Only if you are truly open to the possibility of being wrong can you ever learn, says researcher Alex Edmans. In an insightful talk, he explores how confirmation bias — the tendency to only accept information that supports your personal beliefs — can lead you astray on social media, in politics and beyond, and offers three practical tools for finding evidence you can actually trust. (Hint: appoint someone to be the devil's advocate in your life.)
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and when was it a “truth” world?
+Avenger i saw whole channels filled with almost pure propaganda and fakes. You could see films and news about astrology, religion, aliens, homeopathy and so on.
+HekeThat’s deeply flawed reasoning.
For example, the topic of Evolution. On one side, you have people that believe in evolution and on the other, you have people that believe that evolution doesn’t exist.
To one audience, they only want to hear that evolution is real. If they tell one side of the story, that evolution is real, and not the other, that it’s fake, then is that “fake news”?
Or a better example is Trump’s inauguration crowd size. If a news network only reports that it was smaller than Obama’s, then does that mean they’re fake because they don’t show the other narrative of it being bigger? Objectively, we have clear video evidence of the entire event and can clearly see that Obama had a bigger inauguration crowd.
By your reasoning, it would be “fake news”. See? It’s deeply flawed reasoning. Not all sides are equal in regards to truth, reality, and evidence. It’s a false equivalency / false compromise.
[edit: added second example]
â+ynderulets tyalikankyOohh, my bad, I thought you were being literal. Yeah, those channels are everywhere–Youtube is covered with them.
Maybe we’re stuck in a pre-truth world
+George Costanza Might help you to not jump to assumption. OP said nothing indicative of your proposed hypothesis. Do better.
You don’t sound how you look at all lol
what a dumb thing to say. You obviously have never left your neck of the woods. Educate yourself before leaving such an ignorant comment.
Judge – Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?
Me – No.
Judge – (covers microphone and whispers) What do I do now?
contempt of court
We’re post truth now?! What about the pre-internet days of far less info diversity? What about the Walter Cronkite days?
You didn’t watch the video did you? it seems like you replied to the title XD
+halcyon1009 did you watch the video? The speaker’s avoiding directly addressing the elephant in the room, but we all know what he’s really talking about.
+Anthony yes I did, he was talking about how to decipher whether something is reliable information or not and how to go about figuring that out. Tbh I thought the title was a bit misleading or inaccurate. What’s the elephant in the room?
+ Anthony In the pre-internet days when people had to pay for the information, credibility of a news outlet was crucial, as people would stop paying for the bullshit – today the product is the reader, who’se time you’re selling to advertisers, so it’s just that quantity have replaced quality.
RT (Russia Today)
Is Russian government propaganda and just a mouth piece for Vladimir Putin. They are literally funded by Putin’s government! Seriously look it up yourself if you dont believe me. RT is the obvious target but think of the ones we dont know of yet… Fun fact aids being created by the CIA was misinformation made up by the KGB during the soviet era and even though they have admitted as a lie created by them when presurred it still however destroyed or further push the people away from their own government. Some still believe the fake news spread by the Russians. WOW right? Wake up America!
+Avenger CNN is fake news
+James You say that, but do you have evidence? Or are you just saying it because you _FEEL_ like it’s fake news; therefore it’s fake.
Wanna watch Russian propaganda or American propaganda? The choice is yours!
+Avenger the fact that CNN, MSNBC, and FOX Cover the News in completely different ways discredits all of them as unbiased news outlets. It’s obvious governments use news channels to pump their propaganda. So why would you trust ANY news channel entirely?
+halcyon1009 you should be worried if you trust anyone/anything infallibly
Ya hear that Flat Earthers/Anti-Vaxxers/Climate change deniers/Chemtrail believers/etc? Do some gosh darn research and try to do a proper rebuttal, not flat out deny or move goalposts.
Some of them do, but it doesn’t do much good if you refuse to listen. You have the same problem of confirmation bias. Climate alarmists are the furthest you can get from being able to consider that they might be wrong. They cling desperately to the debunked 97% consensus claim, as if having the majority makes it the truth.
+Remy Lebeau Where is your evidence of the 95% ever being debunked? Studies by NASA, the UN and other major scientific bodies all agree that climate change is human-caused based on all the evidence of it’s effects globally (like increase in average temperature) and in more micro scenarios (intense rainfall in some countries, severe droughts in other and rising sea level). Of course we cannot *confirm* it being manmade because for all we know, there is a tiny chance (less than 5%) that it could be natural, but I’m not taking that gamble.
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Geez people donât forget about your soul.
9/11 official narrative is false. âď¸
Waluigi did 9/11
+Stacy Stroker There was an entire study JUST for building 7
It took a few years to come out but come on, there is no excuse for being this ignorant in 2018
+DeoMachina Source? I haven’t seen this yet either.
9/11 was made by the aliens
+Priyesh Ramajhan
Wanna play ping pong all day?
Evidence. You trust evidence.
@introXversion
To tag onto this, evidence + critical thinking skills. If someone provides “evidence” but they’ve lied before (e.g. Project Veritas and the heavily doctored ACORN video) then you really shouldn’t give weight to their “evidence”.
Absolutely beautiful!
We don’t live in a post-truth world. We live in a power=truth world. It doesn’t matter what’s true or isn’t, if you have enough power, your word will be truth regardless of the facts.
So tru
He was talking about misinformation, which is much more prevalent than manipulation.
thenonexistinghero – Sad to hear you feel that way, yes it has some validity, also truth has a way of getting out.
Do you have any evidence for that claim?
Truth sounds like an awful amount of work. đ
I certainly wish I had access to the data in reputable sources without expensive subscriptions.
It should be public information. Makes me wonder what the motive is behind keeping anyone who can’t afford the subscription out.
+The Night Near as I can tell: money. No matter how much outcry, outrage and handwringing happens, money still wins the day. Granted, there are efforts to change that and some movement in that direction; but still, as of now, money makes the mare go.
(Of course, my objection assumes that the majority would make the effort and try to read and understand the papers, even if they all were openly accessible.)
+The Night One thing that I’ve seen other people mention is that quantity rather than quality is a focus of some of the more misleading sources, it is the best way to get the ad revenue. Quality papers and research usually take a lot more time and resources and that money needs to come from somewhere.
A scary talk for those make it a life goal to always be correct and smug about it.
Our aim should always be to get closer to the best understanding. Great talk đ
Best Tedx talk I’ve seen yet. No matter what side or issue, this will help you get closer to the truth.
One of the most rational, coherent and important TED talks I have seen..
In this world, truth is entertainment. If it isn’t entertaining, few are going to watch or listen.
Awoo to that.
Hey TED! Stop incorporating pop-up boxes before the talk is finished. It’s annoying, and in this case, blocks important information. Thank you.
THIS GUY IS A FREAKING LEGEND
Fantastic presentation; very, very, thought provoking.
Remember what happened to Ted Hill’s paper on the variability hypothesis? But sure, trust in journals.