Calling Bullshit

Buchzusammenfassung

Carl Theodore Bergstrom is a professor of theoretical and evolutionary biology at the University of Washington. Bergstrom works to disseminate accurate information by criticizing poor quality or misleading scientific research.

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.

"We tell stories to create impressions of ourselves in the eyes of others."

"If you work hard and smart, you can recognize when a person is talking nonsense, and I think this is the main, if not the only, purpose of education."

"Never assume malice or mendacity when incompetence is a sufficient explanation, and never assume incompetence when a reasonable mistake can explain things."

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