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

by Carl T. Bergstrom

IF IN 1990 YOU HAD told us that by 2020 nearly half of the people on the planet would carry a wallet-size machine that could instantly look up any fact in the world—a “smartphone”—we would have predicted an end to bullshit. How could you bullshit someone who could check your claims easily, immediately, and costlessly? Apparently people have neither the time nor the inclination to use smartphones this way. Instead, smartphones have become just one more vehicle for spreading bullshit. On the positive side, you can have a decent dinner conversation without being fact-checked thirty times. On the negative side, bullshit goes largely unchallenged. Technology didn’t eliminate our bullshit problem, it made the problem worse. In this chapter, we will explore how that happened. In short, the rise of the Internet changed what kinds of information get produced, how information is shared, and the ways in which we find the information that we want. While much good has come of the Internet revolution, there have been major drawbacks as well. Fluff and glitter have overtaken serious, in-depth, thoughtful content. News coverage has become increasingly partisan. Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news abound. We will consider these issues in turn.