Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The internet is a disruptive technology. As it has rolled out over the last couple of decades many of the traditional and accepted ways that humans interact have been radically altered. This vastly increased flow of information has rippled into commerce, education, shopping, and also has now see the skewing of democratic outcomes via the … Read more
Trump might slag off the media as the “enemy of the people”, but that never deters him from happily using them as a soapbox for his creative interviews that are commonly devoid of facts. After his recent Washington Post interview, they found it necessary to publish some fact-checking a couple of days ago … “We’re … Read more
Francesca Tripodi, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Virginia, has released a report that is quite frankly fascinating. Titled “Searching for Alternative Facts” and released on 16th May, it lays out the results of her research within upper-middle class conservative Christian communities in Virginia in 2017. People who believe and read the bible often tend … Read more
A group of researchers from Yale University have published a working paper that discusses two studies that demonstrate that some people have a tendency to be far more prone to an acceptance of Fake News than others. It is entitled “Reduced Analytic and Actively Open-Minded Thinking Help to Explain the Link between Belief in Fake … Read more
Before we dip into the context of Fake News, let’s first cover the basics. The vaccine concept is generally known but let’s repeat it anyway for completeness. A vaccine involves being exposed to a variation of a pathogen that will not actually harm you. That then stimulates your immune system into developing resistance to a harmful … Read more
A paper published by researchers at Ohio University explains that the flow of fake news might have been sufficient to enable Trump to win the 2016 election. Warning: The paper is just a research paper and is not peer-reviewed. It is interesting, but due to the lack of peer-review, I’d recommend digesting with a pinch … Read more