Hearsay is less reliable than direct eyewitness and causes most human trouble

Evidence

The Khoja held up his hand and laid his four fingers between his ear and his eye. ‘This is the distance,’ he said. ‘What you see with your eye — that is truth, for you witness it yourself. What you only hear with your ear — that may be truth or may be lies, for you were not there. The distance between them is just these four fingers, and yet most of the trouble in the world lives in that little space.’ — , A Year of World Stories, 11338

Categorization

• XREF: A distillation of the gossip-learning theme running through the whole chapter (Dirse Khan’s tragedy, the wise-fool mirror). — connects to: Selective evidence can mislead juries about the case’s credibility. — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 2644; Two honest witnesses can report opposite truths about the same event — , A Year of World Stories, 14793; An informal fallacy fails because its premises are untrue or rules are violated — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 774 (+1 more)
• SEED: The ‘four fingers between ear and eye’ is a compact image for an essay or teaching point about epistemic humility and secondhand knowledge.

Broader Connections

• Selective evidence can mislead juries about the case’s credibility. #expands (0.55) — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 2644
• An informal fallacy fails because its premises are untrue or rules are violated #qualifies (0.50) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 774
• Two honest witnesses can report opposite truths about the same event #contradicts (0.40) — , A Year of World Stories, 14793