Most countries' education policies are for specialization in increasingly narrow fields of learning, which ultimately leads to difficulty in talking on any field outside one's own. This tendency is sustained by pride (one cannot enter into conversation on a subject one knows little about) and the desire to overcome deficiencies in one's own training by picking up bits of information of those areas outside one's own speciality, and repeating them with authority. This results in half-truths taking the place of truth, innuendo replacing reason, and communication thus becomes largely restricted to the flow of misinformation. Misinformation also flows through today's mass media, which place emphasis on the spectacular rather than the verifiable.