41–50 of 287 posts
From the "patron saint of reason and common sense" I can recommend Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit" from superb The Demon-Haunted World : https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-k...
In fact, that's one of Calling Bullshit's sources: http://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html#Spotting
Anyway here is one that isn't on their list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_People_Believe_Weird_Thing...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can we stop with the claims about a post-truth era? It's not like people suddenly decided to disregard truth and not believe in actual truths. It's that we have just realized that interpretation is not the same as truth and have now been made aware that there are other interpretations of the facts than our own. We don't live in a post-truth world, we live in a world were the truth is confused with difference of opini…
The fact that you are right about the possibility of taking other interpretations as non truth, does not mean that no opinions are simply misguided and not based on truth. In addition, there have been many articles that are simply made up, which has nothing to do with difference of opinion.
There have always been made up stories and lies and propaganda and conspiracy theories it's nothing new it's just become much more obvious now and thus actually allowed us to live in a more truth based world rather than the previous ignorant believe that there are only one way to look at things.
Politics is about choice not about truth.
Yes. Bullshit is ruining everything. There needs to be some kind of grassroots movement to stop it.
You need to want to know what is true first, to care enough to take the trouble of knowing how to detect bullshit. I think the reason why bullshit is flourishing is because those that actually give a damn are the minority. The majority is composed of the useful idiots and those that manipulate them. Of course reality is never black and white, and it is much more nuanced than I've stated here, but I think that's the g…
In the areas where "getting things right" has a direct impact on someone's life, people turn out to be surprisingly good at catering for their own interests (though not perfect, and the whole advertising industry is based around the desire to screw people in this area).
I really like this idea, though struggle to understand the effectiveness. My guess is that the type of person who falls victim to 'bullshit' theory or messages is not the kind of person who is willing to dedicate time to an online course about learning to be more critical in thought. 'Bullshit' thinking has been largely successful because its an effortless pathway to establishing an opinion on something (queue System…
Is it going to help the situation, by providing some accessible resources that will help some people? I'd say so. There'll be more people with a better understanding of bullshit.
What more can you really expect from an initiative?
I call BS.
> So, the aim of this course is to help students navigate the bullshit-rich modern environment by identifying bullshit, seeing through it, and combatting it with effective analysis and argument. I am calling bullshit on this.
I wish this kind of courses were mandatory for all undergraduates in our post-truth era.
Can we stop with the claims about a post-truth era? It's not like people suddenly decided to disregard truth and not believe in actual truths. It's that we have just realized that interpretation is not the same as truth and have now been made aware that there are other interpretations of the facts than our own. We don't live in a post-truth world, we live in a world were the truth is confused with difference of opini…
"post-truth" doesn't mean people have decided to disregard truth, it means that factual truth is no longer a relevant factor in in the effectiveness of political arguments for many people. See Karl Rove's quote about the "reality-based" community (which may or may not be apocryphal) versus the American empire which simply creates whatever reality it likes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can we stop with the claims about a post-truth era? It's not like people suddenly decided to disregard truth and not believe in actual truths. It's that we have just realized that interpretation is not the same as truth and have now been made aware that there are other interpretations of the facts than our own. We don't live in a post-truth world, we live in a world were the truth is confused with difference of opini…
What I have noticed recently is a rather shameless admission by many in politics that not only have they been lying but ultimately that "truth" doesn't matter .
The idea that politics is or should somehow be based on facts is misguided. We have science for facts what we choose to do with those facts is were politics come in.
I'm definitely curious about Susan Fiske's article, about how social networks encourage unmoderated academic "trash talk" [2]. Andy Gelman has a pretty negative critique of the article here [3].
[1] https://hardsci.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/everything-is-fucke...
[2] http://callingbullshit.org/readings/fiske2016mob.pdf
[3] http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/21/what-has-happened-down-he...
edit: why the downvote?