Speculation
Speculation has become so ubiquitous that people not only expect it, but treat it as fact. For example, there are people today, even (and especially) in the media, who believe that George Zimmerman attacked Trayvon Martin.
The issue of speculation has been addressed before, including an April 26, 2002 article by Michael Crichton of the International Leadership Forum
"I will join this speculative trend and speculate about why there is so much speculation."
Crichton accurately points out that the blame needs to be equally shared by the person who believes a story without knowing the facts; a process that he calls the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them....You read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
When speculation finds its way into the media, society is bound to suffer.
If speculation can serve as the basis for public policy, why can't it be used as 'reasonable suspicion', or even 'probable cause', in a court of law?
/fl