Misinformation has been a problem ever since language was invented. The moment we had words, we were telling each other that the sun was a god, the world was flat and that fire was one of only four elements.
But as mankind has evolved in our knowledge and also our ability to reason, misinformation has continued to keep pace. Political and religious agendas cause people to willingly choose misinformation over proven fact. Personal ignorance or a mistaken viewpoint (or simple mischievousness) can be magnified through modern communications to become highly damaging but pervasive myths. As the internet provides ever increasing clever connectivity to allow us to further democratise information, our perception of the world - its history, science and psychology - is growing highly dependent on our ability to cynically identify those pieces of information that take us down dead ends of reason.
Richard Dawkins - uber skeptic and devotee of reason - recently launched a new podcast series. The first episode is this 15 minute long but fascinating description of the Baloney Detection Kit by Michael Shermer - a series of questions or filters through which a logical mind should screen the information it receives to determine its validity.
When we're growing up, we tend to be pretty credulous. We just believe almost anything that people tell us - especially authorities and adults, text books and politicians and television, YouTube, the internet... There's just this sort of sea of information coming at us. How can you tell the difference between what's right or what's wrong? How do you know?
Essential viewing for anyone who cares about reality instead of agendas and fakery.
I've previously discussed the issues surrounding the democratisation of online information - particularly with reference to Wikipedia:-
- Wikipedia and the misinformation feedback loop
- What lemmings can teach us about misinformation
- How an orbiting teapot led to the Wall Street collapse
Wonderful though this new information age is, it demands that we all become skeptics if we are to successfully navigate our way through without completely distorting our world views.
