A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age Quotes

“Scientists have lots of conferences, journals, websites, and coffee hours—they are constantly talking and writing, exchanging ideas, collaborating and competing to add another small tile to the mosaic of scientific understanding. It is from the conventions of this social web that the self-correcting nature of science emerges.”
― David J. Helfand, A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind

“our brains have evolved to become highly adept at finding patterns but not at gathering comprehensive and scrupulously unbiased data. We are always ready to find the remarkable coincidence in the fortune cookie’s prediction and the events of our day, ignoring all the events to which it had no connection.”
― David J. Helfand, A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind

“If more profit—in dollars, in power, in fame—is to be gained from misinformation, why not go for it? And when dollars, power, and fame are combined (as they often are in politics), the incentive is all the stronger. Misinformation predominates.”
― David J. Helfand, A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind

“90 percent of all the information that exists in the world today was created in the past two years. Not much time for editing, testing, and serious reflection.”
― David J. Helfand, A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind

“we don’t like numbers and are more comfortable with beliefs than with rational thought. Faith will not quell the increasing demands humans place on the Earth’s resources.”
― David J. Helfand, A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind

“in the larger population—among politicians, journalists, doctors, bureaucrats, and voters—the ability to reason quantitatively has largely vanished. This is scary.”
― David J. Helfand, A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind