As most readers here are well aware, in the book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan wrote a chapter titled "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," which describes how scientists distinguish between science and pseudoscience -- a "baloney detection kit." Michael Shermer has also given his version.
I believe the same basic principles apply to a problem much more serious than chemtrails and spooks: political propaganda that distorts and invents facts in a deliberate attempt to create an alternate reality. And it isn't just the recent spate of "fake news" or even the vast propaganda industry that has arisen in the last few decades. Bolstered by those, we now have a president-elect who is himself a fake-fact factory like no major politician in living memory, yet 42% of the public say they believe he is honest.
Some of Sagan's principles apply directly, of course, but I think some require a bit of translation from the scientific to the political sphere, and perhaps there are some new principles regarding the specific characteristics of political deception and also how most people receive political information today. What fact-checking guidelines would you include in your own Political Baloney Detection Kit?
I believe the same basic principles apply to a problem much more serious than chemtrails and spooks: political propaganda that distorts and invents facts in a deliberate attempt to create an alternate reality. And it isn't just the recent spate of "fake news" or even the vast propaganda industry that has arisen in the last few decades. Bolstered by those, we now have a president-elect who is himself a fake-fact factory like no major politician in living memory, yet 42% of the public say they believe he is honest.
Some of Sagan's principles apply directly, of course, but I think some require a bit of translation from the scientific to the political sphere, and perhaps there are some new principles regarding the specific characteristics of political deception and also how most people receive political information today. What fact-checking guidelines would you include in your own Political Baloney Detection Kit?
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2ghAvGq
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