We—we Americans, we Russians—have spent 43 years and vast national treasure in making ourselves exquisitely vulnerable to instant annihilation. We ha… - Carl Sagan

And therefore I would say that the first thing to do is to realize that governments, all governments, at least on occasion, lie. And some of them do it all the time - some of them do it only every second statement - but, by and large, governments distort the facts in order to remain in office.

The American system of jurisprudence recognizes a wide range of factors, predispositions, prejudices, and experiences that might cloud our judgment, or affect our objectivity — sometimes even without our knowing it. It goes to great, perhaps even extravagant, lengths to safeguard the process of judgment in a criminal trial from the human weaknesses of those who must decide on innocence or guilt. Even then, of course, the process sometimes fails. Why would we settle for anything less when interrogating the natural world, or when attempting to decide on vital matters of politics, economics, religion, and ethics?

Bishop John Wilkins commented in 1638 on these Athenians: “Those zealous idolators [counted] it a great blasphemy to make their God a stone, whereas notwithstanding they were so senseless in their adoration of idols as to make a stone their God.