Hearsay

Hearsay is an out-of-court statement, by someone other than the witness testifying, admitted to prove the truth of what was asserted in the statement. Literally it comes from "hear it said," which is inherently unreliable as to the truth what was supposedly said. Gossip is a type of hearsay. The concept is best thought of as codifying the unreliability of secondary or tertiary knowledge.

Explained another way, hearsay is evidence presented by a witness who did not see or hear the incident in question but heard about it from someone else.

Hearsay is typically excluded from legal proceedings due to its lack of reliability for reasons including the following:

• the speaker of the hearsay may have been uninformed
• the speaker of the hearsay may have been lying, without providing the court an attempt to check against the alleged declarant

There are limited exceptions that do allow the admission of hearsay as evidence when special circumstances make the hearsay more reliable than usual. These exceptions include, for example:

• certain prior statements by a witness (F.R.Evid. 801(d)(1) - not considered to be hearsay at all)
• admissions against a party's own interest (in the federal rules, F.R.Evid. 801(d)(2) this is not considered hearsay at all)
• dying words
• things said in the midst of an occurance - the res gestae

Hearsay only refers to statements offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. It does not apply or limit use of testimony about hearing a statement, if not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. For example, Bob hearing someone tell him that Richard had stolen his car is not evidence that Richard stole Bob's car, but it can be evidence that Bob believed his car had been stolen by Richard (and was therefore angry with Richard). This exception is generally called the "State of Mind" rule.

Wikipedia and the hearsay society

Sapere aude! The Enlightenment thinker John Locke.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is fundamentally based on hearsay. Assertions made in Wikipedia articles are required to be supported by references; this superficially gives an impression of rigor, but in practice it leads to a parrotting of the opinions of others and a negation of the individual's ability to use his intelligence to make connections and insights based on logic. Wikipedia typically dismisses logical inferences as original research, which, according to Wikipedia policy, is contrary to the pillar that Wikipedia articles present topics from a neutral point of view and represent the major points of view in a "balanced and impartial manner", and they are swiftly deleted, regardless of their insight or obvious truth.

While original research is permitted on other Wikimedia projects, such as Wikiversity and Wikibooks, these are typically obscure and have negligible impact compared to Wikipedia. They may even have been established deliberately to channel original thought away from the mass exposure it would receive on Wikipedia.

Thanks to the growth and popularity of Wikipedia, the flawed expectation that all statements must be referenced has spread elsewhere, both in online communities and wider society, to the point where many are reluctant to express any view unless others have said it first. The result is a hearsay society, where popularly-espoused "facts" are repeated and circulated endlessly, while truths and new insights are shut out, ignored or actively censored.

Voltaire: An opponent of censorship who would not have approved of the hearsay society.

Ironically, this subservience to hearsay and the authority of others is antithetical to the spirit of the Enlightenment which gave birth to the first encyclopedia and the scientific method - even though many of its most diligent proponents would claim to be scientists themselves. The motto of the Enlightenment was Sapere aude! - ie "Dare to know [for yourself]!" rather than uncritically accept what you are told. This has been twisted out of all recognition by today's self-proclaimed "scientific community" and other groups, as they claim to idolize the great scientific thinkers while rejecting the spirit of inquiry that brought them their success.

The hearsay society attitude also compares unfavorably with Voltaire's famous maxim "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Those who insist on censoring obvious truths on the pretext that no one can be found to have said them before are effectively saying the exact opposite: "I do not necessarily dispute what you say, but I am nevertheless going to try to stop you from saying it."