Otterblog

We had an interesting item in Today in History on Thursday. It was the 136th anniversary of the Cardiff Giant

being exposed as a hoax.

For those who don’t know the tale, the giant was this huge stone man unearthed in Cardiff, N.Y. in 1869. People thought he was a petrified man or a stone statue or a giant right out of the Bible. Folks paid money to see him. A year later, it was revealed to be a hoax, the chisel marks shown for what they were. People still paid money to see it. These days, the Giant is on display at the

near Cooperstown, N.Y.

I saw the giant many years ago, and it’s pretty cool. There’s a lesson there as well, about the way we believe in things and how truths get accepted as truths. There’s the idea that the truth is anything that enough people say is the truth. I disagree. There are objective measurements of many truths, but the acceptance of truth can be a group activity.

In many ways the acceptance of a new truth is a back story of the

this morning. It’s a fascinating case, intertwined with our city, our social fabric and this newspaper. For nearly 20 years, the accepted truth among many people was that Darryl Hunt killed Deborah Sykes. Even after Hunt’s pardon, the DNA evidence, the confession of Willard Brown, the apologies etc., there are still people who believe he was involved. We hear from them occasionally. They cling to a past truth, uncertain about new truths and unwilling to accept the chisel marks for what they are.