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

by Carl T. Bergstrom

“The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than [that needed] to produce it.”

In seventy-five years we’ve gone from newspapers to news feeds, from Face the Nation to Facebook, from fireside chats to firing off tweets at four in the morning.

The invention of new and various kinds of communication has given a voice and an audience to many people whose opinions would otherwise not be solicited, and who, in fact, have little else but verbal excrement to contribute to public issues.