Fact Check – A Classic Magician’s Trick

A friend asked me, whether I believed something was a “fact” today and my response amazed and astounded him. I revealed a classic magicians trick to him. Unfortunately, the trick (illusion) that I showed my friend is being used constantly and everybody is falling for it.

Let me explain the trick.

Let us fill a bag of marbles with 30 blue, 25 green, 5 yellow, 3 red. Now these marbles simply represent 4 different theories, studies, or any other observation in nature.

Let’s pretend:

• the green marbles represent the studies done in favour of an idea,
• the blue marbles represent studies done to totally oppose the idea,
• the yellow marbles are extremist views in favour of the idea but these are unsupported by any study,
• the red marbles are extremist views opposing the idea and are again not supported by any study.

Pretend that I am the magician. So I turn around and take 10 marbles out of the bag, BUT I make sure that I pick only 9 green ones and one red one, as I know what I want to show the audience.

My claim to the audience is:

“The bag contains only green marbles. To support my claim, I searched extra carefully and found this red one and I cannot find any evidence to support the assertion made by the red one, so that doesn’t count. I therefore claim that the bag contains only green marbles and will declare to the world that it has been FACT CHECKED“.

Now another magician comes along with opposing views and wants to push another idea. They look at exactly the same bag of marbles, they turn around and take out 9 blue ones and one yellow marble.

Their claim to the audience is:

“The bag contains only blue marbles. To support my claim, I searched extra carefully and found this yellow one and I cannot find any evidence to support the assertion made by the yellow one, so that doesn’t count. I therefore claim that the bag contains only blue marbles and will declare to the world that it has been FACT CHECKED“

Both magicians use a sleight of hand, They turned around and visually picking out only the colour they wanted while omitting the ones that did not fit their desired outcome.

Furthermore, to give the audience better evidence of their claim, they picked out the extreme cases opposing their claim, in order to give the illusion that they picked random marbles.

Now that you know what the magicians did, you can say that they didn’t play fair. Both biased the outcome to support their ideas in order to deceive their audience and both succeeded!

This basic principle is called “confirmation bias” and is used everyday by people to support their actions, decisions, or their desired outcomes. Unfortunately, it used extensively by individuals and governments that want to force their ideas on others.

Selling Ideas – Also Known as Propaganda

Used car salespeople have mastered the art of deception by omission. It just works so well. For as long as I can remember, people in power have set out to sell ideas. What they all have in common, is that in order to sell an idea, they must hide, or mask, anything that may oppose their goals.

Over the years, we have seen dictators and tyrants throughout the world use this methodology. We see it when the trick is exposed, but we don’t see it when it’s done to us, every day.

So Many Cover-ups

Large multi-national businesses have also deployed this methodology, since the industrial revolution. There have been countless documented cases of cover ups of bad practices, unexpected outcomes, mistakes, or even deaths. Some have been caught out, fined and still get away with the same tactics, over and over again. Just look at Pfizer’s recent courtroom payouts!

There Is Nothing To See Here

Do you remember the tobacco industry using advertisements including the phrase “safe and healthy”!

Now we have the pharmaceutical industry using “safe and effective” followed, lock-step, by governments chanting “safe and effective”, over and over again.

Use Your Brain, Follow The Money

As with my example with the marbles, they all base their claims on independent scientific studies. The coloured marbles! While at the same time, we have seen so many cases where the studies are indirectly funded by the same organisations that want to see a specific outcome. Just like magic, the results are exactly as expected. Omission of data in studies is now used as a powerful weapon.

The Scientific Method which is the basis for most of humanity’s advancements is simply ignored.

It’s Been Fact Checked, So It Must Be Right!

Now we have social media and mainstream media using the FACT CHECK model I have described above to literally hammer home this illusion that government or big business want to convince us of.

Remember that fact checking (resulting in either a yes or no) in a world ripe with an infinite number of ideas, dealing with complex organisms, such as humans, and complex physics, such as climate, makes no sense.

If you understand the magic trick, you can safely ignore the FACT CHECKERS. It’s an illusion. When I snap my fingers, you’ll wake up.

Always Check the Fact Checker’s Credentials

In the last 3 years, it has become very clear as why there is “Fact Checker” organisations. They are funded by government and media organisations and staffed with inexperienced professionals. Since they are not even subject matter experts, they do not have the competence to clinically review the source materials. They simply “cherry pick” the answers that they are paid to provide. Just like I have illustrated in this article.

Interestingly, Google is now flooded with “Fact Check” entries, which is also by design, as you can no longer do your own research on a subject by using this popular search engine. I would recommend checking your own facts by seeking out real subject matter experts and review their published information.

2025 Fact Checker Update

This year we are finally seeing a turning point in this “fact checker” nonsense. After mounting pressure from the public and immediately following the US election result in 2024, Facebook (Meta) are sacking their fact checkers.

“Fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the new policy Tuesday. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”