Recently i came out by my own with this thing that i decided to call “Paradox of Information Truthiness”.
Before posting this article i did few research explicitly looking for it (Paradox of Information Truthiness) and after various similar concepts, complicated, over complicated and what not, i understand that what i have to share is more controversial, “stupid” and less relative to impossible mathematical approach to resolve a problem.
So, here we go.
We reached a point in our society where even when given a detailed and proven information that comes (in many cases) by people with the due knowledge (after years of study and eventual peer-review of the mentioned information) we still tend to choose in not to believe in what we read.
Somehow, i can agree in this choice BUT in the right context. I’ll be more clear.
If I am at the pub ( you can always find me there…) and a guy says: “hey, the sun is not yellow”. Now. i can see the sun during the day and is always been yellow to me. What i do ? Ask more questions, like:
– Are you on drug ?
– Where you read this ?
– Was it a “real” source ?
– Is there any scientific study to back this up that passed peer-review ?
If you follow this blog you would know that the statement “the sun is not yellow” is correct, here is why.
But, what have i’ve done before publishing that article about the sun ? I asked to a friend that work for a Space Agency, I researched (extensively) and found statement from Neil De Grasse Tyson (where i kinda mistakenly says it’s white..well it is and is not, need more context. read the mentioned article) and a good blog about space in general with respectable journalist on it.
So, my information, to support that statement, is VALID since is backed up with fact, extensive explaination and most of all backed from people that spent years studying the universe to which they provided abundant incontrovertible proof.
And yet, people still won’t believe that. I appreciate scepticism, but cmon ! This is not scepticism anymore, this is pure confirmation bias. But what’s more disturbing is that cognitive bias is taking it’s part too.
I know, two weird bias, the difference ?
The cognitive bias affects the way we test and evaluate hypotheses every day.
Visual Capitalist
The confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out or interpret evidence in such a way that supports our own strongly-held beliefs or expectations
According to many doctors this confirmation bias is insuperable (and with my limited interactions with certain people i understand why they came to that conclusion) but i think, at same time, that we might still have a chance to make people grow. How ? Simple. Encourage simple Critical Thinking.
Here some useful links about critical thinking and how to overcome cognitive bias.
Getting back to my paradox. Yes we can argue that it is a simple “categorization of people affected by cognitive and/or confirmation bias, hence not a proper paradox”. Here me out, i’m not done yet (almost there tho), gonna make an example: Aliens (* insert X-Files theme song here *)..
We reached a point that even the most brilliant minds of the world from any sectors are divided between: they exist and are/have been here and we still have no proof of their existence.
Over the years, beside conspiracy theories and all bat-shit crazy people that found a way to become famous and propagate their bullshit, we had tons of incontrovertible proof about:
- Alien technology being reverse engineered
- Some nations (wont say which ones) have actually body of extra terrestrial life
- Document after document after document regarding and acknowledging their existence and proving the past 2 points
- People which have been whistleblower risking (in some rare case) their life and loosing everything (small note: governments and relative agencies, in general, they do not care for what you say but for what you can prove)
Now, few things about this 4 points i just wrote that will make you understand better my personal “Paradox of Information Truthiness” (and i end this article)
We reach a point that the only way, now, to believe in the Alien existence is only if we see a ship landing in our backyard and few never seen weird shaped bodies comes out of it (and even then confirmation bias will kick-in in most of the people attending this phenomena).
So. Here it is. My personal “paradox of information Truthiness”: the impossibility to prove that an already proven and true information is true.
Some “Good to know” Stuff
I love to cite and read scientific studies. But there is a rampant problems when comes to this publications, that are:
- Reputation of the magazine/website this study is published
- If it passed peer-review
I’ll be more clear. Unfortunately the scientific community (after years of study and experiments) when they come to a definitive paper they have to pay for being published. The publication is an important factor, not only to show to the world what you discovered, but mostly to commence the process of peer-review. Peer-review is a nice process where people that work in the same field try out those claims made in the paper and share their results proving or disproving what said in the original paper. And only after a good number of peer-review that paper get a valid scientific recognition. So, you can believe it.
Now, there are few magazine/websites that host those papers but they only take money and do nothing else resulting in publishing total bullshit that people tend to believe or some ignorant journalist bring up to the world (spreading more disinformation, like we don’t have enough). All because they have a reasonable good sounding name.
So, a small tip when checking a paper: i see where is originally published and then on that website i search for specific keyword in order to see if they really check what they publish. What i love to search are this keywords: batman, gotham, bruce, wayne, *random pokemon name*, * random fictional place name*, * random swear/curse word*.
If i even get 1 match then there is nothing else to discuss. The magazine and the paper are total bullshit and not worth going further.
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Usually I like smoke signal. But comments are ok to 🙂