Bitely

Calling Bullshit

Jevin D. West

Bullshit is the art of convincing people of something without considering the truth. Nowadays, with social media and vast amounts of information, you have to be extra cautious not to be fooled. However, you can better prepare yourself to tell facts from bullshit by understanding correlation, evaluating numbers in context, being doubtful about the validity of datasets, and so on. Know what the facts are before taking action. It is not enough to identify bullshit and leave it there. It’s your duty to raise awareness of the bullshit you identified so that other people can see how often false statistics fool us. You must ensure that the facts are correct when you do this. If a mistake is made, apologize for it promptly. You’re just another bullshitter if you don’t.

psychology

social-life

technology

19 min

8 Bite

Insight

What's it about?

Calling Bullshit (2020) demonstrates ways to identify the massive amount of bullshit around us. Once we learn how data and scientific processes are exploited, it becomes easier to recognize bullshit.

Book summary

To read rest of the book, you can download Bitely

All Bites

8 Bites

We must be aware that bullshit can harm us all.

Bullshitters convince others that something is true regardless of the evidence.

Correlation is not proof of a causal relationship.

The ability to manipulate numbers is dangerously easy.

If your data isn't neutral, there will be selection bias in your test results.

Do not be fooled by big data and machine learning. You still need underlying data that is solid.

Flaws in modern science lead to so much bullshit flying around.

By using some simple strategies, you can defend yourself against bullshit.

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