False Beliefs and Unsound ArgumentsPromoted by Authorities

Abstract

By the time the British electorate had returned a third successive Conservative government in 1992, any academic interested in the psychology and sociology of the operation of false beliefs and invalid and weak arguments in the public domain of socio-politics had more than enough naturally occurring data on which to base extensive analyses. There were numerous recorded examples of government rhetoric bearing more than problematic relationships to the realities they were referring to. Many of the claims and arguments to support these were suspect or worse.