Irenic Thoughts     I like to say that gossip travels faster
than the speed of accuracy. We all know times when gossip has
assassinated someone's character quickly and cruelly. So I was
surprised to read that some researchers think of gossip as
positive, feeling that gossip was an evolutionary tool that
helped humans decide who to trust and who not to trust. In the
New York Times article Facts Prove No Match for Gossip, It Seems
the author tells of a recent study showing that in a game
setting designed to test gossip, most people passed on accurate
gossip and used it for the common good. They rewarded
cooperative behavior even when they themselves weren’t directly
affected by the behavior. gossip cartoonThen in two rounds,
participants were given both hard facts and gossip, knowing that
they were being given "facts" and told what others participating
in the experiment thought. The researchers found that they were
20% more likely to follow the gossip rather than the facts.  The
lead author of the study wondere