The Hearsay Rule - How to Apply It

Hearsay - unverified, unofficial information gained or acquired from another and not part of one's direct knowledge; gossip, rumor. Courts do not allow hearsay evidence. Where the goal is a fair judgment, you cannot say I know so-and-so did it, because I read it in the newspaper or my hairdresser told me so.  Objection, your honor, hearsay. Sustained.

I find it strange that most of what I know and repeat as fact is hearsay and not in service to a fair judgment. If I applied the hearsay rule I'd have to admit I don't know where I was born. Likewise I only have my age on hearsay. I actually have no direct knowledge about how old I might be. We’ll, we might say, I know I was born on June 15th, 1960 in Seattle. Oh yeah, how do I know that? Only by hearsay. I was told that by someone else. I was a baby at the time and can’t verify Seattle or that date. I’m “told” by others I was born then and there. Mother told me. Birth certificate with a gold seal? Same problem. The certificate's second hand information.  

I’m “told” by a document where and when I was born. All hearsay. When I stop to think about it, most of what I know comes by way of hearsay. What do I really know about global warming, stem cell research and supply-side economics? I read newspapers, Internet accounts, novels, magazines, scholarly works, essays, etc.  

I gather lots of information from these sources. Then I say I know the facts presented. I build my intelligence on these second hand sources. I base opinions, life-guiding policy and codes of conduct on someone else’s experience reduced to print or poured into my ear.  

Just because it’s written in the Seattle Times or whispered in my ear by the college president doesn’t mean it’s true, accurate, or that it even happened at all.

It’s all hearsay. 

Yet most of what I know (say I know, believe I know, would go to the bank on this stuff I know) is rank hearsay. I repeat what other people, other experts, other pundits say as my own truth and knowledge. And at that, I’m selective about the hearsay accounts I want to read or trust to read. I ignore most other stuff that doesn’t fit my belief structure (a structure built on hearsay).

So, smarty-pants what is true? What I experience first hand, myself, in the flesh?  Probably not. My powers of observation are notoriously weak, my hearing spotty, my eyes faded, my sense of touch easily corrupted, and my nose easily misled.   

So here’s my motto: “Believe none of what you hear and read (hearsay) and only half of what you see with your own eyes.” This is fact:  My intellect and knowledge base is nothing more than a pile of hearsay that I would die to defend.