The Misinformation Age
The Misinformation Age
- April 1, 2019
- Cailin O’Connor and Jim Weatherall, LPA, via Reason, April 1, 2019
-----
In their book The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread, a pair of professors
of logic and philosophy of science from University of California, Irvine, Cailin O'Connor
and James Owen Weatherall, use computer models to explain how judgments about things,
such as the causes or best cures for certain illnesses, spread through scientific
networks—and how that spread can cause false beliefs to dominate a community even
if each of the participants is individually rational. The authors offer juicy takeaways:
We need to legally punish people for spreading unlabeled "fake news" and should abandon
democratic control of "issues that require expert knowledge."
For the full story, please visit http://reason.com/archives/2019/04/01/the-misinformation-age.
-----
Would you like to get more involved with the social sciences? Email us at communications@socsci.uci.edu to connect.
Related News Items
- Careet RightDeepfakes hit East Valley campaigns
- Careet RightA milestone year
- Careet RightAI is making it harder to trust your own eyes this election
- Careet RightWhy the story of the Vegetable Lamb was believed
- Careet RightPhilosophers call for their journals to require conflict of interest disclosures