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March 5 - April 8, 2021
The World Health Organization also agrees: GM foods currently traded on the international market have passed risk assessments in several countries and are not likely, nor have been shown, to present risks for human health.
The advantage of Bt crops is that they’re pest resistant and they reduce insecticide spraying. The disadvantage is that overreliance on this one strategy results in pests becoming resistant to Bt.
Perhaps the most pernicious pitfall for predictors is called wishcasting. Meteorologists came up with this term after they noticed that weather forecasters predict with an unrealistic frequency that the Fourth of July will be sunny and Christmas Day will be snowy. People have a strong tendency to let conscious or unconscious desires influence their predictions.
interesting. wishcasting
we cannot just simplistically extrapolate such a complex technology into the future and assume that any trends will continue without limit.
The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Illuminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening—Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless. —Alan Moore
Science is particularly difficult to communicate well, because it requires a lot of background information, and a lot of work to get it right.
In our years of trying to spread science and critical thinking, the press has been both a blessing and a curse. The media is a great way to reach the public, but the forces naturally at work in the media seem to be working against us. We have had to deal with sensationalism, simple journalistic laziness, ideologically motivated misinformation, and even outright scams.
To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, “by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.” Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. —Thomas Jefferson
wow
Pseudojournalism can take many forms, from opinion masquerading as fact to fabricated sources, to “advertorial” sponsored content, to outright plagiarism. In essence, pseudojournalism is any written content that flagrantly ignores media ethics but attempts to pass itself off as legitimate news.
The most pernicious forms of this so-called “fake news” are easy to spot. They push a heavy agenda, come from disreputable outlets, or try to sell you something. They may tell you who to vote for. However, more subtle forms of misinformation are just as common.
The bug is that the internet is also a venue for fraud, lying, misinformation, and manipulation. Not everyone is a fair player, and they ruin it for everyone else. And it’s not black-and-white. Rather, there is a spectrum of behavior, and most people are at various points along that spectrum on different issues. At the same time, there are extremes: some sites that aspire to a high level of journalism or scholarship and, at the other end, sites that are pure fraud, propaganda, or clickbait.
Bad actors can therefore hijack or duplicate the mechanisms of quality control and subvert them. The concept of “fake news” was introduced as a method for sorting through news outlets. It was instantly subverted for nefarious purposes and is already waning in usefulness. Essentially a fake news site can just say, “Oh yeah, well, you’re a fake news site.”
The term “skeptic,” and in fact the format of skeptical analysis and debunking, has been hijacked by science deniers pretending to be skeptics, tarnishing the brand and sowing confusion.
This category slides seamlessly into outlets that prioritize their political agenda above journalistic quality. They blatantly select the news they choose to report and the spin they put on that news based on the political narrative to which they are catering. At some fuzzy point they cease to be real journalists. They’re no longer selling news but selling a narrative they call the news.
biased or ideological journalism
Fake News—Fake news outlets simply make up their news stories. They have no genuine journalistic process or mechanisms of quality control. Their stories are made-up fictions in the format of real news, optimized for clickbait. They’re meant only to push emotional buttons in order to motivate clicks. Sometimes those emotional buttons are political. They may call themselves satire as a whitewash, but the articles are not meant to humorously expose some aspect of society or human nature.
fake news
any news you care about needs to be sourced and further checked against multiple different sources to average out the biases as much as possible. It’s also good social media hygiene not to share or spread news that you haven’t vetted yourself. If there isn’t time to do a reasonable investigation, fine, but it stands to reason that one shouldn’t share an article as if it’s valid news when you have no idea.
We are all becoming journalists, aggregators, curators, and consumers at the same time. There is no simple solution to all of this. It’s a true, if at times glorious, mess. The only real solution is for each individual to be a savvy and skeptical reader.
The idea here is simple: We have a tendency to seek out opinions that are in line with our existing worldview and beliefs. This is like confirmation bias on steroids, not only seeking out facts that support our beliefs, but sources of information that are more likely, or even certain, to confirm those beliefs.
echo chambers
Some social media outlets do this automatically, with the intention of giving you what you want. So, if you consume a certain type of news, it will feed you articles and videos that match those preferences. You may not even realize you’re looking at the world through this one perspective.
echo chambers
There are also sites dedicated to one topic, such as belief in a particular conspiracy or an anti-vaccine agenda. Such advocacy sites say they’re there so that people with similar views can exchange thoughts and ideas without worrying that they will be ridiculed or attacked. While this sounds innocent enough, in practice it means that members are shielded from any disconfirming facts or ideas. Anyone challenging the basic assumptions of the group is branded a “troll” and will likely be banned. The tools exist to easily maintain the intellectual purity of the group.
echo chambers
Astroturfing is essentially fake grassroots activism. Companies and special interests create nonprofits, Facebook pages, and social media personas, write letters to the editor, and essentially exploit social and traditional media to create the false impression that there is a grassroots movement supporting some issue. The key to astroturfing is to conceal who is truly behind these fronts.
Astroturfing
What this shows is that once information itself is called into question because of bias, astroturfing, denialism, or pseudoscience, it then becomes easier to see reality through the lens of your preferred narratives. One person’s astroturfing is another person’s skepticism.
true
It’s like the movie Inception—once you can’t trust reality, there is no way to confidently know how many layers deep you are in the dream.
interesting
It is generally required that all sides of an argument receive some mention in a news article, and that only substantiated, corroborated facts are reported as such. This approach is especially necessary when covering political news, where there are usually two or more views on any topic. That’s because politics is full of opinion and value judgments. Science, however, is mainly concerned with verifiable facts.
Say a new study is published in a peer-reviewed journal showing that last year was the hottest year on record. A television news show wants to cover the story, but the editorial staff is faced with a problem: Do they invite only the author of the study onto the show to discuss why climate change is such a problem and what steps could be taken to mitigate its effects? This would certainly be a fair approach, as it would provide unbiased, evidence-based content for the show’s audience. Or should the producers invite the author of the study to sit across from a climate change skeptic (what we
...more
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. —H. L. Mencken
Wow
Science proceeds slowly and cautiously, is very conservative in its claims, and is skeptical toward any new finding (or at least it should be). Journalists, however, want an exciting new and simple story.
There may never be a real solution to this inherent problem. However, the more consumers demand quality, the better that balance of incentives will be. In turn, the demand for quality reporting is driven by quality journalism itself. It’s also my hope that scientist bloggers using social media to communicate quality science reporting will move the entire system in the direction of a higher standard.
interesting
There’s ridiculous stuff about why we should kill all microbes. That’s the germophobia club, and then there’s ‘microbiomania,’ who think microbes are beneficial and do everything.” Of course, the answer is somewhere in between. Discussions about “good” bacteria and “bad” bacteria are woefully simplistic.
true
If you make any such claims, you are stepping into the arena of science, so don’t complain if you are held to its clearly posted rules.
One of those guidelines is not to fall for the notion that there is no potential harm to believing that fantasy or nonsense is real. We live in a complex world and have to make a lot of complex decisions, individually as a family or small group and collectively as a society. We’re better off if those decisions are based on reality.
The “What’s the harm?” question is itself potentially harmful, because it trivializes the real challenge people face trying to understand complex questions that inform important decisions. It also whitewashes, and even excuses, the direct harm done by many con artists and charlatans.
There may be no harm in believing in magic, but there can be from acting on it.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. —Marie Curie
The Roman Catholic Church believes in “diabolic possession,” and its priests still practice what is called “real exorcism,” a twenty-seven-page ritual to drive out evil spirits. The ritual involves the use of holy water, incantations, various prayers, incense, relics, and Christian symbols such as the cross.
Isn’t this enough? Just this world? Just this beautiful, complex, wonderfully unfathomable natural world? How does it so fail to hold our attention that we have to diminish it with the invention of cheap, man-made myths and monsters? —Tim Minchin
interesting
if I’m wrong about something, that just gives me the opportunity to change my mind and show that I can correct error. It’s not easy. Being wrong will still hurt the ego. You need to get to a place where refusing to correct an error will hurt more.
I remind myself that we’re all flawed humans just trying to get by in a complex and often scary world. We are mostly the products of our circumstances.
This attitude helps me be less judgmental. I prefer to take a nurturing approach. I am happy with where I am in my life and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone who nurtured and taught me along the way. I feel the best thing I can do in return is to mentor and nurture others.
This does not mean I don’t hold people responsible for their actions. Con artists never cease to anger me, and I think they deserve to be punished. But on the SGU we address beliefs and arguments, and we try hard not to attack the believers. They’re just flawed people like us. On the other hand, we will criticize the purveyors of nonsense who are spreading misinformation, lies, and pseudoscience.
When dealing with people close to you, it’s especially important to remember the advice above, to keep humble, patient, and focused on educating rather than just winning an argument. And remember that sometimes you may in fact be wrong. Always consider that possibility first.
Don’t ask or expect them to express their opinion at that time. They may have an easier time really questioning their beliefs in the privacy of their own mind.
Don’t make it into a competition or confrontation. The more personal you make it, the more defensive they’ll get. Just explore the question together.
First find out what you agree on, and then try to identify where you disagree and see if you can resolve the differences together. You may get down to subjective opinions or value judgments, but then at least you’ll know where you disagree.
Psychological research has some encouraging findings—that if you take the time to explore arguments and evidence, people can change their mind and come to a more sophisticated understanding of the question at hand. Being a skeptical influence in the lives of people around you will have an impact in the long run.
The topic doesn’t really matter; it could be plants, insects, dinosaurs, the planets—anything. Whatever excites them gives you the opportunity to show how to observe, how categorization works, how scientists know stuff, how to separate reliable claims from common myths, and how to explore a topic through reading. You can also look for ways to show them how the topic they are most interested in relates to other areas of knowledge.
the topic doesn't really matter
