusion can ever be drawn without both facts AND speculation. This is why I find fact-
checking websites such as Snopes to be incredibly snooty. They obnoxiously plaster "TRUE" or
"FALSE" in the heading of their pages, taking the liberty of establishing themselves as arbiters of
truth (even if they claim they are not doing this) when in reality they are just forcefully imposing
their own philosophy of reasoning into the given article, and then proclaiming it to be factual,
when in fact, it is not. If you look carefully at a lot of Snopes articles, you will clearly see that
they use a lot of speculation, being ignorant of how speculation can change the way a person
sees the facts.

I have also found that, once some respected, prestigious arbiter such as Snopes, Wikipedia, or
The New York Times comes out and claims that something is "proven" to be true, most
rationalists then succumb to the previous phenomenon which I have expounded, in that they
incorrectly believe it is factually and irrefutably true and that they insist that anyone who argues
against it must satisfy an impossible standard, which they themselves have not even come close
to satisfying in their own evidence. The rationalists become complacent, and they then insist
that the burden of proof is now on the individuals making the counter-claim, and that until such
proof is satisfied (which is impossible) the rationalist decides that his views are right "by default"
- which is of course absurd, given the aforementioned flaws with the fact-based thinking that the
rationalist used when forming his own conclusion. The person arguing against the rationalists
claim could then also use some known facts and view these facts with a certain way of
speculating (just as the rationalist did, whether he admits to it or not) and then claim that "See?
These facts point to [some conclusion]! I have now proven my claim to be true! If you want to
argue against me, you must prove me wrong, using only facts! No speculation!". For this reason,
there is no such thing as a burden of proof, and it is completely arbitrary which individual
"should" be considered correct by default, as neither individuals are able to prove their
conclusions.

Will a rationalist accept the underlying point that I am trying to make, in that there is no such
thing as rationality, proof, e.t.c and that no conclusion can ever be conclusively concluded
without speculation? Probably not. The above philosophy was, after all, philosophy, and not the
imperical, scientific evidence that rationalists desire. This is a problem with paradigms. Most
people have a certain paradigm regarding how they think, reason, e.t.c. and they are typically
not able to accept any information if it does not conform to their paradigm. If their paradigm
ever has any shortcomings or situations in which their paradigm is more of a hindrance to
getting to the truth of a matter, they are unable to recognize it, because ironically, their own
paradigm has hindered their ability to see the shortcomings of their own paradigm.

But whatever. I tried.