The only result from the publication of these fantasies is, frankly, negative. Our country is populated by a significant percentage of those who are at best, ignorant and gullible, and at worst, paranoid, in their readiness to accept some very bizarre and incredible explanations for events. When three Republican candidates for President express their outright disbelief in evolution, you know you are in trouble. The number of Americans who are convinced they have been subjects of alien abductions can be nothing less than frightening. How many individuals have had their identities stolen, directly resulting from the most rudimentary carelessness while online?
Dating back years before the availability of the Net, there still remains, in our culture, the apparently unshakeable belief that if something is in print, it has to be true. While reading of books has become a lost art, this same readiness to believe has transferred itself to the blogosphere. In a time when students and adults alike have great difficulty in discriminating between sense and nonsense, you do them no favor in publishing fantasy as truth.
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