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How to Mislead with Facts

consilienceproject.org

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Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#131

Post by michaelcampbell »

commandlinefan wrote: post #95
medstrom wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would ask you to please identify the ones to which you apply this criticism, for epistemic hygiene.

Not OP, but Snopes used to be very trustworthy but has since become nearly completely useless.

How so; do you have any concrete examples of the lack of use? Bias, omissions, lying, lack of context, deliberate miseading, etc?

I see some shade thrown at Snopes from time to time, but it's usually of the of "But they're LIBERAL!" variety which is not of much value.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#132

Post by chasd00 »

stirfish wrote: post #100
mindslight wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your example of how to mislead with non-factual strawmen. This example might be connected to reality if: 1. There actually was a law requiring individuals "wear masks all the time". 2. There actually was a law requiring individuals to get an "endless stream of boosters". 3. Alice respected the boundaries of private businesses that made wearing respiratory protection or vaccination a requirement of assoc…

>Alice respected personal preferences of people wearing respiratory protection, I've found that a lot of people think of the masks like a gas mask - supposed to keep everything bad out. They are more like the breath guard at the salad bar - keeping you from exhaling droplets six feet in front of you. Bob's mask protects Alice more than it protects Bob.

i've stopped wearing a mask period. risk isn't declared const

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#133

Post by rory »

raziel2701 wrote: post #117

I saw an example of how one could make the claim that 50% of infected are vaccinated and it worked like this: population of 100, 84 are vaxxed, 16 are unvaxxed. 2 infected in the vaxxed pool, and 2 infected in the unvaxxed pool. If you then look only at the total infected you can factually claim that 50% of infected are vaccinated and thus peddle whatever grift you want. But even though it's a true statement, it's a…

To be honest I don't find that sort of claim overly deceptive. % of infected that are vaccinated is an important metric because it helps describe the further reduction in infection that is possible through further vaccination. That's an obviously different metric than infection rate, and should be understood as such. The root problem is widespread statistical illiteracy.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#134

Post by chaostheory »

One big reason for the rise in both far right and far left extremists is that mainstream media has mastered this practice a long time ago. This is why people don't inherently fully trust mainstream news that is mostly bought and paid for aka submarine PR. Catch & kill and China buying articles in the MSM weren't revelations, they were just confirming everyone's suspicions.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#135

Post by ncmncm »

pphysch wrote: post #111
ncmncm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Through 200x, NPR was always having CIA flacks on. They seem not to be doing that anymore, since about Manning/Snowden.

YMMV but every time I happened to be tuned into NPR (world) news I get an unhealthy dose of State Dept-curated misinformation on topics like Russia, China, Iran, etc. If anything changed in the post- Collateral Murder world, its that the Washington's content filtering and propaganda subtly intensified.

NPR seem to get all their "world news" patched through from the BBC, which we know is badly compromised.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#136

Post by Ma8ee »

YATA0 wrote: post #104
Ma8ee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the jobs are less valuable, not due to who's doing them but due to the market (i.e. all of us) seeing them as less valuable. It is a rather sad and naive view of the value of work if you think that it is decided by market value. My work as a developer has a high market value because what I do is generating revenue for my employer. The work of the teacher who shapes the future of our children or the work of…

>Yes. I don't have the time to dig up the sources right now, and I don't remember seeing it specifically about doctors, but in many lines of work the relative salaries have gone down when traditionally male professions have been taken over more and more by women. No. I don't have the time to dig up the sources right now, and I don't remember seeing it specifically about doctors, but in many lines of work the relative…

Broken_Hippo dug up some, so here you go: [0]

and some of the research behind the article: [1]

The article contains quite a few interesting links to research if you are interested to learn more.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over...

[1] https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/223534...

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#137

Post by afro88 »

ouid wrote: post #124

This conversation isn't formal enough to be meaningful. If you want to talk meaningfully about how "facts" are used, you need to be able to invoke any notion at all of propositions and implications. It doesn't matter if your implications are mathematical in nature or scientific in nature or just correlation, facts exist in the structure imposed by implication. And facts without an implication structure are useless .…

This is super interesting. Do you mind giving a concrete example?

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#138

Post by rory »

zekica wrote: post #16
oreally wrote: post #6

"There are no facts, only interpretations." - Nietzsche

Scientific method tries to get as close as possible to facts. The issue is that popular press and "influencers" ignore limitations in studies and always tell just their interpretations while pointing to "the science".

Aside from interpretation, a major issue is the press and "influencers" selecting to promote studies that affirm their preconceived notions, and simply ignoring other studies that contradict them.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#139

Post by blueflow »

hunterb123 wrote: post #110
blueflow wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Earth", "Air" and "Human" are not abstract nouns because they have physical things we can match those words to. Contrast that to abstract nouns like "truth", "danger" or "happiness", which are actually interpretations of something other. Statements using these tend to be opinions or non-verifiable. Fact-Checking doesn't work for them.

That supports what @tgv is saying, not the quote. > "There are no facts, only interpretations. Too absolute, some things are objective, some subjective. Not everything is subjective, like he's implying. The quote sounds deep, but it falls apart to 3rd grade reading comprehension.

I was more arguing his post. In hindsight, i think he interpreted the "have no physical equivalent" part differently. I meant it more like, that what the words are referring to, the concepts behind it. Not the words itself.

I'm still saying Nietzsche is right with the quote. That he is right does not forbid to mentally work with the concept of objectivity. See it more of an invitation to question the objectivity of everything.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#140

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ncmncm wrote: post #31

The New York Times mastered all this long ago. It is not necessary to lie. All you need is to be selective about what truths you tell, and where. Some goes on the front page, some on page 13, other bits nowhere at all. Hans Blix's UN reports, before the invasion, about Iraq's entire lack of any WMD whatsoever were too important to completely ignore, but were easy enough to bury in a back page. The entire lack of any…

You believe that the NYT has a goal of misleading people with facts?
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