He's a professor who has given lectures on social distortion. Fact distortion is a form of social distortion....

Reader has said:

"fact distortion is the

compelling quality on human thought and actions of

the dominant beliefs and intellectual or emotional

climate of a particular time. This applies with full

force to social scientists. In the second half of the

nineteenth century, for example, to have been able to

undertake social studies entirely uninfluenced by the

evolutionary approach of Social Darwinism is diffi-

cult to imagine. In this century the British “social

structure’’ school in social anthropology, and Talcott

Parsons and his associates in sociology, have had an

influence only somewhat less compelling.

To draw this argument together, then, what I am

saying is that social facts are not as apparent nor as

simple as they seem. Firstly, through blocks in our

ability to experience, we do not perceive them as

vividly as we might. Secondly, with special reference

to human relations, even that which we do perceive is

filtered through the elements of our accumulated

experience. Thirdly, the cultural selectivity with

which we operate tends to eliminate material to

which we are not socially required to respond. And

finally, in interpreting what we receive, we are con-

strained by the dominant cultural climate of our time,

or w e w ill n o t be lis te n e d to.

So far we have only considered social facts and

their perception. When, however, any attempt is

made to relate them together, to generalize on their

occurrence or to predict from them, a whole new set

of problems arises. We are now at the second level

of constructions and models. Here we are moving

away from the often ill-conceived social facts to the

interpretation of them. In common language we are

considering the c o n s tru c tio n s put upon the facts."