Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World

by Carl T. Bergstrom

A study in 2018 found that about 2.6 percent of US news articles were false. This might not seem like a big percentage, but if every American read one article per day, it would mean that nearly eight million people a day were reading a false story.

Every generation has looked back on the past with nostalgia for a simpler and more honest time.

Never existed. There was never a simpler time, just more frequent death.

It is a truism that correlation does not imply causation.

This highlights one of the principles for calling bullshit that we espouse. Never assume malice or mendacity when incompetence is a sufficient explanation, and never assume incompetence when a reasonable mistake can explain things.

If you have ten thousand genes you want to incorporate into your model, good luck in finding the millions of example patients that you will need to have any chance of making reliable predictions.

The problem is the hype, the notion that something magical will emerge if only we can accumulate data on a large enough scale. We just need to be reminded: Big data is not better; it’s just bigger. And it certainly doesn’t speak for itself.

Lastly, I would address one general admonition to all; that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or fame, or power, or any of these inferior things; but for the benefit and use of life; and that they perfect and govern it in charity.

Reduce your information intake. Take a break; be bored a few times a day and revel in “missing out” instead of being anxious about what you missed. This will enhance your ability to process information with skepticism when you are online.

As the legendary journalist and political commentator Walter Lippmann noted a century ago, “There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.”